TM Prompt: 221: Double-Edged
Mar. 10th, 2008 06:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sylph_ficsTitle: Double-Edged
Word Count: 800
Character: Slade Wilson
"Never pray for justice, because you might get some."
Margaret Atwood.
Justice.
Complicated thing, that.
Most would expect that a man in my profession has less than no respect for justice, after all, I operate outside the law, according to my own choice, as I see fit. In the strictly legal sense, then, I suppose they might be right. But I operate mainly in the Third World, these days, where law is... far less a pressing concern than ability. And I tend to be careful where I operate at all.
There was a reason I stayed in chains for that trial, when my own past came down around my neck, rather than exert myself to escape--and it wasn't the kids.
Half a lifetime ago, I swore, once for the length of my enlistment, and once for the rest of my life 'to support and defend the Constitution of the United States...' with its lines of '...to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, provide...' surely most of those reading know the rest of that.
I took both oaths seriously, and served to the best of my ability until I felt I had no choice but to follow my conscience and obligation over an order I would not take.
Since then... well. Things have gotten somewhat more complicated.
It's not as though I claim to go about distributing justice, like the idiotic cape crowd. I'm not that hypocritical, and I don't, and I know it.
I do what I'm paid for, no more, no less. Although I am damned picky in what I choose to do, or choose not to do. And one thing I won't do is take a job that runs directly against the oath I swore.
Take jobs against the Company? In a heartbeat. There are times I think they do more to damage the US than they do good.
Against certain arms of the government? Certainly, for pretty much the same reason.
Against the cape crowd? Yes, and no.
It's turned out badly for me, the times I have taken jobs against the "hero" community. So I have done it, and I would do so again if I thought it necessary (which may be the one thing whatever is impersonating me and I would agree on, that bout against the League, if what I have heard is true), but typically, people aren't that inclined to put the word out for someone like me when they're upset with one of the capes. Foolish, possibly, but I don't need the headache, either.
A job against my country? The principles she was founded on? Hell no.
Yes, I have spent most of my life since my discharge doing things the civilian world in general considers... somewhere between immoral and flat out illegal. No, I don't see that as questionable. The one thing I truly excel at is being a soldier, and there's always someone willing to pay for what I can do. Doesn't mean I'm not careful about it.
As for my opinions of the cape crowd, and what they do?
On principle, I don't like the majority of the "heroes". It annoys the hell out of me that they run around calling themselves the "Justice League" and the "Justice Society," when they use their abilities not for justice, but for heroing, and heroing as they see fit, at that. "Truth, Justice, and the American Way" may sound all well and good when it comes from the Boy Scout, but... they act according to their own rules, often as flatly in defiance of any rule of law as what I do is, and yet they're so utterly sanctimonious in their self-assurance that what they do is unquestionably right.
It's not, and they're not.
There's no justice in leaving the psychopaths (and yes, I know there are those that would lump me in among those) they fight alive to escape and cause the kind of massive civilian casualties that so often happen in their battles.Or in sitting back and allowing how many thousand of our people to die in foreign wars, in prison camps, because they "can't get involved." The hell they couldn't have. There's no justice in the double standard of rules they use for themselves and the actual laws they're supposed to be upholding, either.
Prayer's every bit as complicated.
Yes, it's hard not to believe in an afterlife when you've met Raven, Troy and her sister, Trigon, seen the Spectre, resurrections... but if Anyone was actually up there listening, you'd think once in a while, it would make a difference. You'd think-that it would have been me, not my sons, not my wife... That there would have been a way to stop so many things, with all the abilities they have-never mind.
It never has, from what I've seen. Doesn't seem like there's a lot of point.
Word Count: 800
Character: Slade Wilson
"Never pray for justice, because you might get some."
Margaret Atwood.
Justice.
Complicated thing, that.
Most would expect that a man in my profession has less than no respect for justice, after all, I operate outside the law, according to my own choice, as I see fit. In the strictly legal sense, then, I suppose they might be right. But I operate mainly in the Third World, these days, where law is... far less a pressing concern than ability. And I tend to be careful where I operate at all.
There was a reason I stayed in chains for that trial, when my own past came down around my neck, rather than exert myself to escape--and it wasn't the kids.
Half a lifetime ago, I swore, once for the length of my enlistment, and once for the rest of my life 'to support and defend the Constitution of the United States...' with its lines of '...to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, provide...' surely most of those reading know the rest of that.
I took both oaths seriously, and served to the best of my ability until I felt I had no choice but to follow my conscience and obligation over an order I would not take.
Since then... well. Things have gotten somewhat more complicated.
It's not as though I claim to go about distributing justice, like the idiotic cape crowd. I'm not that hypocritical, and I don't, and I know it.
I do what I'm paid for, no more, no less. Although I am damned picky in what I choose to do, or choose not to do. And one thing I won't do is take a job that runs directly against the oath I swore.
Take jobs against the Company? In a heartbeat. There are times I think they do more to damage the US than they do good.
Against certain arms of the government? Certainly, for pretty much the same reason.
Against the cape crowd? Yes, and no.
It's turned out badly for me, the times I have taken jobs against the "hero" community. So I have done it, and I would do so again if I thought it necessary (which may be the one thing whatever is impersonating me and I would agree on, that bout against the League, if what I have heard is true), but typically, people aren't that inclined to put the word out for someone like me when they're upset with one of the capes. Foolish, possibly, but I don't need the headache, either.
A job against my country? The principles she was founded on? Hell no.
Yes, I have spent most of my life since my discharge doing things the civilian world in general considers... somewhere between immoral and flat out illegal. No, I don't see that as questionable. The one thing I truly excel at is being a soldier, and there's always someone willing to pay for what I can do. Doesn't mean I'm not careful about it.
As for my opinions of the cape crowd, and what they do?
On principle, I don't like the majority of the "heroes". It annoys the hell out of me that they run around calling themselves the "Justice League" and the "Justice Society," when they use their abilities not for justice, but for heroing, and heroing as they see fit, at that. "Truth, Justice, and the American Way" may sound all well and good when it comes from the Boy Scout, but... they act according to their own rules, often as flatly in defiance of any rule of law as what I do is, and yet they're so utterly sanctimonious in their self-assurance that what they do is unquestionably right.
It's not, and they're not.
There's no justice in leaving the psychopaths (and yes, I know there are those that would lump me in among those) they fight alive to escape and cause the kind of massive civilian casualties that so often happen in their battles.
Prayer's every bit as complicated.
Yes, it's hard not to believe in an afterlife when you've met Raven, Troy and her sister, Trigon, seen the Spectre, resurrections... but if Anyone was actually up there listening, you'd think once in a while, it would make a difference. You'd think-
It never has, from what I've seen. Doesn't seem like there's a lot of point.
