To me, the point of Capt. Picard, really the point of all Star Trek, is that we have to make principled decisions even when they are difficult or dangerous. We won’t all do it in the same way and we won’t always succeed — the point is to try.

Too often these days it seems like we don’t even try. We make convenience or efficiency our first principles or don’t even pretend to have any. Let’s take today’s loss as a sign it’s time to fix that.