The Place Where Ludington Talks
Kirk to Term-Limit-Raising Enterprise
"You said you wanted freedom. It's time you learned that freedom is never a gift. It has to be earned."
-- Kirk in 'The Return Of The Archons', Star Trek, the original series
Kirk Josvai has been featured less than favorably in the annals of the Ludington Torch, though I doubt it was due to his own oversight. Frankly, he graced our pages due to an oversight of Mayor Henderson who has appointed him onto the Planning Commission, and to two other commissions/boards in violation of the Ludington city charter as described in these two threads: Commissions of Sins and COS 2 .
I do not know whether former Indiana detective sergeant Josvai took this overutilization of him by the mayor as a bad thing, but he did come out with some fairly strong arguments against the City Proposal that seeks to extend the maximum amount of terms a Ludington mayor can serve from three to five. And he is a self-confessed believer in John Henderson's dedication to the community.
I myself, believe what radio commentator Paul Harvey once said: ""Politicians are like diapers: they must be changed often and for the same reason." But my impression of John Henderson as a politician is quite a bit lower than Kirk's. As a Trekkie growing up, I had to connect Mr. Josvai's uncommon first name to the original Star Trek series. The connection made me think even more about an episode called the Return of the Archons, where a city is governed over by a seemingly benevolent ruler, who allows the citizens the "Festival" for morale, and tightly controls them the rest of the time. This is a slightly adapted plotline involving our local situation:
On stardate 1106.2012, the US Citizens, under the command of Kirk, arrives at the Ludington City Hall where the US Constitution was reported lost nearly 8 years earlier.
Only Dila came back from the first meeting, exhibiting strange behavior, and Kirk beams down with another party to investigate. They find the inhabitants of Ludington (who seem to be modeled after 21st-century Earth) are a very static culture, with little or no individual expression or creativity. The entire culture is ruled over by cloaked and cowled "councilmembers" controlled by a reclusive dictator known as Henderson. The only time the people "let loose" is at the striking of "The Red Hour" (at 6:00pm), starting "Friday Night Live" a period of violence, destruction and sexual aggressiveness which apparently is the only time Henderson does not exercise control over them.
Kirk's party makes it downtown just before the Friday Night Live, and they seek shelter from the mobs at a nearby boarding house. Henderson seems to be "all-seeing" and "all-knowing" with spies everywhere, one of whom turns in the party when he does not recognize them as members of "The Public Body:" the telepathic collective being, symbiotic with Henderson, that most of the inhabitants belong to.
Kirk and his team are eventually rendered unconscious by bureaucracy and captured. However, Rotta, the owner of the Torch, is a resistance member and offers protection to Kirk and his team. Rotta reveals that Henderson "absorbs" selected people into The Public Body, which was the fate of the other Ludington citizens, and will also be the fate of them. Ludington itself is now stuck in a decaying orbit as Daily News Editors prevent people from using their free will.
Kirk and Pete, his first officer, discover that the reclusive Henderson is actually a computer sealed inside an ancient chamber, elected 20 years ago by Ludington voters. The original Henderson only wished to create a way to help his failing society achieve peace and prosperity. The computer that bore his name was the solution - but it performed its job soullessly and ruthlessly.
Kirk and Pete manage to convince the machine that running the city as it has been is wrong and the people are being kept as uncreative slaves. They manage to convince the machine that it has violated its own prime directive. The machine realizes its mistake and accepts term limits, thus freeing the people of Ludington. Kirk agrees to leave State advisors and civics educators on the planet to help the civilization advance, free of Henderson's dominance.
"You are not of the body!"
When I looked this episode up on the web, I saw amazing similarities to our current dilemma over this proposal and Kirk's commonsense refutation of extending limits. I could see a world where Henderson served 20 years, got the Committee together again, and extended terms limits to beyond the Mayor's life; programming a computer that had the mayor's engrams on it. And how if we replace the name of "Landru" with "Mayor", the dialog between Kirk and the computer-mayor is appropo to our current situation, as the mindset is typical of the current mayor:
Kirk: What is the good?
Mayor: I am the Mayor.
Kirk: The Mayor is dead. You are a machine. A question has been asked. Answer it.
Mayor: The good is the harmonious continuation of the body. The good is peace, tranquillity. The good of the body is the directive.
Kirk: Then I put it to you that you have disobeyed the prime directive. You are harmful to the body.
Mayor: The body is. It exists. It is healthy.
Kirk: The body is dying. You... are destroying it.
Mayor: Do you ask a question?
Kirk: What have you done to do justice to the full potential of every individual of the body?
Mayor: Insufficient data.
Kirk: Without freedom of choice, there is no creativity. Without creativity, there is no life. The body dies. The fault is yours. Are you aiding the body, or are you destroying it?
Mayor: I am not programmed to answer that question.
Kirk: Mayor.... answer the question.
Mayor: Peace, order, and tranquillity are maintained. The body lives, but I reserve creativity to me.
Kirk: Then the body dies. Creativity is necessary for the health of the body.
Mayor: This... is... impossible!
Kirk: You must create the good. That is the will of the Mayor, nothing else.
Mayor: But there is evil.
Kirk: Then the evil must be destroyed. That is the prime directive, and you are the evil.
Mayor: I think. I live.
Kirk: You are the evil. The evil must be destroyed. Fulfill the prime directive.
Mayor: You... are the evil.
Kirk: Fulfill the prime directive.
Mayor: Help me! Help me! Help me! Help me!
Mayor self-destructs
Kirk: A marvelous feat of engineering. A computer capable of directing the lives of millions of human beings. But only a machine. The original Mayor programmed it with all his knowledge but couldn't give it his wisdom, his compassion, his understanding, his soul [of his first term].
"Kirk, I appointed you to those committees then you come out against me. You traitor"
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