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FOXFAN CENTRAL Star Wars Saga Reflects Political Ideals Sunday, May 22, 2005 By Thomas A Firey ARCHIVE In the lead up to the last Star Wars movie, Weekly Standard online editor Jonathan Last took his magazine over to the dark side. The Empire may be a dictatorship, Last wrote, but it's "a dictatorship pe ople can do business with. The Empire has virtually no effect on the daily life of the average, law-abiding citizen." Last went on to explain that imperial ruler Darth Sidious/Emperor Palpati ne "is a dictator but a relatively benign one, like Pinochet." But, in post-Patriot Act A merica, I hope his ideas stay far, far away from Capitol Hill. No cultural icon can exist without someone trying to stuff it into a poli tical ideology. The Star Wars saga, the greatest pop culture icon of the last three decades, is no exception. Fan Web sites have buzzed for year s over whether Sith patsies Nute Gunray and Lott Dodd symbolize Newt Gin grich and Trent Lott. Palpatine's dissolution of the Senate in favor of imperial rule has been compared to Julius Caesar's marginalization of th e Roman Senate, Hitler's power-grab as chancellor, and FDR's court-packi ng scheme and creation of the imperial presidency.
Creator George Lucas admits that his tale of a republic succumbing to dic tatorship is colored by his observations of the Nixon administration and , more recently, the post-9/11 Bush administration. public fears, Episodes IIII suggest, can lead to the concentration of power in the hands of politicians and the e rosion of democracy into authoritarianism. Some observers of the politics of Star Wars sharply criticize parts of Lu cas's tale. Following the release of "Episode II: Attack of the Clones," the Objectivist Center's Ed Hudgins fired off an op-ed criticizing the film for showing Palpatine and the Sith forming an alliance of convenien ce with traders (the Trade Federation), bankers (the Banking Clan), unio ns (the Commerce Guilds), and corporations (the Corporate Alliance). "That's about as obvious a slap at business as you'll get," Hudgins brist led. "Lucas the liberal sees economic power as a danger, and fails to re alize that it is political power, even in the hands of a republican gove rnment, that corrupts commerce and society." But classical liberals can just as easily argue the Force is on the side of free markets and limited government. What characterizes an empire is a central government's expansion of its control over social, political a nd economic institutions. With due respect to Hudgins, no student of pub lic choice theory can look agreeably on a politician-orchestrated cartel ization of unions, investors and firms. Nationalized industries, mercant ilism, restricted trade all are the work of the Galactic Empire of Epi sodes IVVI (not to mention many empires in this corner of our galaxy). And just think about the taxes necessary to keep the Empire functioning, the storm troopers fed and the star destroyers and Death Star flying. In a scene later cut from Episode IV, Rebel pilot Biggs uses the tax angle to encourage Luke to leave his Uncle Owen's farm and join the Alliance: "What good is all your uncle's work if it's taken over by the Empire?" "It won't be long before your uncle is merely a tenant, slav ing for the greater glory of the Empire." By and large, the rebellion's supporters were ordinary people who wanted self-determination, republican government, and free enterprise in place of the Galactic Empire's oppression, economic controls, and high taxes.
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