Masked Vigilantism (Why So Serious Part 2)

When I was first asked to do the project on crime in America, I was excited. Why? Well I usually have one or two novels going at any given time. But recently, I was able to narrow it down to one story. This one had literally been in the planning stages for years.

Why? Well, many of the characters had names that I knew I wanted to use... but wasn't quite sure who they would be on paper. So a lot of scrap papers and bits of writing I have scattered all over my house and through my notebooks all contain extremely distinct characters... with the same names.

Other than that, I first got the idea for this story after seeing The Dark Knight. You can probably tell by now that I'm a huge fan of the movie. In fact, as soon as I can find out how to put video on this thing, I'm going to post a few Joker impressions (of which I'm told they are quite "banging").

Every time I see a superhero movie, it always gives me an edge to write something about a superhero... but I was never that good of an artist. However, my natural abilities include being very knowledgeable about history. So why not a novel with a historical perspective on superheroes?

Spiderman and Superman stories tend to concentrate on nothing more than the lives and the superheroes and their secret identities. They hardly go in-depth into the effects that masked vigilantes have on society as a whole. The Dark Knight was the first superhero film I saw that had that (Fantastic Four did too, but it was... just done wrong).

Another graphic novel that really showed the superhero world and the real world colliding was Watchmen. Reading Watchmen was as much of an experience as reading The Historian or The Bourne Identity (two of the best books you'll ever read).

Still, this superhero story hung in my mind for a long time... finally I picked up a pencil with a head full of 100 pages of notes, and just started writing. Soon after the first "chapter" (the story itself isn't divided into chapters, but the fictionpress account is), I wrote a seven page outline from the very beginning of the story to the end.

Eventually, I got a lot of my friends to read it. Only, I kept having to send it in an email as an attachment. And then I would get the email address wrong, yada-yada...

Finally, I decided to revive my old Fictionpress account and just post it there. So when my readers/reviewers want to check out the latest installment, I just hand them the link. If anyone's really interested, here's my take on the concept of masked vigilantism in the modern world.

The basic premise (the historical aspect) is that when the crime rate rises, so does masked vigilantism. The trend begins in the 1880s, during the period of mass immigration from southern and eastern Europe. The increase in immigration led to an increase in poverty which inevitably leads to more violent crime. More crime, more vigilantes wearing masks.

Why the masks? To avoid legal repercussions. To avoid any sort of fame or infamy attached to their names. Some would resort to killing criminals, others would beat them senseless and leave them for the police. Eventually, as crime went down and public opinion turned against the vigilantes, the mask rate would decline as well.

As it does, history would cycle. Crime rises in the 1920s and '30s, so do vigilantes. Another spike in the '60s, and a lull in the '70s and early '80s. And then of course, we have the crack epidemic. In our history, the decline of the crack epidemic could be attributed to Roe v. Wade (see below post, better yet, read Freakonomics). So say Roe never reached the Supreme Court. Abortion was left up to the states and the crime rate never fell?

Would the crack epidemic lead into the 21st Century? We may never know, but that's where my novel A History of Superheroes begins: September 28, 2000.

Note: Just to distance myself from making either Republicans or Democrats out to be the bad guys (which I would love to... but that would mean one of them would have to be the "good guys," which I don't want to do) I've replaced them with the Freedom Party and the Equality Party. Both have traits of the GOP and Dem, but you can decide for yourself which is which.

P.S. I would really prefer not to do this, but as a writer, I am very picky about authorship. If you're too crooked, too uncreative, or are just going to take what I write and claim it as your own, don't bother to click the link. I will prosecute you. Just respect the work and enjoy it.

Why So Serious?

Crime has been around since the dawn of mankind. And with crime, punishment was invented. In modern society, criminologists try to study crime trends. Using homicides as the standard violent crime, graphs from the Department of Justice make it clear where the trends lie:

(C) Department of Justice

I know the graph only calculates from 1950 to 2005, but the message is still there.

Basically, in the periods from 1920-1933 (Prohibition Era), 1963-1972 (Vietnam Era), and 1984-1993 (Crack Epidemic), the homicide rate spiked. In all three of these periods, the cause was obvious: reaction to the 18th Amendment, outrage over the frivolous war in Vietnam, fall in cocaine prices leading to the conversion to crack.

However, homicide and other violent crimes didn't disappear between those periods. It simply fell. Even though statistically, the United States is in a downswing in our crime levels, we're still the nation with the #1 homicide rate in the industrialized world.

Based on some observations, I've been able to narrow down three major sources of violent crime in Modern American Society:

1. Immigration

The FBI contains a list of most wanted murderers. Note, this is not the Top 10 Most Wanted, but this is simply a huge list of wanted murderers. Notice how at least 75% of them are Hispanic. Reading into their profiles, the majority of them are illegal immigrants who've murdered before coming into the US, murdered while in the US and are on the run, or murdered in the US and jumped back over the border to Mexico.

What makes illegal immigrants kill? Well, the majority of immigrants come here looking for cheap labor. Some aren't satisfied with the shoddy work and resort to dealing drugs. The underground drug world is a deadly game where oftentimes, desperate people will do desperate things.

2. Drug Use

About 30% of violent crimes are committed while the accused is under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

The solution wouldn't be criminalize alcohol. We tried that. It didn't work. But perhaps legalizing illicit drugs and regulating their trade could reduce the level of drug-related crimes and certainly bring down the amount of drug-trade related crime by some 90% just as it did bringing down bootlegging in the 1930s.

3. Homelessness/Poverty

This graph explains itself.

Solutions?

Now, it would be easy to say "If we could militarize the border, there'd be less crime," or "If people stopped using drugs, there'd be less crime," of "If there was no poverty, there'd be no crime." Unfortunately, those things are going to happen regardless of what laws are put in place. In fact, it's my firm belief that laws were made to be broken, and the harder the laws, the more people are going to do them.

But perhaps there are other solutions?

One item that people cite as a reason for the continuing drop in crime is the overcrowding of prisons. This creates an entirely new problem altogether, but with more murderers, burglars, vandals, and rapists behind bars, of course there's going to be a huge decrease in incidents. Of course, it also puts a greater strain on our already strained tax dollars.

What about thinking "outside the box" so to speak? In Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner's book Freakonomics (which I'm reading at the moment) they cite a very astute timing-related reason for the decline in crime at the time of the Crack Epidemic.

The average age for committing violent crimes would be 18-24. At the time of the Crack Epidemic, 18-24 year olds would have been born before 1973. In that year, a landmark Supreme Court case was handed down: Roe v. Wade. The plaintiff, Norma McCorvey (alias Jane Roe) was the poster-child for single-motherhood: drug abusing, no education, welfare using, and bitter. She fought hard for her right to "choose" but given the fact that legal precedings take too damn long, she ironically gave birth to the baby just before the Supreme Court ruled that abortion was legal in all 50 states.

Fastforwarding to 1993, the crime rate suddenly dropped while all the experts (including President Clinton who warned of a generation of youth who would terrorize America) said it would rise exponentially. No one considered the fact that those who were fostering the Crack Epidemic simply grew up... and the next generation who would be in prime condition for committing crimes (lower class, careless parents, drug-abusing families) simply didn't exist thanks to Jane Roe.

(Ironically, Norma McCorvey later converted to Baptist Christianity and became a firm Pro-Lifer dedicating her life to overturning Roe v. Wade.)

So, aborting babies who are more prone to a criminal life style is one option. Capital punishment is another option.

The graph doesn't lie. Capital Punishment was against public opinion in 1963 (just as homicide levels began to spike) so the courts struck capital punishment down, bringing the total numbers of executions to 0. As you can see, the result was that murder didn't seem like it was punished so badly any more. When Capital Punishment was reinstated in 1972, the number of executions rose dramatically, inversely proportional to the amount of murders being committed.

I'm being increasingly convinced that humanity is a problem that can't be cured... except through death. The only conceivable solutions to curing the homicide rate only end in... more death. If you can come up with a solution to begin curbing our homicide rate, I welcome the proposal. Otherwise I don't see how there could be another solution.

P.S. Based on the timing of the last spikes, watch out for the next homicide spike around 2020.

I'm Illy

Apparently T.I. is "Illy". Now I love hip-hop and rap more than most kids who listen to brutal death metal, but what is with modern day rappers taking old school lines and acting like they created the line and all of a sudden they have the flow to take over NYC?

"Wrist so frosty
Neck so chilly
All on my mind is to get more millies
Niggas talk shit that's silly
Shawty he ain't about that
Really? Is he?
Nigga I'm illy
Yeah! Haha haha, hey
I run this city
Clearly
Tell em get lost I’m busy really
Nigga I'm illy"


T.I. is at the top of his game here...

(I actually like T.I. and his new album Paper Trails. Check it out.)

Or we could look at Wu-Tang Clan, probably the best rap group to ever exist.

"[Verse Four: Ghostface Killer]

Slammin a hype-ass verse til ya head burst
I ramshack dead in the track, and that's that
Rap assassin, fastin, quick to blast and hardrock
I ran up in spots like Fort Knox!
I'm hot, top notch, Ghost thinks with logic
Flashback's how I attacked your whole project
I'm raw, I'm rugged and raw! I repeat, if I die
My seed'll be ill like me
Approachin me, you out of respect, chops ya neck
I get vexed, like crashing up a phat-ass Lex'
So clear the way, make way, yo! Open the cage
Peace, I'm out, jettin like a runaway slave"

Now I've certainly heard better lyrics in rap, but clearly Ghostface is more "ill" then T.I. In pretty much every aspect. Suck it commercial hip-hop.