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But the most compelling evidence that the Empire isn't evil

What? Overlook the planet they destroyed? Some Americans are craving having a Nazi like empire these days.

I know I am in the minority....but this kind of loathsome celebration of empire (what about the spirit of 76?) is what support for the Iraq war has brought to American conservativism.

But the most compelling evidence that the Empire isn't evil comes in "The Empire Strikes Back" when Darth Vader is battling Luke Skywalker

And that sort of deluded thinking is what is completely wrong with what's left of 'conservatism'. Your statement unfortunately is spot on. How many would gladly accept a Chancellor Palpatine as long as he was on the 'right' side and whose actions would agree with their world view?

Yeah, they're called neo-cons.

Yeah, they're called neo-cons... the "jackasses" of the Republican Party.

A few days ago I had this exchange which I would have forgotten until I saw this posted article. This empire worship does not seem to be an isolated thing.

To: Destro

Keeping in mind that Anakin/Vader, from the very beginning, was Lucas's vision of a masculine type once abundant in this country that his hippy, leftist values obviously led him to disdain--resolute, ruthless in battle, determined in war, contemptuous of what he saw as the enemies of the society he wished to maintain--I'm really looking forward to this movie.

In the context of the times (1970's), Anakin/Vader was the ultimate "Hard Hat"--and the perfect metaphor for the leader of the "silent majority," a la Richard Nixon, that represented the forceful (and, yes, sometimes angry) backlash against the so-called "Counterculture" (who were always a tiny minority made up of malcontents, mindless screamers, incipient terrorists, and other assorted scum) and their enthusiastic boosters in the mainstream liberal media.

Many of us understood this immediately, and instinctively, back in 1977 when that first massive Star Destroyer--spitting laser bolts and brooking no further argument--filled the screen and the magic commenced; that's why a good many of us rooted for the Stormtroopers. Underneath those white helmets, many of us accurately speculated, lurked the ghost of the kid down the street who'd done his duty in Vietnam and returned to be spit on by leftists; and those doing the spitting, we again accurately surmised, where the "heroes" of the "Rebellion": Lucas didn't fool us from the git-go. I, for one, groaned while others in the theater cheered when the first Death Star exploded in Episode IV. I didn't fully understand why, at the time. I do now.

But neither did we turn away from that magic; we just took the side that Lucas disdained in his epic, and have been cheering it ever since. This is the real reason Episode V, The Empire Strikes Back, was and remains the most popular film in the franchise to date. Art has a funny way of backfiring on its creators that way when the tale told is compelling and powerful, but the vision behind it is blurred.

Anyway, enough of this high falutin' talk; suffice it to say that I was the only kid in my middle school who went to his 1978 Halloween Party fitted out as an Imperial Stormtrooper--and that outfit got the loudest cheers and most intense attention among any of my peers, particularly from the girls I was keen to impress at the time...

Long Live the Empire.

261 posted on 05/17/2005 6:20:40 AM EDT by A Jovial Cad

To: A Jovial Cad

I was very young at the time and I saw the Stormtroopers as robots not people - I guess I got it right because they were clones - non individuals. Soviet like.

The kid from the small town wanting to go to the military was Luke Skywalker - who was not a hippie nor was Han Solo a hippie nor was Obi Wan who kicked ass. The Jedis in fact are much like the Templar Knight warrior monks.

It is kind of funny to read your statement because it shows you have no conception of what it is to be in the spirit of the Founding Fathers who wanted a small standing army and hated militarisim like they found in their Hessian enemies.

What you are is in fact a Statist and what you mistake as patriotisim is in fact Statisim. That is not being a Conservative in the tradition of the Founding Fathers.

You need to repent and convert.

262 posted on 05/17/2005 9:16:40 AM EDT by Destro

To: Destro

Oh, for cryin' friggin out loud, it was just a movie after all.

And as for that bit about "mistaking" patriotism for statism, I need no lectures in patriotism from a keyboard coward such as yourself, who probably never served a day in uniform in his pathetic, pasty-faced life.

270 posted on 05/17/2005 1:05:34 PM EDT by A Jovial Cad

To: A Jovial Cad

and Hitler was a war hero.

271 posted on 05/17/2005 1:14:18 PM EDT by Destro