Great article, there seems to be a reality distortion field in effect, itâs been there for a long time.
Those sound bites, âgood guys kill bad guysâ, they always piss me off, it grates. Usually the reality is that itâs the bad guys who kill the good guys.
More to the point, everyone is a âgood guyâ in their own head.
I wish some of these folks would maybe consider Oliver Cromwellâs words: âI beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you may be mistaken.â
Well âbecause weâre the Good Guysâ was a motto of the Patron Saint of Spies - Maxwell Smart. It was, for one example, the coda to the movie âGet Smart Againâ.
Damn, this Giraldi guy is great. Iâm thankful that an ex-spook has adopted this perspective, and that he is able to and chooses to share it with us. Really glad you posted this, Cory.
When my son was very young, I took pains to point out that Batman doesnât kill the bad guys - he captures them. Who is it that kills the bad guys? Always, itâs other bad guys.
Also, you do realize Get Smart was satire⌠I hope?
âItâs ok, weâre the good guys.â - Adolf Hitler
After beating then nearly to a pulp, though. I remember the 1970s/80s Batman, too, but those times are long gone.
I kinda just always figured the president could always do this, but wasnât officially allowed to.
Leave Batman out of this!
Exactly. The whole âbad guysâ trope is a hideous, stupefying narrative, that should be eradicated from public discourse and serious matters, and left in Saturday morning cartoons, where it belongs.
Arguably, The Lord Protector could have taken some of his own advice. Dude was pretty much a raging asshole. (On the other hand, at risk of being totally off topic, even the pious Irish Catholics of my aquaintance, who would have no reason to sympathize with the fellow, have universally agreed that âCromwellâ about the most suitable name for a pygmy hedgehog. Neither they nor I can say why; but the mere concept, much less its execution, bears the mark of adorable perfection.)
Hey, if Batman is going to save the cops the trouble of catching the bad guys, itâs merely public-spirited of him to save the cops the trouble of subjecting them to kinetic pain compliance procedures.
GODWINED!!! That didnât take long⌠it was funny, though.
The scope of what you can get away with has exceeded the scope of what you are allowed more or less throughout American history; but keep in mind one crucial difference:
In a (perverse, and not wholly useful) sense, the criminal disobeys the law; but he gives the law its due in the course of setting himself at a state of war with it, and dealing with the mixture of force and concealment that that state requires.
Far more corrosive than the man who breaks the law is the man who puts himself above it, or has his crack team of legalists (lookinâ at Yoo, YooâŚ) chop logic and precedent into a meaningless slurry where the word of the law is sacred and ossified and its spirit wholly violated.
He banned football though, so thereâs that.
Oh, as bad-boys of history, I must confess a certain enthusiasm for âultraprotestant assholes of post-reformation europeâ as a group; but they include some genuinely dreadful people, and a notable lack of doubt about the rightness of their cause.
I think it depends on the president, and how they view the office/ the role of that branch of government. I think historically, itâs been a real back and forth between the amount of power the president holds vs. the congress. Think of FDR with the court packing scandal or Nixon who came right out and said as much in his Frost interview. Iâd argue that the past two presidents likewise tend towards of view of a stronger office of the president power as the head of the executive branch (unitary theory) as a good and wholly legal thingâŚ
Cromwell banned football? For reals?
Yup. His one saving grace.
