Is Crimefighting Ethical?

[transmetahuman]

Re: Is Crimefighting Ethical?

 

My mother brags' date=' possibly correctly, that she is personally responsible for driving the strip clubs, sex toy stores and porn theaters out of our area (not that I have much against those businesses). She was the organizing force behind the community action that drove them off.[/quote']

Right there is another reason to fear vigilantism. The vigilantes might just disagree with you about what "filth" needs to be washed off the street. They might not even agree with a majority of other residents. There are plenty of people who see a group of low-income black men congregating, and just *know* that there must be crime involved. Not to mention the wrath of god folks who believe that two men holding hands is clearly a threat to every child in a two mile radius. Maybe *you* would hold off unless there's immanent physical danger involved, but do you really want vigilantism to become fashionable by setting an example?

 

This is why I'd rather have people do it through community action and consensus - you're still subject sometimes to the tyranny of the majority if you have unpopular morals, but it's better than being subject to the tyranny of every nutjob with an axe to grind.

[OddHat]

Re: Is Crimefighting Ethical?

 

Right there is another reason to fear vigilantism. The vigilantes might just disagree with you about what "filth" needs to be washed off the street. They might not even agree with a majority of other residents. There are plenty of people who see a group of low-income black men congregating, and just *know* that there must be crime involved. Not to mention the wrath of god folks who believe that two men holding hands is clearly a threat to every child in a two mile radius. Maybe *you* would hold off unless there's immanent physical danger involved, but do you really want vigilantism to become fashionable by setting an example?

 

This is why I'd rather have people do it through community action and consensus - you're still subject sometimes to the tyranny of the majority if you have unpopular morals, but it's better than being subject to the tyranny of every nutjob with an axe to grind.

 

Yup. It's generally not a good idea to encourage someone with a cause to put on a mask and get violent.

[TheQuestionMan]

Re: Is Crimefighting Ethical?

 

Vigliante

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vigilantism

 

Common Man

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_man

 

Reactionary

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactionary

 

How to be a Crimefighter (Amusing Only)

http://www.scotlandsoftware.com/learn/crimefighter/index.html#howto

 

Which Crime Fighter Are You? (Amusing Only)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/apps/ifl/crime/gigaquiz?infile=fightersquiz&path=fightersquiz

 

 

 

Respectfully

 

QM

[OddHat]

Re: Is Crimefighting Ethical?

 

Which Crime Fighter Are You? (Amusing Only)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/apps/ifl/crime/gigaquiz?infile=fightersquiz&path=fightersquiz

 

Not surprising:

You're a forensic scientist!

 

You look for details and clues in the unlikeliest of places, trusting science and facts over opinion and gut reaction. When it comes to decision-making you trust the facts and like to piece them together into logical patterns. This may seem like you’re emotionally cold and clinical, but really you just trust physical facts over your own erratic personality. Maybe a crime fighting career in Forensic Science is a real possibility, check out what the real crime scientists get up to in our profile of the Forensic Science Service.

[Kristopher]

Re: Is Crimefighting Ethical?

 

You're a judge!

 

Wise beyond your years, you choose to examine all the evidence in front of you, and acknowledge both the opinions of others and facts with equal weighting before making your final decision. You have a bigger view of society and its ways and although some might say you're out of touch with reality, you believe in the big ideals such as law, justice and truth. But if you really want to test yourself, try and get your head around the legal system in England and Wales, with our profile of the Court Service.

 

 

Because I can't just quote the quiz response...

[zornwil]

Re: Is Crimefighting Ethical?

 

Well' date=' are you saying that if you had superpowers and the cops tried to give you a speeding ticket, you would use your powers to prevent the cops from fulfilling their duties of upholding the law? Unless you were speeding to some destination in service to society (i.e. to get to a burning school, etc), you've just become a supervillain.[/quote']

Wow, it sounds so much cooler when you say it that way!

 

I think I'd be prone to vigilanteism if I were sufficiently invulnerable or dodgy. But petty vigilanteism - "You forgot to say PLEASE - punk!" The stuff that ticks you off in day-to-day life.

[zornwil]

Re: Is Crimefighting Ethical?

 

Stomping Empire Builders probably means leaving chaotic messes behind you' date=' unless you stomp them before they grab their first country. (snip) [/quote']

 

You say that like it's a bad thing.

[zornwil]

Re: Is Crimefighting Ethical?

 

(snip)

My mother brags, possibly correctly, that she is personally responsible for driving the strip clubs, sex toy stores and porn theaters out of our area (not that I have much against those businesses).

 

Your mother is my nemesis!

[zornwil]

Re: Is Crimefighting Ethical?

 

"You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to OddHat again."

 

What I'd be curious to hear is: has anyone made any attempt to address these sort of issues in-game? Or do you just write it off as a genre thing and play on? I myself am in the latter camp; I don't think I'd enjoy playing a "realistic" vigilantee game.

 

 

bigdamnhero

“What the world needs now is another folk singer… like I need a hole in my head.â€

Not really, either, but where the PCs have ventured beyond the accepted boundaries or at least what's talked about in polite company it's been an interesting issue. There was a lot of discussion over when the Troll killed the guy who had murdered the Troll's mother; actually, a lot over time, during that period the PCs mostly looked the other way uncomfortably, unsure of what to do besides let the Troll have the vengeance they felt was his call to make given the personal nature of it.

[zornwil]

Re: Is Crimefighting Ethical?

 

Because I can't just quote the quiz response...

I also got the judge.

[OddHat]

Re: Is Crimefighting Ethical?

 

Your mother is my nemesis!

 

Get in line.

[Enforcer84]

Re: Is Crimefighting Ethical?

 

Get in line.

Yeah, forms to the right.

[input.jack]

Re: Is Crimefighting Ethical?

 

You only have to read a few Julie Schwartz Superman comics to realize that right and wrong were pretty much what Superman said they were. Herbert Hoover used the FBI to combat Martin Luther King' date=' Jr. because King was breaking the law. When SCOTUS says that it is okay for the state to take your home and give it to Wal-Mart to build a supercenter the lawful hero is the one enforcing the ruling. Justice and law are not necessarily synonyms. Crimefighting on the level of stopping muggers and rapists is one thing, beating the snot out of people building a better life form themselves and their families by selling cocaine to yuppie scum is another.[/quote']

 

 

I KNOW Justice and Law arent synonyms. But I have no idea where this "oppression of the common man" stuff coems from, still.

 

And if someone is selling cocaine to ANYONE they deserve a good thrashing and some jail time.

 

"Yuppie scum" indeed.

 

Crimefighting on the level of stopping muggers and rapists and drug dealers is exactly what Im talking about. "People building a better life for themselves and their families by selling cocaine" should think long and hard about what kind of life theyre building, and what gives them the right to destroy other peoples lives to further their own goals.

 

My neice, who is not yet in her twenties, recently did serious permanent brain damage to herself by overdosing on street drugs, just like the ones being sold by your "people trying to build a better life". She is now violently unpredictable, attacked and injured my mother (age 76) several times, and yet is somehow unable to be committed to any kind of mental facility because of the social program cuts brought to us by Uncle Ronnie in the 80s. Was she an idiot to take the drugs in the first place? You betcha. Does that excuse the dealers who sold this POISON to her? NOT AT ALL.

 

Your inclusion of that very telling example leads me to believe that you and I are approaching this situation from entirely different, and likely incompatible, points of view.

 

What makes the yuppie "scum", and the drug pusher not?

 

NOTHING.

 

If thats the "common man" you refered to, then he DESERVES to be oppressed. Hes a self-centered poison dealer selling death to kids.

[Markdoc]

Re: Is Crimefighting Ethical?

 

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing"

 

Of course evil also triumphs when good men do bad things - often for what they thought at the time were good reasons.

 

If I had the ability to fight crime I would. Using a combination of Vandelism and Vigilantism. Examples;

 

1. Pawn Shops, Sleezy Hotels, Check Cashing Stores, and Cheap Pizza Places would be vandalized and attention brought to them until the Law Enforcement Agencies responed. Broken Window, Doors, Locks, etc... and make the Scavenger elements of society aware of the opportunities.

 

So although society has decided that these things are not illegal, you'd take it on yourself to take them down?

 

See the comment above - you've just become a supervillian. A pretty low rent supervillian, admittedly - no massacres of innocents or nothing... I guess you could probably make a living on kickback from sleazy developers who wanted to make a killing in redevelopment once property values fell far enough

 

2. Pot/Crack Houses' date=' Shipping Containers of Drugs, etc... Vandalized or Victums of Arson, etc...[/quote']

 

Once the news about the three kids burned to death in a row house arson started by a "mysterious masked figure" and the container full of plasma TV trashed by the same guy, hits nationwide TV you graduate from annoying local supervillian to criminal boss. Hope the secret base is well hidden! Also, you're going to need some thugs to keep track of all this stuff...

 

3. Drug Dealers, Trafficers, & etc... caught on Video and Posted on the Web, Pirated on TV Channels, and sent to the media.

 

4. Unrepentant Criminals become become victums of Harassment, Assault, and Threats. If they fail to reform then they are removed from existance.

 

5. Rapists, Murderers, etc... are removed from existance. No reprieve, no choice, etc...

 

And when - lacking any real investigative backup, you kill the hero cop working undercover, or kill the wrong guy ("Oops! I guess he wasn't the rapist after all - sorry about that. Still, everybody makes mistakes") you graduate from criminal boss to full-fledged supervillian. Heros start turning up and you spend all your time working out ways to fight them.

 

I've cut the rest of the examples, but you get the idea.

 

It's a great origin story for a reluctant villian

 

Seriously though, this illustrates the problem - if you go the vigilante route, you *will* end up hurting innocents - even with the investigative resources at their command, the police do so. One guy - no matter how bulletproof or smart - is certainly going to do so, and unlike the police, he has no mandate from the public at large. If you run around setting fire to people's businesses, I can't see you getting one.

 

We've been talking this around at home and can't actually come up with a single way in which being a vigilante could be a good thing, except in the specific (superhero) case of tackling super-powered crime that can't be tackled any other way.

 

cheers, Mark

[TheQuestionMan]

Re: Is Crimefighting Ethical?

 

Yes, Justice, Not Law.

 

Drug Dealers, Rapists, Child Molesters, and Repeat Offenders.

 

Death Penalty, not really. Emotionally OH YEAH!!!

 

QM

[OddHat]

Re: Is Crimefighting Ethical?

 

We've been talking this around at home and can't actually come up with a single way in which being a vigilante could be a good thing, except in the specific (superhero) case of tackling super-powered crime that can't be tackled any other way.

 

Unfortunately from a gaming point of view, that runs against the power fantasy at the heart of most heroic fiction. I've tried to reach a compromise in my own Supers games (Superheroes as heroic and accountable Federal Agents), but I am aware that this model breaks some genre conventions that go all the way back to Victorian Fantastic Lit.

 

Outside of fiction, masked gunmen and arsonists with a cause are not law enforcement options that appeal.

[Narratio]

Re: Is Crimefighting Ethical?

 

Our western law is, basically, based up the idea of giving up on personal "revenge/vengeance" for crimes committed against you (whatever they may be) and giving this power of "revenge/vengeance" to an uninterested 3rd party (the police/justic system) on the understanding that they, being emotion free will be better enabled to enact true "justice".

 

And we put up with the times it "goes wrong" and a bad person is set free, because it's better that a guilty man go free rather than an innocent man be punished for a crime he didn't commit. (or words to that effect).

 

Now balance this with the popular thread in modern fiction that allows the person who has been wronged to take the law into thier own hands. The Deathwish series of films for example grows from this idea, as well as most westerns.

 

It seems that we all secretly object to the common code we're brought up to follow (leave it to the police) and long for the return of "eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth". Whether this is due to the percieved problems in our modern justice systems or it's that we're still so close to our emotional break points... Who can say?

 

I've never had anything bad enough that the police were needed, occur to me so I can't say if vigilanteism is a bad thing or not. But it does break the common codes we need to live by in the Polis.

[Markdoc]

Re: Is Crimefighting Ethical?

 

Unfortunately from a gaming point of view, that runs against the power fantasy at the heart of most heroic fiction. I've tried to reach a compromise in my own Supers games (Superheroes as heroic and accountable Federal Agents), but I am aware that this model breaks some genre conventions that go all the way back to Victorian Fantastic Lit.

 

Outside of fiction, masked gunmen and arsonists with a cause are not law enforcement options that appeal.

 

Oh sure, but wasn't that the point of the thread? If running champions, while I like a bit of realism, I assume that secret identiies are usually safe unless you make no effort to maintain them, that wearing your underwear outside your clothes does not provoke derision, that bad guys are usually caught doing obvious crimes and that known heroes are always given the benefit of the doubt.

 

Genre conventions, man.

 

We actually had a GM who ran a (short-lived) campaign who played "realistic" with the genre and we ended up with situations like the one where my character (code against killing, don't ask me why, I should have known better, but I wanted to play a hero, dammit) haymakers a robot. It goes through a wall, into a family's living room, doing 16-18 d6 to the kiddies inside (add in some more KB and we have kiddie jam). OK, perfectly "realistic", but... do you really need that? As an aside it turns out the "robot" was an armoured suit and I'd killed the guy inside, too. Even though the police dispatcher had said "rampaging robots". The GM said I should have checked.

 

That game (realistically enough) turned into a bad version of the Authority (long before that was written) with the public fleeing screaming at the sight of the "heroes" (because it usually meant major propert damage was about to ensue) and the "heroes" talking about acceptable losses "OK, I killed some kids and put their parents in the hospital, but if I hadn't, dozens might have died, etc etc".

 

Strangely enough we ended up taking over a small african country and trying to make a decent state out of it, but it was mostly so we would have a place to live, rather than altruism.

 

cheers, Mark

[input.jack]

Re: Is Crimefighting Ethical?

 

I dont think I like that GM

[Yansuf]

Re: Is Crimefighting Ethical?

 

I have to respond to some comments made, here.

 

"Besides, the crimefighting thing seems to be a thin veneer for reactionary oppression of the common man."

 

How? How is stopping crime oppressing the "common man"? Unless the common man is a mugger or other criminal. Reactionary? Please, explain this to me. It sounds to me (*WARNING: Personal Opinion approaching*) that your group of friends and fellow gamers may not fully understand what being a crime-fighter or superhero is about. Now, if youve only been reading these "Iron Age" comics, I can understand that. Anyone who thinks The Authority is about -heroes- has misunderstood the term.

 

Like the writer of that drek did.

 

 

"Taking superpowers into the real world brings us to Iron Age questions of morality. Why bother stopping crime or doing good deeds? Why not just satisfy your own desires instead?"

 

Because that would be WRONG. Right and wrong have nothing to do with punishment, or whether or not you can get away with it. Right and wrong have everything to do with whether or not your actions bring help, or hurt, to other people. Right actions are those that help others in a positive way, and lead to the growth of your soul. Wrong actions are those that bring harm to others. Selfishness is a form of evil.

 

Stopping crime and doing good deeds, REALLY good deeds (things that make a difference in peoples' lives, not just for show, or imposing ones own theological views on others) are all the more important for a person to do, the more power that person has. If you only think of yourself, eventually your empathy for other people withers and dies. And then your just a heartless, soulless monster.

 

 

"Pawn Shops, Sleezy Hotels, Check Cashing Stores, and Cheap Pizza Places would be vandalized and attention brought to them until the Law Enforcement Agencies responed. Broken Window, Doors, Locks, etc... and make the Scavenger elements of society aware of the opportunities. "

 

Okay, THIS I have some serious problems with! We have NO indication that these places of business are doing ANYTHING wrong. And by targeting check cashing stores and CHEAP PIZZA PLACES youre just sadistically making life miserable for those at the bottom end of the socio-economic scale. ESPECIALLY the honest, hard-working, but unlucky people who happen to be at that end of the spectrum. (Not everyone at that end of the spectrum is honest or hard working, but neither is everyone at ANY end of the spectrum). And why Pawn Shops? Why "sleazy Hotels"? Do you have some personal grudge against people pawning their guitars? Or sleeping somewhere at a reasonably low price? Who decides what "sleazy" is? You?

 

I dont think I trust your judgement!

 

Right on!

[Markdoc]

Re: Is Crimefighting Ethical?

 

I dont think I like that GM

 

Truth to tell, he never did get the hang of being a GM. He ran interesting "hard" scenarios, where if you triumphed at all (and success was always less likely than failure), you got a *real* sense of achievement. And he had the rules down pat, which meant that combat moved smoothly and fast.

 

But he never understood that it's not supposed to be "GM vs Players". I stuck with his games for a few years because a) he was a nice, interesting guy, and part of our social group and since we always had at least one other game going at the time, his games allowed me to rip loose and indulge in a bit of wargamey-style tactical roleplaying.

 

But none of his games ever ran more than a short story arc, and in the end, everyone was "too busy" to join the next one. As a player he was fine, albeit intensely competitive. We still chat occasionally by email or in person when I'm in NZ, though we haven't seen each other for 10 years IRL

 

cheers, Mark

[David Blue]

Re: Is Crimefighting Ethical?

 

Our western law is' date=' basically, based up the idea of giving up on personal "revenge/vengeance" for crimes committed against you (whatever they may be) and giving this power of "revenge/vengeance" to an uninterested 3rd party (the police/justic system) on the understanding that they, being emotion free will be better enabled to enact true "justice".[/quote']To the extent that that is true, there are many problems with it.

 

One of the problems - only one of many - is that the uninterested authorities may be all too "uninterested" in the problems of people whose rights can be ignored with practical impunity. The governor with links to the Klan is not necessarily all that interested in doing anything about lynchings. The federal government that sponsors giant killer robots to take care of the mutant problem is not necessarily all that interested in defending mutant rights. The officials who have or are courting sweetheart deals with organized crime, or jihad terror supporting governments, or Hydra or whoever may see to it that the peace is upheld in a partial and circumscribed way.

 

Or, there simply may be no solution the at a price that the authorities see as reasonable for dealing with the problems of unimportant people. This is a very common case, and I used to see it often enough that I treat it as the normal case in my games.

 

There is a regular talk that gets given in cases like this, where the point is for the authorities to let the complainants know that they had better make their peace with the people that they are afraid of, because they are not going to get any protection, without the authorities taking responsibility for that. It's the same in principle whether it's the government forces telling villagers in the hills how things stand with bandits demanding protection, and the slippery line is of course that "this is not a high priority economic area," or a much more mundane case I'm aware of where the neighbours of a violently crazy woman with a large gangster boyfriend avoid confronting her, including by making her loans that nobody supposes she is likely to repay, because she's already burned two people out of their homes (which is how I became aware of the case), and though everyone knew who did it, there were no eye-witnesses, so the police just said: "try to keep peace in your neighbourhood, don't be needlessly provocative and making complaints to the law all the time." Since the woman apparently regards not giving her a loan when she wants one as provocative... That's what "the talk" is about.

 

Then what?

 

Suppose that instead of me or you being asked "what do I do?" it was Mister Incredible? His answer would probably not be "avoid her as best you can, and pretend you're not home."

 

His answer would more likely be: "Don't pay. I'll wait with a camera. Your home will not be torched. And I don't care about her criminal boyfriend."

 

And that, one way or another, would probably get him fired. (Again.) And he would do it anyway, because he's a superhero to the marrow of his bones.

 

Is that ethical? It's supremely ethical. (Well, except from the point of view of the government, and Mrs. Incredible.)

 

 

And we put up with the times it "goes wrong" and a bad person is set free' date=' because it's better that a guilty man go free rather than an innocent man be punished for a crime he didn't commit. (or words to that effect).[/quote']Often what that boils down to is that the powerful take little interest in injustices - past, ongoing and in prospect - done to the powerless.

 

Superheroes see it differently. That, plus the fact that they have the power to do something about it, makes them superheroes.

 

 

Now balance this with the popular thread in modern fiction that allows the person who has been wronged to take the law into their own hands. The Deathwish series of films for example grows from this idea' date=' as well as most westerns.[/quote']To quote Frank Castle: "Not vengeance ... [vengeance is what the madwoman takes when she's "insulted" by the refusal to lend her money or by similar affronts] ... punishment."

 

But it's not even that, but justice, or not even that but protection, without which in practice people don't have the security and dignity that lets them live the lives of citizens.

 

 

It seems that we all secretly object to the common code we're brought up to follow (leave it to the police) and long for the return of "eye for an eye' date=' tooth for a tooth". Whether this is due to the percieved problems in our modern justice systems or it's that we're still so close to our emotional break points... Who can say?[/quote']Sometimes it's a question of thinking about what's right, when you've woken up from the dream of a "social contract" that is not really in force for some. Given that the police didn't take care of it yesterday, and aren't taking care of it today, and aren't going to take care of it tomorrow...

 

What then? Is "it's not my problem (any more)" a good enough answer?

 

 

I've never had anything bad enough that the police were needed' date=' occur to me so I can't say if vigilanteism is a bad thing or not. But it does break the common codes we need to live by in the Polis.[/quote']Not necessarily. It all depends on the circumstances.

 

By the way, vigilantism, done right, works. Sydney's trains at night used to be unpleasantly menacing and dangerous. Nothing was done about it. The Guardian Angels (working on an American model) started making patrols on the trains. (I was too busy at the time to do anything about that but make donations and say thanks.) This was Totally! Unacceptable! Vigilantism! said the police and the government. While fear on the trains hadn't been a problem for the authories, self-help was. Expensive and extensive reforms soon made the trains safer and more pleasant to travel on. (Though of course no credit to vigilantes!)

 

The Angels soon faded out - their job done. Was what they did ethical or unethical? The answer might depend on whether you habitually travelled by train or limousine.

[Trebuchet]

Re: Is Crimefighting Ethical?

 

We've been talking this around at home and can't actually come up with a single way in which being a vigilante could be a good thing' date=' except in the specific (superhero) case of tackling super-powered crime that can't be tackled any other way.[/quote']Keep in mind that most comic supers stop villains in the act. Batman either catches the mugger/rapist/robber/supervillain in the act or investigates first and then swings in to kick butt. Most four-color comics also use a similar formula - "Villain X is attacking downtown, let's go!" That's the whole point of patrolling in city-based games - you're catching the bad guys when there's no doubt of a crime being committed.

 

Just as food for thought: In the US, armed citizens mistakenly shoot the wrong person far less often than the police do. Unlike cops arriving at a scene cold, the armed citizen already knows who the bad guy is - the guy breaking into his house or assaulting a woman in an alley. The cops don't, and an innocent bystander might well be mistaken for a criminal based on vague dispatch descriptions and shot. Someone holding a gun or knife might simply have picked it up or even be legally defending themselves.

[Psylint]

Re: Is Crimefighting Ethical?

 

In america at least, the private citizen fighting crime as it happens is legal, not that that has anything to do with ethics.

 

Emmanuel Kant used to say that a person treats himself immorally if he fails to pursue the excellence of his capabilities. If one were bullet proof or what have you, one might join the police or the FBI, but then you would be limited by the intelligence, wisdom, and morality of those appointed above you.

 

It is quite clear, at least in the current sense, that Kantian ethics do not hold sway in this American government just think about the "wink and nod" concerning torture of various prisoners, excuse me unlawfully detainees, in the war on terror. In such circumstances, were I endowed with such power, I would go vigilante, because it is clear to me that my moral sense is greater than that exhibited by the system (which incidentally is the way it should be).

[David Blue]

Re: Is Crimefighting Ethical?

 

There's also what I call the "Silkwood scenario" - not because I have come to a final opinion of that case, which remains muddy and controversial, but just because it is an immediately recognisable label for cases where you want to keep a whistelblower alive. In cases like this, from an intelligent whisteblower's point of view, a superhero team with a reputation for competence and being beholden to nobody looks a far better idea than leaving your survival to uninterested authorities.

 

Consider the case of highly decorated hero cop Detective Sergeant Roger Rogerson.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Rogerson

A man like that fears nothing but a jury skeptical of concocted evidence and "you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" testimony. Anyone testifying against or raising persistent fuss about a true police hero like this was likely to be murdered, either by one of his contract-killer friends or by one of his badge-wearing oh-so-supportive police colleagues. "Just handing her over to the authorities" would make you an upstanding citizen - and put blood on your hands. That's another kind of "Silkwood scenario".

 

There are all sorts of situations where the power, wealth and privilege ranged against individuals is so disproportionate that the sole issue is to keep them alive for long enough for the great mass of ordinary people (because you can't bribe everybody) to be informed and to get interested in what in Hades' name has gone on.

 

Policeman: "We're detaining you in connection with the murder of James McCord."

Lincoln Six Echo: "What? He was helping us! He was my friend."

Policeman: "Note that anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.:

Jordan Two Delta: "What's a court of law?"

- The Island (2005)

 

A situation like that doesn't call for supine deference to the powers that be and a cool lack of interest in what may happen to a couple of powerless individuals in the meantime, before the social contract, or Heaven, or Karma or whatever works its magic; it calls for bulletproof friends with immense moral courage, for the next ten minutes to a day or so. (And as much network news coverage as you can get.) And if those friends have a habit of wearing capes, and their underwear on the outside, that's not a problem.