{"id":277,"date":"2003-05-10T12:20:58","date_gmt":"2003-05-10T17:20:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/?p=277"},"modified":"2014-11-10T16:04:20","modified_gmt":"2014-11-10T23:04:20","slug":"x_liberals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/05\/10\/x_liberals.html","title":{"rendered":"X-Liberals?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Heh. I try to avoid too many stereotypes about the Left or the Right, but this article<\/a> tickled a funny bone — probably because it’s about comic books. It starts off noting that a lot of folks have lauded the fine liberal values embodied in the X-Men.<\/p>\n

I don’t know where some of you are getting the idea that the X-Men are liberals.
\nXavier’s school is an exclusive private school. Liberals would put the mutant kids in public schools because it’s more egalitarian.
\nThe X-Men are not asking for affirmative action\/preferential treatment for their favored minority group; merely that they be treated like other people.
\nLiberal X-men would be spending their time trying to understand the root causes of anti-mutant sentiment, blaming themselves, rather than fighting against their enemies.
\nIn a liberal version of the first X-Men movie, the UN would have sent inspectors to the Statue of Liberty to successfully disarm Magneto without any violence, rather than having the X-Men attack unilaterally.
\nThe same people who support restrictive laws on guns because guns are dangerous are obviously the same people who support restrictive laws on mutants because mutants are dangerous. The X-Men realize that, like a gun, a mutant power is bad when it is used for bad purposes, but good when it is used for good purposes.
\nWolverine is hardly the posterboy for the anti-death penalty movement. And liberals think the EPA should be doing something about second-hand smoke from his cigar.<\/p>\n

Heh.<\/p>\n

Of course, a lot of that sense of X-folk as liberal comes as a legacy of the 60s, when the X-team was created as a commentary on racial prejudice. As much as folks may joke about what Liberalism and Conservativism means today, the Liberal movement was by and large in the fight against racism and Jim Crow, and Conservatives were by and large in favor of the status quo.<\/p>\n

Of course, the multi-axial nature of US party politics is such that you can have an old-school Southern conservative sure-was-an-active-racist-back-then like Robert Byrd in a senior position of the Democratic party.<\/p>\n

Anyway, I thought it was amusing.<\/p>\n

Of course, you could probably turn it around the other way. Here’s my stab at it:<\/p>\n

I don’t know where some of you are getting the idea that the X-Men are conservatives.
\nXavier’s school is fully inclusive and charges nothing for even the most impoverished student. Conservatives would only allow Old Money mutants to go there, like the Worthingtons, and would probably suggest that those sort of — funny-colored mutants might do better off in someone else’s school.
\nThe X-Men have women members who are just as powerful — if not moreso — than the men. and the men are always being encouraged to be in touch with their feelings. Clearly not a conservative institution.
\nProfessor X has this annoying respect for invading others minds. You know what John Ashcroft would do with that power.
\nA conservative X-team would give lip service to valuing the differences in powers between different members, but you know there would be a clear hierarchy on the team. And you think Professor X would have found the X-mansion so accessible?
\nConservative X-men would simply have wiped out the White House “pre-emptively,” and shipped any surviving aides to their “special school” in New York for further interrogation.
\nIn a conservative version of the first X-Men movie, the X-folks would have simply let Magneto kill everyone at the UN meeting, and good riddance to them.
\nThe same people who support unrestrictive laws on guns because of the need for self-defense are obviously the same people who would support laws to treat mutants as “trespassers” on human Earth, and thus liable to be shot on sight.
\nWolverine is hardly the posterboy for the law-and-order types. And only Liberals would have their primary transport be a peaceful jet with no stealth technology or provocative weaponry.<\/p>\n

And so forth.<\/p>\n

Of course, which group engages in private, off-the-record, unacknowledged meetings with the President to set major policy?<\/p>\n

Heh.<\/p>\n

UPDATE<\/u>: At least this discussion is more amusing than going into the accusations that X2 <\/i>is an attack on Islam<\/a>. I kid you not.<\/p>\n

Project Islamic H.O.P.E. national director Najee Ali claims that Singer is out to paint Muslims in a bad light. “Within the first five minutes of ‘X2,’ an evil villain, ‘Colonel William Stryker,’ is in the White House signing a document,” Ali declares. “As he signs, he is shown wearing a ring featuring the Arabic symbol for ‘Allah.’ Col. Stryker was never depicted as a Muslim in the comic book series. We feel this is a subtle but obvious attack on Islam.”<\/p>\n

Fox execs are scratching their head, too, not able to see it in any blow-ups of the scene in question. <\/p>\n

(update via GoaF<\/a>)<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Heh. I try to avoid too many stereotypes about the Left or the Right, but this article tickled a funny bone — probably because it’s about comic books. It starts…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11,715,15,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media-comics","category-crime-punishment","category-media","category-politics-law"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":128052,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/09\/18\/a-chance-mutant-super-hero-encounter.html","url_meta":{"origin":277,"position":0},"title":"A chance mutant super-hero encounter","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 18-Sep-15 4:45am","format":false,"excerpt":"It was winter of 75-76 (because it was snowing in Flagstaff), and my family took a trip from LA to southern Arizona up to the Grand Canyon.At the Grand Canyon lodge \/ store \/ something of that sort, my mom offered to buy me a comic book from the spinner\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/lf.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1129,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2001\/10\/14\/syndication_hel.html","url_meta":{"origin":277,"position":1},"title":"Syndication Hell","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 14-Oct-01 12:30pm","format":false,"excerpt":"When Marvel, Tribune Entertainment and Fireworks Entertainment were first sued by 20th Century Fox over the new Mutant X TV show (\"No, it's really not about the X-Men. Really!\"), there...","rel":"","context":"In "Comics & Comic Books"","block_context":{"text":"Comics & Comic Books","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/media-comics"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13541,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/11\/18\/not_that_i_would_care_to.html","url_meta":{"origin":277,"position":2},"title":"Not that I would care to be quoted from 1998, mind you, but …","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 18-Nov-08 2:28pm","format":false,"excerpt":"And now the liberals want to stop President Reagan from selling chemical warfare agents and military equipment to Saddam Hussein, and why? Because Saddam allegedly gassed a few Kurds in...","rel":"","context":"In "Comics & Comic Books"","block_context":{"text":"Comics & Comic Books","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/media-comics"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4193,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/01\/21\/mutie_scum_2.html","url_meta":{"origin":277,"position":3},"title":"Mutie scum!","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 21-Jan-03 2:27pm","format":false,"excerpt":"A judge has declared that the X-Men, that outcast band of mutant heroes, feared and hated by the ones they protect, are, in fact, not human, but \"nonhuman creatures.\" Ironically,...","rel":"","context":"In "Comics & Comic Books"","block_context":{"text":"Comics & Comic Books","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/media-comics"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":25140,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/06\/are-comic-books-too-liberal-for-their-own-good.html","url_meta":{"origin":277,"position":4},"title":"Are comic books too liberal for their own good?","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 6-Jan-12 3:47pm","format":false,"excerpt":"That's the assertion of Darin Wagner in his Bleeding Cool News essay \"How Liberalism May Be Hurting Comic Book Sales\". In it, he purports to note how comic books have gotten so incredibly liberal in some of their stated views that it's hurting the stories and the sales of comics.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Comics & Comic Books"","block_context":{"text":"Comics & Comic Books","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/media-comics"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/marvel-civil-war-300x173.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":130614,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/05\/07\/crafting-conservative-vs-liberal-messages-on-the-environment.html","url_meta":{"origin":277,"position":5},"title":"Crafting Conservative vs. Liberal messages on the environment","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 7-May-16 2:08pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Interesting study about how the values you appeal to can affect whether a pro-environment message you craft has a positive or negative effect on conservatives who read it.[1] A message that appeals to compassion, justice, and fairness will tend to trigger negative reactions from conservative readers; a pro-environment message that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=277"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47859,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277\/revisions\/47859"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}