Courage of Your Convictions

These grandstanding, conservative, national security poseurs have been acting up in arms because Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (the mastermind of 9-11) will be tried in civilian rather than military court; these GOP frauds claim to be concerned that the villain might somehow be acquitted of crimes he's eagerly confessed to.  Here's an idea, if he is acquitted, why don't you wait on the courthouse steps and kill him yourself?

 

This is the anti-My Space phenomenon: the cops only use the least-attractive photo.  This was the best t-shirt they could find?

For the past decade, society's been lining up to watch movies about heroes like Batman, Ironman, and Spiderman;  these movies are fantastical escapes, not because of stuff like the Batmobile or Spiderman's webs, but because if any of these guys actually had this shit, there's no way they'd waste it on the good of society.

 

"I probably could do something about it, but its not really my place."

 
If someone like Batman really exists, why the fuck didn't he kill OJ Simpson?  OJ was on the loose, golfing freely among society for almost fifteen years, and no one did anything about it, despite the fact that tens of millions of people claimed to be OUTRAGED!! at his acquittal because they claim to KNOW FOR A FACT HE'S GUILTY!!!
 

 

Really?  No takers?

Heroic vigilantes are few and far between; KSM might think of himself as one, but really he's just kissing Allah's ass to get into Heaven.  Then there are the gangsters serving out "street justice", but really they're not fighting other people's battles; they're fighting their own, and that's not justice, that's revenge.

These superhero vigilantes traditionally act alone; they're willing to risk their lives on behalf of society, but more importantly, they do so on the basis of independently formed moral judgments.  There are a lot of brave people (cops, soldiers, gangsters) willing to risk their lives, but their courage is steeled by the moral sanctioning of either the law, the military, religion, or an angry mob; they're courageous with their lives but not their morality.

Within the angry mob, you have a lot of grandstanding people acting outraged and passing moral judgment, but ultimately they want that judgment sanctioned each other and by the actions of an executioner other than themselves.  Very few people have the courage of their convictions to mete out a death sentence on their own authority.  Whether that statement's an endorsement of, or an observation about, vigilantism, you can feel free to make your own decisions.

SPOILER ALERT!!:  In Season Five of The Wire, they show Omar swallowing the green radiation, that was David Simon's way of saying that an independent moral compass is a "freakish" attribute in modern society.