Intergalactic Summit

Only if you missed my analogy between you and your crew, vs governments and the governed.

I thought you had answered your own question.

However my crew aren't citizens of my ship, they are soldiers and are duty and honor bound to my command. I treat them with as much respect as possible, feed and care for them, even treat them once in a while and they follow my orders so that the ship can fight another day.

If they think I'm not worthy of being their captain they are welcome to leave. I don't want sheep or slaves, I want wolves and warriors.

Like I said earlier, civilians and military are different things.

Civilians are responsible for their own well being and their families.

The military are supposed to protect their nation from foreign aggression.

You are blurring the lines here. Both groups have different priorities.

A patriot is willing sacrifice and die for the good of their country, a fool is willing to sacrifice and die for the good of their government...and a politican is willing to let you sacrifice and die for, well I think you can figure out which.

I do so love these sorts of arguments that pop up occasionally; some rallying cry for the masses to stop being sheep and question authority, to rise up and demand this or that brand of personal liberty.



When everyone can do whatever they want, no one can do anything.


The Star Fraction made these arguments for years; the reasoning was wrong then as it is wrong now.


The Truth is that only some us can do what we want, lives built on the broken backs and spilled blood of those below us.

I'm actually attempting to clarify the lines not blur them, because you see you are not either or citizen or soldier, because I know a great many deal of citizens who are soldiers. Tuulinen-haan, for instance, is no less a citizen of the Caldari State because he is a soldier; contrary, in fact I would say he is more of a citizen because he is a soldier. That is unless you are saying that a soldier cannot be a citizen and vice versa.

The goal, in my humble opinion, should not be to separate the two but to compromise their responsibilities because sooner or later they will overlap and bring a conflict of priorities. There can be no single definition of 'citizen' do to the various beliefs of what it means to be one. The Caldari State adopted a militaristic approach to society because it was necessary for survival, and thus a citizens responsibility is quite similar to a soldiers; everyone had to do their part, because without it our people would not be here today. If we had adopted the idea that our duty was solely to our family and our own we would not have survived the Dark Age, no Caldari would debate that.

So my question stands in regards to your ideology. Where does the responsibility of the soldier end and the citizen begin and vice versa? and what happens when the people under your command rise up when they deem you are going against the duty of a soldier, as citizens you are meant to protect?

It saddens and irritates me to see such derision towards humanity. You call people "sheep," as if it were an ignoble animal, and trumpet individuality and personal struggle as if it were a torch being carried to light the darkness.

These "sheep" you decry are the greatest mass of humanity. They are genetically disposed to being social, to acting together, and to avoid trouble. Their hearts are given to those they love and value. Their bodies work to further their own goals. Their minds as are complex, their thoughts as deep, their passions as valuable as the most radical of individualists. They like to follow leaders - and it is good that they are they greatest mass of humanity, for without their instinct to collect and act together our societies would collapse into anarchy.

These sheep are the heroes. Their sagas are no less important than our own, and in the long run, a much better influence on humanity than the provocateur and revolutionary.

Shame on you who deride them.

When this woman speaks, I listen. I advise the rest of you to do so too.

There's nothing wrong with being the sheep. I think Scherezad can personally attest my own desire to serve as an "officer of the people".

It is the shepherd who is often the problem, however. There is no guarantee in knowing that you're not just being used as mutton to be sold.

A pretty interesting topic.

If it is not rude to say so, I think you expect... Perhaps a little too much, of the average person, miss Mekhana. As long as they are not - quite literally - being oppressed, most folk are more or less content simply accepting the world around them, and are quick to forgive any distant injustices perpetuated by their far-away leaders. Perhaps is why, even in the Federation, which is renowned for it's people not accepting any sort of misdeed done upon them, the Ostriches are still almost the largest political bloc.

And is that really such a bad thing? It is all well and good to desire a better world. Or, perhaps more specifically, a kinder "Shepherd", as mister Inhonores gracefully put it. But in the end, fighting for such a thing will not guarantee an improvement. Often, it will make things quite a bit worse, if not carefully managed, and that is assuming one does not pay the more immediate prices: Seperation, both figuritive and potentially literal, from ones peers, punishment from the powers that be, a weakening of the community, such that it might be more easily preyed upon by the wolves lurking in the nearby trees.

To put it bluntly: Sometimes, it is better for an individuals personal well-being to reside in "Sheepdom", to so speak. And in the end, many will not - and should not - sacrifice that. It can be a bitter and rewardless thing, to defy, and that is if the reason for defiance itself is not folly, brought on by baseless anger, arrogance, or greed.

It sounds as though you are a fighter by nature, though. You likely see maddening failures where others do not, and if you wish to judge people for such a thing, that is entirely understandable. But you are going to find yourself judging a great many people to not too great an end, I think.

Speaking entirely personally, however, I think one should envy the individuals who have the least power, both literally and in desire to see it used. The more one is forced to preside over others, and over the world around them, the less one is able to preside over themselves.