Politics in Media - The Good, the Bad, and the Preachy

Because I am against conscription.

Conscription leads to increased government participation and civic equality, with the added benefit of lowering the country’s willingness to go to war. I don’t think it’s a bad thing.

And don’t forget that very few conscription schemes require everyone to fight. Most countries allow another public service option, such as working in a government office or going into academia or medicine.

To use an example, if someone can heal any disease with a touch then I believe they should be required to work in a hospital. Anything else would be a disservice to society.

Speaking as an Actual Pacifist, you're not going to convince me if I have death rays in my fingertips that I should be required to kill the government's enemies.

Which is basically the justification for Weapon X.

Actual Pacifism is a nice idea but doesn’t really work at all in reality. And let’s be real here, if someone can shoot death beams their career choices are probably limited.

Also, if I recall wasn’t Weapon X more of a generic supersolider program?

Edited by archonspeaks on Oct 26th 2018 at 11:56:28 AM

What Weapon X is has been retconned more than once. It's apparently now the tenth iteration of the Weapon Plus project which was originally an anti-mutant program. Weapon I was Captain America, btw.

Edited by M84 on Oct 27th 2018 at 3:00:33 AM

The Draft is a idea that my upbringing had teach me to strongly dislike. Is interesting see people actually discussing it.

Personally, I think that superpowered are cases where regular rules are excepted. You can't treat like everyone else to someone who is totally unlike everyone else.

True. But it has nothing to do with oversight for superheroes.

Thing is, this isn't the first time the heroes of the Marvel universe have relied on a precog before so it's even more nonsensical to portray Carol as a fascist for doing so.

@Archonspeaks: I'm a little hesitant to say that someone should always be required to use their services altruistically. I mean, I'm not some crazy objectivist but legally demanding selfless servitude can run into issues (IE, slavery).

Now, with conscription, I'm pretty skeptical of the concept (see above) but I'm open-minded to it past a certain Godzilla Threshold. But if mundanes have to sign up for a draft it makes sense to have metahumans part of that system too.

With super-power registration in general I'd say it's comparable to gun control.

Having said that, part of the issue is Marvel itself. The thing is, the government in Marvel is usually not good. The X-Men in particular are a good example of this sort of thing. And also Captain America is typically the moral compass of the Marvel Universe. As such, having the Cap team up with people who want something similar to the X-Men predisposes people to a certain bias.

I mean, obviously there’s a limit you can’t pass for humanitarian reasons. But to use the above example, someone who can heal any disease with a touch probably shouldn’t be a painter. The government should do everything in its power to get that person where they need to be.

The Superhuman Registration Act established three things.

1. All superheroes were subject to government oversight, starting with registration.

2. All superhumans had to register with the government and undergo mandatory training.

3. All superhumans were subject to government service at need.

While ill-defined during Civil War, it was fully defined in Avengers: The Initiative.

A 16 year old girl named Cloud 9 could fly on a cloud and was taken by the government to be trained as a soldier, eventually killing Hydra soldiers to rescue President Bush 3 weeks in.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Oct 26th 2018 at 3:02:12 AM

I’m really struggling to see that as a bad thing. In fact, in a world with superheroes I’d say it’s pretty unarguably a good thing.

I'm trying to figure out where there's a benefit before I realized you're assuming the government in the Marvel Universe can be trusted whereas I view it as an evil government far worse than mainstream Earth-1's reality.

Having built multiple campaigns of genocide robots.

Having the 616-US government have superhumans will only lead to pain, misery, and horror.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Oct 26th 2018 at 3:06:59 AM

<pauses to think a little>

Yeah... there're waves of both overtly and covertly developed robots of doom created by governments of all descriptions in the Marvelverse... Hmmm.

Mind you, it's not like big business is too embarrassed to join in. Including Stark-owned enterprises.

And untrained and unsupervised superhumans running around is any better?

I think the portrayal of all marvel governments as pure evil misses the mark a little. Most are either benign or your average “we don’t like supers” comic government. And frankly, I’d take that over chaos any day and chaos is what you would have without some type of registration act similar to what’s described above.

I’ll also point out that a registration act isn’t far off the mark from what we actually have for various dangerous things in real life. We require registration and supervision to operate a vehicle, to be a doctor, to do basically anything with federal property. In a more direct comparison, the progressive states in the US require licensing to own a weapon. Why should superpowers be any different?

I think it's a very privileged position to take the idea the government is an ally versus many minority's experiences.

Especially the kind the X-men are supposed to represent.

I'm non-white and my race get pretty discriminated. At least the state had tried to give a fuck sometimes, not perfect, but better than nothing. And we are a Third World Nation.

Goverments are pretty neutral per se. Heck, one of the tactics of our own Far-Right party was to basically censor the goverment itself. And is not like they did support the state when they were in power, there a reason why a meme with our former dictator is the "Privatizating Ray".

Edited by KazuyaProta on Oct 26th 2018 at 5:42:04 AM

Again, your options are not perfect or nothing. And the point you’re making is kind of tangential to the discussion of super registration.

You’re basically arguing against gun control here out of fear that it would be used to discriminate or control the populace. It’s not a bad argument, it just seems a little weak considering the alternative.

I think if you try to apply gun control to mutants, you run into justifying persecution of minorities. Which is not the best way to handle the metaphor.

So, people, what do we think of the politics in THE PURGE?

The franchise is at it's best when it embraces it's horror roots.

And...minorities don't have superpowers, mutants do (at least some of them. Most In-Universe don't, but we never focus in them).

Edited by KazuyaProta on Oct 26th 2018 at 6:05:39 AM

Remind me again, does the SRA require that that superheroes require their secret identities? Because that does have its own set of issues.

• The most common retort being that with that info published, super-villains would would have the info to target their friends and family. Not everyone has hi-tech security systems like Stark or guards like Namor or T'challa
• Another problem (primarily for mutants^note specifically those that are hiding their powers from their family as per allegory) would be likened to an LGBT person being forced out of the closet, compounded by the fact that its the goverment doing it.

More relevant to the SRA in general. The idea of a forcing superheroes to require goverment approval and be drafted is a doubled edged sword. Being only a benefit in the right hands, but it might also help them in certain situations or prevent Reed Richards Is Useless. With the associated stigma that comes with being vigilantes done away with (though the question becomes if they, those that cannot wreak that level of destruction included, are going to be seen as walking nukes instead). It seems like a matter of "freedom" vs "security".

Edited by MorningStar1337 on Oct 26th 2018 at 4:24:26 AM

In the webcomic STRONG FEMALE PROTAGONIST, one of the villains made sure to purchase the copyright to all of the inventions of a female super-inventor and contract her for decades to all future intellectual property.

Then he kills the inventions because it makes more money with existing technology.

One of the less sympathetic characters is a guy who can increase the power of supers but refused to do so (forcing a regenerator to suffer horrible surgery every day to give organs to help people versus being able to make the organs they need automatically) because he hated the idea of helping "lesser" people.

So the hero beat them into doing it.

You’re mixing comparisons. The SRA is more analogous to weapons permits than discrimination against minorities, considering what exactly superheroes can do. Yes, mutants have been used as an allegory to minorities, but not in this context.

Frankly, there’s no real argument against super registration. If you can light people on fire with your mind someone needs to keep a tab on you.

Edited by archonspeaks on Oct 26th 2018 at 4:18:36 AM

NVM, thought someone was replying to me for some reason...

Edited by MorningStar1337 on Oct 26th 2018 at 4:27:12 AM

"The franchise is at it's best when it embraces it's horror roots.

"

Maybe but is not kinda bad to used as the extreme allegory of republicaism in general.

I mean, is not even subtle.

And with registration...the idea the goverment is evil is not bad but is naive to not thinking marticular person cant be bad ether, I mean cap become a nazis thanks to brainwashing, who the hell he is to give anyone a lecture?.

@charles What the SHRA meant changed depending on who was writing and what side they wanted you to root for.

If the writer was pro-Reg, then all the SHRA meant was that if you wanted to use your powers to fight crime, you had to undergo training. If you had powers but had no desire to fight crime, you’d be left alone.

@ archonspeaks I have no problem with Hydra members getting captured/killed but the decision to fight Hydra and be a superhero should be a choice. There was no reason to force Cloud 9 to become something she wasn’t. There are no shortage of people in the MU who would hunt down Hydra and other super villain voluntarily. Hell, Silver Sable runs an entire organization dedicated to capturing or killing war criminals (which adaptations seem to forget for some reason).

The issue with Civil War is that writers confused the SHRA with Mutant rights violations. Which is ironic given how little a role the X-Men played in the event.

Edited by windleopard on Oct 26th 2018 at 10:04:47 AM