ESPN:
If our children or our children’s children ever dig up a time capsule from the beginning of the new millennium, they will find that in February 2004, America collectively lost its damn mind.
For better or worse, America can be a remarkably puritanical society.
“For better or worse, America can be a remarkably puritanical society.”
And that is on a good day.
Just 2 cents worth for a hump day.
Star Trek Online has new clothing as a “free bonus” for anyone using their new client. It looks pretty much like Khan’s outfit from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.
Why am I posting this? Well, let me explain. One of the options is wearing it without an undershirt, exactly like Khan did. Including on female characters, where it covers everything “naughty” but leaves the same sort of center area open that we see on figure skaters (where, of course, it’s not real flesh). Less than you’d see IRL at a beach, certainly.
The 3d models are not accurate enough for this to look real in any way, but it doesn’t matter: Some Americans are just losing their minds over this. I fully expect it to be patched away shortly.
America is the Puritan society, that’s why. That is where the Puritans went, and their descendants remain there. The modern Puritans are roughly 25% of the population, but they are about 75% of the government. They put blatantly unconstitutional laws in place in order to kill or convert others to their religion.
The Puritans failed to get their religion made into the state religion in Europe, so they went to America to try and impose their religion on others there. For some reason, this is described as “seeking religious freedom” on the US Citizenship test. To achieve US Citizenship, you also have to swear loyalty to the Middle Eastern religion at least 3 times, even though another part of the test requires you to answer that you have religious freedom because of the constitution.
This is something you have to work around in the US constantly. The Puritans will put you in jail if you exhibit un-Puritan behavior. It’s not just about a nipple slip. Millions of people have been killed or had their lives ruined by prohibition of alcohol and other drugs, which was put in place by Puritans. The 1 million marijuana smokers who are in jail in the US right now (more than all the rapists and murderers combined) are there because of Puritans. They stay there because of Puritans. They suffer there because it makes the Puritan religion feel good about itself. Most women who are in jail in the US are not there because they victimized someone — they are there because they did not meet the Puritan ideal of how to be a woman. So they get raped and beaten in prison and it makes a significant minority of the US population and a significant majority of the government very happy.
That is hardly Star Trek’s biggest Puritan problem. After decades of shows, hundreds of major characters, dozens (if not hundreds) of romances, dozens of weddings, and many married couples, Star Trek does not have a single openly gay character because one of the original producers was a Puritan who hated gay people.
But this continues in the reboots, after 2 movies and hundreds of characters. So the reboots own that entire legacy of hatred.
It is illegal today in California (where Star Trek was made) to offer therapies to cure homosexuality. But apparently, according to Star Trek, homosexuality got cured in the future anyway.
Giant fail.
I came up with five, not including Soren (who doesn’t qualify, but was much more direct despite that).
According to David Gerrold, Roddenberry had promised to address this in 1987, but couldn’t get Gerrold’s “Blood and Fire” TNG script past Paramount. It was finally produced by a fan group a few years ago.