ApostleO

On a tangential note: I propose we ship the top 1% wealthiest people to Mars and make them colonize it.

We can send all the life sentence and death row convicts with them.

I guess I assumed a sort of corollary.

Starfleet personnel ends up back in time on a Starfleet vessel. We both serve the same organization. My duty is to protect the timeline I come from. Your duty seems, implicitly, to aid a fellow Starfleet officer in their mission (to protect the aforementioned timeline).

It seems like Starfleet should have a dedicated Temporal Security crew on every starship and starbase for such an occasion. You find a supposed time traveler, you immediately call this team. They sequester the intruder and go through a careful interview to verify their claim as cleanly as possible, then render what aid is needed to secure the timeline and get them home (or, barring that possibility, get them somewhere isolated where they can't contaminate the timeline). Then, maybe memory wipe the Temporal Security team (and possibly anyone else who interacted with the traveler). On the flipside, if you end up back in time, it's expected you should immediately attempt to contact the local Temporal Security crew.

Sure, but what about random crewmen, like in my example? Are they expected to make such a decision?

If God wanted those kids fed, he'd have rained mana from the heavens, or multiplied bread and fish for them. If they are hungry, they clearly deserve it.

I'd argue that an unconstitutional law is itself illegal, and thus does not render an unconstitutional action legal. That said, I'm sure I'd lose any argument on the constitutionality of the war power granted by Congress to the President.

The truth is, our Constitution was written in a time when the world moved much more slowly. It's unfortunately no longer practical to expect it to work in a world as fast paced as ours is today. We need a full rewrite, but I do not trust anyone to rewrite it.

I guess I meant that those standing authorizations should not exist, as they effectively abdicate a power the Constitution outlined for Congress, transferring it to the President. They erode the checks and balances.

I whole-heartedly believe that it was real, planned by Lucas, and then the backlash for Jar Jar in Ep 1 made him second-guess it and change the story.

I also believe that if he had stuck to his guns, he could have redeemed that character. A dark Yoda mirror is such a great concept for the prequels.

While I agree, let's not pretend that presidents haven't been launching combat missions without formal declaration of war for decades. Longer than I've been alive. It's one of the biggest expansions of executive power we have allowed, under the guise of "the war on terror", "the cold war", or even "the war on drugs".

I will never understand how someone reconciles conservative politics with being a Star Trek fan. The cognitive dissonance is astounding.

And don't insult Doug Jones like that, either.

Wait, wait, wait...

Greece is just now getting around to legalizing gay marriage?

Greece?

Greece?!