Man, I gotta chill out a little.
When i started this blog I told myself I wouldn't edit it- just real, stream of consciousness type stuff- so I'm a leave that post down there alone. I don't agree with it all anymore, though.
Of course I oppose vigilantism, but I've been racking my brain to find a reason why the government should violate the search and seizure laws, essentially, just because of a birth condition. I'd be very opposed to adolescent gene testing to detect mutants, so after that, everything I said below is meaningless; all you can do is keep a police/fbi dossier on anybody that's displayed a dangerous mutant/mutate/technological ability, and essentially treat mutant/mutate outbursts similar to car accidents. It's scary, but essentially, if Purple Man moves next door, you're screwed, because diminishing his rights out of fear diminishes us all.
That being said, I don't think you need to go all the way to criminality before the government should start keeping an eye on you- when it becomes part of public awareness that you have a dangerous power, the Gov'ment should step in and tell you that unregulated use of superpowers is illegal, and that if another usage like this happens without registration, that you'll be held accountable not only for the damage/hurt you cause, but a sort of reckless endangerment charge for abusing the power, similar to the way a person would be charged for discharging a firearm in a city.
Is that better? Is that sane?
I don't know. I'm really tired.
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- Captain America #25
3 comments:
Well, about as sane as you can be when you're drafting and considering the constitutionality of legislative policy with regard to, ahem, superpowers.
But I think I get you, and I appreciate the depth of thought you put into it. It's the mark of a good fiction writer. I wish the people actually writing civil war would think things through as deeply as you do.
glad you wrote this, it saves me having to gear up a righteous indignation post to your previous. I realize it'd be frightening to be in a world with super powers, but it's more frightening for the government to test us all, determine the powerful, train them, and herd the rest of us around, which is largely what would happen. The only check on the governmental power in such a world would be people with powers themselves.
But honestly, the whole premise is false because a world like Marvel would never be a world like Marvel, if that makes sense. It may seem quibbling to point out that Reed is apparently too much of a dick to share flying car technology with Toyota, but it is indicative of a larger problem. Comics are largely about fantisizing about how cool it would be to have powers in this world, what we would do etc. (I read somewhere once that young boys fantasize about being themselves but better and young girls fantasize about being someone else, like a princess) As a result of this, against all logic, comic universes must be kept far more similar to the real world than they would actually be, so we can live those fantasies. I won't go into all the details, but to get you started: anyone with any damn income whatsoever would have supered up by now. Seriously, it is not that hard to do.
The only world that has handled it in the direction that I think it should be is top 10, though as I write this I'm also reminded of Universe X etc. which did a fine job, and in the MU no less!
This isn't to say I don't love Marvel and even some DC. You know I do. It's just difficult to do a hypothetical question when the opening set of conditions lead to a different situation than the one I have to think about.
A friend of mine recently read Civil War. When I asked him, "Who are you with...Cap, or Iron Man?", he gave perhaps the best answer I've heard to that question so far, perfect in its simplicity:
"Actually, I'm with Spider-Man."
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