Chefelf.com Night Life: The Case for the Empire - Chefelf.com Night Life

Their politics may not be to everyone's liking, but The Weekly Standard does have a position on Star Wars:

The Empire got a bad rap.

Best line: "If you don't know what the Expanded Universe is, well, uh, neither do I."

This piece reminds me somewhat of the monstrously sophistical essays and speeches I wrote in college where I deliberately took the side of an issue opposite to my own opinions and work myself into a righteous lather in defence of the indefensible. Of course many of his points are valid, particularly those about the ineffectuality of the Republic as portrayed in the prequels. (But these are the frickin' prequels we're talking about.) He really runs off the rails when he asserts that Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen deserved to get it because they were "traitors" and that Alderaan deserved to get it because Leia was probably lying - yet, in typical sophistical fashion, he earlier demands that we take Palpatine at his word.

I know that it probably wasn't meant seriously any more than my impassioned speech against recycling was meant seriously but...still, what a maroon.

Interesting piece.

And if George Lucas hadn't screwed everything up, this piece may not have been written.

Compared to the Republic we see in the PT, I imagine the Empire would indeed have been a blessing. But if the Republic was really like that it wouldn't have lasted five minutes anyway, so the point is moot.

Two years old and it's still pretty interesting. One thing that I one to point out, however, is that all dictators are interested in 'order'... but how do they achieve their order is something else.

So if the Empire is a sort of Nazi state, that keeps everyone and everything under their fingers, then I suppose that they are indeed 'evil' as they are claimed to be, but there are some little pointers here and there.

For one thing, regarding the destruction of Alderaan. Even if Leia was lying about it being defenseless and harmless, there can't be that much spies and rebel agents there, and they attempted to destroy it as an EXAMPLE to what the power of the Empire weilds. It was natural that Leia would lie about being on a diplomatic mission... you don't expect her to just say "darn it, Vader, do you have to mess up my spy missions all the time" or "yeah, I was on a spy mission, what about it?" It just doesn't make sense for her to do this. Also, on the destruction of Alderaan, destroying it would kill too many innocent civilians... people who want nothing to do with the conflict between the Rebellion and the Empire... that's like nuclear bombing a city because there are a few hundred spies and agents around. I'm sorry, but that'ls too much for me to sollow. Again I will mention, Tarkin wanted to use the Death Star on Alderaan because it would make an effective demonstration of the destructive power of the Death Star, whilst Dantooine (the planet that Leia lied to Tarkin about) was simply too far out and no one would care or even notice it was destroyed.

You can also argue that, once the Emperor is dead, and Vader to boot, he'd have some kind of system to choose who will succeed him to rule the Empire. They have a system similar to this in the United States. Also, just because the Rebellion offically defeeated the Empire, it doesn't the end of fighting. They would still have to unite the galaxy to the new republic and that would take a long time to pull off. No one said overthrowing a government is easy, and whenever a government is overthrown violently, there are always some violence here and there in the process and afterwards.

But compared to the old republic, however, the Empire does seem pretty good... at least they can actually come to a decision in short order, rather than squabble all day long and all they can do is 'launch an investigation to see if your planet has been invaded or not!'

This post has been edited by Paladin: 22 April 2005 - 08:10 AM