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Post by Yasotay on Sept 26, 2024 10:15:05 GMT -5
I hope this doesn't violate any forum rules on political discussion, which I normally try to avoid anyway, but I thought this was on topic enough for a classic comic subject to bring it up...
I was recently listening to a year-old interview with Gerry Conway about the creation of the Punisher on the Marvel by the Month Podcast, which I generally enjoy. They got into discussing how far right groups have co-opted the Punisher's skull logo in recent years prompting Marvel to stop using it. Conway expressed how ridiculous it was for some police officers to display this logo, which may be true given the Punisher is a vigilante. But he also seemed to take the position that far right extremist groups who use the logo don't reflect what the Punisher is about and that they completely miss the point of the character. I found this totally disingenuous.
At his core, the Punisher is a fanatic, gun-toting veteran who dismisses the system and takes the law into his own hands by murdering people he deems criminals. How does that not reflect the thinking - or at least the wish fulfillment - of certain extremist elements? (And before anyone puts a label on this, I have friends on both ends of the political spectrum, who I happen to think are all whacko, so you can't say I discriminate).
I know some people on the forum hate the character on principle. I've always been lukewarm toward him, mostly because I've never been a huge fan of non-powered, street-level heroes (or anti-heroes) in superhero comics. I've thought some iterations of the Punisher were decently done and reflected the zeitgeist of their times, others maybe not so much. But let's not kid ourselves, he is what he is.
Anyone else have thoughts on this?
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Sept 26, 2024 11:33:53 GMT -5
JUST A REMINDER:
We don't have a rule against political discussion per se, but the moderating staff tend to discourage it because in the past it has led to nasty arguments, bad blood, hurt feelings, and members leaving the forum forever (that's why the dedicated "Politics Thread" was locked). We do, however, have rules in the forum against posting comments that might constitute a personal attack, passive aggressiveness, or plain combativeness. So, if you're going to comment in this thread, tread carefully and be mindful not to attack other members who may be of a differing mainstream political persuasion to you.
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Sept 26, 2024 11:40:20 GMT -5
Gerry Conway ... also seemed to take the position that far right extremist groups who use the logo don't reflect what the Punisher is about and that they completely miss the point of the character. I found this totally disingenuous. The co-option of the Punisher's skull symbol by the American far right is news to me, but it does kinda make sense. I also tend to agree with you that Conway saying that these radicals have missed the point is disingenuous. As I've always understood it, the Punisher was directly inspired by The Executioner paperbacks and vigilante-style movie characters like Harry Callaghan from Dirty Harry (himself a cop) or Charles Bronson's character from Death Wish. All these characters see "the system" as corrupt and due process and the rule of law as unnecessary inconveniences to obtaining justice, just as the Punisher does. Given that the American far-right also have problems with "the system" and often want to take the law into their own hands, I don't think that they are misinterpreting the character at all -- I think they have understood the character perfectly, just confused fiction with real life. I'm sure that Conway is uncomfortable with his creation being co-opted by the far-right in this way, but to say that these people have misunderstood the character is laughable. One distinction to perhaps make though (and remember that this is the first I'm hearing about this) is the question of whether police officers who also display the Punisher's skull symbol are really far-right? Your post seems to conflate the far-right with these officers. While some cops undoubtedly have far-right views, I'd be willing to bet that a lot of these officers just display the Punisher's skull symbol because they think it's cool or makes them look badass, rather than because they are actually members of the far-right. I know some people on the forum hate the character on principle. I've always been lukewarm toward him, mostly because I've never been a huge fan of non-powered, street-level heroes (or anti-heroes) in superhero comics. I've thought some iterations of the Punisher were decently done and reflected the zeitgeist of their times, others maybe not so much. I like the Punisher fine. I think that his early '70s to mid-80s appearances in Amazing Spider-Man and Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man (and Frank Miller's Daredevil to a point) were great fun. He's not a massive favourite of mine, but I felt that he worked well in the Spidey books due to the tension between Peter Parker and Frank Castle -- who both wanted to stop crime but had very different methods of doing it. That made for some engaging and, at times, thought-provoking comics. Once the Punisher became a huge breakout star and got "Rambo-fied" in the late '80s and '90s, he was much, much less interesting. I have very little interest in this action-hero "Rambo" version of the character or the later unrelentingly bleak, grim and gritty version from the MAX books and beyond (it's just not my cup of tea). But as an interesting foil for Spider-Man in the Bronze Age, I thought he was a good character.
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Post by rich on Sept 26, 2024 11:46:51 GMT -5
I only heard about the American far right using the Punisher skull symbol a few days ago. These things get co-opted sometimes. Look at the far more commonly used V for Vendetta Guy Fawkes masks! I would be happy for Marvel to ignore it and keep using the symbol rather than let extremists steal it from them. I've seen police officers using the symbol, by the way, and I think they just thought it was cool rather than used to to demonstrate political affiliation.
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Post by codystarbuck on Sept 26, 2024 11:57:29 GMT -5
I hope this doesn't violate any forum rules on political discussion, which I normally try to avoid anyway, but I thought this was on topic enough for a classic comic subject to bring it up... I was recently listening to a year-old interview with Gerry Conway about the creation of the Punisher on the Marvel by the Month Podcast, which I generally enjoy. They got into discussing how far right groups have co-opted the Punisher's skull logo in recent years prompting Marvel to stop using it. Conway expressed how ridiculous it was for some police officers to display this logo, which may be true given the Punisher is a vigilante. But he also seemed to take the position that far right extremist groups who use the logo don't reflect what the Punisher is about and that they completely miss the point of the character. I found this totally disingenuous. At his core, the Punisher is a fanatic, gun-toting veteran who dismisses the system and takes the law into his own hands by murdering people he deems criminals. How does that not reflect the thinking - or at least the wish fulfillment - of certain extremist elements? (And before anyone puts a label on this, I have friends on both ends of the political spectrum, who I happen to think are all whacko, so you can't say I discriminate). I know some people on the forum hate the character on principle. I've always been lukewarm toward him, mostly because I've never been a huge fan of non-powered, street-level heroes (or anti-heroes) in superhero comics. I've thought some iterations of the Punisher were decently done and reflected the zeitgeist of their times, others maybe not so much. But let's not kid ourselves, he is what he is. Anyone else have thoughts on this? He's being extremely disingenuous. By their very nature, vigilantes, powered or not, are taking an extreme position. Society creates laws to maintain the peace of the community. Those who act outside those laws are rejecting that society. When it comes to dealing with crime, there is a big difference between defending yourself with a weapon and actively seeking to engage a criminal and shoot them down. Batman is hardly better than the Punisher, except he has specifically chosen not to use firearms and to avoid taking a life. He still is acting in place of duly deputized law enforcement, when you get down to the core, which is why his stories often reflected that vigilante status. Making the official world corrupt was the way to get around the most negative aspects. The Punisher was yet another urban vigilante who popped up in the 1970s, following on the footsteps of reactionary stories, like the original Deathwish, and, even moreso, the men's adventure pulp paperback series, The Executioner, by Don Pendleton. The latter was a conservative reaction to the Vietnam War, hippies, liberal politics and rising street crime, due to increased urbanization and the post-Vietnam economic recession. Mack Bolan, aka the Executioner, receives word, in Vietnam, that his father has killed his family and himself, except for his younger brother, who was gravely wounded. He learns from his brother that his father had been deep into Mafia loansharks and they had enticed his sister to work off the debt, as a prostitute, in a brothel. The father found out and, in anger and guilt, killed her, shot his son, then killed his wife and himself (it's been a while, but I think the mother was alive before the shooting). Bolan then decides to desert the army and start a one-man war against the Mafia, starting with the crime family in his home area. he then expands it nationally, at odds with law enforcement, though sometimes given a pass by police officers, who think he is doing more good than they are, with civil rights still existing for all citizens. He even gets some unofficial government support and, by the end of the original series, is offered a job as a covert assassin, for the US government, directed against terrorist threats )allowing the character to be expanded to the world stage, in the 80s). The Punisher was a blatant copy of Mack Bolan. Bolan was a Special Forces sniper, part of the Phoenix Program, and a deadly killer. However, Pendleton also depicted him as being very caring of civilians, who called him Sgt Mercy. he wanted him to be sympathetic and that his killing was directed only to those who "deserve" it. The thing is, he is the one who decides it. He uses military weapons and tactics against Mafia operations, across the country, traveling in his "war wagon," a special tricked out van, loaded with weapons and surveillance equipment, plus basic living amenities. All of that was co-opted by Conway and later writers. Like Mack Bolan, Frank Castle's family is brutally killed by mob violence. Castle, a Marine, then launches a one-man war on the Mafia, using military grade weapons and tactics. The difference is that he wears a sort of costume, with the skull emblem on his chest. Writer Mike Barr was the first to really show the connection of that symbol, with the Nazi SS, in Captain America, when Holocaust survivor Anna Kapplebaum catches a glimpse of the Punisher and the skull symbol and has flashbacks to SS guards and Diebenwald concentration camp. The skull has long been used as a symbol of death, from pirate Jolly Roger flags, to terror groups, like the SS. Conway and Marvel tried to rationalize it away that his terror is aimed solely at criminals; but, only he decides who is a "criminal." No jury stands in judgement. There was a comic book precedent for such a costume, with Nedor's The Black Terror, whose costume was a living Jolly Roger, meant to invoke a swashbuckling pirate, which is an image based on Treasure Island and Hollywood romantic adventure, when the reality was that pirates were either government sanctioned privateers, or completely independent predators. If you look within the context of the stories, The Punisher does only act against hardened criminals, mafioso and similar. Still, he acts as judge, jury and executioner and increases the level of violence, which spills over into civilians. Even mobsters are surrounded by innocents and no amount of care can protect them all. Police forces were created to "protect and serve;" but, there have long been elements who decided that they were the sole arbiters of who was a criminal and who wasn't, especially when they looked, acted, and spoke differently. Police have a certain power and power corrupts and attracts the corrupt. Police have to answer to society for their actions; that is part of the trust given to them and the authority that society bestows upon them, in exchange for acting as their protectors. Same with the military. Society has said that all rights must be upheld, even those of the accused. We, as a society, said that beating a confession out of a criminal was wrong and a criminal act in itself. Some police and reactionaries saw that as hamstringing the police. They would argue better to jail an innocent man rather than let a guilty one go. The reality is that too often, innocents have been abused and jailed because doing so was far easier than catching the guilty. Right wing group latch onto symbols of terror, because they think it carries a power and, at heart, like the SS, they are bullies and failures, who seek to blame their troubles on others. They can't lift themselves up, so they tear others down....violently. They act in violence and anger, both in rhetoric and action. The like the feeling of people being in fear of them and latch onto such things. Not surprisingly, there is a certain percentage of those in law enforcement who are drawn to that ideology, just as they were drawn to being a cop, because of the power it gave them. Those that display the punisher skull fall into that category. Citizens shouldn't live in fear of the police. The police are supposed to be there to serve, not dictate thought and action. They are supposed to be an extension of society, not its wardens. The very idea of vigilante justice should be abhorrent to law enforcement, and it is, for the real professionals. The bulk of it boils down to leadership within police forces. Good leaders recruit and train good police officers. Bad ones recruit bad or enable them, if not actively encourage them. Holding police accountable for their actions maintains a standard within law enforcement. For that standard to be upheld, you cannot have individuals decide they are outside the law and can administer justice as they see it. That has always been the problem of costumed vigilantes, in reality and in fiction. Superheroes, in most cases, are vigilantes. it is only within this fantasy world that they are afforded some license to act. Some characters are duly deputized, to reinforce the idea that they act within the law. However, their actions show that they are not acting to the same standards as law enforcement. They don't have to issue Miranda rights, they use excessive force, they endanger civilians caught in the battle zone. They don't answer for their actions. Superheroes are about wish fulfillment. The earliest examples were extensions of the pulp and newspaper adventure heroes of the 1930s. This was the era of The Great Depression, which meant it was also an era of crime. The 1920s, with Prohibition, had led to massive street level violence, between rival gangs and the economic downturn, at the end of that decade, then added to the problem, with people robbing banks and other places, attacking striking workers, mugging people on the street, etc. Jerry Siegel's father died of a heart attack, while his clothing store was being robbed of merchandise. Superman was a reaction to that. he could do the things that Siegel couldn't, like stop bullets and catch criminals. However, he also had him mete out justice to slumlords and war profiteers, making him more of a Left Wing extremist, than a Right Wing; but, still an extremist, acting outside society and the law. As he became more popular, he was toned down and made more and more part of the establishment and a sanctioned protector, though still with far more leeway than actual agents of society. Because he is wish fulfillment, he doesn't need checks and balances; flawed humans do. History has proven that. Those cops and extremists who idolize the Punisher don't want those checks and balances, which is why they are dangerous. Unrestrained power leads to dictatorship. That is why I hate the Punisher. That, and the fact that the writing on the character has rarely risen above the level of a Cannon action film.
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Post by codystarbuck on Sept 26, 2024 12:04:56 GMT -5
ps In the interest of full disclosure, in my teen years, I devoured the Executioner series, old and new (counter-terrorism stories) and the related Able Team and Phoenix Force books, and similar fare. I watched those action films, like Death Wish and Dirty Harry. But, after a while, you start to see the flaws, especially with things like Bernard Goetz in the news, and things like Iran-Contra, where individuals within the government decided they could act outside the law, for their own aims, right or wrong. Training in the real military dispelled a lot of those power fantasies of youth, especially when you study the abuses of it, like My Lai, or a situation with one of our own ships, where the captain ignored a surrender attempt, by an Iraqi unit, during the Gulf War, and ordered the ship's 5 inch gun to continue firing on them, until he had slaughtered them. His own officers reported that they were displaying surrender flags and he refused to acknowledge it.
He never stood before a court martial, either.
Kind of hard to discourage vigilante actions if you don't hold them accountable, in a meaningful way.
I left the military with much different thinking than when I started, at 17.
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Post by codystarbuck on Sept 26, 2024 12:13:28 GMT -5
pps There have also been Left Wing vigilantes and extremists, such as "enforcers" within Communist cells and Left Wing terrorists. Extremists exist at the extreme ends of the political spectrum, both Left and Right, hence the name. Groups like the Red Army Faction and Bader-Meinhoff were examples of that. The tactics were the same, only the stated ideology was different. However, the mindset was the same, instill terror and fear to raise themselves up and tear down the "corrupt establishment."
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Post by Doghouse Reilly on Sept 26, 2024 12:24:18 GMT -5
Conway expressed how ridiculous it was for some police officers to display this logo, which may be true given the Punisher is a vigilante. But he also seemed to take the position that far right extremist groups who use the logo don't reflect what the Punisher is about and that they completely miss the point of the character. I found this totally disingenuous. At his core, the Punisher is a fanatic, gun-toting veteran who dismisses the system and takes the law into his own hands by murdering people he deems criminals. How does that not reflect the thinking - or at least the wish fulfillment - of certain extremist elements? (And before anyone puts a label on this, I have friends on both ends of the political spectrum, who I happen to think are all whacko, so you can't say I discriminate). I don't know what Conway intended to be the point of the Punisher, but for me, there's an appeal of the character that transcends politics. Nearly all street-level vigilantes are going to come into conflict with the idea of due process. When a superhero leaves a crook or two outside police HQ with a lamppost tied around them, or webbed up, is it expected the crooks are going to tell law enforcement what to charge them with, and then confess? In this respect, the Punisher is only different in degree, not kind. So, to me, the Punisher is a purified version of the power fantasy many other superheroes represent. There's good and evil, and the Punisher is a force, if not for good, at least for battling evil. Yes, you have to accept his judgment is never off, and that he can avoid collateral damage. If I couldn't suspend disbelief on these points, then I wouldn't be able to accept the character as a protagonist. I certainly wouldn't want to read a story where he fails at one of those things, because then the fantasy falls apart. You very likely don't know anybody who is significantly more liberal than I am, and I'm fine with turning off my brain and reading about Frank demolishing bad guys. I only speak for myself, though. Maybe I'm a liberal outlier. It would be different if the character expressed certain ideas common to the right wing which I find repulsive, but I haven't come across that. Keep in mind, my exposure to the character is mostly Ennis' run. (and nobody needs to tell me that I'm missing Ennis' point on the character - I'm just expressing what I get out of the stories)
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Post by driver1980 on Sept 26, 2024 13:14:26 GMT -5
Good question by the original poster, but I don’t think of Punisher as anything other than an entertaining, if one-note, character to read, more akin to the likes of Venom and Ghost Rider, although no doubt more extreme than those two.
I’ve found a lot that is inspiring in comics, e.g. Superman’s morality, Spidey’s never-say-die attitude, Bruce Banner’s attempts to control his anger, etc. There is nothing to find inspiring about the Punisher, so he simply remains to me a character who is fun to read about (if the story appeals), and I don’t really think about it in anything other than those terms.
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Sept 26, 2024 13:21:22 GMT -5
I’ve found a lot that is inspiring in comics, e.g. Superman’s morality, Spidey’s never-say-die attitude, Bruce Banner’s attempts to control his anger, etc. There is nothing to find inspiring about the Punisher, so he simply remains to me a character who is fun to read about (if the story appeals), and I don’t really think about it in anything other than those terms.Well put. This is my feeling exacty.
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Post by Yasotay on Sept 26, 2024 15:01:26 GMT -5
Good points all around. To make my position clear, I don't have a problem with a fictional character representing whatever the writer wants him to represent. And, like a lot of people, I can take some visceral pleasure in seeing the Punisher, Dirty Harry or whoever bring violent justice to true bad guys. So yeah, I can find the better Punisher stories a fun read at times. But (apparently unlike a lot of the people who display the logo) I also understand this is not conducive to having a healthy, law-abiding society in the real world. And I can see where fictional characters like this can, intended or not, send the wrong message to a lot of those people. It should also be noted, when the character was first introduced and in most of the appearances I saw before he got his own series, he was closer to a villain than a hero and heroes usually made this explicit both to the reader and to the Punisher himself. I do see a big difference between the Punisher and most hero/vigilantes in that the Punisher does kill bad guys and none of the more standard heroes do that. If the Punisher were primarily fighting supervillains, rather than normal humans, I think a good counter argument could be made that the Punisher is actually doing a better job and being more beneficial to society than the standard heroes, since all those villains they arrest are constantly escaping from jail and returning to wreak havoc. Meanwhile, society seems incapable of stopping it. While you can admire the moral center of Batman's ethos to never kill, think about all the pain he'd have saved characters like Barbara Gordon and Jason Todd if he'd killed the Joker years ago. I think a more mature, present day handling of the Punisher might be in exploring the arguments against these types of actions. One argument against his actions, which I do remember seeing depicted in the Captain America issue codystarbuck references, is the possibility of collateral damage. In that case, one of the "criminals" the Punisher almost killed turned out to be an undercover police officer. But the primary argument against such actions has always been the one first realized in ancient times, best expressed in Aeschylus's play Eumenides, which teaches that personal vengeance, even when justified, perpetuates an unending cycle of revenge violence. The only solution is to thus forgo personal vengeance for the justice meted out by legal authorities. Of course, the famous American jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes also made the argument that the justice meted out needs to be sufficiently strong so as to satisfy the lust for vengeance of the victims and society, otherwise you run the risk of individuals taking the law into their own hands. I think a character like the Punisher becomes much more sympathetic when those he is punishing are clearly shown to be beyond the reach of the law, than when they could be taken down by other means. But to see the character have to face up to these counter-arguments might make for a fascinating story.
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Post by Yasotay on Sept 26, 2024 15:24:54 GMT -5
One distinction to perhaps make though (and remember that this is the first I'm hearing about this) is the question of whether police officers who also display the Punisher's skull symbol are really far-right? Your post seems to conflate the far-right with these officers. While some cops undoubtedly have far-right views, I'd be willing to bet that a lot of these officers just display the Punisher's skull symbol because they think it's cool or makes them look badass, rather than because they are actually members of the far-right To clarify, I wasn't conflating the police officers use of the logo with the far right using it. I was merely conveying Conway's own feeling that it was nonsensical for police to display a logo of someone who felt the police are ineffective at doing their jobs and thus he had to take the law into his own hands. And, from that perspective, I'd agree. Whether the police have far right sympathies or not, it doesn't make sense for them to display that logo. But I'd also agree with you many of them probably don't know the symbolism behind it and just think it looks cool. Though I'd heard about far right groups using the logo, I'd never heard about or seen any police using it. I only brought up the police because that was Conway's main critique in the interview. He actually didn't devote a huge amount of time to discussing extremist groups using the logo, though he was clear that he felt they misunderstood the character. But I'd say, whether he wants to admit it or not, they understood the character fine.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Sept 26, 2024 16:34:20 GMT -5
On the police officers wearing the Punisher symbol: isn't it likely that they got it from the movies or the Netflix series, where he is a much more straightforward action hero, rather than the comics? The TV Castle is not one for due process, that's for sure, but then neither is he one to gun down an underage pusher who just surrendered (as the Punisher did in Miller's Daredevil). He's some kind of wish-fulfillment fantasy figure, one who can cathartically deliver retribution to bad people who unambiguously deserve it, and who can still look at himself in a mirror.
Besides, I doubt that a police officer wearing a Punisher pin actually dreams of imitating him; not any more than one wearing a Batman pin actually dreams of beating up a mentally ill criminal in clown make-up. It's just a reference to a heroic popular culture figure with a police background. (Plus that skull looks kinda cool, doesn't it?)
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Post by Cei-U! on Sept 26, 2024 16:44:34 GMT -5
I'd have no problem with Punisher as a standalone concept but he makes no sense in the context of the Marvel Universe, where the more conventional heroes *should *consider him just another costumed criminal to be rounded up and locked away. My favorite bit in the Avengers/JLA mini is when a gobsmacked Batman, unable to fathom why this cold-blooded killer is allowed to roam free, takes out Punisher without any trouble.
Cei-U! Right on, Brucie baby!
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Post by codystarbuck on Sept 26, 2024 16:53:28 GMT -5
On the police officers wearing the Punisher symbol: isn't it likely that they got it from the movies or the Netflix series, where he is a much more straightforward action hero, rather than the comics? The TV Castle is not one for due process, that's for sure, but then neither is he one to gun down an underage pusher who just surrendered (as the Punisher did in Miller's Daredevil). He's some kind of wish-fulfillment fantasy figure, one who can cathartically deliver retribution to bad people who unambiguously deserve it, and who can still look at himself in a mirror. Besides, I doubt that a police officer wearing a Punisher pin actually dreams of imitating him; not any more than one wearing a Batman pin actually dreams of beating up a mentally ill criminal in clown make-up. It's just a reference to a heroic popular culture figure with a police background. (Plus that skull looks kinda cool, doesn't it?) I don't know; I have read news reports of police putting Punisher stickers on their patrol cars and have seen an example, locally, and it is a slippery slope. There is a reason why we were banned from displaying such things on our uniforms and vehicles, in the military, though those rules got flexible in the combat zone, if you have ever seen pictures of the tanks and armored vehicles that rolled through Baghdad, during the invasion. To me, it is as troubling as the militarization of police forces. A soldier's job and a police officer's job are two very different things and mixing them doesn't work well, neither does mixing law enforcement with vigilante hero worship, lighthearted or otherwise. If you want to wear it on your civilian clothes or display it on your private vehicle, that is one thing; but, an official uniform and vehicle are quite another. That suggests official endorsement, to me.
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