The Good Guys and The Bad Guys

Where I grew up, there were Good Guys and there were Bad Guys.

And they were pretty easy to tell apart.

For one thing, The Good Guys wore white hats.

The Bad Guys wore black hats.

That helped a lot.

But even without the hats, you could tell who was who.

The Good Guys believed in “I may not agree with what you say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.”

The Bad Guys believed in don’t ask any questions, or we’ll shut you up, shut you out, or lock you away. Or bury you.

The Good Guys believed in “Never strike the first blow.”

The Bad Guys believed in “shoot first, ask questions later."

For The Good Guys, force is a last resort; for The Bad Guys it’s a first choice.

The Good Guys believed in “fair fight,” and playing by the rules, and knew what to do with tin-horn card-cheats.

The Bad Guys believed it’s fine to lie, cheat, steal, ambush and back-shoot as long as you get what you want, and that honesty is for suckers.

The Good Guys believed in “Innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.”

The Bad Guys believed in “Guilty until proven innocent.” They were suspicious of everyone, spied on everyone, assumed everyone was an “enemy of the state.”

The Good Guys believed “It’s better a hundred guilty men go free than an innocent man be punished.”

The Bad Guys believed “Kill ‘em all, let God sort ‘em out,” content to kill a hundred innocent people to get one enemy. They call it “collateral damage.”

The Good Guys believed in “Fair is Fair.”

The bad Guys believed in “What’s in it for me?”

Republic. I like the sound of the word. It means people can live free, talk free, go or come, buy or sell, be drunk or sober, however they choose.

–John Wayne as Davey Crockette in The Alamo, 1960

The Good Guys believed in “My word is my bond.”

The Bad Guys know a dozen ways to lie and they use them all.

The Good Guys believed in “Two wrongs don’t make a right.”

The Bad Guys believed in “an eye for an eye.”

The Good Guys believed in justice tempered with mercy.

The Bad Guys believed in vengeance without mercy.

The Good Guys believed there’s no right reason to do a wrong thing.

The Bad Guys believed the end justifies the means.

The Good Guys treated even their enemies with fairness, decency and mercy.

The Bad Guys tortured, raped and murdered helpless women and children

The Good Guys believed in Truth.

The Bad Guys believed in “spin.”

The Bad Guys thought that not getting caught in a lie is as good as telling the truth.

The Good Guys chose their friends by the “content of their character.”

The Bad Guys chose their friends by what they could get from them.

The Good Guys always admitted when they made a mistake or did wrong and then tried to fix it.

The Bad Guys always blamed somebody else.

The Good Guys believed that no one is above the law.

The Bad Guys believed that if the Leader does it, that makes it legal.

The Good Guys believed in “liberty and justice for all.”

The Bad Guys believed in liberty for themselves, slavery for everybody else.

The Good Guys believed that the people owned the government.

The Bad Guys believed that the government owned the people.

Where I grew up there were Good Guys and there Bad Guys.

And we were the Good Guys.

I guess I'm homesick.

sj