Sometimes, even those of us without remarkable minds have similar ideas to those who do. Maybe those ideas aren't quite as well thought out or as extensively supported as we'd like, but we have them. A few days ago I posted on reputation. I said that we (the US and the West) tend to act like prey animals. We act like food for the carnivore.
Today Vodkapundit linked to Neo-neocon, who has a wonderful post about Dr. Wafa Sultan.
Oh, I just had a terrible thought. Maybe we're acting like girls.
Lord save me from a brain that runs off on random tangents. Yesterday my kids were in a karate tournament for Kojosho karate in Albuquerque. I didn't compete. Two young men who stand next to me in class, brothers, fought in the kumite part of the competition. They are very well matched. The event started and they started to beat the crap out of each other. Granted, the way the competition is scored there's not much time for crap beating and no one actually got hurt, but it was fierce enough I heard our instructor telling them to tone it down a bit and afterward joked if they were going to be friends when they went home.
Well, of course they were. Nevermind they had equal points when the match timed out, but the both of them spit out their mouth guards and were grinning like loons.
I elbowed my husband and said, "It's a man thing, isn't it." He agreed.
On foreign policy, it seems to be a common sentiment that if we throw our weight around that people will hate us, that it's a bad thing overall and having to resort to force means that we've lost already. But maybe it's more of a man thing. One side pushes. If we don't push back, we're weak. The pushing doesn't mean that friendships can't be forged.
(Oh, help me! Now my brain wants to run off on a discussion of Jackie Chan movies I watched this weekend that began with people beating each other up only to quickly become allies... ack!)
Girls, on the other hand, tend toward scorched earth policies. We hold grudges and vendettas.
This girl, however, has to go tuck her kids in bed, sing songs and give hugs. Goodnight. :-)
Correction: Neo-neocon has posted a correction on her blog. Wafa Sultan was not the author of the post she cites. Go read her explanation. It will make more sense than my bungled paraphrase.
Today Vodkapundit linked to Neo-neocon, who has a wonderful post about Dr. Wafa Sultan.
Dr. Sultan pulls no punches, to say the least; she sets up a Jacksonian challenge to Western countries to begin defending themselves and their culture with greater vigor, or to face continuing to be perceived by the Islamicist jihadis as weak and therefore relatively easy prey.It frustrates me that people don't get this. Particularly, it frustrates me that people who claim to be culturally and internationally sophisticated don't get this. Because they despise a military show of strength or even just a macho chest thumping, they figure everyone else in the world will react the same way.
Oh, I just had a terrible thought. Maybe we're acting like girls.
Lord save me from a brain that runs off on random tangents. Yesterday my kids were in a karate tournament for Kojosho karate in Albuquerque. I didn't compete. Two young men who stand next to me in class, brothers, fought in the kumite part of the competition. They are very well matched. The event started and they started to beat the crap out of each other. Granted, the way the competition is scored there's not much time for crap beating and no one actually got hurt, but it was fierce enough I heard our instructor telling them to tone it down a bit and afterward joked if they were going to be friends when they went home.
Well, of course they were. Nevermind they had equal points when the match timed out, but the both of them spit out their mouth guards and were grinning like loons.
I elbowed my husband and said, "It's a man thing, isn't it." He agreed.
On foreign policy, it seems to be a common sentiment that if we throw our weight around that people will hate us, that it's a bad thing overall and having to resort to force means that we've lost already. But maybe it's more of a man thing. One side pushes. If we don't push back, we're weak. The pushing doesn't mean that friendships can't be forged.
(Oh, help me! Now my brain wants to run off on a discussion of Jackie Chan movies I watched this weekend that began with people beating each other up only to quickly become allies... ack!)
Girls, on the other hand, tend toward scorched earth policies. We hold grudges and vendettas.
This girl, however, has to go tuck her kids in bed, sing songs and give hugs. Goodnight. :-)
Correction: Neo-neocon has posted a correction on her blog. Wafa Sultan was not the author of the post she cites. Go read her explanation. It will make more sense than my bungled paraphrase.
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