Looking Back: The Omega Glory

I hadn't seen this Star Trek episode in a very long time.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0708474/

When I first saw it, I was fascinated by the not-quite-parallel planet depicted on the show. Said planet had Yankees (Whites!) and Communists (Asians!), and even the minutest detail of the US Pledge of Allegiance and Constitution .. yet differed in a slightly larger sense of having suffered a biological war that wiped out most of the planet. Hmmkay..

Viewing it today, it's funny/sad to see the characature of Americans that is the Yangs:

• "Impossible even to communicate with!"
• "Totally contemptuous of death!"
• "Freedom? That's a worship word - Yang worship!"

And I tell ya, them Yangs remind me a lot of today's Republicans, who

• attempt to substitute talking points for reason, and are bound by a hyper-partisanship that goes beyond ideology
• have no problem sending other people's sons and daughters into harm's way to protect their business interests
• keep saying "terrorists hate us for our freedom"

Star Trek was televised about 15 years after the McCarthy days, and I wonder if Roddenberry (who also wrote the episode) was at the same time telling a morality tale and poking fun at his contemporary wing-nuts (aka "Birchers").