“Have we become so… fearful, have we become so cowardly, that we must extinguish a man because he carries the blood of a current enemy?”

— Captain Picard, in “The Drumhead,” from Star Trek: The Next Generation, written by Jeri Taylor

Captain Jean-Luc Picard : You want to destroy the ship and run away, you coward.

Lt. Commander Worf : If you were any other man, I would kill you where you stand.

— Star Trek: First Contact, written by Brannon Braga and Ronald D. Moore

The source of anger, I am convinced, is fear.  I addressed this in “The Problem of Anger.”

Anger is a reaction to our fear.  I felt anger at watching the murder of George Floyd because I was afraid he would die.  He did.  I was angry at watching planes fly into The World Trade Center because I was afraid people would die.  They did.  I feel anger because I’m afraid I could die in the same pointless way.  I’m afraid someone I love might die that way.  The fear becomes anger.  The anger can be a motivation to try to change things, but it can’t be the method of making that change.  … I’m not going to change your mind by forcing you into a defensive posture.  The moment I vent my anger at you, you feel the need to protect yourself from me.  Now, instead of considering my ideas, you are preparing to tell me why I’m wrong, or you are looking for a means of escape. 

Fred Eder, “The Problem of Anger,” episode 123 of Fred’s Front Porch Podcast

Both Klingons and Conservatives, who, under the right circumstances, would kill you where you stand, are angry quite frequently.  To be fair, liberals get pretty angry, too, but not quite so often.  When we do, we have different reasons for it.  Liberals tend to get angry when we believe someone else is being mistreated.  Conservatives tend to get angry when they think someone might mistreat them.

President Biden is trying to get some relief for those who have been victimized by predatory student loans.  Conservatives are having a fit that the money is coming out of their pockets, regardless of the fact that it isn’t.  The government already has their money.  It also has mine, and, assuming you’re an American, it has yours, too.  No one is getting sent a bill for the $2,000 it’s supposed to cost every American.  But the government is spending money to help someone who isn’t them, and this is never okay. 

Breaking News: The government spends money in ways we don’t like all the time.  I would prefer we didn’t spend money blowing up people who have the misfortune to live somewhere else.  I would prefer we didn’t spend money on giving massive corporations, all of whom are doing perfectly fine making rent and putting food on the table, tax breaks and bailouts.  That’s the price of representative democracy.  It might be nice if I got to vote on every single dime the government spends, and if I could say exactly where I want my tax money to go, but it doesn’t work that way.  If there’s a way to change the government so we can do this, I’m certainly open to that idea.  Until then, we have to live with things we don’t like from time to time.

This time, we spent some money trying to ease the burden of people who are trying to learn a little more.  I’m fine with that.  I’m not going to see a dime of it.  That’s fine, too.  Why?  Because I like to help the people who need some help.  If it means one person gets to pay rent for one more month, I am thrilled we spent the money that way.  If it means a kid gets an ice cream cone Mom couldn’t afford to buy otherwise, give the kid an extra scoop.  I’m proud to have my money go there. 

Both Klingons and Conservatives are deeply concerned about who deserves what.  They are both obsessed with what they call Honor.  They both share a fascination with making judgments about people. 

I don’t deny the value of judgment.  It’s essential to survival.  It allows us to make better choices about our lives.  Our lives.  My problem occurs when people think they get to make judgments about other people’s lives.  Both Klingons and Conservatives like to do that rather frequently.  Neither of them can tolerate weakness in any form.  Only the strong should survive. 

When Worf, the most famous Klingon of them all, is injured and is unlikely to be able to walk again, he leaps to the conclusion that ritual suicide is necessary.  He’s not strong anymore, so he’s not worthy of existence.  Fortunately, he has some human friends who help him find another way.  A case can be made that they should have respected his wishes.  I won’t be the person making that case. 

When Conservatives see someone suffering, they are quick to point out how it’s their own fault.  They should have done this, or they shouldn’t have done that.  They deserve to suffer.  Conservatives don’t want to ease that suffering because it’s a sign of weakness.  “If they didn’t want to pay back the loan, they shouldn’t have borrowed the money.  If the degree didn’t get them a job that pays enough to pay back the loan, they should have skipped college and gotten a better job.  If they have a lousy job that doesn’t pay enough, they should go get a degree.  It’s their own fault.”

Both Conservatives and Klingons are fond of distractions that can help to bury the Truth.  In the Next Generation episode, “Sins of The Father,” Worf’s father is blamed for The Khitomer Massacre in which 4,000 Klingons were killed by Romulans who had inside help from a Klingon.  The Klingon who supplied the Romulans with the codes they needed to render the Klingons helpless was the father of the Klingon bringing the charge against Mogh.  Mogh is Worf’s father.  The Star Trek fandom page explains it:

Worf angrily demands an explanation for the Council judging Mogh guilty, despite the fact they knew he was innocent.  K’mpec privately explains the truth: When Klingons captured the Romulan ship with the records, they learned of the treachery behind the Khitomer Massacre; this soon became common knowledge, and someone had to answer for that treachery.  Fortunately, only the Council knew who transmitted his code: not Mogh, but Ja’rod, Duras’s father.

Beside himself, Worf violently points out that Duras should have been made to pay for the sins of Ja’rod, but K’mpec reveals that the Duras family is too powerful and to expose him would likely split the Empire and plunge it into a civil war. In order to avoid that, they decided to use Mogh as a scapegoat, believing that Worf, since he was in Starfleet, would not challenge the judgment. None of them realized that Kurn was Mogh’s second child.  But now things have progressed too far, and both sons of Mogh must die.

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Sins_of_the_Father_(episode)

At the moment, in our reality, former President Trump is likely to be indicted, not for inciting a riot and trying to stage a coup that would have made him a dictator, but for removing secured documents from The White House.  At the same time, the Trump-appointed Supreme Court has handed down rulings that have angered many voters, including stripping roughly half the population of their right to bodily autonomy.  This is likely to make the elections difficult for Republicans.  They need a distraction.  They need to find a reason for people to be angry at Democrats, and the Student Loan scandal was perfect for them. 

When Star Trek began in 1966, Klingons were the enemy.  They were simply evil, and they needed to be fought every time they appeared.  Had the ultrapowerful Organians not interfered, the Federation and the Klingons would have killed each other.  The Klingons took what they wanted by conquest.  The Federation tried to create unity with other species.  These opposing ideologies were destined for war. 

Neither Klingons nor Conservatives are all the same, however.  In the episode “Redemption, Part 2,” Worf is able to reclaim his honor and his family name by exposing the lies of the Duras family.  Duras’s illegitimate son, Toral, who intended to take over the Klingon Empire, is now held accountable for the family’s treachery.  Gowron, the leader of The Klingon High Council, gives Toral’s life to Worf.  Kurn is Worf’s brother.

TORAL: The Duras family will one day rule the Empire!
GOWRON: Perhaps.  But not today.  Worf.  This child’s family wrongly took your name and your honour from you.  In return, I give his life to you.
(Worf takes Gowron’s dagger and goes over to Toral, who braces himself for the thrust.  Worf drops the dagger on the floor)
KURN: What’s wrong?  Kill him!
WORF: No.
KURN: But it’s our way.  It is the Klingon way.
WORF: I know.  But it is not my way.  This boy has done me no harm and I will not kill him for the crimes of his family.
GOWRON: Then it falls to Kurn.
WORF: No.  No, you gave me his life, and I have spared it.

Klingons are capable of mercy.  They are not carbon copies of one another.

The same is true of Conservatives.  Just as Worf rooted out the treachery that threatened the Klingon Empire, so, too, one of the staunchest Conservatives in the United States, Liz Cheney, rooted out the treachery that threatened our freedom. 

In our hearing tonight, you saw an American president faced with a stark, unmistakable choice between right and wrong.  There was no ambiguity, no nuance.  Donald Trump made a purposeful choice to violate his oath of office, to ignore the ongoing violence against law enforcement, to threaten our Constitutional order.  There is no way to excuse that behavior.  It was indefensible.  And every American must consider this: Can a president who is willing to make the choices Donald Trump made during the violence of January 6th ever be trusted with any position of authority in our great nation again?

— Rep. Liz Cheney, vice chair of the Select Committee to Investigate the Attack on the United States Capitol.  Remarks as delivered on Thursday, July 21, 2022

There is no group in which all its members are all good or all bad. 

In the 1968 episode, “Day of the Dove,” the crew of the Enterprise is trapped on their own ship with an equal number of Klingons as they hurtle out of the galaxy at high speed.  An alien entity is feeding off their hatred for one another and causing them to fight.  The Klingon Science officer, Mara, and Captain Kirk discuss the situation.

MARA: We have always fought.  We must.  We are hunters, Captain, tracking and taking what we need.  There are poor planets in the Klingon systems, we must push outward if we are to survive.

KIRK: There’s another way to survive.  Mutual trust and help.

By 1987, the Federation and the Klingons had become allies.  Worf was serving aboard a Federation ship.  Peace is both preferable and superior to war.  It requires understanding. 

The Federation learned to respect the proud Klingon tradition of honor, and the courage that accompanies it.  Worf was among the bravest men ever to show up on the Star Trek screen. 

The Klingons learned to respect the honor of the Federation in putting itself at risk to help others.  The Enterprise-C, the ship prior to Picard’s Enterprise, sacrificed itself to defend a Klingon outpost that had been ambushed by Romulans at Narendra III.  Even those who prefer peace are capable of showing courage. 

I prefer the Federation, or liberal, philosophy, which inspired the words I repeat so often on this show: “There is no Them; we are all Us.”  This doesn’t mean, however, that I have no respect for the rugged individualism that is at the heart of much of the Klingon, or Conservative, philosophy.  There are times when such power is necessary.  I would rather have Worf fighting by my side than either Kirk or Picard. 

If the Klingons and the Federation can be allies, defending themselves and each other from alien threats, and combining their knowledge to produce better lives for both groups, why can’t Liberals and Conservatives do the same?  We’re the same species.  We live on the same planet.  We share the same problems.  We all need water to drink and food to eat.  Climate change is just one example.  There are plenty of others. 

I’m sure there will be Liberal friends of mine who will tell me why I’m wrong to want to join with the Conservatives in solving our problems.  The Conservatives are the bad guys who want many of my friends dead.  I’m a sellout and a coward.  “We all know what a Klingon is,” as Dr. McCoy says while under the influence of the hatred-inducing alien entity.

I’m equally certain there will be Conservative friends of mine telling me that they have no interest in working with whiny bleeding-heart lazy Liberals who want everything handed to them for free.  Conservatives worked hard for what they have.  They’re not giving it away to people who don’t want to work.  Liberals “have no honor!”

I’m going to take you back, once more, to 1969.  Fifty-three years ago, the Klingons and the crew of The Enterprise were fighting each other with swords as they hurtled to their doom, just as we are doing as our water dries up, our forests burn, and our crops wither in the fields.

(A contingent of Federation including McCoy and Spock take on the rest of the Klingons in the corridor.  Spock cheats with his neck-pinch.  Finally Kirk gets the point of his sword at Kang’s throat.)
KIRK: Look!  Look, Kang.  For the rest of our lives.  A thousand lifetimes.  Senseless violence, fighting, while an alien has total control over us.
(Kirk throws away his sword.)
KIRK: All right.  All right.  In the heart.  In the head.  I won’t stay dead.  Next time I’ll do the same to you.  I’ll kill you.  And it goes on, the good old game of war, pawn against pawn!  Stopping the bad guys.  While somewhere, something sits back and laughs and starts it all over again.
MCCOY: Let’s jump him.
SPOCK: Those who hate and fight must stop themselves, Doctor.  Otherwise, it is not stopped.
MARA: Kang, I am your wife.  I’m a Klingon.  Would I lie for them?  Listen to Kirk.  He is telling the truth.
KIRK: Be a pawn, be a toy, be a good soldier that never questions orders.
(Kang looks at the weird light, then throws down his sword.)
KANG: Klingons kill for their own purposes.
SPOCK: All fighting must end, Captain, to weaken the alien before our dilithium crystals are gone.
KIRK: Lieutenant Uhura.
UHURA [OC]: Yes, Captain?
KIRK: Put me on ship-wide intercom.
UHURA [OC]: Aye, sir.
KIRK: Kang.
UHURA [OC]: Ready, Captain.
KIRK: This is Captain Kirk. A truce is ordered.  The fighting is over.  Lay down your weapons.
KANG: This is Kang.  Cease hostilities.  Disarm.
(The fighting stops.  The weird light turns orange.)
SPOCK: The cessation of violence appears to have weakened it, Captain.  I suggest that good spirits might make an effective weapon.
KIRK: Get off my ship.  You’re a dead duck here.  You’re powerless.  We know about you, and we don’t want to play.  Maybe there are others like you around.  Maybe you’ve caused a lot of suffering, a lot of history, but that’s all over.  We’ll be on guard now, ready for you.  So ship out!  Come on!  Haul it!
MCCOY: Yeah, out already.
KANG: Out!  We need no urging to hate humans.  But for the present, only a fool fights in a burning house.  Out!

I don’t really believe that an alien entity is causing us to fight.  I don’t think Jerome Bixby, who wrote the episode did either, but I could be wrong.  I never met the man to ask him.  Does the cause matter, though?  The rest of what Bixby wrote is true.  We can just keep fighting for thousands of lifetimes.  I know because we’ve already done that.  Kirk and Kang are characters, but they represent ideas.  Ideas can never be killed.  We will accomplish nothing by fighting endlessly. 

The world Star Trek depicts, and the one in which I want to live, couldn’t exist until humanity came together as one.  Roddenberry seemed to think a third World War was necessary first.  The Time Traveler I interviewed a few months ago agreed.  It was only after we lost so much that we recognized destroying one another was folly.  What if we recognized that now?

Is there a way we could be glad when we help those who need it, and withhold our judgments about the way others live their lives?  So long as they’re not hurting anyone, let them make their own choices, even if they aren’t the choices you might have made. 

Many generations of us grew up being taught that the only way you could be successful was to get a degree, and we worked very hard to do that.  Now we’re being told we shouldn’t have taken on the debt if we couldn’t repay it.  Ask the most important question:  Who’s better off for that?  Going to school is what makes it possible for people to become doctors, nurses, and teachers, all of whom are essential to our society.  Shall we now tell people to stop doing that?  This means either that we will have no doctors, nurses, or teachers, or that those who fill those roles will be unqualified to perform the job correctly.  As I mentioned in the previous episode, there are states that are already doing this for teachers.  Shall we do that for surgeons, too?  If so, I’ve seen every episode of M*A*S*H.  Hand me a scalpel. 

If you don’t like the way the government spent our money, stop being angry, and go to the voting booth.  Yelling at me isn’t going to change it.  I’ll be voting for those who prefer to help people as opposed to helping corporations.  You are more than welcome to vote in the opposite direction.   I will do what I can, calmly and rationally, to convince you to join me in recognizing that people matter more than money, but in the end, I won’t be with you in the voting booth.  You’ll be alone there, doing what your conscience tells you is right.  So will I. 

We’re stronger together.  We all do better when we all do better.

Live long and prosper.

Qapla!