What is courage?
I am at a law conference in Florida and attended a panel on "Masculinity and Manliness in the Law." Initially, I was a little wary, thinking that it would be some PC twaddle that would get me annoyed, but it was actually quite informative. The three panelists discussed their recent papers on the topics of men and courage, transsexuals in prison, and women wearing the veil in Turkey (how this last one related to masculinity, I am still not sure of, but it was an interesting talk).
The first presenter, Professor John Kang, of St. Thomas University School of Law in Florida, shared his work that was most up my alley as he talked about the burdens of being male and how the law reinforces stereotypes of gender roles in men (particularly in the military) and requires them to be courageous and punishes them when they are not. He seemed to have more questions than answers as he discussed how the law and society put the burden on men to be courageous. He used anecdotes from soldiers to show their level of conflict between being courageous and a "man" and being a coward. He shared an example of a soldier in the book, If I Die in a Combat Zone : Box Me Up and Ship Me Home,
in which a soldier reflects on whether he was a hero during the Vietnam war or a coward.
Lest you think that the audience might have also been PC, you would be wrong (as I was). The members were law professors who asked great questions such as "do you think that encouraging courage in men is bad? Or are you saying that both men and women can be courageous and it is a trait that both genders share?" There was one woman who brought up the point that courage is important in men for evolutionary reasons: many women are needed to reproduce, many men are not. I asked Professor Kang how our society would be affected if we taught men to be cowards (it seems that is what we often do). He was smart enough to realize that his training did not cover the scope of this question and said so, which I greatly respected.
All in all, it was definitely worth the time to attend and got me thinking about the question of courage. What is it and why is it important to a society?
What do you think?
The first presenter, Professor John Kang, of St. Thomas University School of Law in Florida, shared his work that was most up my alley as he talked about the burdens of being male and how the law reinforces stereotypes of gender roles in men (particularly in the military) and requires them to be courageous and punishes them when they are not. He seemed to have more questions than answers as he discussed how the law and society put the burden on men to be courageous. He used anecdotes from soldiers to show their level of conflict between being courageous and a "man" and being a coward. He shared an example of a soldier in the book, If I Die in a Combat Zone : Box Me Up and Ship Me Home,
in which a soldier reflects on whether he was a hero during the Vietnam war or a coward. Lest you think that the audience might have also been PC, you would be wrong (as I was). The members were law professors who asked great questions such as "do you think that encouraging courage in men is bad? Or are you saying that both men and women can be courageous and it is a trait that both genders share?" There was one woman who brought up the point that courage is important in men for evolutionary reasons: many women are needed to reproduce, many men are not. I asked Professor Kang how our society would be affected if we taught men to be cowards (it seems that is what we often do). He was smart enough to realize that his training did not cover the scope of this question and said so, which I greatly respected.
All in all, it was definitely worth the time to attend and got me thinking about the question of courage. What is it and why is it important to a society?
What do you think?
Labels: men's issues
posted by Helen at 8:52 AM
131 Comments:
Although courage may find its ultimate test in warfare, it is important in all aspects of society. Courage is important in a NASA employee, for example, when he needs to speak up againt the bureaucratic momentum of a dangerous launch decision. Courage is important in a college professor when trendy nonsense threatens to overwhelm serious teaching and scholarship. Courage is important in an executive when it is time for the bet-your-company decision.
As women have moved into an increasing % of decison-making roles in our society, courage for men has not become *less* important, but courage for women has arguably become *more* important.
IMHO, courage manifests as the will to take a stand for what is right even when circumstances make it difficult.
Courage is not excessive boldness. It is not charging ahead of the lines into battle. It's standing in the ranks to fight, never running.
Honor is the pursuit of worthy goals by worthy means. Courage is honor in action. The truly honorable man is already courageous.
There is the honor that a man earns, and the honor he is due merely by his additonal responsibilities, by his station. The law has higher standards for men as a social station. Fine. Then, the law must give men higher honors and perhaps more civil rights.
This is simple justice.
TO: Dr. Helen, et al.
RE: Courage, Anyone?
I like the definition I came across decades ago....
Courage: Knowing you're going to be severely beaten. But going ahead anyway.
Another good one is....
Courage is grace under pressure.
Here's a truism about it....
Courage atrophies from lack of use.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[Courage is your greatest present need.]
I'll leave the "what" of courage alone, I can't define it but I know it when I see it.
As for why it's important to society, that I have a theory on. The great upheavals, the great leaps forward, the great fork-in-the-road moments that determine the future of a society are generally determined by a remnant of that society, and being part of that remnant requires courage. You're bucking the trend, you're swimming upstream, fill in your favorite simile (or are they metaphors? I have trouble keeping them straight). It takes courage to go your own way when everyone else is telling you you're nuts.
If we could (God forbid!) eliminate courage from our society we'd find outselves always going where the herd wishes, taking the path of least resistance, maybe over the cliff or into the slaughterhouse.
One of my former co-workers was a young man whose wife had left him and their child. He was able to parent his child, work and finish school. Not easy, and he took his share of hard knocks losing more than one job because of child care needs which he always put first. He is now an Licensed Vocational Nurse and I say that is courage.
Courage: action under stress,
before the time to second-guess.
Courage: an accurate report,
Standing self-interest athwart.
--
The ideas of those couplets meet somewhere around unthinking commitment to truth.
Civil-service protections and academic tenure are both institutional mechanisms intended to reduce the risks of nonconforming behavior and hence to reduce the need for courage. Their effectiveness in this goal is not an can not be complete. See my post Conformity Kills.
"One of my former co-workers was a young man whose wife had left him and their child."
I wonder when Marsh will come in here and apoplectically shame this woman for ditching her family?
...*crickets*...
"Not easy, and he took his share of hard knocks losing more than one job because of child care needs which he always put first. He is now an Licensed Vocational Nurse and I say that is courage."
Yes. It is easy to crawl into the fetal position, beg family or the government to make you a ward and cry about how unfair it all is. Strivers in society (of either gender) don't let ever horrifically demanding circumstances derail their dreams of pride and self-sufficiency.
Speaking of which...I'm sure everyone knows someone who always has a job. No matter what happens, they always find something to do with themselves. Those are the striver types - they're real good at mining their networks and getting work into their hands, and being open to whatever needs to be done...they just don't like to be idle.
Courage to me means being afraid and doing the right thing anyway. There is no courage without fear, just as there is no toughness without suffering.
Trey
Courage is being scared to death - but saddling up anyway.
- John Wayne
Courage takes many forms. Sometimes it's on the battlefield. Often and typically, it occurs in everyday life.
Courage is the ability to say "no" to your children's request when all other parents are saying "yes".
Courage is the ability to take a dissenting view of "not guilty" in the jury deliberation room when the other eleven jurors are staunchly against you and applying pressure on you to change your verdict, at four o'clock on Friday.
Courage is a seventeen year old girl fighting her lifelong painful shyness and nervously giving her valedictorian speech in front of thousands of strangers.
Courage is an employee telling his boss in front of the entire department "With respect, I disagree" knowing that the boss will create the list of departmental layoffs the next day.
Courage recognizes both genders and gives preference to neither. Both of my children (son and daughter) graduated from the United States Air Force Academy as did I. My daughter graduated in the top five percent of her Basic Cadet Training squadron of 150. During their respective Doolie (freshman) years the Academy presented both of them with frequent opportunities to search deep inside themselves for courage. Nobody could be prouder of their children than I.
As with everything else, parents are the best teachers of life values to their children. Unfortunately, a great many parents don't realize this. Thus, they abdicate their parental responsibilities, and then wonder why their children fail.
Kurt Todoroff
I'm afraid that the current educational system in the U.S. does not tend to develop courage, quite the contrary. The bureaucratic nature of K-12 education surely tends to scare away prospective teachers who have strong independent spirits--and people who themselves primarilyvalue security and fitting-in are unlikely to model it effectively in others. And at the other end of the spectrum, the emphasis on conformity in much humanities graduate education is well-known.
The members were law professors who asked great questions such as "do you think that encouraging courage in men is bad? Or are you saying that both men and women can be courageous and it is a trait that both genders share?"
Other posts on this thread have provided good examples defining courage. I want to address the two questions above.
I believe courage should be encouraged in men. For that matter, it should be encouraged in women as well. Courage is doing the right thing even at great risk to yourself. Courage is perhaps most prominently displayed in combat but it also applies to the men and women firefighters who risk themselves to save the lives and property of others. Courage is displayed by the honest cops who put themselves in harm's way. There is also the moral courage displayed by those willing to risk their careers to speak out against something that is wrong. While society may condition men to be courageous, there are quite a few women who have risked (and sometimes lost) all in the military, as firefighters, as cops, and in other areas.
What will happen to our society if the risk adverse succeed in convincing others that courage is an outdated concept, that nothing is worth dying for, and that nothing is worth risking your career over? IMO, we'll have a society that will be in danger of burning to the ground or of being overrun, either by foreign enemies or domestic criminals. Mohandas Gandhi said, "I am prepared to die, but there is no cause for which I am prepared to kill." Martin Luther King, Jr. said, "A man who won't die for something is not fit to live."
I think courage is a good ideal to aspire to, but I have a problem with women - at least the ones who position themselves in a situation where they can be as cowardly as they like - telling men how they should act.
Ok Dr Helen. You are impressing me more and more. :-) Are you sure you are not from Eastern Europe and in the 30-35 bracket? LOL!
Courage is real simple. It's doing what you said you were going to do. No matter you know you are going to lose. Real men exhibit courage in all they say and all they do. You can hear the steel in their voice. You can see the commitment in their deeds. Men who lack courage are as obvious as dogs balls. They think they can hide it but they can't. Women? Women like my grandmothers showed real courage. My lady friends show real courage living their lives. Western women do not exhibit courage.
One time I was playing our brand of football, Australian rules. We were going to be thrashed by a far better side on the day. My man got one kick all day. I beat him badly. He was one of the best players in our league. When the final siren went he shook my hand and conceded defeat and offered to buy me a beer. He asked me "Why did you try so hard when you were on a team being beaten so badly?" I simply replied "I always do my best no matter what." He slapped me on the back and said "Well, you did that today."
Men do this sort of thing from the sporting field to the battle field. Women don't. They like to call 'courage' sitting in the family home waiting for their soldier boy to come back from the battle front. Hilary Clinton has said:
"Women have always been the primary victims of war. Women lose their husbands, their fathers, their sons in combat. Women often have to flee from the only homes they have ever known. Women are often the refugees from conflict and sometimes, more frequently in today’s warfare, victims. Women are often left with the responsibility, alone, of raising the children."
http://clinton3.nara.gov/WH/EOP/First_Lady/html/generalspeeches/1998/19981117.html
This from the woman who had the 'courage' to dodge the sniper fire at Sarejevo airport, you know, while the video evidence shows a little girl giving her a bunch of flowers or some such. And that lying cow says she 'mis-remembered'? Guess what. I've had guns pointed at me many times in my life. I never 'mis-remembered' one of them. Women vote for this lying cow?
Courage, for me, was personified in that I spent about 600 hours learning how to deny the jurisdiction of the Family Court in Australia. Developed my remedy that could be used by all Australian men. Flew from London to Sydney to stand in their court room. Video recorded the proceedings and told the magistrate he had no jurisdiction and no right to do anything with my property. I had two bloody great flatfoots behind me and signs up saying 'no recording devices allowed'. It took courage because I knew full well that being the first man in the world, to my knowledge, to video record a family law matter and prove the corruption of the court was a massive provocation for some very nasty people. To the best of my knowledge, no other man has yet emulated this feat in a family court anywhere in the world. Not that I know of. My mate Mr. Truth texted me later congraulating me on taking my stand and sticking it to the 'wooly mammoth' with a blunt stick like Ogg would have done 20,000 years ago.
Courage is standing by what you believe to be the right thing to do, even when the criminals are as powerful as your 'guvment'. Even when you know they are going to steal from you everything you have ever worked for. Standing against your OWN corrupt guvment is one of the most couragous things a man can do off the battlefield because he will be hated by the vast majority around him. He will NOT be seen as a 'hero'. Patriots are often hated early on in the process.
Larry,
"but it also applies to the men and women firefighters who risk themselves to save the lives and property of others"
No women firefighters died on 9/11. Women are cowards. They know the score is 'women and children first'.
"One of my former co-workers was a young man whose wife had left him and their child.
"
I wonder when Marsh will come in here and apoplectically shame this woman for ditching her family?
...*crickets*..."
Is the woman reading here? Are others defending her actions?
B/c you can bet your sweet ass that I would.
There is nothing more reprehensible than when a spouse betrays their marriage vows and deserts their children.
"One of my former co-workers was a young man whose wife had left him and their child. He was able to parent his child, work and finish school. Not easy, and he took his share of hard knocks losing more than one job because of child care needs which he always put first. He is now an Licensed Vocational Nurse and I say that is courage."
So do I.
"why is it important to a society?"
The men at the top of society like to enslave the rest of the men at the botton so they can live off them via a mechanism called 'taxes'. They have always done this via the mens desire for women. It's been that way since men were enslaved building pyramids in egypt and perhaps even longer.
It takes men of courage to challenge the men at the top, the ones with all the weapons, and say 'No More'. Usually there are not enough of these men. The men at the top are then able to manipulate the sitution to drag countries into wars which, co-incidentally, kill the men at the bottom and not the men at the top. Men like Roosevelt, Churchill, Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini all collaborated to get their show called WW II under way. That little show killed about 50M or so men from the bottom of the pile. It killed suspiciously few from the top. They achieved this because not enough men of real courage could be found to stand against their own guvments. The men we lack in this world today are those who will stand alone and denounce their criminal guvments. Lyndon LaRouch (who has the distinction of being jailed by Bush Senior) has been warning about efforts to get WW III started for some time now. http://www.larouchepub.com/
Without men of real courage like Lyndon La Rouch to stand against the criminal guvments they will get WW III going. And wars are bad for men at the bottom of the pile. Arguably bad for 'society', but definitely bad for men at the bottom. This is why courage is important.
Marsh,
"There is nothing more reprehensible than when a spouse betrays their marriage vows and deserts their children."
Yes, there is. One is when a woman breaks her marriage vows, physically and pshycologically abuses here children, and then removes the father by threat of incarceration based on perjury so that he does not have the opportunity to defend his own children from ALL those who would do them harm. It happens every day and you women champion it.
It is FAR worse to abuse your children than to leave them. At least when you leave them you are not injuring them every day.
Grow up. There are many things worse than this too. Try 'murdering children'. It's something that women do in vastly over-represented numbers. Natural fathers actually rarely kill their children.
Lyndons other site.
http://www.larouchepac.com/
This comment has been removed by the author.
Calling some behavior "courageous" is almost always just an attempt to promote behavior which actually or potentially injures the person performing it and actually or potentially benefits the person promoting it. It's pure social manipulation, nothing more.
"It happens every day and you women champion it."
*I* do not equal "you women".
Just as YOU do not equal the honorable man you have read about.
globalman100 said...
Larry,
"but it also applies to the men and women firefighters who risk themselves to save the lives and property of others"
No women firefighters died on 9/11. Women are cowards. They know the score is 'women and children first'.
You might want to do some fact-checking before making such an assertion. From Free Republic:
NEW YORK (AP) The question is awkward to ask, but not hard to answer: Why were no women among the 343 firefighters killed at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11?
Numbers tell the story. Nationally, roughly 2 percent of professional firefighters are female. In New York City, women account for just 28 of 11,400 firefighters less than 0.3 percent.
Of those 28 NYC female firefighters, how many were on duty that day? And of those, how many of them were called out before the towers fell?
More info available here.
Bob,
"It's pure social manipulation, nothing more."
In many cases you are correct. I often use the 'Ogg vs wooly mammoth' analogy. In ancient times the men must have gone out to do battle with the wooly mammoth to feed the whole tribe. Each man could have easily fed himself by catching rabbits or foxes and such. But the old men knew, in order to feed the whole tribe most reliably the best thing to do was to 'hunt the wooly mammoth'. This would provide a supply of food for the whole tribe for weeks or months to come. It would come at the possible cost of a young man or two dying. So they made up words like 'hero' and 'courage' to manipulate the young men into risking their lives for the benefit of others. They made women available only for the 'brave' men. If any young man actually figured out the scam he would be killed or driven from the tribe as a 'coward'. Even today calling a man a 'coward' is a sharp insult and it is also social manipulation. In order to 'belong to the tribe' men were manipulated into risking their lives. Workplace deaths and wars kill off a LOT of young men.
Why did the old men invent such social manipulation to get the young men to 'fight the wooly mammoth'? Because the young men were expendable and the women were not because they produced babies. It's been that way for 20,000 years most likely. Women call men 'sexist'. That is complete hypocrisy and a complete joke. What could be more 'sexist' than being the 'protected one' by accident of birth and genitals? 'Women and children first' is as sexist as you can get.
When I tell the story of 'ogg vs the wooly mammoth' the young men get it instinctively. They understand that old men have manipulated young men for the benefit of the 'women and children' since before the dawn of time. They did it because it was necessary. Now? The young men are 'waking up' to the social manipulation. When young men stop with 'women and children first'? It's going to be very bad for the 'women and children'.
"You might want to do some fact-checking before making such an assertion."
Thanks for correcting that, Larry.
I don't think it will do much to alter his "Women are cowards" belief.
He needs to believe it too much.
Larry,
"In New York City, women account for just 28 of 11,400 firefighters less than 0.3 percent."
Yet women want to be 40% of board level positions? Would you not call that hypocrisy? They want the good jobs? Indeed, in Norway the guvment has said it will shut down any company that does not achieve this number by some time period.
The very fact that only 0.3% of the firefighters are women in NYC (assuming that number is true in any case) tells you women are cowards.
The fact there are no women only battalions fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan also tells you women are cowards. Women call me 'sexist' because I say women are cowards and will not have the 'courage' to to the dangerous jobs that men do. And the numbers show this is true. The truth can not be sexist. The truth is just the truth. And the truth is women make up about 7% of workplace dead while making up 50% of the US workforce.
What IS sexist is women claiming 'equality' where there is no evidence of this. None. No woman has ever forwarded an argument with me to make the case women are in any way, shape, or form, 'equal'. I've asked thousands and thousands of women to substantiate that claim. Guess what? Not one link.....ever.
"The very fact that only 0.3% of the firefighters are women in NYC (assuming that number is true in any case) tells you women are cowards."
Haha! Told you, Larry.
Larry,
GM:"No women firefighters died on 9/11"
Larry: "You might want to do some fact-checking before making such an assertion."
I checked my facts. From what I read NO women fire fighters were killed on 9/11. If you can name a woman firefighter killed on 9/11 then please do so.
If you read this book, 'The case for father custody' you will see such accounts of womens cowardice in Korea where, when it was thought the North Koreans might attack and the women ran away.
http://www.fathermag.com/news/Case_for_Father_Custody.pdf
If you check your news stories over the last 5 years you will see that when US Service WOMEN are 'deployed' into combat areas the incidents of 'pregnancies' shoots up. They take their advantage of being able to get pregnant to avoid the responsibilities they signed up to. As the Israelis say "We do not allow women in the armed forces because, unlike the US, we must take defense seriously."
If you check you will find cases where women are not required to meet the physical strength requirements of handling weapons or carrying their own packs as men are. The men know the women will never be deployed into a place of danger so they are left to the side. They do, of course, pull 'equal' salaries because they are 'equal'. Women are 'passed' where men would be 'failed'. Women in the armed forces are a joke.
There has been a long running story here in the UK of the first female 'beefeater'. The poor deary was 'bullied' and she lost all her hair and was put off work indefinitely on sick leave. Here you go. Here's one link:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/warders-sacked-after-female-beefeater-bullying-proble-1827368.html
I noticed this case because I was reading a newspaper here in the UK and noticed a story about a bomb disposal expert getting both his legs blown off in Afghanistan. He was interviewed by the newspaper and he said 'my mates just call me shorty'. He was COURAGEOUSLY making light of his serious injuries and the impact it would have on his life.
On the very NEXT PAGE was this big story about this female beefeater. She was made out to be a 'hero'. She is a COWARD because she can't even handle a bit of normal commeraderie of men in military positions. Women invade the domain of men and then tell the men that they are no longer allowed to be MEN. They have to 'play nice for the women'.
If you believe women are in any way shape or form 'equal' in COURAGE (the topic of this blog entry) to men please list all the wars and the number of dead women where the women defended 'the men and children'. Please list all the countries where women are the majority of workplace deaths. Please present evidence of the courage of women in their millions. If you can't do that? I suggest you do some fact checking onto the supposed courage of women. I checked my facts. I can't find any examples of women displaying courage like men do every day.
For those who want to actually take a look at what men go through in the name of 'courage' I would suggest you click here: http://freemanireland.ning.com/forum/topics/women-claim-equality-well
I ran a thread on the Irish Free Man site to challenge the women to 'live up to their claims of equality'. Not surprisingly the women failed the challenge just like they have failed every challenge I have thrown to them. Instead of stepping up to my challenges I have issued over the last 2 years they hurl abuse at me. If it was men I'd call them cowards too.
This link included a very well done videos on men in war from 'man and woman myth'. MWM is doing a great job exposing the misandry in our society. His youtube is here. http://www.youtube.com/user/manwomanmyth He just released a great video on how men are 'disposable' nowdays. I am very impressed with his work. It's really worthy of a peek for men who are intersted in how men are treated today.
The fact there are no women only battalions fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan also tells you women are cowards.
That's a pretty stupid statement from someone who is obviously ignorant of the military. First of all, there are no "all women" units in the US military just as there are no all black units since the military was desegregated in 1948. By law, women are prohibited from most direct combat missions except as pilots. If you don't like it, work to get the law changed. Lots of US women have served and continue to serve in Iraq and Afghanistan and many have been injured and killed. In those wars, you can be killed about as easily driving a truck (IEDs) as in a rifle unit. For you to keep calling all women cowards just goes to show that you're a moron and that you're insulting some good women who could no doubt kick your sorry ass.
I checked my facts. From what I read NO women fire fighters were killed on 9/11. If you can name a woman firefighter killed on 9/11 then please do so.
I never said any women firefighters did die in 9/11. If you read the article that I linked to which was written in 2002, over 90% of all NYC firefighters are white males and that the majority of those hired after the attacks were also white males. The article makes the accusation that the hiring policy is biased. Now, what the article doesn't state is what is the breakout of the people who applied for the jobs. Were they all white males, or were there males of other races who also applied? How many women applied? Only when we examine those numbers along with the hiring statistics can we make any informed judgment about the accusation of hiring bias.
Larry,
"By law, women are prohibited from most direct combat missions except as pilots. If you don't like it, work to get the law changed."
No. Not by law, by legislation. You obviously do not know the difference. Women have campaigned to get MANY laws changed but curiously they have not campaigned to get this one changed. How about that? It's beacuse they are cowards.
"Lots of US women have served and continue to serve in Iraq and Afghanistan and many have been injured and killed."
Please list the number of women killed in front line fighting troops vs the number of men killed. We shall see how 'equal' women are. 'Many' means 2 or more. In vietnam 64,000 american service men were killed as were 8 women in accidents. Women claim 'equal status' in the military. Thereby elevating 8 dead to 64,000 dead. So I make sure I tell all the young men just how much women hate them and just how worthless their society sees them and I encourage them not to fall for the rubbish about 'contributing to your society' because your society hates you now. Just like you are demonstrating your disdain for men right now.
"I never said any women firefighters did die in 9/11."
Larry. All the men here can see you said 'check your facts'. I already did. You argue like a woman and it shows.
The facts remain unchallenged.
War dead: 98% men and 99.99% of combat dead.
Workplace dead: 93% men
Incarcerated: 90% men
Homless: 90% men (with returned vets being the largest percentage in the US)
Alimony payers 99.99% men...brittney spears not withstanding.
Child support payers 98% men.
Ergo. Women are cowards, liars and hypocrites when they say they want 'equality'. When women are 51% of each of these groups and there are 200 million women slaughtered in wars, which would be a very conservative estimate, and it is just as socially acceptable for as man to hit a woman as it is for a woman to hit a man I might let women come to my table again to talk. Until then? They have their work cut out for them. They are cowards when measured by the standards of men.
courage is the will to fight even though you know that you're gonna lose.
It also precludes those who fight simply because they are deluded; thinking that they have chance of victory.
courage manifests in anyone who can look at the meaningless of life and yet give their best shot at living it.
"In New York City, women account for just 28 of 11,400 firefighters less than 0.3 percent."
Yet women want to be 40% of board level positions? Would you not call that hypocrisy?
No. Firefighting requires physical strength and endurance that is more often found in men. I mean, who would you want coming up a ladder to save you, a strong 200lb man or some 120lb woman who got the job for the sake of "equality"? Board positions have no such physical requirements and are therefore better suited to either sex. I think your extrapolating that women are cowards out of things like this is facetious and disingenuous.
Kurt beat me to it, I have the John Wayne quote on courage printed on my checks.
I heart you, Larry!
GM said: "You argue like a woman and it shows."
HAHA! If you mean owning your sorry ass I agree!!!!
"All the men here can see you said 'check your facts'."
And EVERYONE can see that Larry's post plainly stated that there were no women firefighters killed on 9/11.
Which is why you looked so idiotic when you said, "I checked my facts. From what I read NO women fire fighters were killed on 9/11. If you can name a woman firefighter killed on 9/11 then please do so."
"We have made men proud of most vices, but not of cowardice. Whenever we have almost succeeded in doing so, the Enemy permits a war or an earthquake or some other calamity, and at once courage becomes so obviously lovely and important even in human eyes that all our work is undone, and there is still at least one vice of which they feel genuine shame....In peace we can make many of them ignore good and evil entirely; in danger, the issue is forced upon them in a guise to which even we cannot blind them....
"This, indeed, is probably one of the Enemy’s motives for creating a dangerous world—a world in which moral issues really come to the point. He sees as well as you do that courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point, which means, at the point of highest reality. A chastity or honesty or mercy which yields to danger will be chaste or honest or merciful only on conditions. Pilate was merciful till it became risky."
[C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters]
"I think your extrapolating that women are cowards out of things like this is facetious and disingenuous."
Ya think?
A few links worth clicking on. This is just what is going on today.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1299734/Woman-leading-double-life-smothered-year-old-daughter-Piglet-teddy-bear-court-told.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1299657/Woman-stabbed-high-heel-boyfriends-eye-brain-argument.html
http://www.france24.com/en/20100730-international-press-review-infanticide-france-eight-babies-cloning-europe-food-hollywood-sound-japan-111-dead
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2007359,00.html
Gents,
Here...let me show you just how 'brave' women are. At the time of the report in 2006.
http://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1000&context=psc_working_papers
"The male risk is 5.5 times that of females (Table 5)."
Male dead: 2345
Female dead: 52
Our 'equal women' are about 5.5 times less likely to be killed. Why are they not paid less? Oh. That would be discrimination. 40 years of 'campainging for equality' and women still insist on the massive privilege of NOT being killed in combat in nearly the numbers of their 'equal men'.
Eleanor,
"No. Firefighting requires physical strength and endurance that is more often found in men."
Oh my god...quickly..ban her, ban her, ban her. SHUT HER UP. She is sexist! She is claiming that women are not equal to men!! She is claiming men are more often bigger and stronger than women! How could she. She is a traitor to the sisathood!! LOL!!!
Eleanor. Of course I know women are smaller and weaker than men. They are also have 6.5x less grey matter which makes their brains far less effective in processing information. But every day millions of women say:
"Women are equal to men"
"A woman can do anything a man can do"
"Gender is a social construct"
Well? Isn't it about time the few good women like you and Dr Helen started calling women stupid bimbos for spouting those three lies? I am 187cm (6'1") and 100kgs. (220lbs). You know how many women are my size, weight and strength? Statistically speaking. None. So I know it's complete cow-shit that 'a woman can do anything a man can do'. But I have to listen to how 'equal' your sistas are day in and day out. It's a lie. And a very damaging one. When was the last time a woman defended by from an angry man or woman? Never. Yet I've done this many times. I am merely pointing to the lies women tell every day, in every way.
Mash, with every post you add evidence for my assertion that the average woman has the intellectual capacity of a 7 to 10 year old boy. You can't even tell how intellectually immature you are. This is common with children. Children do not realise their intellectual immaturity especially boys. Small boys are often deludedly think they know as much as adults. It's normal. The more I study women and what they actually say and do the more I notice they act like small boys.
Helen,
"I am at a law conference"
Do you know the difference between 'law' and 'legislation'? My bet is you are at a 'legislation' conference.
globalman100,
They are also have 6.5x less grey matter which makes their brains far less effective in processing information.
Hmm.... Wait, let me think. Ummm..... Nope can't process. But seriously, from what I've read, as far as IQ goes, there tend to be more women in the average range and more men at the upper and lower ends of the spectrum. In that case, there are probably a good number of men who are not as smart as an average woman - god knows I've met enough of them, lol.
Furthermore, women are often better at multi-tasking, so it's a different sort of wiring.
"Women are equal to men"
"A woman can do anything a man can do"
"Gender is a social construct"
I definitely call people out on this crap, especially that last one. Nevertheless, when you say average women are as intelligent as 7 year-old boys, I have to wonder, do you not think there are a lot of imbecilic men out there too? Seems to me there's no shortage of idiots of either sex.
And there's more to courage than the examples you bring up where it's obvious the vast majority of women can't compete with the vast majority of men (i.e. they require physical strength). Really, courage isn't fearlessness but the ability to do something in spite of being afraid, and women do that too. You can't really hold a woman up to the physical standards of men.
P.S. Nuts to the "sisterhood." I'm not a joiner.
"Mash, with every post you add evidence for my assertion that the average woman has the intellectual capacity of a 7 to 10 year old boy. You can't even tell how intellectually immature you are. This is common with children. Children do not realise their intellectual immaturity especially boys. Small boys are often deludedly think they know as much as adults. It's normal. The more I study women and what they actually say and do the more I notice they act like small boys."
I'll align myself w/ small boys any day.
They have the capacity to laugh at jokes, and spot posers...fakes... a mile away!
Elaneor,
"You can't really hold a woman up to the physical standards of men."
Then why should we pay them the same when they don't do the same job as effectively?
"from what I've read, as far as IQ goes"
What you have read is lies. The IQ tests where altered slowly after WW II to make it look like women were of similar intellectual ability to men. There are plenty of articles out there going over the fact that womens brains simply can not process information so quickly. This is why there are no women at the top of chess. Women have failed to produce any decent software, a masterpiece of art, literature, music or prose. No one has oppressed them and with-held pen and paper. Even in areas where physical strength is not an advantage the best are always men. By far. The rest is all made up lies. There are very good reasons why this is so. Women are perfectly designed to raise small children. Having a brain like a man would be more of a torment in such a situation. Us men do find it much harder to be with small children for long periods of time.
"And there's more to courage than the examples you bring up"
On the titanic 80% of women survived and 80% of men died. When the time comes to compete on life and death when there is no strength involved women will put themselves first because they are cowards. On the titanic women put themselves into lifeboats in front of the children.
Sorry Elaneor. I have scoured the history books. I can find no examples of any significant numbers of women displaying courage on the scale of men. I am not saying that is good or bad. I am merely saying it is a fact. If you have evidence of women doing something like the Battle of the Somme? Please present it. I can't find such.
Well GM, performance based pay makes sense. When I said "equal work" that's sort of what I meant - equal performance, not "same job."
I guess it wouldn't surprise me if IQ tests had been changed.... Ah well, there goes that argument! But how come men still score more at one end or the other? It's still mostly mathematical, logical and spacial ability that's measured, judging by the content, so how would it be more "female friendly"?
Eleanor,
"When I said "equal work" that's sort of what I meant - equal performance"
Women don't deliver equal performance at work and all men know. That's why it's a crime to say it. If women could deliver equal work there would be no need to have legislation forcing companies to hire women because managers in companies would hire them anyway. Businesses are profit based and hire the talent to do the best business. Since women can not do this those companies have to be FORCED to do this. I've done the argument about 'women in the workplace' to many times to bother. Women, rather than actually doing the job, will call a man sexist if he points out she is underperforming. I learned that in 1982. I've got 28 years of direct experience of women vastly underperforming in the work force.
"so how would it be more "female friendly"?"
Why would IQ tests need to be 'women friendly'? Eleanor. One of the aspects of the destruction of western society is that women are being brainwashed to be like men and to compete with men. That is what 'equality' is about. It is a Graminscian idea to create a 'long march through the culture'. I thought you would know that.
Women are failures as men just as men are failures as women. Einstein could not give birth but the least intelligent of women can. It's no competition. Women are infinitely better at making babies. No man will argue against the idea that your average woman makes the best possible mother for his children. None. Us men (most of us) treasure our women for one thing. We treasure the mother of our children above all others. We want her to BE the best possible mother for our children she can be. Women of my mothers generation knew this. She is 71. Women of my wifes generation, 48, have been brainwashed into the idea that children are a 'burden to be put up with' and not a 'gift to be treasured for the short time they are with you'. You do not need a high IQ to be a good mother. My mum did not have a high IQ. She was a very simply woman. She was a GREAT mother. Women today are being brainwashed away from having children. The collapsing birth rates in the west show this.
"But how come men still score more at one end or the other?"
If you would like to know why the physiology of the human brain is so vastly different between men and women click here. It is a two hour video. It might upset you so don't watch it unless you have an open mind.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1285345463618889531#
One of the aspects of the destruction of western society is that women are being brainwashed to be like men and to compete with men. That is what 'equality' is about.
Agreed. I think it's stupid to strive for that kind of equality - all it's done is devalue what being a woman was once about.
Thanks for the video link - I'll save it for later.
I've had a quick look at that video and googled Lloyd Pye, which brings up a lot of "hoax" and "debunked" kind of articles, so I'd take it all with a large grain of salt. The alien/human hybrid thing sort of loses me. Not enough evidence and too far fetched.
Just for the record:
Captain Kathy Mazza
Port Authority of New York and New Jersey P.D.
Police Officer Moira Smith
N.Y.P.D.
Paramedic Yamel Merino
MetroCare Ambulance
In addition there were many brave female firefighters and police officers who risked their lives on 9/11 and the days afterward.
including Firefighter Maureen McArdle Schulman, FDNY Lietenant Brenda Berkman, and NYPD Lieutenant Terri Tobin.
And then there are the many wives of the firefighters, police officers and EMTs who stood up and helped their husbands through this terrible ordeal.
globalman100, to denigrate the heroism of all this people makes you an ass and a coward.
"And then there are the many wives of the firefighters, police officers and EMTs who stood up and helped their husbands through this terrible ordeal."
-----
Oh come on. That really sounds like you are looking for anything and everything to promote "women". Men also provide support in that way to women, and it is rightly not even put in anywhere near the same category as risking your life in such terrible events.
You don't know what specific wives have done, some of them were probably planning to get a divorce and were treating the corresponding men like shit.
Yes, a man losing his life trying to help people out of a huge building that was on fire and collapsing is the same as some leech sitting home, filing her nails, mad because Oprah was interrupted.
I don't know why some people go to SUCH STUPID LENGTHS to promote women.
Courage is such a grace, a gift. And a curse. In another way, it is a tool. There are times to use it and times to back it off, for many reasons. I also think courage is not just a heroic thing. I find myself having to explore it and choose whether be it many times every day, not always successfully no matter whether I use it or set it aside on any particular matter.
All I know is I bear scars from the notion. And I am pleased to be able to say so. Though I think women may have it, it is not as essential to their toolkit, and definitely not in the same way. It is vital for every man, and boy. And should I be blessed with a son or sons, they will become familiar with it if it kills me. Daughters... I would leave them in this to the Mrs. Though I would guess a woman's courage is more involved with the man she chooses rather than something completely innate, sort of.
"Courage is that which is courageous."
While a tautology, perhaps correct.
globalman100,
None of these law professors look like legislators to me.
Hi Eleanor,
"Not enough evidence and too far fetched."
There are a LOT of people who denounce what people like Lloyd Pye are saying. People say 'not enough evidence'. That is because they have not actually gone over the evidence like I did. I mean I spent months on this one topic. If you spent a few months on it and really, really closely look into it, you will come to the rather inevitable conclusion that 'homo-sapiens' were genetically engineered. Most likely from 'neanderthals'. We did NOT 'evolve' from neanderthals 'naturally'. Not one chance in a million that Darwin is correct. Indeed, even his research assistance is quoted as not believing him.
It is a rather surprising thing to find out. But if you find that out? Everything else makes sense. And I mean everything. Most people simply deny it because of the implications.
Joe,
from your quote? I can't see one who is listed as a firefighter. Can you name one woman firefighter who died on the scene on 911?
You are the one denigrating people. You are denigrating the courage of the MEN who willingly went into those buildings and then lost their lives by doing their duty.
Personally? I'm pretty sick and tired of men denigrating the courage and sacrifice of MEN by falsly assigning similar attributes to women where it is not justified. Lots of other men are starting to feel the same by the way.
Courage is not monolithic. Easy example is moral courage in Congress failing for Duke Cunningham after being a fighting hero.
I quote from Sir B.H. Liddell Hart's bio:
There was one incident that stuck in my memory as a sidelight to the different kinds of courage. It occurred when walking across the airfield with a pilot who had won decorations for most gallant feats and gone on flying with unbroken nerve after a crash in which he had been badly injured. While we were strolling along, a tractor plane from another squadron landed close to us and in getting out its pilot stepped into the propeller before it had stopped swinging and had his head nearly severed. It was a ghastly sight, although no more than daily experiences in land battle, but I was astonished to see that it completely unnerved my companion. Another illustration of such differences was the case of an officer I knew in 1915 who had been so frightfully nervous in the trenches that he was sent back to the base as a germ-carrier of panic, but then qualified as a pilot in the R.F.C. and showed such courage in tackling Zeppelins that he was recommended for the V.C.
And Joe?
"And then there are the many wives of the firefighters, police officers and EMTs who stood up and helped their husbands through this terrible ordeal."
That sounds suspiciously like Hillary Clintons "women have always been the greatest victims of war".
I am reminded of the recent case in the UK where Peter Norton, a bomb disposal expert, was blown up and severely injured. When he came home his wife decided that she didn't want a 'cripple' for a husband and took his two boys off him even playing 'victim' to do so. She got a big write up as to how she was a 'victim'. Peter was reduced to being a 7% dad. The men in the man-o-sphere were completely furious about this. I personally offered Peter the run of my place in Germany and to give him a good holiday to help him recover.
This is how western women 'support' their hero husbands now. Men like you should hang your head in shame that you will type such rubbish as you did.
http://www.the-spearhead.com/2010/03/25/when-rationalization-rears-its-ugly-head/
http://www.the-spearhead.com/2010/03/26/some-new-info-comes-to-light-in-the-peter-norton-case/
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1260412/How-does-wife-cope-husband-terribly-injured-war-Sue--walked-away.html
JG,
"I don't know why some people go to SUCH STUPID LENGTHS to promote women."
Thank you. It's about time more men said exactly this.
Why is it that some people feel compelled to use false examples (strawman arguments) and profanity? I would say that those traits are not the result of courage.
Fighting with people anonymously across the interwebs is not courage either. Grow up and learn to treat people with respect.
We can find men and women of courage all around us if we look for them. Our enemies want us to be afraid of shadows and surrender without a fight; but that is not the American Way. We help each other. We support our neighbors. And we stand together against the things we all know are wrong.
We do not typically see women in roles that involve being a firefighter, a soldier, or the like for a number of reasons. Men and women are different physically and psychologically; but all are human. All have the ability to be courageous or craven.
Thanks, Doctor Helen, for a nice story.
Helen,
"None of these law professors look like legislators to me."
It's OT but do you know the difference between 'law' and 'legislation'? In the US you call your 'legislation makers' 'law makers'. Guess what? Legislation is NOT law. It is deceptively called 'statutory law' and requires consent of the governed to be applied to any human being. If you read your declaration of independence you will see:
"That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."
Consent means that you can withdraw that consent at any time. It is not consent if it can not be withrawn. For example. If a woman gives a man 'consent' to have sex with him one day that does not mean she has given consent for him to have sex with her every day. Right? Well? Consent to be governed is a day to day and event to event thing. A man can refuse to consent to any specific application of any specific legislation unless he has signed a binding contract which includes terms and conditions and full disclosure.
This means all men in the US (ex-LA) can withdraw their consent to the fraudlent marriage contract. How about that?
Since you are with 'law professors' why not ask them:
1. Has common law ever been repealed on the land known as the Unites States? (Hint. Blacks law dictionary second edition says NO, it has not, and common law therefore in force.)
2. Is the 'United States of America' actually a Uniform Commercial Code corporation? (Hint. The answer is yes.)
Those two questions are critically important questions for people to understand the answers to if they want to know what is really going on.
Feel free to delete this post because it is OT. But I don't think there are two more important questions for inquiring people to ask in the US today.
From St. Athanasius on the Incarnation
(27) A very strong proof of this destruction of death and its conquest by the cross is supplied by a present fact, namely this. All the disciples of Christ despise death; they take the offensive against it and, instead of fearing it, by the sign of the cross and by faith in Christ trample on it as on something dead. Before the divine sojourn of the Savior, even the holiest of men were afraid of death, and mourned the dead as those who perish. But now that the Savior has raised His body, death is no longer terrible, but all those who believe in Christ tread it underfoot as nothing, and prefer to die rather than to deny their faith in Christ, knowing full well that when they die they do not perish, but live indeed, and become incorruptible through the resurrection. But that devil who of old wickedly exulted in death, now that the pains of death are loosed, he alone it is who remains truly dead. There is proof of this too; for men who, before they believe in Christ, think death horrible and are afraid of it, once they are converted despise it so completely that they go eagerly to meet it, and themselves become witnesses of the Savior's resurrection from it. Even children hasten thus to die, and not men only, but women train themselves by bodily discipline to meet it. So weak has death become that even women, who used to be taken in by it, mock at it now as a dead thing robbed of all its strength. Death has become like a tyrant who has been completely conquered by the legitimate monarch; bound hand and foot the passers-by sneer at him, hitting him and abusing him, no longer afraid of his cruelty and rage, because of the king who has conquered him. So has death been conquered and branded for what it is by the Savior on the cross. It is bound hand and foot, all who are in Christ trample it as they pass and as witnesses to Him deride it, scoffing and saying, "O Death, where is thy victory? O Grave, where is thy sting?
Setnaffa,
"We do not typically see women in roles that involve being a firefighter, a soldier, or the like for a number of reasons. Men and women are different physically and psychologically; but all are human."
It is not MEN who have been claiming to be 'equal' for the last 40 years while refusing to ennunciate exactly what that actually means. Women have been claiming that they must be given 50% of the nice cushy jobs because anything less is 'in-equality'. It has been deemed a 'crime' called 'discrimination' if any 'in-equality' exists. Indeed, no less that the SUPREME COURT has ruled that any deviation from 50% is prima fascie evidence of discrimination and that no more evidence need be presented before 'remedial action' can be enforced by the guvment.
Kevin Rudd produced a paper in Jan 09 saying that he promotes 'interventionist democratic guvment' (read totalitarian state) to promote reduction in 'in-equalities' (read make everyone equally poor.) When you have prime ministers and supreme courts saying that where they find 'in-equality' they will intervene to FORCE 'equality' you know you are living in an orwellian world. The Supreme Court and Kevin Rudd have put in writing they consider you do not have freedom of choice.
We are, indeed, DIFFERENT. NOT EQUAL. Each of us is a unique and different individual perfect human being with our own strengths and weaknesses. The call to be 'equal' is the call to collectivism, loss of identity and individuality. The call to be 'equal' is the call to slavery if you know what it really means. Men and women are well advised to denounce 'equality' and to promote 'viva la difference'. Notice how your legislators and women are not demanding 'equality' where it would be bad for women. Like equal numbers of war dead.
C.S. Lewis does a great job of discussing this topic in his book, 'The Abolition of Man'; where he discusses the subtle sterilization of society against traditional values as, "men without chests".
Chap,
yes. People react to the sight of dead people damaged and injured vastly differently. It has little to do with courage in my opinion.
I am reminded of being on the scene of a fatal accident when I was 18. I was smoking a joint and waiting for the road to be cleared. The fireMEN and paramedics (MEN) where working furiously to save the lives of some of the people inside the two cars. A few of them were dead.
The guy next to me asked me why no-one seemed to be attending to a woman who could be clearly quite easily removed from the wreck. I just replied that she was dead and there was no point. The guy completely flipped when he realised she was dead. I don't think I was 'courageous' or that he was 'cowardly'. He'd just never seen a dead person before. I had. Simple as.
The courage of the average woman defending her child, her husband, or anyone she loves, has always been a byword in all human societies.
If you've never seen this courage, perhaps you've never been loved, yet.
Selwyn Jepson was principal recruiting officer, during WWII, for the secret British underground organization known as Special Operations Executive. He was a strong advocate of selecting women for these very dangerous jobs, which involved operations in enemy-occupied territory:
"I was responsible for recruiting women for the work, in the face of a good deal of opposition, I may say, from the powers that be. In my view, women were very much better than men for the work. Women, as you must know, have a far greater capacity for cool and lonely courage than men. Men usually want a mate with them. Men don't work alone, their lives tend to be always in company with other men. There was opposition from most quarters until it went up to Churchill, whom I had met before the war. He growled at me, "What are you doing?" I told him and he said, "I see you are using women to do this," and I said, "Yes, don't you think it is a very sensible thing to do?" and he said, "Yes, good luck to you'""
The story of one of Capt Jepson's recruits, here.
Heinlein in Glory Road: "Then I did the only really brave thing I have ever done in my life: I inched forward. Bravery is going on anyhow when you are so terrified your sphincters won't hold and you can't breathe and your heart threatens to stop, and that is an exact description for that moment of E.C. Gordon, ex-Pfc. and hero by trade."
And I think it was in Starship Troopers that he points out that the absence of fear is not courage but stupidity.
The following is not an attempt to threadjack - I think it's related, but ymmv: I heard a report on NPR yesterday about the new edition of... um... that big book of psychiatric diagnoses? - which apparently takes out the "bereavement exception" in its discussion of depression. Apparently, it will now be considered reasonable and acceptable to diagnose (and therefore medicate) clinical depression in someone who, having lost a loved one, shows symptoms of depression like crying, sleep troubles, and diminished appetite (i.e., "grief") for more than two weeks. My question for our hostess is, is there a bias in psychology/psychiatry against experiencing strong emotion? Because it sure looks like it sometimes...
An interesting way to look at changing attitudes towards courage is to compare the acts of moral courage described in John Kennedy's (well, he didn't write it but his name is on it) Profiles in Courage with the acts of the latter-day recipients of the award named after the book, which is presented by the remnants of his family. The more recent "courage" seems to be standing up against nonexistent strawmen in the expectation of Establishment praise (like, for instance, a Profiles in Courage award).
I think, in part, it was the late-sixties turn of Establishment liberals against the military that caused all these feeble and failing attempts to redefine courage.
Courage is still there, where it always was. It is a rara avis indeed among the payroll patriots of Congress. The book you could write about the generations after Kennedy's book's publication would have to be called Profiles in Self-Serving Greed.
This reminds me of the urban legend in which a professor asked on a test for a detailed explanation of courage. One clever (maybe) student answered:
THIS!
Courage comes in many, many different forms and often falls into the "I know it when I see it" category. Take myself, as an example:
My wife is in Afghanistan, working with the Army Corps of Engineers. That's courageous. But, I'm at home, taking care of the kids and being both Daddy and Mommy and Cook and Maid - oh, and I'm disabled. I've been told that's courageous, because I face my physical pain and put it aside each day for the good of the family.
I'm not sure if either counts as courage, but some of our friends see it that way. I see it as doing what has to be done and nothing more. I can tell you that neither of us feels particularly courageous.
Dodging a question by saying that an answer is beyond the scope of one's training: courage or cowardice?
Just kidding. I agree with Helen - it is refreshing when a professor admits a lack of omniscience. We could use more of that.
"Courage: Knowing you're going to be severely beaten. But going ahead anyway."
That about sums it up for me.
And it will always be undone by duplicity, back-stabbing and cowardice.
After taking on the state to keep my job after complaining about sexual harassment from the all female staff, and watching all the dirty tricks pulled to get rid of me I'm not so enamored with "courage" now. I'll still dot he right thing, but I "pause" a lot. The price of being an honorable man is too high and the game is rigged.
My heros will always be men who do the right thing even when it costs them personally, but I've run out of steam and I'm not them.
Y'all can have this life where men are castigated and denigrated. I'm out.
Scott
"The price of being an honorable man is too high and the game is rigged."
Thank you for saying this. You are exactly correct. I am one who is prepared to pay any price to defend the rights of young men like you. But I have talked to hundreds of young men who can see just how blatantly the game is rigged and who have quit attempted to be an honourable man and take the easy way forward. And I don't blame them one little bit. Men like me are hated by woman because we point out their lies and we are hated by men because their lack of honour becomes clear next to men like me. Sadly. The number of honest men of honour and integrity is falling like a stone. They used to be abundant and they used to be rewarded for being so. But as you point out? They are now hounded to within an inch of their life, some to their death, merely for being honourable. The western world now lauds liars like Blair, Bush, Obama and denigrates honest men like Eustice Mullins. It's coming to a bad end.
Jamie,
"Apparently, it will now be considered reasonable and acceptable to diagnose (and therefore medicate) clinical depression in someone"
The psychariatry profession is in the process of re-defining numerous normal and healthy reactions to stresses as 'illness' to be 'treated'. If you read your history books you will find the russians did the same. You should be very concerned at this. Thanks for asking the question.
Another commenter, way upthread, said what I believe - courage is doing the right thing despite fear, cost, etc.
I would hope that it would continue to be cultivated in men (and women).
Suburbanbanshee
"The courage of the average woman defending her child, her husband, or anyone she loves, has always been a byword in all human societies."
Um..do you mean the 'courage' of women, as far back as roman times, who are recorded as throwing their babies at the roman soldiers to be skewered to death? Do you mean the 'courage' of the Irish women handing over their sons to Cromwell to slaughter? Do you mean the 'courage' of women putting themselves into lifeboats on the titanic in front of children? There is no record in human history of large numbers of women sacrificing their lives going to certain death to defend the lives of their children. If you can find one please present it. Obviously there are hundreds of millions of men who have done this.
Here is 'the courage of women' on display.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZmf9G2B4Ag&feature=related
I will rebut the claim of women being 'equal' with respect to 'courage' until at LEAST it is as socially acceptable for a man to hit a woman as it is for a woman to hit a man. Women have 'courage' when they KNOW that a man will not hit them back. Oh, how brave.
How many times would my wife have hit me if she knew it was perfectly acceptable for me to hit her back? Once. But, women demand that men 'act like a gentleman' and insist on the massive privilege of being able to hit a man with impunity. Watch your TV tonight and you will see 'courageous' women hitting men. It's called 'comedy' now. Angry Harry (www.angryharry.com) points out that if a woman 'courageously' cuts off a mans penis as he sleeps women will laugh at him. This is 'the courage' of women personified. How many women or even men would laugh at a woman having her breast cut off in her sleep? None.
Joshua 1: 6“Be strong and courageous, because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their forefathers to give them. 7Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go. 8Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful. 9Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”
The opposite of courage is illustrated in Numbers 14:
1 That night all the people of the community raised their voices and wept aloud. 2 All the Israelites grumbled against Moses and Aaron, and the whole assembly said to them, "If only we had died in Egypt! Or in this desert! 3 Why is the LORD bringing us to this land only to let us fall by the sword? Our wives and children will be taken as plunder. Wouldn't it be better for us to go back to Egypt?"
Courage is obeying God at the risk of great personal cost. Courage is exemplified by Christ going to a cross to bear the sins of the world because his Father commanded it.
Courage is a sex neutral trait.
Exodus 1: 15 The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, whose names were Shiphrah and Puah, 16 "When you help the Hebrew women in childbirth and observe them on the delivery stool, if it is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, let her live." 17 The midwives, however, feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do; they let the boys live. 18 Then the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and asked them, "Why have you done this? Why have you let the boys live?"
19 The midwives answered Pharaoh, "Hebrew women are not like Egyptian women; they are vigorous and give birth before the midwives arrive."
20 So God was kind to the midwives and the people increased and became even more numerous. 21 And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own.
Judges 4: 4 Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lappidoth, was leading [a] Israel at that time. 5 She held court under the Palm of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim, and the Israelites came to her to have their disputes decided. 6 She sent for Barak son of Abinoam from Kedesh in Naphtali and said to him, "The LORD, the God of Israel, commands you: 'Go, take with you ten thousand men of Naphtali and Zebulun and lead the way to Mount Tabor. 7 I will lure Sisera, the commander of Jabin's army, with his chariots and his troops to the Kishon River and give him into your hands.' "
8 Barak said to her, "If you go with me, I will go; but if you don't go with me, I won't go."
9 "Very well," Deborah said, "I will go with you. But because of the way you are going about this, [b] the honor will not be yours, for the LORD will hand Sisera over to a woman." So Deborah went with Barak to Kedesh,
@Globalman100:
Too true. In my experience, God help you if you confront anyone's BS, as blatant as it may be. I was raised by a cop and confronting lies is what they do constantly. My father never stood there and listened to a lie. He got to the heart of the matter. I try to do the same thing. Firm, but polite. (The officer's mantra)
It doesn't work in this word anymore. You're portrayed as aggressive and confrontational and doesn't work well with others.
Etc.
Oddly enough, I've been getting this my whole life. From the school wanting to medicate me, to a women's circle bitching about their husbands (when you ask if they'd like their men to do it to them, they recoil and threaten), it just doesn't seem to matter. Men are the enemy and i've had this relentlessly shoved down my throat my whole life.
Then employment was yanked from under me by the same forces in the worst market ever..
I don't hate women, but I am sick to death of this shit. I don't even want to engage in the world anymore, and my friends can't figure out why.
Sorry it's rambling. I'm still fighting the termination so it's a little raw.
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Angry Harry (www.angryharry.com) points out that if a woman 'courageously' cuts off a mans penis as he sleeps women will laugh at him.
No one I know would find that funny. There will always be assholes in the world; it's up to you to pay more attention to those of us who are not morons rather than lumping all women (or western women) into one mass of stupidity.
Dr. Helen,
Your blog has been interesting over the years. However, with the troglodyte globalman100 shouting down anyone who isn't a misogynist pig with vile hate, and with a few other posters crossing the line and becoming a parody of the very thing they claim to fight, it has become a most unpleasant blog.
This is my last visit.
globalman100,
There are many women police officers, EMTs and firefighters who risked their lives to save others on 9/11. Dying is not the standard of heroism; helping others at risk to your own life is. Denigrating these women as well as the many other women who helped their husbands is indeed mocking the heroism of them and mocking the heroism of the many people who displaying inordinate courage that day. You are a truly pathetic, mean, angry, hateful man who is highly misguided and thoroughly unpleasant. It is one thing to advocate fighting a system that can indeed be unfair to men in many ways and I would understand losing your temper occasionally as I have, but it does not justify your constant spewing of hate and bile. Still, I hope you somehow find peace with this world. So long.
If there is one thing we can assert that courage is *not,* it is spending hours daily writing incendiary comments on someone else's blog.
Helen, I'm afraid that whoever "globalman100" is, he is going to drive your readers away due to his being in an unmedicated and agitated state. Regardless of whether or not one agrees with the commenter, many long, link-filled comments on a blog post = crazy person. Until now you had attracted an interesting and largely decent group of folks.
Scott,
I know how you feel. If you want to quit? I suggest you leave the US. It's collapsing under the weight of the 'debt' of 'social welfare'. A few more men like you need to speak out. As you can see from other commenters. Their first reaction to the truth presented by a man like me is "he is crazy, he is sexist, he is bitter" blah, blah blah. I suggest young men like you also speak out and tell your stories.
Eleanor
"No one I know would find that funny."
Eleanor, maybe, maybe not. When Lorena Bobbit was interviewed on English TV the audience was laughing about her act of cutting off her husbands penis. Recently, in the UK, a woman ripped a mans testicle out of his scrotum and put it in her mouth to 'teach him a lesson' because he had told her he did not want to date her any more. Women in the UK were making jokes about this.
Eleanor? We are sick of women making jokes about women cutting our penises off or ripping our testicles out of our scrotums. We don't make jokes about cutting womens breasts off because they are in such bad taste. Listen to Scott. He's telling you what it's like to be a young man now. Try going to www.menarebetterthanwomen.com/forums and listen to the young men talking. You may be shocked at what you hear. This is not just 'one mans opinion'. It is not 'courageous' to make jokes about committing crimes. It is not 'courageous' to laugh at men and demean them when they are victims of crimes. But that attitude is pretty much universal in western women now. Take a look. You will find it everywhere you go. And when men raise these serious issues? Women like Marsh and men like Joe 'object' to the truth being told.
When you define honor you find courage in the definition.
Scroll the troll.
I think globalman100 mistook this for science....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7swLLdF7ns
O.K. you and I have corresponded in the past so let's cover just a few acts of ongoing courage from everyday life that I see in client companies and all around me.
-- A husband and father sticking with his wife because to do otherwise would wreck whatever chances his children had of a normal life...
Even tho the wife has borderline personality disorder or is just a plain everyday variety of an immature self centered b-tch ... maladjusted since adolescence but able to cover it half the time with wit and "sweetness"
--- A small business owner paying himself $1 a year salary so that he can keep his employees paid and keep the business alive
--- Because the kids think it's the right thing to do, Parents who send their kids off, now, to a military and a war now being mismanaged to oblivion and likely to prosecute their kids if they shoot first to defend themselves in insane ROE ... is there a strategy ? a plan ? do they know what victory looks like ? Sgt. Wutterich, paging Sgt. Wutterich
--- Wives who work everyday to care for their families while their men are overseas in the military
--- Men who get up while it's still dark everyday, and go to work at jobs they hate, because it is providing for the woman and children they love ... and put a smile on their face and never complain about it
--- Facing down a gang of young hoods after a major league baseball game because they were drinking and now are just looking for somebody to pound for the hell of it.
--- Facing down the tort lawyers these law professors produce when being sued and vilified for activity that use to be considered normative ... risking a lifetime of work, saving and sacrifice if you lose in court.
--- Getting up off the mat and Starting over when you've lost everything.
Just a few of the acts of courage I witness here ...everyday
Eleanor
"I think globalman100 mistook this for science...."
LOL!! I have seen that one before and I thought it was hysterical. LOL!
Eleanor. You sound like a nice and reasonable woman. How would you explain the fact, and it is a fact, that the vast majority of western women condone and support women committing perjury. How do you explain that? Please remember, I have been asking women to stand up for the rule of LAW for 2.5 years now. Guess what? They won't. How do you explain that? And yes, I did ask very politely early on. You have hundreds of mens rights groups. Glen Sacks claims more than 50,000 members. Men are furious at the abuse they are receiving. But women will not support their men. How do you explain that?
When I ask women, politely and professionally, to put forward theories to explain the facts of the matter they suddenly go very quiet.
Econ_scott,
"-- A husband and father sticking with his wife because to do otherwise would wreck whatever chances his children had of a normal life."
I have talked to hundreds of brave men like this. I did this myself for 14 years. I have a lot of time for men who stick it out for their kids.
And someone just recently told me this site didn't draw women haters.
globalman100 = reality####
"This is my last visit."
Please. Especially when you follow that immediately with an attack: "You are a truly pathetic, mean, angry, hateful man who is highly misguided and thoroughly unpleasant. "
Sorry, Helen, I know it's your blog. But honestly (eyeroll), at the risk of sounding "sexist," how 'like a little girl.' Call him names and then run away, probably with fingers in ears shouting "I can't HEAR you!"
Okay, so now in addition to apologizing to Helen, I must apologize to little girls everywhere -- many I've known do have more courage in their convictions than that.
Globalman100, I'm certainly not defending you. First, I doubt you want or feel you need my help.
And second, I suspect we'd disagree on a rather large lot of things. I agree in some ways with you, that women in western society rarely are called up to demonstrate, and very seldom demonstrate, courage of the sort that men are still occasionally required to do. But I have seen a number of exceptions, and perhaps can temper my words with them. Besides, my opinions of most western men have gotten pretty darned low :)
It's not an effort to appear PC -- I don't give a rat's rear-end how I seem -- but that those have been my experiences. Hmm, perhaps that makes me a reformed "troglodyte" :)
Eleanor,
Don't for a moment discount the grotesque sexism toward viloence in Western prevalent culture these days. I can document dozens of Lorena Bobbit jokes on late-night shows without breaking a sweat. I certainly believe you would not find them funny, neither does my wife, but what disturbs me so greatly is that ther is no societal outrage about them. I saw no boycotts or threats thereof.
And how many recent comic movies can you think of in the last 10 years that did NOT have some male hit in the groin ? It seems to me that the "shot in the nuts" has become almost ubiquitous. How often, in films NOT designed to be dark and violent, do women strike men ? Now turn the genders around and look again.
Yeah, it's a bit OT from the courage question, but complaints that pop culture trivializes men's suffering are well founded. I've told both my (then pre-teen) sons "If a girl hits you, hit her back," and stood by them afterwards. Fortunately, it's only happened twice, once with a neighbor whose granddaughter hit my oldest, and who (he being of an older generation) subsequently upbraided the girl for stupidly trying to pick a fight with a boy who was obviously bigger and stronger than she was. God bless him, I made a new BFF that day.
The second time, in a school setting, I had an administration idiot tell me "boys shouldn't hit girls" and I called her supervisor (in the next office) in to witness my reaming her out. The principal's support was most suredly not forthcoming, but I did get my chance to chew on the vice-principal and escaped without retribution. In a public school setting (ack! ptooey!), I have to score that a win, albeit a weak one.
My advice has changed, as they move into their teenage years. I've told them now a. If a girl hits you, turn around and leave. Dissociate from her forever after a single transgression, since she has demonstrated a propensity for violence and society may put you in jail however justified you are responding to future attacks, and walking away is preferred to lawyers' fees.
I took my nephew aside already, and to his mom's chagrin, I told him to dump his GF immediately, permanently, because I have seen her striking him whenever she doesn't like what he says or does. The slaps are not full-strength, but she has also told him that if he hit her back, she'd have him arrested. His mom started to object to me telling him he was an idiot if he did not dump the girl instantly and permanently.
So I told his mom off as well, asking "What kind of an *sshole supports a double-standard on domestic violence ? Do you think this is a JOKE ?"
So, yeah, it's everywhere. Probably because it's excused way too often -- I've lost track of how often I'm told I'm overreacting -- but oddly only when I tell that to male teens. No one objects -- not one -- when I tell teenage girls "If he hits you, the first time he hits you, leave and never look back."
Happy note -- my nephew took my advice. Doesn't happen often, but sometimes you can get it thru some boys' heads.
WE NOW RETURN TO OUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED TOPIC
Helen, ultimately courage is important -- albeit at irregular, unpredictable times. It's vital because, no matter how charmed your life, or how charmed the existence of a culture, sooner or later, a storm comes. It may be a war, a 9/11, a flood, or some other event. But it comes. If you (or your culture) has enough courage, it can weather the storm. If not, you (or your culture) will not survive.
don't feed the troll.
How would you explain the fact, and it is a fact, that the vast majority of western women condone and support women committing perjury.
I don't know, except that they have something to gain from it and they're just weak as Dunkin' Donuts coffee.
Certain people thought I must have lied in my application for sole custody of my children, but I actually left things out that I could have made an issue of. I certainly wouldn't condone lying under oath or on court documents just to screw over someone you're pissed off with. I'm sure I could have found plenty of support for exaggerating the truth and even telling outright lies, but I didn't want to do that. Is that courage? I don't think so, but some might call it so. At least it's not as cowardly as making a mockery of the courts.
1charlie2,
I didn't mean to sound flippant about it - I do realize there is a problem wrt violence perpetrated against men by women that is encouraged by the court system. A man can be assaulted by his girlfriend, call the police himself, and HE gets hauled off to jail and loses his job in the meantime. It's ridiculous.
don't feed the troll.
Sorry, lol. I'll stop now.
"Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear."
-- Mark Twain (1835-1910)
"Bravery is being the only one who knows you're afraid."
-- Colonel (ret) David Hackworth
Eric Frank Russell had a character in one of his stories who was called upon to define courage in six words. He said: "Courage is fear faced with resolution."
and then there's this:
"People with courage and character always seem sinister to the rest."
-- Hermann Hesse
1charlie2,
nice to meet another man with his balls between his legs and not in his wifes handbag where I used to keep mine! LOL! Thank you for your contribution.
Eleanor,
nice to converse with a sensible woman.
"I certainly wouldn't condone lying under oath or on court documents just to screw over someone you're pissed off with"
Sadly, pretty much every western woman does. I challenged the women on the Irish Free Man group to uphold the rule of law and convene a court to try my ex for crimes including perjury. I only got three takers out of more than about 300 women in 5.5 months. How would you explain that women do not have the 'courage' to uphold the rule of law when the criminal happens to be female? After all, my evidence for her crimes is irrefutable. In the same vein, I have 8-10 men willing to create a court for try the judge for the common law crime of theft. And those men will be risking their lives to sit on that jury. The courts are a mockery now. This is why we are creating our own courts. I am not sure if people in the US realise there are new grand juries created and massive efforts are being made to move back to common law in the US.
Eleanor,
try this one.. ;-)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLPDBGZiT54&feature=player_embedded
Courage is an adult virtue not taught to women in the US,
because men would rather have children for mates.
Physical courage is common, in both sexes,
but battle rage is male;
The Vikings went into battle bare,
and you get one guess how they
detected cowardice. :)
It is possible to train a woman to be 'Yare far battle' -
Linda Hamilton trained with a
special forces type for T2,
and wisely stopped after filming,
before the change in attitude
became permanent.
Joe,
"However, with the troglodyte globalman100 shouting down anyone who isn't a misogynist pig with vile hate...You are a truly pathetic, mean, angry, hateful man who is highly misguided and thoroughly unpleasant."
It's worse than that, Joe.
Globalman dragged his son to the unknown soldier under the arc de triumph to praise him for having said some "inspiring words" to his son.
I'm not kidding.
Globalman described it this way, "Of such moments are lifetime memories made."
And here he is, doing his best to try to prove that women are cowards....
Tell me, what word do we use to describe a man who has judged himself so lacking, that he had to use his son in this way?
Gents,
"Globalman dragged his son to the unknown soldier under the arc de triumph to praise him for having said some "inspiring words" to his son."
These are the sort of lies women have to tell in attempts to denigrate men like me. I hear them all the time. And not just me but LOTs of men like me.
Since my former son was 25 and a strapping young lad via a great deal of physical fitness training in his rehab there is no way I could 'drag' him anywhere. He is his own man. As for the lie I have asked my son to 'praise me'. No father asks his son to 'praise him'. Fathers do not want praise from their sons. They merely expect the respect they have earned. It is always revealing that those who wish to denigrate men like me have to make up lies to do so. Seems they have no facts or evidence to present.
I don't know about facetious and disingenuous. But if that is what you speak of - then any woman wanting to be a policeman or fireman - where speed, stamina, and strength are necessary - in situations where physical struggle is involved - should take a long look in the mirror before taking the job just because she can.
any woman wanting to be a policeman or fireman - where speed, stamina, and strength are necessary - in situations where physical struggle is involved - should take a long look in the mirror before taking the job just because she can.
I agree.
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"Seems they have no facts or evidence to present."
You wish.
The facts and evidence can all be found in the comments section, right here, under the piece entitled "A lot of men would like to be touched more, seduced more. Everyone wants to feel wanted."
I think that the most interesting concept I've heard from men who have been in uniform, Army guys, (I briefly served in the Air Force) is the concept of rational fear.
I don't know what your panel guy said about courage in the military, but someone without rational fear is likely to get you killed by doing something stupid every bit as much as someone who panics is a danger to his (or her) fellows.
For what it is worth, I don't expect men to be braver than I am. Courage as a virtue seems like something universal.
Marsh,
"The facts and evidence can all be found in the comments section"
You women have claimed 'equality' for 40 years now. My mum and dad taught me to treat women far more leniently than I treat men. My mum used to say: "Why would I want to be treated like a man? That would be a big step down for me. I much prefer being treated like the lady I am."
So. After 40 years of hearing women tell me they are equal? Guess what? I judge women by the standards of men. And you know what? You women fail when judged against the standards of men. I am going to keep pointing it out where ever I go until women renounce their claim of 'equality'. Even here you see a number of women state the plain fact that women are smaller and weaker than men. Yet they will not renounce the claim of 'equality'.
If a man tries even ONE lie on me? I call him a liar. Publicly. Men do that to other men you know. So far, one of the things people will find in this comments section is a whole string of lies typed by you. That OTHER women are not calling you a liar, just like I am, shows you their tolerance of women telling lies about men. It's about time liars were called liars no matter their sex. My mum had the 'courage' to call anyone who lied a liar. Male or female. Perhaps you might like to stop telling lies and forward some facts and some evidence instead?
"Perhaps you might like to stop telling lies and forward some facts and some evidence instead?"
The facts and evidence can all be found in the comments section, right here, under the piece entitled "A lot of men would like to be touched more, seduced more. Everyone wants to feel wanted.
What is it and why is it important to a society?
Courage is your ability to confront fear and uncertainty and act. It's often also a precondition for other acts of will, like acting justly when it's not in your selfish interest, or controlling yourself when others don't control themselves, or speaking up for what you believe to be right when people with opposite opinions outnumber you.
Courage is important to a society for a million reasons, but chief among them is probably that, without it, too many people would simply keep quiet, go with the flow, accept a ton of bullsh*t, and never confront lies and distortion head-on. That kind of timidity is a sure recipe for social collapse.
That is why PC indoctrination is so harmful: it attacks your impulse to trust yourself and your judgments and make them known. It turns people into group-think robots.
Cultivating courage is to cultivate the individual as such. That is why PC lefties throw the acid of their cynicism in its face.
LOVE what you wrote, Al!
Have you read this piece by Ted Nugent, yet?
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jul/30/it-is-us/
So really...
Do we excuse racism because someone had something really bad happen to them or do we expect adult humans to rise above their experiences?
I honestly don't care how much of a pussy man someone was, for how many years, or how much a woman hurt him, but he's not much of an adult if that defines his entire life forever after and the rest of us have to somehow tolerate the hate spewing out because we feel sorry for him.
I will take particular exception to bigotted hateful statements denigrating truly courageous and heroic military women in Iraq, who just like the men who we call heroes, were and are individuals who stand out above the others far beyond simply being there but through personal bravery, courage, and honor.
It all sounds far too much like an excuse to borrow someone else's glory by virtue of having a penis when everyone without one is trashed as being weak or cowardly or dishonest. Why? Because if there are women heroes, the way there are men heroes, courageous people who stand out above the rest, then a person doesn't automatically get to be better, more virtuous, stronger, more courageous just by not being a woman.
The inequities that this world aims at men are very real and they should be opposed. But if the world treats you like a whiny bitch, maybe it's because you're a whiny bitch.
"I honestly don't care how much of a pussy man someone was, for how many years, or how much a woman hurt him, but he's not much of an adult if that defines his entire life forever after and the rest of us have to somehow tolerate the hate spewing out because we feel sorry for him.
I will take particular exception to bigotted hateful statements denigrating truly courageous and heroic military women in Iraq, who just like the men who we call heroes, were and are individuals who stand out above the others far beyond simply being there but through personal bravery, courage, and honor.
It all sounds far too much like an excuse to borrow someone else's glory by virtue of having a penis when everyone without one is trashed as being weak or cowardly or dishonest. Why? Because if there are women heroes, the way there are men heroes, courageous people who stand out above the rest, then a person doesn't automatically get to be better, more virtuous, stronger, more courageous just by not being a woman.
The inequities that this world aims at men are very real and they should be opposed. But if the world treats you like a whiny bitch, maybe it's because you're a whiny bitch."
+ 100
And AMEN!
Because you know what?
Men aren't equal either.
Men aren't equal to other men. No equality here for anyone. Some men are taller, are stronger, are smarter, are braver, are more resolute... than you. Some men are shorter, are weaker, aren't as smart, maybe are even handicapped physically.
Men aren't equal.
Denounce male equality.
"It all sounds far too much like an excuse to borrow someone else's glory by virtue of having a penis when everyone without one is trashed as being weak or cowardly or dishonest. Why? Because if there are women heroes, the way there are men heroes, courageous people who stand out above the rest, then a person doesn't automatically get to be better, more virtuous, stronger, more courageous just by not being a woman."
This is EXACTLY what that poster does....and why he does it.
Dr. Helen, as soon as I read your thoughtful post I was reminded of C.S. Lewis who provided some of the last century's most incisive explanations of courage and its source. I'm pleased to see two other comments have also referenced, and thereby commended, him for your consideration. Best wishes.
Courage:
The ability to stand by one's beliefs even when that belief may be unpopular. The willingness to face personal harm (physical/social/emotional) in order to stand by one's beliefs.
Example of courage:
Globalman is correct in many ways. If you held many, possibly even the majority of, western women up to the standards of male behavior you would find them severely lacking.
I also have to agree with him that "women" (using women as a whole, an average representation) are, very much, the way he describes: lacking courage. Yes, there are exceptions, but that doesn't invalidate the general rule. Of course, there are reasons for this. Women are breed to not rock the boat (those who "stayed safe" had a higher chance of reproduction) while men were the opposite; men who took great risks (and succeeded) fathered more offspring. That's not to say that all men have courage or that all women lack it, but it does explain why a much larger percentage of men have courage compared to the percentage of women who do.
Men have one standard of behavior while women have another. The reasons behind this are millions of years of evolution. Men and women are not equal; are not interchangeable; are not equivalent. And, most of all, it is not misogyny to recognize this.
Marsh has left a new comment on the post "What is courage?":
"This is EXACTLY what that poster does....and why he does it."
You have some evidence to present? Go ahead. The real men are waiting Marsh.
Synova
"Denounce male equality."
Indeed. I can not play tennis like Roger Federer. I can not play golf like Tiger Woods. I am not their equals in these endeavours. They can not write C++ like I can. They can not deal with my clients like I can. They are not my equals in this area. When a man makes a claim to be as good, or equal to another man the matter is simply settled. On the field of competition. Do women settle the issue of 'equality' in the field of competition with men? Do we see women play the men in tennis? In golf? No. We don't. Because they are not the equals of men in these sports. Indeed, in ALL sports, women are not competitive with men. They are FAR less capable. Stating that fact is enough to 'upset women'. If women want to claim equality then they have to prove it like the men do.
The call to 'equality' is the call to the lowest common demoninator. It is a call to 'groupthink slavery'. Collectivism. Where people can be brainwashed to be the sheepdogs of other people by calling them names when they speak the plain truth. Men are almost impossible to brainwash into the idea of 'equality' because we know we can't play golf like Tiger or tennis like Roger. We know we are not equals.
One plain truth is women are, by the standards of men, cowards. Claims by women that they are 'equal' in 'courage' to men are baseless and are rightly rebutted. And for that? The 'PC Police' will attack such a man speaking the plain facts backed by the entire history of the world as proof. Where is their evidence? Not to be seen. Women are, by and large, cowards when measured by the standards of men. Let us not forget that 40 years into feminism I presented one report showing the death rate of US soldier men to be 5.5 times the death rate of US Soldier women in Iraq. Women want the claim to 'equality'? They can earn it. They want the claim to courage? They can earn it. And they are going to have to earn it on the same basis as men. Baseless claims cut no ice with me.
Demonspawn
Thank you for posting what is obvious. It's about time the truth got a run against the lies of feminism and women.
"You have some evidence to present? Go ahead."
Your own words convict you, GM.
I say the following w/ a sincere heart...
Go spend some time (a weekend or more) alone in the woods or on a moutain... some place where you can be all alone.
And discover that part of yourself that needs to know if you have what it takes...
And answer that question once and for all for yourself.
B/c you will never find the answer you are looking for by focusing on something outside of yourself.
I know you have rejected Christianity, but perhaps you will see the wisdom behind this verse.
"Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things." Philipians 4:8
some place where you can be all alone.
Some place in the wild, that is.
Globalman100, agree 100% with your posts. Since the feminists have hijacked most of our education institutions, the military and many other parts of our society which were once the preserve of men, a vast mythology has developed that women are essentially interchangeable with men, i.e. can make equally as good firefighters, cops, soldiers, etc.
This is so much bunk. Women can and do perform almost any task men can, and often out-perform them as doctors, lawyers, executives and more. However, men are evolutonarily superior and better-adapted to war-making and protection of the community (tribe). We are also better-adapted as engineers and in certain trades. Space does not permit a point-by-point analysis, but interested parties are urged to read the following,
"Coed Combat" by Kingsley Browne
"The Kinder, Gentler Military" by Stephanie Guttman, and "Women in the Military" by Brian Mitchell. All explode the myth of the female super soldier.
I have studied martial arts for many years, hand-to-hand combat, and I have never seen any male older than 15 years old beaten by a woman, not even by the best martial female artists. The disparity between men, even older men, and all but a handful of women is huge. Not only in strength and size, but in spatial reasoning, aggressiveness, pain tolerance, and much more - including courage. This is no knock on women, but simply a statement of the facts.
Perhaps 98% of all women intuitively and instinctively understand these realities, and have since adolescence. However, a small subset of atypical women, refuse to acknowledge the facts of life, and demand that perfectly functional male-dominated institutions be reshaped according to feminist myths. Do some women have the type of physical courage most men do? Yes, but comparatively few. It is simply not in women's interest, evolutionarily, to be the warriors and risk-takers men are. Mother nature intended males to be relatively disposible compared to females. The worker bees sacrifice themselves for the queen, and so on.
Do women have a role to play in our armed forces? Of course they do, but to determine the correct roles, we have to be smart and honest with ourselves about the capabilities of men and women. We aren't doing that now, not by a long shot.
Ironically, some women are finally waking up to the reality that a society of weak, enfeebled "men" is not as good a place in which to live as the one their grandparents lived in, where men and women knew who they were and where they fit in the natural order of things. Equally ironic, those men - and women - were far-tougher than today's coddled, spoiled brats in adult bodies who throw a fit if their coffee is cold.
We may find one day that "male" values like courage are essential to our survival as a civilization. They certainly built the America of our forefathers and mothers.
Georgiaboy61,
thank you for your contribution. As you rightly point out, women are physically inferior to men in every way. The worlds best female athletes can be beaten by me and my 10 mates. In all endeavours of sporting, strength, spatial, rapid response capabilities? Post pubescent boys outperform the best in the world women. It's a fact so it can't be 'sexist'.
Billy Jean King was hailed as a hero and one of the most influential women of the 20th century for beating Bobby Riggs. Bobby Riggs was 55. An old age pensioner. Only women could be so deluded as to thinking the worlds top woman athlete could beat an old age pensioner proved anything about women.
Ladies. I have raised 4 children. I know it is very destructive to a child to praise them falsely. It undermines their self confidence because when they try to live up to what they have been told and fail they are dis-heartened. And no woman here is going to say that chronic low self esteem is NOT pandemic in western women today. It is. It is, in part, due to the constant false praise of women as being somehow comparable to men.
Women are not comparable to men. I don't know ONE man who has produced a baby yet. Us men don't get all bent out of shape if a woman says 'I am better at making a baby than you are'. Its bloody obvious a woman can make babies better than men. Similarly. If women want to claim 'equality' lets hear what that actually means because you women never actually articulate what 'equality' means. You merely pronounce it as a 'fact'. It's not. It's a myth.
I now hold women to the same standards as men. When a woman claims something I ask her to provide proof of claim. No proof? Claim is rebutted.
Women have provided no proof women are even in the right ball park with what us men call courage. The willingness to live up to your word, up to and including death. Indeed, 'it is a womans preogative to change her mind' but a man is 'only as good as his word'. As men women are failures. Get used to men saying it.
OT but these are very good videos.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjF6LJ6L0c8&playnext=1&videos=ij12OoNiaBY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UU3235YPShM&playnext=1&videos=Jl7keOmX_Z0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzjU-I5hITs&playnext=1&videos=9oRsZq9a3iQ
Talking about courage and death on the job? One of the more amazing things I saw when I was a kid was a 'blow out' at the Basic Oxygen Steelmaking at the steelworks I worked in. Vid below.
Basically you put 300 tons of molten iron/scrap metal into the furnace and blast super heated high pressure almost pure oxygen into the furnace. As the vid says....the metal is about 3000F, about 2000C. It blasts around in the furnace like water. Anyway. The guys were paid bonuses for how much they made in a shift so there was a tendency to overfill. When they did and there was a 'blow out' molten steel would blow back out of this thing and be showered over the shop floor like 'rain' only in large clumps and not so close together.
When this happens the guys just blow the sirens and the guys look up and they walk slowly backards towards the exits and simply side step the falling molten metal. Of course, if a clump hits you in the head it kills you. Forget the plastic safety helmet. Each clump can be 5-10 pounds and it is molten metal. This was considered quite normal. I saw this happen with my own eyes. I was very impressed how no guys paniced. This was 'all in a days work'. One time they had such a bad spill they blew the stell sheeting walls off the factory!! Ladies? You want to complain about your day in your air conditioned office?
http://www.steelpltmuseum.org/video/Basic_Oxygen_Furnace.html
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