Counterstrike

I've no wish to alarm by the implication that my behavior plumbs depths yet more asinine that those portrayed here, yet it is so. At such moments, I act out neoconservative psychodramas in which there are two roles: terrorist and counter-terrorist. You can play as a variety of personae within the two roles, but the differences are wholly cosmetic: what is functional is the binary.

Isn't it interesting that they couldn't come up with the semantic opposite of terrorist? (Freedom fighter?) Counter-terrorist, of course, is circular and so entirely satisfactory for the game's purposes, and yet the function that the counter-terrorist forces fulfill is entirely unclear, excepting the quelling of bandana-ed guerillas.

I can't decide how unsettling this is; that the normative assumption behind the game is that violent suppression of violent means is always justified. Of course, the fact that I'm talking about a game the pleasures of which consist entirely of shooting avatars in the head render my attempts to impute inflected politics to the game mechanics entirely fatuous. It is possible, however, that under my country's new laws, they are also mildly illegal.