In Which I Make a Plea for Reason
Justin Helmer

I think it must have been the summer of 2002 the first time the St. Cloud Superman popped up on my radar. I love comic books almost as I love strange theatrical behavior--and if you can somehow engage my geekdom and my deep appreciation for truly bizarre showmanship at the same time you will ninety-nine times out of one hundred have me on your wavelength. So, yeah, I was jazzed and a little bit curious when I heard there was a guy standing on a busy street corner wearing a full Superman costume and brandishing an American flag that seemed to be almost big enough to fly over a federal building, or even possibly a Perkins.

Based on all of the initial coverage I saw, this was a guy who, not knowing what else to do with all of this angst he was feeling, decided to create a little bit of a positive vibe by taking his comically-outsized symbol of America and stirring up a little good old-fashioned USA good feeling. I can't fault him for that; not knowing how to process the new normal became, in the months and years following the attacks, a kind of second national pastime. I was no different, so I was given to positive feelings about somebody just doing something anything that didn't start and end with killing brown people in the desert.

His sense of theatrics certainly could not have been any better. He would stand on the corner and wave and salute or point to cars that honked as they drove past; he would pose for pictures and lean down and tell young children to stay in school and not be an evil-doer. And he seemed to be there every day, standing on the corner of 25th and Division providing a clarity, a focal point, something to feel good about when we were still spending a part of every day half convinced that planes could start dropping the sky at any minute. There was at least one guy willing to go out of his way to give other folks a moment of joy, and pride, and hope, and never expecting anything in return.

At least it seemed that way at first.

It didn't take long to start hearing the darker reports of Superman's night time exploits. It was really quite the Jekyll and Hyde scenario: by day he was out there on his corner upholding the American way of life and protecting the Dairy Queen from the Saint Cloud Solomon Grundy. By night he would wander into a bar and let others buy him drinks till he was well and truly shit-faced, and then he would get belligerent and grabby until he was eventually ejected from the bar. There seemed to be a story of this guy--I can't remember his name, we'll call him Clark--being banned from every bar in the area. Now, it is probably true that the stories of his drunken douchebagitude were exaggerated, but by letting himself become associated with those behaviors he lost, in my mind, any right to wear that costume.

Look, I know that Superman (and his infinitely cooler fellow DC character Batman) are not real. And maybe I'm the only person in the world who cared but if it is true that the meaning in a symbol is whatever you place in it, then Clark lost his right to represent all of the things that Superman stands for.

I have been thinking of him a lot these past few days watching the United States wrestle with the question of health care and how to reform it. Now, please believe me when I tell you that I count amongst my friends people of almost all the possible political leanings; if you can believe it, care about it, argue about it or hold it as a belief chances are you can find it represented amongst my friends. Christian, Atheist, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, and at least one honest-to-goodness Maltheist. A Canadian intimately familiar with nationalized health systems who swears by their services and a Norwegian who works in the health care field who comes to America for her medical treatment. Liberals so far left as to make Emma Goldman proud and Conservatives so very, very conservative. Hear this: This is NOT about health care reform.

I do have opinions, just ask me I'll tell you, but that is a whole other polemic and not why I'm taking your time right now (thanks, by the way, for investing the time to read this--I'm coming to the important bit here soon, promise). This is about the disgusting and disquieting behavior I have seen in the short time since the bill has passed. Death threats and bricks through windows and all of the shouting of "nigger" and "faggot" at members of the Congress, and all of it from people who call themselves patriots.

I'm here to tell you: It's a damnable lie.

I know patriots. My whole life I have been privileged to know men and women who can and do accomplish great things, on the smallest of scales and the largest possible venues. Teachers, Law Enforcement Officers, Nurses, Farmers, Law Professionals, and Homemakers. People out there every day making the world a better place in the only way that really works: one day at a time, one person at a time. And among those people I care about, if you asked four of them their opinion about any particular issue you would likely receive five different answers. None of them would stoop to namecalling and bigotry--none of them.(1)

One of the classes I work in is a eighth-grade level history course. I have heard the story of the Boston Tea Party more times than I can count, and this year, for the first time, I winced at the idea of the connections the students were making to their present-day lives. There are good people in the Tea-Party political movement--I know it--but when you let Tom Tancredo(2) become the public face of your movement, you a relegating yourself to not only irrelevance but you cross the line into actual hot-button knuckleheadedness. Frothing at the mouth, wild eyed, carrying-guns-in-public, crazy and dangerous. And as we all know, that way leads to dead doctors, and dead civil rights leaders, and dead citizens, because when you crank the rhetoric up that loud eventually you are going to run across someone who takes the figurative call to arms literally.

Now there are some out there who are literally cleaning their weapons in an almost masturbatory fantasy of "taking back the gubment" in honest-to-god armed conflict. These people are, by and large, victims of one kind or another, and like all trauma sufferers prone to doing stupid things. They need to be watched, but no more or less than they ever did before. It is the places where the lunatic fringe is steeping into the mainstream I'm really concerned about.

Leaders of the Tea Party? Organizers of the "Kill the Bill" (oh, but isn't that an interesting choice of imagery?) rallies? Renounce these people. Do it now. If you want to be thought of as a patriot -- if you really want to earn that big "S" you pasted to your chest -- start calling for reason and understanding. Cause yeah, Jefferson said that "Blood Watering the Tree of Liberty" thing but he also said "A coward is much more exposed to quarrels than a man of spirit."

Renounce these people, do it now--earn that "S." Please, for the sake of the country you say you love, don't wait till you have to say it to try to wash blood off your hands.

Please.

***Two Small Points of Clarification***
1. Everybody has at one time or another called someone or something they didn't like a name. It is not my intention to suggest otherwise, nor am I some kind of hand-fluttering Victorian who is incapable of taking a few digs, debate--up to and in some cases including invective--is a part of life and can even be healthy. Bigotry in service of intimidation is a different animal.

2. I have not seen--nor do I believe there to be--any evidence of Mr. Tancredo's calling *DIRECTLY* for what has become a pattern of violence against Democratic law makers. I also have not heard him or Mrs. Palin (the other nominal figurehead of the movement) make any sort of public call for the violence to stop, and there have been plenty of opportunities.



In Which I Make a Plea for Reason by Justin Helmer is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.