James Hart over at Crime Scene KC recently said “this was the dumbest thing you’ll see today:”

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Da1ADqPplQ4[/youtube]

He then went on to call Shadow Hare “Barney Fife in a Fetish Suit” and he apparently isn’t alone in his assessment, given the condescending attitude of the talking heads in the news reported this story. My question to both the snarky blogger and smirking reporter would be this: exactly what have you done to help out your neighbors?

It’s easy to mock the man in spandex isn’t it? But while that reporter phoned in his piece, Shadow Hare and company were handing out sandwiches to the homeless. The same homeless that he and most other people step over and ignore. While Crimes Scene KC does an admirable job recording criminality, there is a movement of people who want to help stop crimes from happening. These people, who refer to themselves as Real Life Super Heroes, are surely a peculiar sight but mainly because they care. Even if they took off their masks they’d be derided for attempting to protect their fellow citizens.

The media reaction to Curtis Sliwa and the Guardian Angels proves that.

When I lived in  the Bronx I was well known among my neighbors as the person always watching for trouble. I in fact called the cops several times to intervene in crimes I saw and almost without exception when there was a crime reported I was pretty much one of two or three people in an area of a few thousand that bothered to call it in. My neighbors joked about me being the neighborhood watch, and they freely admitted to hearing screams or fights and never bothering to even look out their windows to see if anyone needed help. When my wife and I finally moved, the daughter of one of our neighbors told us she always felt safe coming home at night because she knew we’d be making sure everything was safe.

How I wished for a Shadow Hare all the times I was calling the cops or intervening in a crime. How I wished that just once there was someone besides my wife and an old man who lived a couple of blocks over who cared enough to try to keep the area safe. Most people in New York don’t care how many rapes and murders happen there, as long as it doesn’t happen to them. Our increasingly liberal, self-absorbed and infantilized society produces quasi-adults who think it’s the responsibility of the invisible hand of the nanny state to keep them and their families safe, to look out for their friends and neighbors and keep the worst of society at bay. How’s that attitude working out for New York? Los Angeles? Detroit?

It’s easy to mock the Shadow Hares of the world, to imply that he’s living out some childish fantasy but ironically he and his Allegiance of Heroes and the whole R.L.S.H. sub-culture are the only ones who seem to understand that the real childish fantasy is the idea that we can simply hope and change away the rising tide of filth that is enveloping us. While Crime Scene KC yuks it up about how pathetic Shadow Hare is, people are being raped, murdered, robbed and victimized in a thousand different ways. While people smirk about costumed do-gooders, perverts are engaged in an organized campaign to minimize and normalize their sexual exploitation of children through groups like SoClear media and SOSEN.

Where’s the blog posts and news reports on that?

And before anyone even starts, of course I see the danger that Shadow Hare could be in. But I can attest to the fact that sometimes just the presence of a person or group of people can stop a crime. Hell, I’ve stopped crimes by standing around smoking a cigarette. Just the presence of a bunch of oddly dressed people on the streets may stop a mugging or two, and if they are willing to take the chance that they could be hurt than isn’t it worth it?

I’m not breaking out the spandex or claiming anyone else should. But I do support neighborhood watch programs and people getting involved in helping their fellow citizens no matter how they happen to like to dress. Maybe it’s because I like to wear a camouflage cowboy hat and have been know to wear far too much jewelry but I just don’t think people dressing up like superheroes is a big deal, and if they’re trying to do some good they deserve our respect, not our derision.

So I’ll put to the readers this question: costume or not, what’s so funny about being a good citizen anyway?

More snark from The Telegraph. The World Super Hero Registry is here. Here’s a follow up on Shadow Hare.