One can be triggered either into "attack" mode or "defense" mode by something, Joe. I think in your case that it was the attack mode that was triggered... ;-) You don't like Republicans.

Obviously in Crow Sister's case it was the "defence" mode that was triggered. She is defending Jews against what she sees as an attack on them.

That's two very opposite reactions, but both interesting in that it says something about the person who is doing the reacting.

Now in my case, what do I hate most? I hate the way that greed for MONEY has perverted society, corrputed the political system, and largely ruined the planet. So I do not see the Ferengi as "Jews", and I don't see them as "Republicans", I see them as the very WORST kind of capitalist money-addicts gone wild...kind of like the people who created this recent financial catastrophe.

We are each seeing in the Ferengi the specific stereotype that most concerns us! ;-D

Now the only question is: What did the producers and writers of Star Trek intend the Ferengi to symbolize? My bet is that it was not Jews, not Republicans, but (as the record shows) "Yankee traders"...that is, the most aggressive and greedy form of capitalist wheeler-dealers possible. The Ferengi are not "Jews". They are not "Republicans". They are ultra-capitalists gone mad with greed and acquisition.