Why doesn't Captain America accept the need for checks & balances on superheroes?

Question

Captain America is a champion of democracy, of which the existence and use of checks and balances is a core pillar. Why, then, is he so averse to being subject to checks and balances on his own power?

He claimed said checks are vulnerable to being politicised, but that's part and parcel of any political system: has any political institution in history ever been immune to it? In this case the check & balance of superheroes will be provided by the United Nations: Does this mean he lacks faith in the UN?

Why does Captain America prefer to reject subjecting his individual, near-unlimited powers to checks and balances just so he can remain free of politics, while apparently believing that only he has the authority to tell himself what is the right way to use his powers?

Answer 1

The Cap lays out his reasoning himself in the boardroom scene:

Steve Rogers: Tony, someone dies on your watch, you don't give up.

Tony Stark: Who said we're giving up?

Steve Rogers: We are, for not taking responsibility for our actions. This document just shifts the blame.

Lieutenant James Rhodes: Sorry, Steve, That. That is dangerously arrogant. This is THE United Nations we're talking about. It's not The World Security Council. It's not SHIELD. It's not HYDRA.

Steve Rogers: I know. But it runs by people with agendas and agendas change.

Tony Stark: THAT's good. That's why I'm here. When I realized my weapons were capable of in the wrong hands, I shut it down; stop manufacturing.

Steve Rogers: Tony. You CHOSE to do that. If we sign this, we surrender our right to CHOOSE. What if this Panel sends us somewhere we don't think we should go? What if there's somewhere we need to go and they don't let us? We may not be perfect but the safest hands are still our own.

To address your specific concern, Rogers loves democracy, and it's true that checks and balance are part of that system. But at the same time, a true democracy also has checks on the government's ability to impose its will on the people. In this case, private citizens like the Avengers are being essentially railroaded into becoming agents of the world's governments. Even if you understand those governments' concerns, you can understand why a liberty-lover like Captain America would be chafed.

Answer 2

Captain America brings up a couple of specific scenarios that he asks Tony Stark directly, aside from the vague generalities of political agendas and Hydra-like infiltration.

• What if we need to go in, and they won't let us?
• What if we don't feel it's appropriate to step in, and they order us to?
• Who decides that a threat is worthy of superhero intervention, or that it isn't?
• What if they take too long to decide on the above?

The Avengers as a whole have only one purpose, to save lives. He trusts that every single Avenger will only ever take action in that interest. And ultimately, he believes that the safest hands are their own, rather than making them a will of another party. He wants the Avengers to take responsibility when they do screw up.

He does start to waver with a comment about certain reassurances, and then his lack of faith is reinforced as he finds out how Wanda Maximoff has been treated.

Answer 3

If you're making this about checks and balances, then consider that governments are also kept (somewhat; Poland nowadays shows just how little) in check by their people.
Governments have a frightening amount of power over folks, and easily divorce themselves, as entities, from the people they are to serve. Keep in mind only the official dealings are subject to "checks and balances". They need more scrutiny than anyone else, and there is only any point to it if their watchers are not wholly under their control, a credible threat, AND not "part of the same club".

The UN members are this to each other in a limited fashion only, with "balance" as their highest priority.
The Avengers serve that purpose passably for ideals that get left behind. Yes, they, too, need to be kept in check, and they are, to the level that "checks and balances" might find optimal... if they had more political power - enough to exert some political pressure rather than be dismissed as "uppity civvies".

The Sokovia Accords (or Superhero Registration Act) turn a balancing power into a mercenary force.

Of course, the UN's demand is also justified - superhumans' combined powers are a frightening thing - but the threat is overstated - the Avengers do no worse a job of self-regulation than the UN members do.
So - no matter what the latter claim, to others and themselves - the main motivation seems to be much less noble.

Answer 4

There's actually a lot of discussion about this right now. See Amanda Marcotte's acerbic piece on Salon. She makes a few valid points amid the name-calling, but I think she missed the Civil War event in the comics.

That version of Cap opposed the comics' equivalent of the Sokovia Accords as well. In that continuity, the Superhero Registration Act not only subjects The Avengers to government oversight, but it compels literally everyone with superpowers to work in a government-sponsored super-police agency. Anyone who doesn't register gets arrested. It's often compared to the real-life contemporary Patriot Act. Luke Cage compares it to slavery.

The real problem is less that Captain America mutated into a libertarian icon than that the plot is lifted out of comics and into the movie without the above context. In the movie, Cap's opposition to the Accords is actually kind of flimsy and fades into the background of the Bucky plot. Most of the action boils down to Tony's guilt vs. Steve's loyalty to Bucky.

Also, nobody mentions that the World Security Council wanted to drop an atomic bomb on New York to stop the Chitauri in the first movie. I wouldn't listen to them either!

Answer 5

I think the answer is shown best at the end of the movie. Bucky recognizes the threat that he poses, and voluntarily subjects himself to being put into stasis under the authority of Wakanda until a cure can be devised. This is responsibility. Cap sees the state that the governments of the world are in - ineffectual, combative, politically polarized, corrupt. These are not the kinds of people who should be in control of that kind of power.

Plus there is a difference between wielding someone else's power, and having the power to act on your own. For the UN, there wouldn't be the weight of responsibility, not like there is when you are the one on the front line. It's your life on the line, you're seeing the faces of the people you are trying to protect, you are seeing the bodies of the ones you have failed. That is responsibility. That is something you will never have from someone sitting in a comfy chair in New York or Washington DC or Paris or London or Moscow or wherever.

Answer 6

I think your problem is that you're confusing personal freedom for government, and those are two extremely different things.

The reason the government exists is to protect your personal freedom. To make sure other people don't steal your things, harm you, etc. You can do anything you want as long as you don't harm other people or their things, rights, or freedoms.

So you have Captain America walking around helping people defend themselves, when the United Nations comes along. We need to put your power in check to make sure you aren't doing anything we is think bad, and you can only do what we tell you you can do. Now, that is limiting the good Captain's freedom, and dictating to him what he can and cannot do. Captain America pretty much says Hell no, this isn't communist Russia, this is 'Murica! (FYI Communist Russia is a member of that United Nations and can be any evil government you want.)

The Simon,e way to put things is that this is not an issue of checks and balances. This is personal freedom. Captain America believes people have the right to choose for themselves whether or not they do things, and then deal with the appropriate consequences. The UN is essentially trying to tell him what he can and cannot get involved in or do, and take away all choice.

Answer 7

The biggest reason that I side with Iron Man on this, is that Cap says that he wants them to be accountable, rather than the UN, but in past situations, when have they been held accountable? New York, yes they were heroes, but did anyone, up until Civil War, say a word about the vast destruction that twas not entirely alien caused? Or were proceedings ever initiated against Wanda for the mistake with the guy in a bomb vest? His words are hollow because he doesn't ever enforce them. The final nail in the coffin for me, and why he was wrong to run, is exactly as he said. "Agendas change". Whats to say his, or Wanda's, or Tony's, or anyone else's never changes. Yes, Cap is a paragon of virtue, but an interesting storyline to this point appeared in Injustice: Gods Among us. Spoiler Alert for those who haven't played the game, but in it, the Joker drugs superman, causing him to kill many people, including Lois Lane. The Opening scene shows him killing Joker and establishing a nearly unapposable dictatorship, entirely due to the trauma expirienced by the drug. Whats to stop this from happening to Cap, or any other Avenger? Nothing, and this is why they need to be put in check.