VOY - Natural Law

[Frustration]

People used to think that not forcing their religious beliefs upon 'savages' was inhuman and cruel, condemning their souls and coarsening their lives.

There are excellent reasons we've developed restrictions on our impulses to do good.

[Fianna]

Again and again, the issue comes back to choice.

Abducting children away from their parents and forcing them to abandon their old language and culture: that's a horrible crime against the children, their parents, and their broader community.

But creating a facility that can teach children new ideas and languages, and which their parents can choose to send them to or not? That's just opening a boarding school.

And if your boarding school refuses to admit people from a given cultural background, even going so far as to quash all local reporting about the school so that they won't know even know where to apply ... well, that's just jingoism of a different stripe.

As Chuck points out, while Chakotay calls out the Ledosians for presuming they know what's best for the Ventu, he then proceeds to do the exact same thing, deciding that what's best for them is to put the shield back up and keep them confined to that patch of land, without ever talking to any Ventu about what THEY might want.

[Al-1701]

People used to think that not forcing their religious beliefs upon 'savages' was inhuman and cruel, condemning their souls and coarsening their lives.

There are excellent reasons we've developed restrictions on our impulses to do good.

So you would condemn them to the terrarium. How is that the more moral choice?

[Frustration]

"Don't meddle with other people's problems" is a very moral choice.

[Al-1701]

"Don't meddle with other people's problems" is a very moral choice.

No, it's the easy choice. Turning a blind eye to an injustice (and the terrarium was an injustice) is easy. Helping these people is hard, but worth it.

And I'm talking about the Ledosians as well as the Ventu. Chakotay could have informed them about how meeting with a technologically superior culture caused a great of suffering for his people through war, disease, exploitation, and attempted assimilation. If they and the Ventu are to live without the barrier, it is up to the Ledosians to allow the Ventu to make their own choices on the future of their people. The Ledosians can provide them with the opportunities and information, but they shouldn't compel them.

And getting back to disease. European germs killed more natives than European humans in the early stages of exploring and conquering America. While they removed the people, the Ledosian germs are now in there with the Ventu. Ledosian medicine might mitigate the inevitable outbreaks, but now Ventu are sealed in with germs they have no natural immunity against. Oops.

[Aotrs Commander]

"Don't meddle with other people's problems" is a very moral choice.

"Make this not be my problem" is the single biggest Evil humanity has or ever will perpetuate.

[clearspira]

"Don't meddle with other people's problems" is a very moral choice.

I call that cowardice.

[MightyDavidson]

"Don't meddle with other people's problems" is a very moral choice.

I call that cowardice.

As do I. Cowardice made all the worse by the fact that it's being spun as something noble.

[Frustration]

I call that cowardice.

Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

That doesn't make the angels, cowards. It takes great restraint and careful training to do nothing. It's perhaps the most difficult thing to do.

[Al-1701]

No, it's embarrassingly easy to do nothing and come up with excuses for inaction.

This was the same year Sisko made his rant about how detached Earth was to the plight of the colonists in the DMZ with the thesis that it's easy to be a saint in paradise. Well, it's easy to turn a blind eye to the needless suffering of others despite you have the power to save them.