He has just realized there comes a point where talking gets you nowhere. I seem to have been cast as a supporter and apologist for medieval Muslim tribal savagery, and I have a feeling nothing I say is going to convince you otherwise.

Sure, there are cultural practices so abhorrent all civilized men must declare themselves in opposition to them. I believe I have, over and over again. The point is, just what do you have to say to satisfy the outrage of others? And at what point does one feel obliged to condemn the lives of others to satisfy one's own sense of justice (much less that of anyone else)? Does piously declaring one's indignation over and over again fulfill our moral obligations, or satisfy those who feel we do not protest loudly enough? This is especially the case when perhaps one lives in a glass house too, and has no business casting any stones, let alone the first one. When the time comes to kill or be killed, I'm sure I'll show up when called. Just don't expect me to be too gung-ho about it.

Sure, it was necessary, even essential, to go and dismantle the Fascist regimes, but we had our own crimes and genocides to answer for, against the Indians and the blacks. And look at our plucky and oh-so-virtuous allies! The English had their own execrable class system, they first conquered and oppressed the nations of the British Isles, slaughtering all resistance, and then built a global commercial Empire on the backs, wealth and labor of a billion conquered people in a thousand cultures. And our other allies in that noble Crusade, the Soviets, weren't exactly blameless either. They cheerfully and systematically murdered more of their own people than the Nazis ever did.

Still, you do have to pick sides sometime, eventually, that goes without saying. So when we do, maybe we should do so with a little less sanctimonious self-righteousness and a bit more humility. The Aztecs and Incas were brutal, appalling cultures, but the violence the oh-so Christian Spaniards inflicted on them was absolutely breathtaking.

The Prime Directive is a noble concept, But Kirk and the Enterprise somehow manage to violate it in every episode. Maybe a little cultural relativism isn't such a bad thing.