The Conscience of Abe’s Turn libertarian civil rights in America

Michael Feathers brought this story to my attention. Although I can only speculate as to what his meaning was, I do know what I got out of it. Stories like this are definitely part of the inspiration behind some of the characters in Abe’s Turn.

It seems that U.S. Army recruiters in one recruitment office have been threatening high-school seniors in order to get them to join when they graduate. As reported by KHOU, Houston, TX, here’s how it works:

First, students sign up for the Delayed Entry Program. This is a free-trial program that allows potential recruits to try out the Army without actually enlisting. If they decide they want out—or so they are told—no harm, no foul.

But when they actually do decide they want out, the recruiter tells them they signed a contract to report to basic training—even though they most certainly did not—and tells them they’ll be denied government benefits, arrested, and hauled off to jail, unless they show up at the appointed time.

One victim was even told that if he really wanted out, what he needed to do is to report to basic training, and then to tell the prison chaplain— er, I mean, the base chaplain that he didn’t like it and wanted out. What the recruiter didn’t mention, of course, is that once you report to basic training, then you really are a soldier, and it’s much harder to get out.

These government abuses are endemic to a certain recruiting station. They may not happen across the board. (Or maybe they do. Who knows?) But even if they don’t, that doesn’t soften the tragedy for those victims of the abuse.

Why does this work? Because recruiters get points for each victim— er, I mean, warm body— er, I mean, each recruit they send to basic training, even if he doesn’t make it through basic training. The Marines follow a different model, where a recruiter only gets credit if the recruit actually wants to be in the Marines, actually makes it through basic. And the Marines apparently don’t have this particular problem with their recruiters. But that’s apparently no concern of the Army, where recruiters who follow heavy-handed, bullshit tactics are rewarded and promoted, even while the Army’s official stance is, “We don’t do that here.”

True story. But you knew that, because there’s nothing new here.

Do you see a similarity between this story and that of Abe’s Turn? A pattern that applies to both?

You may not realize it, because it has not yet entered the story line, but Baedes has been called on the carpet many times for police brutality, planting evidence, withholding evidence, denial of due process, abuse of process, and most anything else you can think of. The official response is always that the government of Abe’s Turn does not condone abuse of power. But the town council can’t fire him, because he actually gets the job done. As long as they can hide or draw attention away from any possible police scandals, they like the job he’s doing, and they reward him, just as he rewards those under him. Because his force actually does stop crime, and reported crimes have been at an all-time low in Abe’s Turn. Of course, that has the unfortunate side-effect of a gung-ho police force with too few actual criminals to catch.

“You know why they attacked you, don’t you? They were afraid of you… All creatures feel fear… Especially the scary ones.” (Thomas Wayne, Batman Begins)

Why is Baedes’s force so gung-ho? Because Baedes hates criminals. He loathes them, despises them, because he fears them. There’s a story to this, something that started when he was just a boy. As a young boy, he himself was victimized by a gang of older, stronger boys in the neighborhood. Like Batman’s enemy Two-Face (which you may have seen in The Dark Knight), Baedes let his own victimization tear down his self-restraint. At the same time, also like Two-Face, Baedes denies culpability for his actions. With Two-Face, it’s his coin that’s responsible for his actions. With Baedes, he counts himself innocent, because he can get away with what he does under the law. The result is the same in both cases. Each villain becomes as much an enemy to justice as an ally. To Baedes, it really doesn’t matter which he is, as long as he has the power.

And so he attacks, lashes out at anything that represents his fear, the so-called criminal element in society, not only of real crimes but also of made-up crimes and of crimes no one can see. His ideal is literally a police state. The one thing he would change about American society, if he could, is all those darn civil-rights laws that force him to sneak around to do what he needs to in order to get the job done.

And that is what our heroes are up against.

-TimK