When you think of movies involving superheroes or super-spies, who do you really remember? Do you remember the superhero with his spandex and plastic nipples? Do you remember all of the cool gadgets or the super powers? Or do you come away remembering the villain?

When you are a fan of the superhero Batman, do you really care that much about what is happening with Bruce Wayne and his latest ward who is dressing up in strange little shorts and a bight yellow cape? Or do you remember the Joker or Two-Face and what diabolical thing he's been doing?

When you think of James Bond do you remember how he lit his cigarette or do you remember Auric Goldfinger and his laser and golden gun? Yes, the Astin-Martin was pretty cool with its bulletproof shield and ejector-seat, but wasn't Oddjob also rather interesting with his decapitating hat?

See, it's tough to be the good guy. Good guys ultimately win the day and they often walk off into the sunset with the girl at the end, but it's the horrible stuff the bad guy did that really sticks in your mind. This is probably why the anti-hero is popular these days. They combine the good and the bad into one interesting and more complex character. I mean, really, wasn't Darth Vader more interesting after the first movie when he was just bad and you didn't know his whole tragic back story?

I bring this up because the United States, a long time ago, decided to set itself up to be the good guy in the world. Back then the bad guys were the British and their kings and the United States was trying to do something a little different. I mean, sure, there were attempts at democracy before. We all know the Greeks did a pretty good job and that the Romans tried a Republic and managed for a while. However, for a real, written-down, constitutional democracy to exist as a way to govern a country, it was a pretty novel idea.

The idea seemed simple enough back then. There was no internet. Heck, there weren't even phones and telemarketers to deal with yet. There were no terrorists or, if there were, they were probably called by something else. The real problems were keeping roads open, keeping people disease-free and worrying about Great Britain sending fleets of ships to invade.

So, our fore-fathers, each of them flawed men, but men who overcame their flaws to become something great, did their best. They were not psychic. So, to say that certain things are not in the Constitution because they didn't intend them to be is a silly argument. Even the most brilliant of them, transported to the modern era, would probably end up drooling and insane, their brains simply not able to process the amazing amount of data we process every day.

They did envision a country where most of the people would get a “fair shake.” They envisioned a country where those who were accused of crimes would get to know what crimes they were being accused of. Those accused of crimes would be allowed to mount a decent defense. They would be able to see the evidence against them and be able to counter those measures.
They didn't create those laws just for the people it turned out were actually “good” people who may have been falsely accused of some crime. They created those laws and those rules for the worst of the worst. The worst murderer or rapist should have the same ability to defend themselves as anyone else. This doesn't make them any less of a scumbag, but the problem with being the good guys is that you have to be fair, you see. You can't be the good guys and set up the rules for one person and then change them for someone else.

They probably envisioned a world where justice would be meted out with a fair hand. They probably envisioned courts successfully weeding out the junk and the false claims and dispensing even-handed justice. More then likely they did not envision a world where people were strapped to a board, had a rag placed over their mouths, and then have water poured over them to give them the sensation of drowning. I do not think it is possible to know how they would have reacted to that kind of thing. I prefer to believe they would have bee shocked and outraged, but I could be wrong.

At the same time, even if you are a jerkwad ex-cop who appears to have murdered two of his wives, you should have the same fair play in the courts as everyone else. I know, there are issues behind the scenes here as well. Some say he has had help from his cop buddies all along and the man is completely insufferable in his smugness, but using hearsay evidence against him sets a bad and dangerous precedent. The other problem is that evidence is likely to be considered un-Constitutional and the case will just get thrown out.

See, it's tough being the good guys. You want to do the same things the bad guys do. The bad guys torture people and they cut off people's heads. The bad guys clamp down on those who say things that the government doesn't agree with. The bad guys do things that are bad because they are...well, the bad guys.

When you have set yourself up as the good guys, you have to deny yourself those things. You have to do things better. You have to show the world and the bad guys that your way of doing things is the better way to do them. You have to do this even if it risks the bad guys thinking you are weak and doing something bad to you.

The world is not a fair place. However, saying that and then just throwing up your hands and giving in as if that can never change doesn't do anything to help humanity. If that were the case we would not have come as far as we have. We humans have a long, long way to go before we can actually say we have achieved much of what we dream. Getting there means making compromises and perhaps doing things we don't necessarily like. I just think that we should try to do them the right way and show everyone why the right way is better.