The Empire is NOT bad....

This might be a silly question but aside from the jedi, CLONES, and droids, who all died in the clone wars?

 

The empire has laws, organized, efficent. But its a dictatorship and people have no fundamental rights. Its still evil.

 

These "fundamental" rights you speak of have only been labeled as such since the so-called "Enlightement." Liberalism only pre-dates Marxism by a century, it was hardly espousing anything near universal or fundamental rights.

Edit: And don't forget to at least give Machiavelli an honorable mention, Jello.

With the entire rebellion attacking the DS2, how are probably no more than 100,000 people expressing the "will of the masses?"

It was just the remnants of the ancien regime trying to retake power back from revolutionaries.

 

"The republic will be reorganized into the first Galactic Empire" Oh yeah, he's a real Ghandi!!

This is a perfect example of distorted morality. Hard to believe any of you are serious about Palps ideology being a good thing. You should really take a closer look at imperialism in Europe and Russia over the last 100 years.

 

The Empire does not want peace, they want OBEDIENCE. That is the difference between them and the Rebel Alliance.

 

To all the people using the Death Star excuse. This is no different to the Nuclear weapons that countries such as America and Russia have at their disposal. And as for Alderan being destroyed, one word - Hiroshima!

 

"Therefore, using your argument, the Jedis are evil for fighting the Seperatists instead of just letting them seperate."

well i've argued all along the jedi should not have fought on the side of the republic anyways, but they allowed their nobility to get the better of them, as well as the fact that palpatine was manipulating them. what makes them different from palpatine, is that they dont kill others just because that person is fighting on the wrong side. obi wan only kills grievous because he is a threat, and they never would ahve killed the sep leaders, they merely would have captured them. palptine on the other hand kills people simply because they disagree with him.

 

The Empire are the bad guys. Hence, they are bad.

 

Man.... there are lots of people in this thread with seriously messed up world views....

Its depressing.

 

"Really, so Mace bringing his sword up and calling him too dangerous to be left alive was all a part of the arrest, huh?"

you obviously havent been watching the same movie i have, so ill fill you in:
~mace comes to arrest palpatine, TELLING HIM THAT THE SENATE WILL DECIDE HIS FATE.
~sure, theire sabre were lite, but dont cops have their guns ready to fire when arresting someone they percieve as a threat
~PALPATINE attacked first! he killed three jedi (cops) who were only trying to arrest him. i agree, the jedi were wrong to not get a warrant, but does that mean that if a cop shows up at your door without a warrant for your arrest, you have the right to kill his three buddies? sorry my friend, that would NEVER HOLD UP IN COURSE, WITH OR WAITHOUT A WARRANT!

mace decides to kill palptine only after his three friends have bene cut down, only after he has come to realize palpatine's true power. sure vigilante, and somewhat carless, but that doens mean palaptine's rule is legitamate.

and besides, palpatine lies to the senate. he tells them they tried to assassinate him, without telling them they tried taking him into their custody peacfully. he fails to tell them, he killed 3 of them unprovoked, and fails to tell them he has been waging war against the senate in secret for 3 years.

no matter how you argue it, waging war with your government in secret to gain more pwer, is just plain evil and ambitious, and decietful. the leaders of the rebellion relaize palpatine is a lier, and will fight to death to see he is brought to justice.


face it, the empire was built by a traitorous, lying man.

 

all the people using the Death Star excuse. This is no different to the Nuclear weapons that countries such as America and Russia have at their disposal. And as for Alderan being destroyed, one word - Hiroshima!

That is a very bad comparison. The atomic strike against Hiroshima was used as a last resort to try and convince the utterly pig-headed Hirohito and his toadies to surrender.

The alternative was a land invasion for which the Japanese were prepared to sacrifice untold numbers of civilians to try and cause as much damage to Allied troops as possible and thereby "save face". U.S. Army casualty projections for the first day of the amphibious assault alone were estimated to run into the hundreds of thousands, and increase steadily as Allied forces pushed inland.

By contrast, Alderaan had not been fighting a savage and bloody war with Coruscant for the past four years. Rather, it had been (at least officially) minding its own business.

 

The desire for peace is a ruse. Palps wanted power.


Palpatine manufactured the war. There was peace for a millenium during the reign of the Republic! Palps is the one who destroyed that peace and brought about the war.

He didn't want peace, he wanted power, and he sacrificed the peace of the entire galaxy in order to get it.

 

Well, you know what they say:

Qui Desiderant Pacem, Preparate Bellum

 

Actually what they left out of the movie is the concentration camps for nonhuman species, the planned genocide of such species, the forced military conscription, the end of freedoms, centralized control, blah blah blah, gestapo...

Yeah it was bad.

Unless you like being in the marines.

 

To all the people using the Death Star excuse. This is no different to the Nuclear weapons that countries such as America and Russia have at their disposal. And as for Alderan being destroyed, one word - Hiroshima!


That's a poor analogy - at the time the USA was at war with Japan when they used nuclear weapons.

Alderaan was minding it's own business and was not at war when the Empire blew it up.Your analogy would be correct if the USA had dropped an atomic bomb on Switzerland.

 

Well, you know what they say:
Qui Desiderant Pacem, Preparate Bellum

Those who desire peace, prepare for war.

Very nice QM.

 

Thanks KK.

Reagan himself called the USSR an "evil empire" (You can be sure the man who thought to soil the name of "Star Wars" with a missle-defense system knew the cultural touchstone he was hitting on with THAT phrase)

More ignorance! Reagan hated the trivializing "Star Wars" moniker slapped on the missile-defence project by the puerile brains in the mass media.

And the USSR was in fact an Evil Empire (just so you know).

Grand_Admiral_Wettengel

The notion of having a galaxy-spanning democracy has to be one of the dumbest ideas ever. Its collapse was inevitable.

I agree. Oh how I agree.

 

I'll prove it wrong, though. ROTJ's novel cites that the forces at Endor comprimise the sum total of the entire Rebel Alliance. If such a small group is all those who oppose the Emperor, then really, what's that got to do with popular will?

Considering the Empire's rapid deflation after Endor and the thousands of new star systems the Alliance gained into the fold after that fateful attack, which boosted its military massively over the next year, it seems that the most likely explanation was that a lot of people were afraid to fight the big, bad Empire. And who wouldn't be, if the novelization is to be believed? Also, there was a scene cut from ROTS that describes Mon Mothma, Padme, Bail Organa, and some others forming an alliance to stop Palpatine within the Senate, composed of a great deal of Senators. The ROTJ novelization also cites dozens of Star Cruisers and an arseload of other support vessels -- a fleet at least equal to the massive Imperial one present in magnitude of ships available, though not necessarily in firepower. IIRC, at the time that was the biggest task group in the Empire -- and why wouldn't it be?

Wow... can we get to a more deliberate violation of human rights than that? Can we?

If you want my honest opinion...no, not really. But I have no idea what I would have done in Anakin's place. However, if Anakin had had knowledge of the Senators' alliance, he would have told Mace and Mace probably would have agreed to bring him in, kept under the guard of several Council members...hopefully more competent than the ones Palpy left lying on the floor. This is one of those cases where knowledge does indeed light the way.

Mon Mothma was a dictator and despot as well, you know. Do you think there was any citizenry that elected her? Nope--she was given absolute power, renewable every two years, by the Rebel command staff. (TOS)

The Rebellion is a military organization. In such an organization, a chain of command is necessary. Besides, she does listen to the advice of those she employs. Not only that, as per her speech in the X-wing strategy guide, at any time the High Command can remove her if they believe she's not doing her job.

You also have seemingly forgotten the Imperial Senate. Which, while though placed on temporary recess in ANH

I hardly call "I've just received word that the Emperor has dissolved the council permanently" a temporary recess. The Senate was dismantled to make way for a true military regime.

Incidentally, senators from the Old Republic were rich and wealthy aristocrats. At least the Galactic Emperor was a populist ruler.

I'll give you that one, though not without the stipulation that the Emperor was a power-hungry tyrant.

As for these 'freedom fighters'--they were funded by rich senators who did not like losing their power. Notice who founded the Rebellion--notice who funded and ran the Rebellion. It certainly wasn't your average citizen, who was in fact happy under Imperial rule.

Honestly, how else are you supposed to fund the Rebellion -- government grants? And honestly, Mon Mothma fairly well represented her constituency in declaring rebellion. I can't imagine that Chandrila liked the Empire very much after they got pwned by a trio of Star Destroyers and a clown car.

Too bad the Rebels did the same thing, just on a smaller and more widespread scale.

There's a difference, as usual. The Empire blows up civilians they don't like. The Alliance blows up the Empire's military exclusively as a deterrent so they can't blow up civilians (or at least intends to). In most of the games, if you blow up civilian craft you fail the mission or get a vast amount of points deducted from your score. The yachts in the Rogue Squadron games are an excellent example -- defending civilian targets in the games is, as well. This also applies to the X-wing series.

It can be said that that's the only way to make a sim work, but that would in truth be false. Games like GTA sell like hotcakes because

 

~PALPATINE attacked first! he killed three jedi (cops) who were only trying to arrest him. i agree, the jedi were wrong to not get a warrant, but does that mean that if a cop shows up at your door without a warrant for your arrest, you have the right to kill his three buddies? sorry my friend, that would NEVER HOLD UP IN COURSE, WITH OR WAITHOUT A WARRANT!

Thats not quite the situation and not a good analogy. Remember a few scenes back. The jedi were planning to replace many duly elected Senators with ones of their own choosing.

KI-ADI : If he does not give up his emergency powers after the destruction of Grevious, then he should be removed from office.

Mace: That could be a dangerous move.... the Jedi council would have to take control of the Senate in order to secure a peaceful transition.

KI-DAI : and replace the Congress with Senators who are not filled with greed and corruption.

Yoda : To a dark place this line of thought will carry us. Hmmmm..... Great care we must take.


Yoda was right. Just who gave the jedi the authority to remove duly elected Senators, no matter how greedy and corrupt ? The Jedi are acting as dictatorial as Palps does 20 years later.

 

What are you people talking about? Leia and her (step) father were from Alderan. It's more than likly Alderan played a part against the Empire in some form or another. Plus, what about the countless number of civilians who died in Hiroshima's blast. What wrong did they do to deserve a death like that?

 

<i>I'll prove it wrong, though. ROTJ's novel cites that the forces at Endor comprimise the sum total of the entire Rebel Alliance. If such a small group is all those who oppose the Emperor, then really, what's that got to do with popular will? </i>

I havn't read the EU/movie novels, so I can't really reply to that.

However, as someone so caught up in proof, here's some proof that the Empire was evil: It SAYS so in the opening scroll of ANH!

 

RE: The Empire is NOT bad....
________________________________

Yes they bloody well are!!!!!!!!! You've been living in the outer rim for too long dude.

As said by Palps himself, it is a point of view. I think that you'll concur that the large majority of people believe that the Empire IS bad.

Yes the Sith want peace, but only to serve their own selfish purpose which is POWER, and to get this they will tread on anyone that gets in the way and that cannot be a good thing.

Was Saddam bad?

 

Plus, what about the countless number of civilians who died in Hiroshima's blast. What wrong did they do to deserve a death like that?

In the grand scheme of things, probably nothing.

However, their lives had to be weighed against those of the possibly more than one million American soldiers who would have died in the invasion of Japan, facing things like sneak attacks from adolescent schoolgirls wielding butcher knives and massed banzai charges by civilians of all ages armed with sharpened bamboo stakes, naginatas and other implements.

Horrific as it was, the atomic strike was probably the best option in the long run, and to this day many WWII veterans speak of "that lovely bomb" that erased the neccessity of invasion.

 

That is a very bad comparison. The atomic strike against Hiroshima was used as a last resort to try and convince the utterly pig-headed Hirohito and his toadies to surrender.

Wrong. Japan was already on its knees and Hirohito wanted to surrender, but not unconditionally, as the US demanded. Why did Hirohito not want to surrender unconditionally? Because he feared that if he did so, the entire Japanese culture and way-of-life would be destroyed by the US.

DL