legal rights for vampires
Aug. 20th, 2005 09:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethJust finished watching The Siege, the third film in a three pack, the one I hadn't heard of before. From 1998 it posits a series of terrorist attacks on New York and the reactions of FBI, CIA and US Army, as well as politicians and random people.
There were parts of it that struck me as wrong. One voiceover said in passing that after two terrorist attacks shopping was down 72%. I don't know, that seemed a bit much. But then everything was pushed just that bit too far because its a movie and everything has to happen in 2 hours in one city involving the same half dozen people. So, taking that into account, kind of an interesting movie. It goes from bomb on a bus to martial law to FBI arresting the military guy. And at no point is any one character completely in the right. They all make mistakes, they all do things they shouldn't do according to the law, they all contribute to the situation. Is one of those cinematic big messes. Think thats called 'tragedy', when everyone trying to do right makes a huge great wrong.
Its depressing and scary how topical this is, for a 1998 movie. Civil rights vs protection of citizens. Who counts as a citizen when things get ugly. Things getting very ugly.
So, now I'm having thoughts about season 4 Buffy, the Initiative, the legal situation with those guys. Army operating on US soil, not legal. But, is that only when they're hunting humans? I mean hunting animals would be allowed, yes? So is hunting things that only *look* human quite legal, technically?
The other day on the S3 board I got quite impassioned about civil rights for vampires, that in an ideal world with adequate resources vampires should have the exact same rights as regular humans. Because otherwise you have a situation where someone can look like people but not be counted as people. Where everyone around them is covered by all the laws we've spent thousands of years trying to get right, but this one person in the crowd, who looks just like everyone else, is quite naked of legal protection, because someone decided they don't count as people any more. Demons, vampires, werewolves - if its legal to say 'that isn't a person' and ignore all the rules, when said non-person is walking, talking, tax paying even... Very dangerous precedent.
The UK series Ultraviolet covered this explicitly, never mentioning vampires but mentioning terrorists, talking about the dangers of a shoot to kill policy, or a lack of one.
I like a layer of metaphor between me and reality. But sometimes that layer is really very skinny.
There were parts of it that struck me as wrong. One voiceover said in passing that after two terrorist attacks shopping was down 72%. I don't know, that seemed a bit much. But then everything was pushed just that bit too far because its a movie and everything has to happen in 2 hours in one city involving the same half dozen people. So, taking that into account, kind of an interesting movie. It goes from bomb on a bus to martial law to FBI arresting the military guy. And at no point is any one character completely in the right. They all make mistakes, they all do things they shouldn't do according to the law, they all contribute to the situation. Is one of those cinematic big messes. Think thats called 'tragedy', when everyone trying to do right makes a huge great wrong.
Its depressing and scary how topical this is, for a 1998 movie. Civil rights vs protection of citizens. Who counts as a citizen when things get ugly. Things getting very ugly.
So, now I'm having thoughts about season 4 Buffy, the Initiative, the legal situation with those guys. Army operating on US soil, not legal. But, is that only when they're hunting humans? I mean hunting animals would be allowed, yes? So is hunting things that only *look* human quite legal, technically?
The other day on the S3 board I got quite impassioned about civil rights for vampires, that in an ideal world with adequate resources vampires should have the exact same rights as regular humans. Because otherwise you have a situation where someone can look like people but not be counted as people. Where everyone around them is covered by all the laws we've spent thousands of years trying to get right, but this one person in the crowd, who looks just like everyone else, is quite naked of legal protection, because someone decided they don't count as people any more. Demons, vampires, werewolves - if its legal to say 'that isn't a person' and ignore all the rules, when said non-person is walking, talking, tax paying even... Very dangerous precedent.
The UK series Ultraviolet covered this explicitly, never mentioning vampires but mentioning terrorists, talking about the dangers of a shoot to kill policy, or a lack of one.
I like a layer of metaphor between me and reality. But sometimes that layer is really very skinny.