Harriere said -

...

I can understand if no one feels like having the Blake-at-Star-One thing

just now, but it did make me pause to think about why McVeigh feels wrong and Blake mostly right. Real dead people instead of fictional ones? The photo of the small child being carried out of the building? The fact that, even at my most jaundiced, I don't quite put any part of American government on a par with the Federation? Or just that McVeigh is at the furthest part of the political spectrum from me?<<

I too don't want any kind of foul-up on the list, but I've just got to say these are very important questions, and ones I would ask myself. I, too, would feel Blake was 'right' and McVeigh 'wrong'. Do I impose stricter moral standards in real life than I do when judging works of fiction? (god, I hope so). How would we feel if McVeigh had quoted B7 instead of Star Wars (unlikely of course, in practice, but morally conceivable).

The argument he makes is of course one that everyone who has ever used force makes.

I believe people like McVeigh want to kill and hurt, to use force to control other people, and that they therefore are only too willing to allow themselves to be whipped up into a frenzy of personifying a target (any target - the government will do) as pure evil, to give themselves internal justification for their violence. Just as the Yorkshire Ripper, Bible John, etc worked themselves up into a frenzy about how evil prostitutes were - as an excuse to attack women. The goal in each case is the violence, and the political or moral facade is merely that.

I don't think Blake is portrayed as such a person, which means his actions 'feel' different to me, apart from the coolness that comes with contemplating fictional instead of real deaths.

Alison

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