This Is Unacceptable

I wasn't a big fan of Captain America when I was a little kid. I knew of him, of course, and I spent several hours in my front yard throwing around a trash can lid (in retrospect I'm a little grossed out that my parents let me play with a dirty trash can lid....ew), but I didn't really know what he was about.

When I got a couple of years older the few issues featuring Cap I'd aquired didn't do much to inspire me. In the early 80s Cap was having some pretty standard superhero adventures, fighting guys like Batroc the Leaper and Mister Hyde, things that I could have gotten from a Spider-Man comic. I knew that he was supposed to be a natural leader and that he was kind of the moral center of the superhero community, he still didn't really stand out to me in the way I was expecting at the time. He was a patriotic-themed superhero, but he didn't have many adventures that capitalized on that theme.

By contrast, however, I LOVED the All-Star Squadron. I jumped on a couple of years into the series' run, and by that time the main line up was Liberty Belle (the patriotic-themed leader), Commander Steel and Robot Man (the "titanium twins"), Firebrand (the redheaded femme fatale), Tarantula (the guy with coolest anachronistic costume ever), and Johnny Quick (the other other super speed guy). With regular appearances of characters like Doctor Mid-Nite, the Golden Age Green Lantern, and Hawkman, this was almost too good for my eight year old little brain to process.

What I liked best, though, was that they fought The Nazis. To be honest, I didn't know what the whole deal was with the Nazis at the time. The rural Ohio elementary school curriculum in the early 80s didn't really talk much about eugenics, anti-Semitic propaganda, and genocide, but I knew they were the bad guys from World War II and they wanted to take over the world. Good enough for me.

Since that time, "I don't like Nazis" has been, especially since learning the extent of what they did to expand their fascist agenda, a decisive opinion of mine. I've had political views that have switched from one side to the other depending on how well I could think for myself and the extent of my knowledge about them, but "I don't like Nazis" has been an unwavering constant.

About a year and a half ago, I'd have 

assumed that if I walked up to any random person and said, "Hey!  I don't like Nazis!", their response would have been something like "Well...duh!". Now, however, it seems that a declaration that Nazis are bad is an "inflammatory statement".

Now, I admit to not always being the sharpest tool in the shed. I tend to miss a few finer details from time to time, but I honestly thought for about eight years that our country was making real social progress.

I mean, I knew the Klan and the Neo-Nazis were a thing obviously, but I was under the impression that by now they were just a fringe group of a few frustrated weirdos getting together to share hate memes. I knew about Pat Robertson and guys like him, but I always assumed it was lonely little old ladies who had lost most of their good sense and just desperately needed something to feel like they belonged. I knew about the questionable the first of the questionable police shootings of the past few years, but having worked in a culturally diverse law enforcement department for over fifteen years I assumed it was simply an isolated incident.

Waking up to your own naievity can be a jarring experience. Now, I see women and people of color being harassed and mocked as "fake geeks", because some sad angry little men think that comics should be a media only for white males. I see people who have the courage to stand up for positive social changes openly ridiculed, as if the only acceptable response is to sit quietly and to accept all injustices they experience and witness. I see people who openly identify with the Nazi ideology marching in blatant defiance of racial, religious, and sexual equality, carrying torches of intimidation and shouting slogans of hatred. I see the televised zealots using scare-tactics propoganda, blaming man-made and natural disasters on those of us who dare to believe that women should be allowed to think for themselves and that LGBT persons should be treated like people. I see politicians twisting the rule of law in their own image to accommodate their "sincerely held beliefs" of violence and intolerance.

This

Is

UNACCEPTABLE

To reference another childhood comic book anecdote (because that's what I do here), I'm reminded of the Marvel anti-mutant terrorist group The Right, which featured prominently in X-Factor during the latter half of the 80s. These were my absolute "favorite" villains at the time (in the way that King Joffrey and Ramsey Bolton are "great" villains). Although it had been founded by a former Nazi, HYDRA had devolved into a bunch of clowns in green jumpsuits wreaking general havoc. Flag Smasher looked cool, but ULTIMATUM seemed fairly generic as far as villainous organizations went. AIM was just a bunch of science geeks in beekeeper suits.

The Right, by contrast, was single-mindedly devoted to the total extinction of an entire subsect of humanity, pretty much the most Nazi thing you can be dedicated to. Add to this the betrayal of Warren Worthington by his confident Cameron Hodge, the torture/murder of his girlfriend, and the amputation of his wings, not to mention the insidious grins painted onto the faceplates of the Right's armored shock troops, the Smiley's, and you have a concept that is begging to be hated.

When the Right were reoccurring villains in X-Factor I was in junior high. Back then, the only thing I knew about politics was what little I could gleam together from Saturday Night Live skits. As far as I knew, the name "The Right" indicated that they felt that they were in the right, or that they felt that they had the right to do what they were doing. Today, however, the symbolism writer Louise Simonson chose to use is clear, perhaps now more than it was thirty years ago, as the term "the Right" - as in the political Right, the Religious Right, the alt-Right - has become almost synonymous with the degradation of women, the oppression of any race that isn't white, the demonization of any belief that isn't Christian, and the persecution of any sexuality other than heterosexual.

To anyone striving to follow the Paladin's Path, the Nazi way should be entirely intolerable. No doubt there are innumerable people who don't necessarily subscribe to Nazi idealology but aren't overly concerned by it as it doesn't effect them. This is not the path of the Paladin. I'm a white, heterosexual male, and I'm cognizant enough about how alternative faiths are often treated that I hardly ever discuss it out loud, so the Nazi agenda really only effects me personally on a peripheral level. As empathy and compassion should be paramount to anyone dedicated to the Path, the idea of others being targeted for reasons beyond my personal experience is infuriating.

What is even worse, however, are those that don't openly identify with white supremacists/nationalist groups, and may even publically denounce them, but blatantly uphold their agendas. These may be cults of personality that use various media to stir up hatred for people's of different races and/or faiths, or call for the criminalization of LGBT persons. It may be those who have less far-reaching power, but have tremendous immediate physical and legal power to directly target, harass, injure, and kill those same citizens.

This is not the path of the Paladin.

No matter your gender or your sexual identity, a true Paladin stands with you. No matter your race or nationality, a true Paladin is your brother or sister. Regardless of your faith, or none at all, a true Paladin is your friend.

There's a lot to do, my friends.

It's time to get back to work.