I&#x27;m not sure it matters what the author is thinking. The point remains that under an ethical doctrine that a great many people - perhaps most, I&#x27;m not sure - tend to espouse, one does have to concede that the Empire really isn&#x27;t so bad.<p>I wouldn&#x27;t go so far as to compare the Rebellion to ISIL for various reasons. But it&#x27;s true that the Rebellion and the Old Republic had a strong theocratic undercurrent going on, and that&#x27;s something to think about.<p>If anything, I think the article&#x27;s compelling because it asks us to have the courage of our convictions. Regardless of whether you (or the author) side with the Rebellion or the Empire, a realistic analysis of the story is much more complex. And that&#x27;s valuable, because the real world is complex, and yet it&#x27;s very common for us to try to cast current events in terms of the simplistic moral narratives we learn in stories.