WatchmenComicMovie.com Forum

Wow, this is a big theme tonight.

Labeling people right and wrong requires certainty, which requires a knowledge from some infallible source of all information , which many people claim to have. It's fine to have a theory you think is correct, as long as it is based on observations and experience, but even then you know that you cannot be certain, so acting in a severe way that will harm others with a false certainty is cruel if you are wrong (and you probably are... I mean who hasn't acted on a dumb idea and regretted it, seeing the consequences?).

You have absolutely no right to kill those who are wrong without certainty, if you did, everyone would. Everyone has different ideas about who is right and who is wrong, based on their unique experiences, so eventually everyone would be labeled wrong, and be killed by their fellow man.

No, it makes you a neanderthal. Back in the days of the caveman, whoever had the biggest club had the most power. That's how cavemen settled arguments: By brute force.

A few thousand years later, people started realizing that an eye for an eye really did leave everyone blind and that violence was not a fair or humane way of governing. By extension, the Founding Fathers of America knew that absolute power was too great and important a thing to be left in the hands of any one man. This served as the basis of American law and, incidentally, of Watchmen.

Veidt serves to teach us that no single person should be able to take the lives of millions and Rorschach illustrates why no individual can be allowed to serve as judge, jury and executioner.

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This is truly a madhouse. And I'm the lunatic running it. I've spent three years wondering if I should be proud or ashamed.

You don't agree with Moore's idea that it's never better to place yourself above society, sure. But who gives you the right to place yourself above society? What lets you decide that you're better than everyone else? If it's your 'strong moral convictions,' there are thousands of people you don't agree with who have beliefs just as strong as yours who would argue the same thing. What makes you better than them?

Who are you to decide who's "good" and who's "bad"?

I'm going to try to be intelligent and not get offended, because I think this is one of the core lessons that Watchmen tries to teach.

EDIT:

Couldn't have said it better myself. Thank you Curi.

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I was not referring to pimps or junkies or whomever else, but to the millions of people that would doubtless be killed if Rorschach had usurped the world's new-found harmony.

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He did it.

Besides that, I would like to add that killing innocent people does equal killing accused rapists. In the end, they're both murder.

There's a big difference between being sentenced to death by a jury of your peers in a court of law and being slaughtered by some madman because he thought you were guilty. It makes all the difference in the world.

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This is truly a madhouse. And I'm the lunatic running it. I've spent three years wondering if I should be proud or ashamed.

What Rorschach failed to see was that there was a fine line, a grey area one might say, that proved to be a difference between justice and lynching.

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I think I may have stumbled onto the Daily Kos boards here. Seriously, anybody who voted for McCain or supported the invasion of Iraq sound off.
P.S. Im not trolling. I actually believe this stuff, you do two tours in Iraq (Lieutenant with a degree in Economics from a state school, not psychology from anywhere fancy), you start to see the world in a different way then someone who got their masters in philosiphy at Yale.
Also our justice system is disproportional. Executions are very rare in America. Most muderers get time and spend their lives on death row for killing someone. Basically our society provides 3 hot meals, a gym, television, and arts and crafts to people who kill others. The whole scene with the dudes house getting burnt down was too good for the guy who murdered that little girl. Also nobody Rorschach KILLED, Im not saying hurt, deserved it and they were clearly guilty. Honestly, defense attorneys are skilled not at using facts to get their clients off but making cops look like idiots, using obscure evidence laws and whatnot. What justice is there in that. Heck I had jury duty once and before I was already predispositioned to vote the guy guilty, because cops dont arrest and charge innocent people, and I was right..he was guilty as hell.

Hey sorry about all the grammar. Im typing this between rounds in my counter-strike game so its kinda sloppy.

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"I wish all the liberals of the Earth had one throat....and I had my hands about it." -Rorschach, 2009
"Why are so few of us, in this forum, left active, healthy, and without personality disorders? " -Rorschach, 2009

Well, I'm from New Zealand, so I couldn't vote for McCain. We have our own right-wing bankers and ex-soldiers/cops to vote for.
Our whole damn country knows the invasion of Iraq was a sucker job, though. Cheney n' Rumsfeld sat back and watched their companies guns, aircraft, and missile sales go through the roof. WOMD my ass. WOMD was Bush's anti-psychic squid.

Oh, and even down there in the sleepy South Pacific we have bent cops too. But because we have no death penalty, the poor bastards who get wrongly locked up occasionally get out after a few decades.

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...evidently chicken-town.

Don't throw your paid vacation in a FOB at me as proof that the world would be better off if only it had the balls to kill all the homos and nonconformists.

And to deposit that the discretion of a police officer should be proof enough to convince anybody of guilt deserves nothing more than another one of these:



It sounds like you'd be more at home in Saudi Arabia instead of the United States.

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He did it.

Oy...



To be honest, I didn't think you were



There are plenty of people in your position who don't share your viewpoint, you know.



This mindset of deriding anything above average is something I'll never understand...



Story of the decade!



Does Texas not count?



As opposed to descending to their level? Yes.



Perhaps, but that doesn't mean it's not fucked up.



Your wording is throwing me off a bit



Well, yeah - that's their job. They're supposed to do the best they can to defend their clients, so they do.

Innocent until proven guilty.

The system can definitely be improved, but it won't happen overnight.



It's not that cut-and-dry.



You'd be surprised



Amazing! What are the odds of that?

Oh, yeah - 50/50.

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"Who needs rape when there's Hostess Fruit Pies?"

- The Comedian

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(='.'=)
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Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste......

This is getting out of hand. It's not about "Real Life" Rorschach, it's about Comic Book Rorschach.

Regardless of what your political affiliation is, dictatorship and one-party rule can never work. Whether you come at it from the left (as Veidt did), or the right (as Rorschach did) no justice can ever come from one school of thought dominating all others.

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This is truly a madhouse. And I'm the lunatic running it. I've spent three years wondering if I should be proud or ashamed.

He is a Trolling Machine. Of Doom.

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*Nods*

In the end no matter how badass and interesting Rorschach or Veidt are we do have to remember the lesson's Moore is trying to explore and teach you.

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the first half of this sums up my thoughts 100%.

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Please people, that "real life Roschach" guy was clearly a troll. If you couldn't tell by the way he acted in accordance with his name and his general Rorschach sigs, then the joke-y "counterstrike" line at the end should have been a clear tip.

He was showing what a "real life Rorschach's" views might be like in todays world. He was clearly commenting on Rorschach's black and white philosophy and how absurd it is by playing the part of a person who might take those views and who isn't as insane as Rorschach. In other words, what an average citizen who holds moral absolutist ideas might be like. Maybe he just wanted remind those who worship Rorschach how ridiculous his philosophy can become. No one would write all of that stuff and admit they were playing counterstrike as they did it because that instantly draws credibility away from their argument. It's clearly a joke. I recommend not taking every poster at face value.

Nope, he's real.I go to a proud conservative college, and there are people like this--and some more severe. You should really know this if you're going to function in society. Not all people you disagree with/think may be irrational are trolls.

Perhaps this should be locked, there are plenty of threads about Rorschach floating about.

Just because I believe he's playing a part doesn't mean I don't recognize there are those out there who hold similar philosophies. Give me a break.

It's the conservative's first impulse to point out that the liberal's first impulse is to point out that the conservative's first impulse is to silence opposition. It's the same old story.

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Gone fishin'

Right-wing or not, Rorschach is the most take-charge character of the book, telling others when they're not doing what they should be doing, always speaking his mind, and always telling others what he really thinks of them. No matter your political affiliation, I think that's a good quality none of us can REALLY attribute ourselves too. Maybe not a good social quality, but at least he's open about his views. More than I can say for myself, and many others.

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Go ahead, devour my soul! All you'll get out of it is dysentery and food poisoning!