outlaw hero Archives - David Mark Brown

At times like these civilized society needs more celebrities and swindlers like it needs a pudding can without a pull tab. They promise you sweet chocolaty goodness, but then stiff you when the cows come home.

In past posts I’ve written about the sustainable ethics of such outlaw heros as Bo and Luke Duke and Malcolm Reynolds from Firefly. And it still stands true, what we need today are outlaws with a heart of gold — bad guys who make us want to be good. But where have they gone? (click here to jump ahead to the punchline.)

In a day and age too glib for good guys to survive and too corrupt for the general populous to continue its complacency, we need these law-flauting, damsel-rescuing, firebrands more than ever, and yet… where can we turn?

Read moreMore Bionic Horses

Daisy Duke was as close as I came to a celebrity fetish as a boy. How can you resist the NASCAR driving temptress that fashioned a short-short revolution that looks good on less than 1% of the population? (of which I am proud to say I am still a part.)

But Daisy, Bo and Luke Duke were more than just hunky characters on the TV show The Dukes of Hazzard from 1979 through 1985, they were champions of community, social justice, civil liberties and simple living. I can still hear Waylon Jennings crooning about the good ole’ boys “fightin’ the system like a true, modern-day Robin Hood,” as the General Lee leaps a barn and flies off into the wild, blue yonder of freedom.

Sure, Bo and Luke ran moonshine in a Dodge Charger done up six ways to Dixie while Uncle Jesse supplied a tri-county area with white lightning, but who doesn’t jerk some hooch on the side these days? The times are hard, are they not?