Ender's Game Part I

I read Ender's Game, the 1985 science fiction novel by Orson Scott Card, in a book club a few years ago. The Ender's Game movie, like many movies-from-books, took out many necessary items and added some political jabs (if something is repeated enough, it must be true).

This post is about one of the political jabs in the movie.



Despite the lack of communication from the aliens in the movie (who were not excessively referred to as "bugs" in the movie as they were in the book; more on this in Part II), the humans knew that they were being attacked/annihilated for more land. The additional land for the bugs was necessary since they over-bred on their own planet (they sort-of looked like a cross between an ant and a bee in the movie, at a human scale).

That was the first instance of the so-called over-population meme in the movie. Watch out! or the Earth may turn out like the bug planet.

Second, Ender was the third child of his family. Normally, in the movie universe, a family was permitted to have only two children. Hmm, a two-child policy was the second instance of the over-population meme.

Why do many Christians care about the proliferation of the so-called over-population movement? First, it is not true. We usually don't like falsehood, being one part of the Decalogue n' at.

Second, it treats a family as a ward of the state. The family is pre-state and each particular one determines how that family is constituted within the natural-law framework (man-woman; open to life). Jesus, in the Gospel of Matthew said, "no man must separate" the couple, including in the process of procreation (one-flesh union).

Communist China's one-child policy treats each family as a unit of the state that must follow state laws above all else. However, natural law, which is to regulate state law, takes precedence. The number one natural law is that people are rational creatures who are due respect and dignity of the state, not for the state to claim them as commodity units for its own means or ends.

Many Christians have reported on the brutality and immorality of population control programs, especially in China.

The producers and/or writers of Ender's Game have just jabbed another fictional example of the Malthusian lie of over-population that quite often looks up to China as an ideal for population control.

If it's portrayed enough, it must be true. (sarcasm)

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan Part III

(Links for Part I / Part II)

One the best scenes of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan was the dialog between Kirk and Spock in Spock's quarters.

Kirk was debating whether to take the training crew of the Enterprise under Spock's command to a potentially dangerous location.


 
This scene is so good since it shows how two totally different people, one totally logical (really utilitarian stoicism) and the other passionate, can be friends and colleagues.

If you watch the other Star Trek movies and even the original series, these two and McCoy would just hang out together.

But what's the use of hanging out? Well, friendship in and of itself has no uses per se, but is a good in itself. Natural Law Theory defines friendship as one of the basic goods that is good in and of itself.