Inigo, Spidey, and The Code

Lots of movies get our blood going, right? The final fight scenes in the Rocky series. John McClane kicking tush and taking names? Dozens and dozens of great endings that tickle us in the place we really want to be:  fearless underdog, standing up against the odds and overcoming.

My two favorites aren’t even *the* climactic moment between hero and villain. 

First, there’s The Princess Bride and Inigo Montoya. “You killed my father. Prepare to die.” The second is in Spiderman. I don’t know who that guy on the bridge is, but damn it, I want to be him. You know who I mean. “Hey, Goblin! You mess with one of us, you mess with all of us.” Both lines send a shiver down my spine even as I recall the scenes.

But why?

In the first instance, Inigo acts with nothing but honor. His mission (kidnapping aside) is to set right a grievous injustice done to his family. His goal is not the wide-spread destruction of all those associated with his true target, but rather the target himself – the elusive Six-Fingered Man. Throughout the movie he is motivated by what is right and proper…honorable. From his epic battle with the Dred Pirate Roberts where he not only waits for Roberts to recover from his cliff climb, to his attempt to seek out and rescue Roberts after hearing the wail of a man who has found true love, he acts with compassion and respect…honor. Even in the climactic scene, it is not until his friends are secure in the castle that he breaks from them to pursue his own mission.

In the second instance, one voice declares the sentiment of those standing on the bridge watching Spiderman attempt to save both M.J. and the cable car of innocent people simultaneously. They buy the time Spidey needs to win the real battle, not the one between life and death, but the one between true good and true evil, the preservation of all life or the destruction of it. After all, isn’t that the maniacal goal of all great super villains, the utter ruination of humanity and usurpation of power by violent means? But I digress. That guy on the bridge. Those people standing shoulder-to-shoulder with him.  They are suddenly raised to a new level of honor in a moment they were accidentally a part of. They see the battle for what it is, not a newspaper headline, but an honest-to-goodness fight for what is right and good and just. And in that moment, they see that they not only CAN play a part, but they, in fact, MUST play a part.

We are in THAT moment. We are at a time of a new American Revolution. Like our Founding Fathers who met in Philadelphia in the summer of 1776 to stand up to a bully, and again in 1787 to find a way to create a new and fair government, we find ourselves fighting a familiar enemy – ourselves. The source of our battle is equally familiar – taxes and religion. Our very existence as a country emanates from these very same sources. Our history is one that is not shared by any nation on Earth. It cannot be a shared history except among those who live in its legacy and fight daily for its continuation. 

But there is a fine line between continuation and ruination. And that line is clearer now than I can recall in the last 25 or 30 years of my life. The hostility with which we throw around insults is alarming. Worse yet is the response of the people who vote for what now passes as genuine leadership, but is truly nothing more than hollowed out phraseology, empty promises, and a tally system of who won the sparring match known as debate. 

Honor has been lost. There is a tragic and sharp decline in decent and honorable behavior. No sense of respect or compassion. No sense of what is right and proper. What’s worse is that there is no expectation of it. Say what you want about the leadership we have, but WE put them there. OUR behavior is what DICTATES THEIRS. 

Our country was founded on the idea of common goals and common good balanced with individual rights. But we were NOT founded on individualism. There was a time when we worked toward a common goal and a common goal. We respected opposition arguments. We lost with grace and dignity, for ourselves and for the victors. We have descended now into a time of individual temper tantrums. 

There was once a way to disagree. To negotiate. To compromise. To win and lose. To balance “me” and “us”. 

There was a time to live with honor, act with honor, respond with honor. The government we so heartily fight for – will never – CAN NEVER - be more than the reflection of the people it serves. This is the way it was drafted. This is the way we have sculpted it.

President Obama had it all wrong. HE is not the change we can believe in. WE must be the change we can believe in. If our government is to survive and serve the people it was meant to serve, then WE must change ourselves. And we must rediscover and re-engage the honor that our country once had and that was once respected and revered throughout the world. We didn’t choose to be in this moment. But here we are. Do we act with honor? Or do we take a backseat to our own demise and blame someone else for it?