{"id":15365,"date":"2011-06-21T10:29:56","date_gmt":"2011-06-21T17:29:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.reallifesuperheroes.org\/?p=15365"},"modified":"2011-06-21T10:29:56","modified_gmt":"2011-06-21T17:29:56","slug":"real-life-superheroes-3-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rlsh.net\/archive\/2011\/06\/21\/real-life-superheroes-3-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Real Life Superheroes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Originally posted: http:\/\/www.booksie.com\/editorial_and_opinion\/essay\/mrsunshine\/real-life-superheroes<\/a>
\nOriginally posted By MrSunshine<\/a>
\nPublished: Jun 18, 2011
\nThe world is need of superheroes. It is easy to get a sense of hopelessness as we hear about the terrible
\nthings happening around the world. We all watched the tragedy in Japan; we all remember the attacks on 9\/11.
\nI cannot help but imagine how much different things would be if the world was stuck between the pages of a
\ncomic book. Superman could have saved the towers. Aquaman could have prevented to Tsunamis in Japan.
\nWhile it is obvious that Superman doesn\u2019t exist, and that no one in this world has powers like him, there
\nare real life superheroes.
\nNadine Bells, a columnist for Yahoo! News, says that real life superheroes are becoming fairly popular in
\nNew York. Several vigilantes have banded together to form the New York Initiative (NYI.) They patrol the
\nstreets of New York at night, mostly to prevent drug deals from happening.
\nThe NYI is a branch of Real Life Superheroes (RLSH), a superhero agency that operates in many different
\ncountries. There are countless other superheroes that are not part of RLSH, ranging from the Crimson
\nFist in Atlanta to Menganno in Argentina. Almost every country has their own masked crusader, and some,
\nlike Norway\u2019s Geist, have become national heroes.
\nThis celebrity that some heroes have found has sparked some controversy. People have accused Geist and
\nothers of being glory seekers, and getting the way of the real heroes, policemen.
\nAndrea Kuszewski, a neurologist for The Institution for Emerging Ethics and Technologies, says that
\nheroes may not be as good as we think. \u201cAs crazy as it sounds, there may be a closer link than than most
\npeople would think between the extreme-altruistic personality and sociopathic personality. Would it shock
\nyou to know that two people, one with the traits of extreme-altruism (X-altruism) and the other the traits of a
\nsociopath, could be related? Even siblings?\u201d She goes on to point out that people trying to stop law breakers
\noften end up breaking laws themselves. That brings up another interesting point. How do policemen
\nand other authorities feel about real life superheroes? They\u2019re not necessarily fans, but they\u2019re not
\ncondemning it.
\nPolice in Seattle, Washington don\u2019t really take the men in tights seriously. In fact, they released an office
\nmemo making fun of them. They also say that being a vigilante is very dangerous, but nothing wrong with itif
\nrules are followed. “There’s nothing wrong with citizens getting involved with the criminal justice process — as long as they
\nfollow it all the way through [by calling 911 and attending court],” said Jeff Keppel, spokesman for the Seattle
\nPolice Department.
\nThere have been in incidents where a member of RLSH has been sentenced to prison time. In 2008 a hero
\n(not named) shot a man trying to break into a car. The man didn\u2019t survive the shot, and the hero served nine
\nmonths in a Washington prison for manslaughter. Questioning someone\u2019s motives for doing something
\nis easy, but if what they are doing is good, should there be any question at all? Does it matter why someone is
\ndoing something, if they\u2019re doing the right thing, or helping others? I guess it comes down to what you would
\nwant for yourself.
\nIf you were being robbed or beaten, and a super hero came to your rescue, would you accuse them of
\nbeing a glory seeker, or would you thank them for their services?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mr. Sunshine’s essay on real life superheroes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12371,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[10],"tags":[221,1017,1328,1840,1901,2173,2181,2338,2341,2548,2555,2567],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rlsh.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15365"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rlsh.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rlsh.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rlsh.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rlsh.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15365"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rlsh.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15365\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rlsh.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rlsh.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rlsh.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rlsh.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}