The situation with the Romulan Empire is rapidly becoming the defining crisis of our age.
Over the course of this magazine’s four centuries (not counting the Great Interegnum during the Eugenics Wars, when conservatism was deemed a mental defect) National Review has always endeavored to chart a course balancing idealism with realism. Even in its infancy, facing the first great existential crisis of Old Earth, we argued for challenging aggression, whether in the form of the Soviet threat or the violence done to humanity through hubristic tinkering with the genetic code. We are proud to say that our opposition to the Soviets played its part in the prevention of one nuclear holocaust and saddened that our warnings fell on deaf ears before as so many of us were marched off to reeducation camps on the Mars colonies. After the Interregnum we counseled a different course when making first contact with the Klingons and the Romulans than that chosen by Starfleet Command. History has vindicated us on both scores, which is small comfort given the terrible price we all paid for Starfleet’s stubbornness.
We do not dredge up old memories merely to gloat. Rather to point out that history and consistency is on our side. Nancy IX, the current chair of the United Federation of Planets is a decent sort, but clearly out of her depth. Like all Pelosians, she lets her passions crowd out sound judgment. One needn’t be a Vulcan to grasp that logic does not hold much sway on Pelosi Prime. Indeed, it seems we should have learned our lesson when the planet Sigma Iotia II became an enormous cargo cult to 1920s Chicago mobs. But no, the Pelosians have developed an entire civilization based on a once obscure bit of political doggerel, “It Takes a Village,” and suddenly billions of Earthlings — yes, we’re still proud to use the word “Earthling” rather than the politically correct, galactically cosmopolitan, and toothy “Humanoid of Terran Extraction” — are willing to surrender their fate to race bound to the dictum that children are the greatest philosophers. Does no one remember Charlie X? Miri? The horrors of planet Triacus?
We have long been on record in our belief that much of the current crisis can be traced back to the baleful influence of rampant Picardism in the diplomatic corps. Ambassador Picard’s conviction that the “European Hegemony” was a lasting model for intergalactic peace has led us into one calamity after another ….
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