I'd like to apologize to my readers before I start. This entry is basically going to be comparing politics in the US with politics in the GR (Galactic Republic). While I'll try to remain impartial, I apologize if something accidentally slips. Anyway...

Boy does it feel good being back on the forums! After not having the money to renew Hyperspace for awhile, it feels good having this ability again.

So, what's been happening lately? I wonder . It seems every time I get into a political discussion, Star Wars is at the tip of my tongue. While my family and friends roll their eyes at this, it really ties into the "reality of Star Wars".

(Note: Although I'm about to get into an inter-galactic political discussion, I'm going to try to stay impartial and just report the facts, not take sides.)

"Palpatine and The Patriot Act"

This is really up there on my list of "reality checks". When Episode III came out, both American Republicans and Democrats claimed that the movie supported their political view. The Republicans said that the movies (I-III) show what can happen when evil if left unchecked (like Tehran's nuclear power plant and Hamas), while the Democrats say that Palpatine's supposed to be portrayed like President Bush- a leader trying to gain absolute power and destroy democracy.

In reality, however, I think it's a mixture of the two. (George Lucas, by the way, said the movies are influenced by 1977 politics [like the Vietnam War] and aren't meant to imply anything from today.) President Bush has been trying to get Congress to renew the Patriot Act of 2001, the set of laws giving the President and the executive branch, (like the Police and FBI,) more power to catch terrorists. Critics of the Patriot Act, however, say that it gives up too many civil rights. (Sound familiar?) People are obviously worried that the president will take away their liberties. Now where have we heard that before?

In a galaxy far, far away we have a chancellor who manipulates events in a way which results in his staying in office "long after his turn has expired" (-Obi Wan Kenobi, Episode III). At the beginning of the Clone Wars he managed to secure emergency powers for himself which he would "lay down when this crisis has abated". Now we know that he was evil to begin with, but of course no one else knew that. Therefore, people are scared that any more power given to the president will start us down this slippery slope which may end the same way.

To add more fuel to the fire, we see that the Galactic Senate inadvertently goes along with everything the chancellor says, as Senator Amidala puts it quite eloquently, "So this is how freedom dies. To thunderous applause." Because of the growing resentment for this administration, people have lost belief that they'd be able to stop this descent.

I think the response to this is really clear cut. People have forgotten that the United States has a special type of government that the Galactic Republic didn't have. It's called separation of powers, and it actually exists for this exact reason: to stop a specific branch from gaining too much power. So let's take Episodes 1-3 and plug them into the US's system.

An interstate (intergalactic) trade franchise blockades an entire state (planet) in protest of the taxation of railroad lines (trade routs). The only reason why this might be considered legal is because this state is self-supporting. (In actuality, in the US there are laws against this called "restriction of trade laws", but we can assume the Galactic Republic had no such laws.) Some mysterious figure, who we now know is a senator, decides that he wants more, and orders this trade franchise to invade this state and take it over. To take care if the illegality of this move, he has the senate "bogged down in procedures", basically keeping them in the dark.
For whatever reason, this senator requires the governor of this state to sign a treaty legalizing the invasion. Unfortunately he escapes and brings the case before the Senate.

Now's where things start getting complicated. In TPM we know the TF tries to filibuster and Valourum (spelling?) gets kicked out. In reality, however, they would have voted for cloture (or the nuclear option) and forced a vote, thereby ordering them off the planet. But let's proceed to AotC.

In AotC, the big thing is that emergency powers were voted to the new (well, not anymore) chancellor, Palpatine. In reality, this would've had to have voted on by the House of Representatives (otherwise known as Congress) and may have been voted up or down. Be that as it may, all of these "constitutional amendments" which is what gave Palpatine his power in the first place would not have been so easy under the American system. This is because the procedure to amend our constitution is so complicated, you don't merely "vote on giving the chancellor more powers." even the shortest amendmant took two months to pass, with most taking a year or so. In addition, it has to be ratified by every state. Imagine something having to be ratified by thousands of planets. Not very quick or easy, is it ? Therefore they must've created an easier system to make up for that.

The point I'm making (or at least trying to make) is that I don't think we have to start worrying about our civil liberties yet. We have a wonderful system in place which exists for the purpose of protecting what we're afraid is going to happen. If anyone has any comments, please feel free to post them. I moderate this blog merely to block inappropriate posts, not posts that disagree with me. I always enjoy a clean, open debate .