4. All s/he ever did was sit in front of hir computer and snark with Carmen, so I can how s/he could be forgettable, but yeah s/he was there.
22. I definitely draw a line between presidents and starship captains. A maverick starship captain is by nature of their position operating under a certain anti-establishment position, as they act with autonomy while on their missions. So they can step outside of the system (feeding my adolescent fantasy) without really threatening it (and upsetting my politics). I can be thrilled by the sheer display of power inherent in a captain breaking the Prime Directive without really needing to approve of their action or questioning the directive as a general principle.
But a president is the establishment personified, so when they overstep their bounds they are in doing so revealing the entire establishment to be inherently oppressive (and to that degree illegitimate), because if we don't have the rule of law, what do we have? The exception would be a case in which the President is clearly being coded as a villain and needs to be brought down--because then while I can have a will-to-powery thrill at they way are beyond good and evil, good and evil are still firmly codified by the text, and I don't have to be uncomfortable by the way the text can be taken to imply that Presidents should break the law (or step away from their own principles) in extreme cases.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-10 06:53 pm (UTC)22. I definitely draw a line between presidents and starship captains. A maverick starship captain is by nature of their position operating under a certain anti-establishment position, as they act with autonomy while on their missions. So they can step outside of the system (feeding my adolescent fantasy) without really threatening it (and upsetting my politics). I can be thrilled by the sheer display of power inherent in a captain breaking the Prime Directive without really needing to approve of their action or questioning the directive as a general principle.
But a president is the establishment personified, so when they overstep their bounds they are in doing so revealing the entire establishment to be inherently oppressive (and to that degree illegitimate), because if we don't have the rule of law, what do we have? The exception would be a case in which the President is clearly being coded as a villain and needs to be brought down--because then while I can have a will-to-powery thrill at they way are beyond good and evil, good and evil are still firmly codified by the text, and I don't have to be uncomfortable by the way the text can be taken to imply that Presidents should break the law (or step away from their own principles) in extreme cases.