The "Good" Peeps

roseandheather wrote:I would just like to point out that we have a place to discuss real-world politics and that place is not on the Honorverse boards.

Your posts are 100% politics in this thread. Are you telling yourself off? All moral questions ARE politics. Politics is simply the manifestation of morals in the public sphere after all.

A governing philosophy directly determines how one implements, enforces, morals. Some forms of governing are better than others depending on the situation. Same said good form of moral enforcement(political structure), is poor in other respects.

Haven's governing philosophy has changed radically. Thus, their vehemence to certain forms of government(implementation of certain moral ideals) has gone by the wayside. KNOWING, discussion, how said pungent institutions took hold over their everyday society lives would be tops in the Havenites public sphere of consciousness. These topics are covered IN THE BOOKS repeatedly. Especially from the third book on.

In my post I showed how changing one part of a political structure, while agreeable to me in the short term, creates other long term problems. If you didn't have a knee jerk visceral reaction, what I was going for, you would have cogitated long enough to contemplate the implications and how it effects THE "GOOD" Peeps thread shown baldly through the books. This has been shown in the Honorverse books repeatedly when comparing Grayson, Masada, Manticore, Haven, and the SL. I suppose to a minor extent the Andies/Silesia and a bit more TQ as well.

Life is not black and white shoved into a cookie cutter mold.

Your profile does not specify what planet you are from. Your comment about the 14th Amendment and US Senators not being voted into office directly by the people suggests that you are not from Earth. If you would review the 17th Amendment of the US Constitution, you would discover that US Senators are directly elected by popular vote. IMHO, the 17th Amendment was a catastrophe. The previous system of Senators being elected by their State Assemblies maintained a semblance of State sovereignty while giving the indirectly elected Senators (they were never a hereditary aristocracy) a certain level of insulation from transient public sentiments. It was a critical part of the system of checks and balances that was incorporated into the US Constitution to avert a tyranny by the majority similar to Haven's Legislaturists era without actually restricting citizens voting rights or establishing a hereditary House of Congress for an Aristocracy.

wastedfly wrote:In the Honorverse, and the real world as well, lets be honest here.

While I Do not agree with Aristocracy as a governing institution, I do agree with less voting rights for those who are lazy and sucking on the system. Should they all be allowed to vote? Yes. Should a persons vote not sucking on the governments teat count twice what those who are sucking? Yes. Otherwise, human nature, lazyness, will take over as the incompetent indolent folks vote to steal from those who are productive keeping their lazy butts pampered.

There is no perfect governing system. Each has major problems. Still think the 14th Amendment should be purged where the Senators are not voted into office by the populace. Either that or lengthen Senators terms of office and enacting term limits on the House of Representatives. Of couse this does not solve the political machines that essentially TELL said representatives what/who/when to vote and if one does not, then the $$$ gets cut. Thus, $$$, needs to be taken out of the hands, or partially taken out of the hands of the political parties, allowing representatives to vote their concience. This then leads to the problem of WHO/WHAT/WHERE gives said money out? What determines if one is just "running" to suck on the governement teat of being a politician?

Nothing is easy. Nothing is perfect. Why? Greed, Envy, Power, are all consuming and corrupting no matter the political system. The end result is that the political system is a reflection of the population as a whole. If the population as a whole will not stand up, sacrifice, for their own freedom, and justice, the political establishement will fall into corruption and venality.

Ah, well, first of all, sorry if I opened Pandora's Box.
That was not my intention.

Let me clarify a few points, since from the answers I get a feeling I may have been misunderstood a little.

For starters, I meant to debate concepts while remaining inside the fictional universe, as it is depicted.
I do realize the Real World is not black&white. Neither is DW's world, for that matter, but it IS a bit idealized in some aspects: it is a fictional world -if extremely detailed and believable - and it serves storytelling purposes, so, how could it be any different?

In our fictional world, the Peeps *are* very well indeed the evil aggressors, at least at the start of the narrative arc.
Now of course MOST members of the Peep Navy can only be decent people who have enlisted for valid reason (be it necessity, patriotism or what have you), and they can only be expected to believe in their Navy, fight for their people and follow their orders.
I'm not talking about them.
I'm talking about those selected, exalted individuals like Tourville and Theisman that in the books are depicted as extremely intelligent and insightful. Those individuals are shown time and time again as perfectly able to recognize the realities in which they operate.
So they know what they are doing.
They know the Peep Navy has been waging wars of aggression for decades even before it became Manticore's turn, killing free people's defenders to rob their home planets of their assets. They *know* that this is precisely what they're doing.
So, in this context (which is the context of the books) following orders because of their oaths doesn't really make them valiant officers (imho), just officers that don't have enough moral integrity (again, imho) to outright refuse to have anything to do with such activities.
What would I do in their shoes? Probably the same: I'm no hero either, I'm sure.
But that it's my point. They're just decent, regular people who, at the end of the day, prefer to kill foreigners (preferably soldiers, granted) instead of being killed themselves. The fact that they're decent at their core indeed allows them, when they get the opportunity, to turn things for the better, thus attaining a degree of redemption.
Still everything they do in the starting novels makes them "guilty" at least to some degree.

Honor, on the other hand, is a true hero who always acts for the greater good, and I disagree with those who disagree - sorry.
She is the Example, the greater_than_life hero who ultimately will be instrumental even to shape a grander alliance between divided star nations.
She *is* morally superior to Tourville, Foraker, Theisman and the like.
She'd never do something she knows to be wrong in the blind pursuit of orders, and she wouldn't follow orders that would make her a plain murderer.
(I will stand corrected if something to that effect happens in Shadow of Freedom, which I haven't read yet, but I seriously doubt that will be the case..).
And her serving under High Ridge is hardly relevant in this issue: she's still defending Manticore after all, and everything "bad" that happens to the Peeps is ultimately something they simply could have avoided by never instigating the conflict in the first place.

That's it, hope I have been clearer this time and that I haven't offended anyone
And let me add that I love those characters for their complexity, their turmoil and ultimately their narrative value: the whole "Peep" arc is indeed fascinating, exhilarating and everything that has been said.
I just disagree with how some of my fellow fans seem to "classify" them.

Honor would never do anything she knew to be wrong, because she was ordered to?

She attacked Lovat, despite believing that the Peeps hadn't been responsible for the assassination of Admiral Webster. She knew the reason she was attacking Lovat wasn't a good one, and yet she did so anyway - because she couldn't prove it, and because she had her orders.

roseandheather wrote:I would just like to point out that we have a place to discuss real-world politics and that place is not on the Honorverse boards.

It is not possible to discuss this subject without expressing an opinion that is considered "real-world politics".

namelessfly wrote:If you would review the 17th Amendment of the US Constitution, you would discover that US Senators are directly elected by popular vote. IMHO, the 17th Amendment was a catastrophe. The previous system of Senators being elected by their State Assemblies maintained a semblance of State sovereignty while giving the indirectly elected Senators (they were never a hereditary aristocracy) a certain level of insulation from transient public sentiments. It was a critical part of the system of checks and balances that was incorporated into the US Constitution to avert a tyranny by the majority similar to Haven's Legislaturists era without actually restricting citizens voting rights or establishing a hereditary House of Congress for an Aristocracy.

Indeed. The "supremacy" clause was balanced by the fact that the laws passed by Congress and the judges confirmed to interpret them both had to be approved by the delegates of the state legislatures.

The 55-mph speed limit was not directly enacted by Congress except for the District of Columbia and places like military bases where it had the authority to set speed limits. Congress ordered state legislatures to enact such limits, and the state executive branches to enforce them to Congress' satisfaction, on pain of losing highway funds taken from national motor fuel taxes in those states. It is inconceivable (yes, Inigo, I know what that means) to me that a Senate elected by state legislatures (with perhaps a few temporary appointees of state executives) would pass such a law. I even doubt that House members thinking about moving to the Senate in the future would vote in favor of such legislation.

The 17th amendment is superficially "democratic" but it is not "republican" (both small letters, not referring to the political parties of the same names). In the long run, however, shifting power from the state level to the national makes government less democratic: I have far more voice in the Unified Government (combined city/county in Kansas City/Wyandotte County, KS) and in Topeka than I'll ever have in DC.

This is the same problem the Talbott Convention had to settle in the Honorverse. The people of Montana did not really want to be ruled by a distant Parliament on Manticore or even on Spindle. So they worked out a three-level federated model that gave the Imperial Parliament (once it's created; in the meantime the existing Star Kingdom Parliament has these powers in a caretaker role per HOS) control over foreign affairs, defense, etc., the Quadrant parliament has some other power, but much of the governmental power is still retained at the system level.

At all cost wrote:"I realize that," Grantville said, and looked into her eyes. "And because I know you genuinely feel that way, I have to ask you. Are you still prepared to carry out your orders, Admiral Alexander-Harrington?"
She looked back, hovering on the brink of the unthinkable. If she said no, if she refused to carry out the operation and resigned her commission in protest, it would almost certainly blow the entire question wide open. The consequences for her personally, and for her husband and wife, would be . . . severe, at least in the short term. Her relationship with Elizabeth might well be permanently and irreparably damaged. Her career, in Manticoran service, at least, would probably be over. Yet all of that would be acceptable—a small price, actually—if it ended the war.

But it wouldn't. Grantville had put his finger squarely on the one insurmountable weakness: the lack of proof. All she had was the testimony of two men, in private conversation. At best, anything she said about what they'd told her would be hearsay, and there was simply no way she could expect anyone outside her immediate circle to understand—or believe—why she knew they'd told her the truth.
So the war would continue, whatever she did, and her own actions would have removed her from any opportunity of influencing its conduct or its outcome. That would be a violation of her responsibility to the men and women of Eighth Fleet, to her Star Kingdom. Wars weren't always fought for the right reasons, but they were fought anyway, and the consequences to the people fighting them and to their star nations were the same, whatever the reasons. And she was a Queen's officer. She'd taken an oath to stand between the Star Kingdom and its enemies, why ever they were enemies. If the Star Kingdom she loved was going back into a battle in which so many others who'd taken that oath would die, she couldn't simply abandon them and stand aside. No, she had no choice but to stand beside them and face the same tempest.
"Yes," she said quietly, her voice sad but without hesitation or reservation. "I'm prepared to execute my orders, Willie."

Here is the actual quote from AAC. Honor does not like her orders, and she's also not afraid of sacrificing herself. But doing so would not accomplish anything, all it would do is put someone else in charge. Upsetting the command structure is bad, and in the People's republic there was always the danger of a complete incompetent being in charge next, getting your people killed, which in the PRH were mostly conscripts. So they tried to make the best in a bad situation. Not to mention that each and every one of them would have been shot for refusing the order. Tourville would have gotten shot for only even protesting against the abuse of prisoners, if Cordelia had not found an untimely end.

I thought I could hold my tongue but...
Some posters on this thread have come close to suggesting that the majority populations of South Africa and Rhodesia would have been better off in the 'good old days'. On this site and this thread.
The one point of agreement between Haven and Manticore for centuries has been complete opposition to genetic slavery.
One of the major threads in the novels and I think a future point of agreement is liberating Verge systems from the serfdom imposed by OFS and the transstellars. From what we have seen so far, few of those regime changes will occur without bloodshed. Meyers is the only one with a 'peaceful' transition. While the leadership in Saltash might be able to navigate a soft landing, it can hardly be described as peaceful. As for the rest, none seem to have the vision of F.W. DeClerk. Without him, South Africa, and hence the rest of southern Africa, would have been a bloodbath. The rest of the Verge liberations will hopefully be no worse than Libya.

To complain that the former overseer's are now being treated unfairly is a bit much for me.

getting your people killed, which in the PRH were mostly conscripts.

Conscripts? When and where is that said?
If they used conscripts, why would Cordelia Ransom try to influence recruiting?

You may have opened Pandora's box, but I am the one who dumped it out.

You do make an excellent point about various Peep "good guys" supporting wars of aggression to loot their neighbors. However; our moral judgement should not ignore the situation that confronted them. By the time of OBS, Haven had become so utterly dependant on the spoils of war that not conquering more neighbors to support its faltering welfare state would have resulted in political chaos leading to societal collapse. Even if no Havenite systems are dependant on food imports, the riots and disruption of the food production and distribution system would have resulted in famine. Given a population of tens of billions to even 100 billion, the carnage would have been in the billions.

At the risk of committing heresy, I would point out that Rob Pierre is actually one of "the Good Peeps" because he not only understood as far back as SVW that the PRH economy and political structure needed to be reformed so that the PRH could support itself rather than loot it's neighbors. While Pierre prosecuted the war with Manticore to obtain more loot to support the PRH, it was his intention that it would be the last conquest to keep the PRH viable while he reformed the economy and educational system. More importantly, Pierre exploited the war with Manricore to motivate Haven's indolent asses to learn how to perform useful work. By the time of WoH, Rob Pierre's economic reforms had liberated the PRH from theneedfor conquest. Unfortunatey; Pierre and his security apparatus had to be eliminated.

Dr. Arroway wrote:Ah, well, first of all, sorry if I opened Pandora's Box.
That was not my intention.

Let me clarify a few points, since from the answers I get a feeling I may have been misunderstood a little.

For starters, I meant to debate concepts while remaining inside the fictional universe, as it is depicted.
I do realize the Real World is not black&white. Neither is DW's world, for that matter, but it IS a bit idealized in some aspects: it is a fictional world -if extremely detailed and believable - and it serves storytelling purposes, so, how could it be any different?

In our fictional world, the Peeps *are* very well indeed the evil aggressors, at least at the start of the narrative arc.
Now of course MOST members of the Peep Navy can only be decent people who have enlisted for valid reason (be it necessity, patriotism or what have you), and they can only be expected to believe in their Navy, fight for their people and follow their orders.
I'm not talking about them.
I'm talking about those selected, exalted individuals like Tourville and Theisman that in the books are depicted as extremely intelligent and insightful. Those individuals are shown time and time again as perfectly able to recognize the realities in which they operate.
So they know what they are doing.
They know the Peep Navy has been waging wars of aggression for decades even before it became Manticore's turn, killing free people's defenders to rob their home planets of their assets. They *know* that this is precisely what they're doing.
So, in this context (which is the context of the books) following orders because of their oaths doesn't really make them valiant officers (imho), just officers that don't have enough moral integrity (again, imho) to outright refuse to have anything to do with such activities.
What would I do in their shoes? Probably the same: I'm no hero either, I'm sure.
But that it's my point. They're just decent, regular people who, at the end of the day, prefer to kill foreigners (preferably soldiers, granted) instead of being killed themselves. The fact that they're decent at their core indeed allows them, when they get the opportunity, to turn things for the better, thus attaining a degree of redemption.
Still everything they do in the starting novels makes them "guilty" at least to some degree.

Honor, on the other hand, is a true hero who always acts for the greater good, and I disagree with those who disagree - sorry.
She is the Example, the greater_than_life hero who ultimately will be instrumental even to shape a grander alliance between divided star nations.
She *is* morally superior to Tourville, Foraker, Theisman and the like.
She'd never do something she knows to be wrong in the blind pursuit of orders, and she wouldn't follow orders that would make her a plain murderer.
(I will stand corrected if something to that effect happens in Shadow of Freedom, which I haven't read yet, but I seriously doubt that will be the case..).
And her serving under High Ridge is hardly relevant in this issue: she's still defending Manticore after all, and everything "bad" that happens to the Peeps is ultimately something they simply could have avoided by never instigating the conflict in the first place.

That's it, hope I have been clearer this time and that I haven't offended anyone
And let me add that I love those characters for their complexity, their turmoil and ultimately their narrative value: the whole "Peep" arc is indeed fascinating, exhilarating and everything that has been said.
I just disagree with how some of my fellow fans seem to "classify" them.