Celebrating Gene Roddenberry

[StarFuryG7]

Over at TrekNews.net:

Celebrating Gene Roddenberry, the “Great Bird of the Galaxy”
August 19, 2012
By Alex Bower

Today we celebrate Eugene “Gene” Wesley Roddenberry, also affectionately known as “The Great Bird of the Galaxy”, who would have turned 91 years old on this day. Born August 19, 1921, Roddenberry was a writer, producer, humanist, father, husband, visionary and most famously, the creative mind and force behind the legendary Star Trek franchise. Ever prolific, Roddenberry continued to develop series and films outside of Trek, some even credited to him post-humously. His invaluable contributions to television, science-fiction and society as a whole have awarded him a star on the…

Read More » www.treknews.net/2012/08/19/gene-roddenberry-birthday/

[captainbasil]

Looking back as an adult, a lot of his vision was pretty left of my views but I always loved his positive vision of the future. That Mankind, for all our myriad faults, got our crap together and solved problems and explored the galaxy. I think some of the later versions of Trek have strayed from that. He broke so much ground on TV for good science fiction. Without Star Trek we would never have some of the other visions we take for granted.
Hailing Frequencies closed.

[CRAMBAM]

He may have been a bit to the left of my views as well, but he is nowhere NEAR as far to the left as Hollywood is today. I think Kirk, as he was written, would be a Republican.

[StarFuryG7]

Aug 24, 2012 6:10:49 GMT -5 CRAMBAM said:

He may have been a bit to the left of my views as well, but he is nowhere NEAR as far to the left as Hollywood is today. I think Kirk, as he was written, would be a Republican.

It's hard to say given that politics were so far removed from the world of Kirk and his crew, at least in terms of the outmoded politics of 20th century Earth, and more specifically America in that period. We know Kirk was very fond of Lincoln though from when he met his alien doppelganger in "The Savage Curtain". That probably had little to do with party affiliation though and everything to do with the fact that he's one of the country's most revered Presidents.

Roddenberry was a JFK liberal, which is so far removed from liberals of today, but he probably would have continued to move left with the liberals were he still around today. He most certainly would have voted for Obama, and would probably go ahead and do so again in November regardless of the miserable shape the country is in right now. I think it goes without saying that Nimoy not only voted for him back in 2008, but will gladly, happily do so again in November, and look at how Obama has treated Israel.

Liberals are selfish, haughty creatures by nature. They claim to care about the welfare of everyone else, but they don't --just look at what they do, and how tolerant they are concerning the views of others who don't agree with them.

[CRAMBAM]

JFK would likely be a Republican today, if his views didn't change with the times to be a democrat. Either that, or had he lived, the democrats wouldn't have moved so far to the left.

Or at least, someone who shares JFK's values would be a Republican.

[Mel]

Aug 30, 2012 14:22:47 GMT -5 CRAMBAM said:

JFK would likely be a Republican today, if his views didn't change with the times to be a democrat. Either that, or had he lived, the democrats wouldn't have moved so far to the left. Or at least, someone who shares JFK's values would be a Republican.

I'm sure you knew I'd react to this. Others have said that about FDR too. I find it very irritating that Reps want to claim the few outright heroes that liberals have!

[StarFuryG7]

Aug 30, 2012 17:32:44 GMT -5 Mel said:

I'm sure you knew I'd react to this. Others have said that about FDR too. I find it very irritating that Reps want to claim the few outright heroes that liberals have!

It's not about that, Mel. The fact is that by today's standards, or even standards going back several decades, in many respects JFK's policies would be deemed conservative. FDR on the other hand can't have that said about him, at least not by anyone who actually knows what they're talking about because he believed in statism.

[CRAMBAM]

FDR would not have been a conservative by today's standards. Many of his programs led to the sorry situation we are in today with a federal government that is WAAAAY too powerful to the point that it's not really the same country anymore.

JFK on the other hand, was a fiscal conservative by today's standards. I really believe the country would be in much better shape had he not been killed.

[TrekBeatTK]

Aug 30, 2012 19:32:31 GMT -5 CRAMBAM said:

FDR would not have been a conservative by today's standards. Many of his programs led to the sorry situation we are in today with a federal government that is WAAAAY too powerful to the point that it's not really the same country anymore.

JFK on the other hand, was a fiscal conservative by today's standards. I really believe the country would be in much better shape had he not been killed.

I think that would depend on what Kennedy did about the Vietnam situation. It was the war that in many ways defined the direction of American history for the rest of the century. Nixon gets in office on promises to end the war, Nixon escalates the war, Nixon gets paranoid about re-election and covers up Watergate, which leads to his resigning in disgrace leaving Ford in charge, which ultimately primes the climate for a good Christian peanut farmer to get elected, arguably botch the job, paving the way for Reagan. And of course the ghost of Vietnam haunted the Iraq War as well.

-TK

[CRAMBAM]

It's hard to say how Kennedy handles VietNam, but he couldn't have done worse than LBJ, who was arguably the worst foreign policy president we ever had.

What haunts the country today is the welfare state that LBJ created. The entitlements, the expansion of government power. The so called Great Society. These are programs that go against everything our founding fathers stood for. It paved the way for the nightmare government we have now.

I don't think JFK would have done that. Civil Rights? Sure. But the massive expansion of government? I don't think so.

[StarFuryG7]

Aug 30, 2012 19:32:31 GMT -5 CRAMBAM said:

FDR would not have been a conservative by today's standards. Many of his programs led to the sorry situation we are in today with a federal government that is WAAAAY too powerful to the point that it's not really the same country anymore.

The only way the people Mel alluded to could try to assert that FDR would be considered a conservative by today's standards would have had to have been with respect to his handling of the war, which does separate him from today's liberals, because even though he was a statist, unlike the liberals of today he actually did have an abiding respect and even love for his country, whereas today's liberals in contrast absolutely despise the U.S. and want to see it cut down in almost every respect imaginable.

[Mel]

... FDR ... even though he was a statist ... he actually did have an abiding respect and even love for his country, whereas today's liberals in contrast absolutely despise the U.S. and want to see it cut down in almost every respect imaginable.

Hey, that's a recurring event in my liberal day planner! Despise the US. Find any way to cut it down.
Not!

[StarFuryG7]

Sept 1, 2012 1:54:41 GMT -5 Mel said:

Hey, that's a recurring event in my liberal day planner! Despise the US. Find any way to cut it down.
Not!

I wasn't referring to you, Mel, but like it or not there are a lot of lunatic leftists who detest this country and everything about it, and generally they have no qualms about showing their true colors in all its ugliness anymore. Don't believe me? Well, then just tune in MSNBC on any given night and you'll see true rabid leftists on display.

[Mel]

I wasn't referring to you, Mel, but like it or not there are a lot of lunatic leftists who detest this country and everything about it, and generally they have no qualms about showing their true colors in all its ugliness anymore. Don't believe me? Well, then just tune in MSNBC on any given night and you'll see true rabid leftists on display.

I don't watch MSNBC, but I'll give it a look.