Serenity was a pleasant rebuff to the Leftists and conservatives who insist on ascribing bad behavior to metaphysical instead of ideological causes.

In response to the post, and I’ll ask pardon for the blue language necessary to this point: Everyone hates an asshole unless he’s THEIR asshole. (i.e. unless he’s on their side.) Then he’s cool and his behavior, whether merely coarse or outright criminal, is to be celebrated, not condemned. It is, of course, hypocrisy.

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1300

I don’t think I’d call Darby a hero, but it seems this particular choice was a noble one. Some have argued it is mostly Darbies fault for encouraging their violence. Ultimately I think that doesn’t matter because those two *chose* to do it, peer pressure or no.

I also get the sense Darby is a very graphic example of what Rand called the “Comprachicos of the mind”. That is, he is an idealist who was exposed to a lot of terrible people and ideas consistently from a young age. He’s every bit the altruist, but some remaining piece of humanity seems to keep him from wanting to see physical violence done to other human beings.