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Cowboys (Ithaca barf alert)
©Ithaca Times 2003 ^
| April 02, 2003
| By:Donna Beckwith
Posted on 04/02/2003 9:37:00 AM PST by Behind Liberal Lines
My sons grew up loving Star Wars. My oldest, especially, would watch the original trilogy of videos over and over. I saw the stories as a traditional retelling of good versus evil, light versus dark. But I was wrong.
We've been led, as a culture, to believe these stories - the good guys always win. Lately, I've been forced to look deeper, to actually think about the morals of these tales.
Star Wars is really a Western in a space ship. Bad guys come into town, act immorally, terrorize the God-fearing local population. Then the good guys - those brave and noble men in white hats - show up. The good guys blast all the evil-doers to death. Everyone lives happily and peacefully ever after. There's the lie. We have been taught that violence is necessary to end violence.
It seems to me that [as] the good-guy cowboys continued to slaughter the bad-guy cowboys, both sides were continually replaced by more cowboys until technology rendered cowboys passe. Violence never was the tool that righted any situation. Cowboys were replaced by gangsters, who were replaced by ... and violence solved nothing. Technology and culture simply redefine the villain.
What does nonviolence do? I love the story of the British turning tail and going home in shame after facing Gandhi's passive resistance. Nonviolence was an effective tool in overcoming violence.
Right now we have a Texan occupying our White House who is painting himself and his posse as the good guys, the guys in the big white hats. He is counting on us to recognize that status and he knows we know what comes next. The posse get to ride into town and shoot all the bad guys. We have been well educated by John Wayne and Clint Eastwood. Noble men kill to protect the innocent.
I taught my kids when they were quite young that it takes two to fight. And either person can refuse to participate at any time. Choosing nonviolence changes everything.
Can we overcome our culture, our myth of America as the hero clearing criminals out of town? Or have we been so well educated that we can't understand violence simply won't work?
TOPICS: Editorial; Foreign Affairs; Government; News/Current Events; US: New York
KEYWORDS: cowboy; ithaca; thecityofevil
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What does nonviolence do? I love the story of the British turning tail and going home in shame after facing Gandhi's passive resistance. Nonviolence was an effective tool in overcoming violence.Just once, someone needs to sit these pacifistic idiots down, and explain to them that Ghandi's non-violent dissent only worked because the British government was willing to let it work. Why? Because the British are, compared to someone like Hussein, a civilized nation.
Of course, even that wouldn't sway them, since liberals view every culture as equally valid.
Ithaca is the City of Evil.
To: governsleastgovernsbest; LibKill; gaspar; bentfeather; NativeNewYorker; drjimmy; Atticus; ...
City of Evil bump
To: Behind Liberal Lines
Yippee Ki-yay Mutha F-----!!
3
posted on
04/02/2003 9:39:44 AM PST
by
dfwgator
To: Behind Liberal Lines
City of Evil bump
To: Behind Liberal Lines
I love the story of the British turning tail and going home in shame after facing Gandhi's passive resistance. Nonviolence was an effective tool in overcoming violence. 
The author's comrades didn't get the memo.
5
posted on
04/02/2003 9:40:23 AM PST
by
martin_fierro
(Mr. Avuncular)
To: Behind Liberal Lines
I taught my kids when they were quite young that it takes two to fight.
No it doesn’t. One person can just agree to get their ass kicked.
6
posted on
04/02/2003 9:40:38 AM PST
by
dead
To: Behind Liberal Lines
I taught my kids when they were quite young that it takes two to fight. Yup. Otherwise, all ya got is a one sided ass-whuppin'.
To: Behind Liberal Lines
How could anybody be fans of the original SW trilogy and think it shows good guys always winning? The Empire Strikes Back was a two hour asswhipping of the good guys from beginning to end. Heck the good guys could barely beat the local fauna in ESB. Some people just learn the wrong lesson from everything.
8
posted on
04/02/2003 9:41:40 AM PST
by
discostu
(I have not yet begun to drink)
To: Behind Liberal Lines
Hitler just needed more hugs. </sarcasm>
9
posted on
04/02/2003 9:42:21 AM PST
by
dfwgator
To: dfwgator
Ill bet her kids get beat up a lot.
10
posted on
04/02/2003 9:44:09 AM PST
by
cardinal4
(The Senate Armed Services Comm; the Chinese pipeline into US secrets)
To: Behind Liberal Lines
I taught my kids when they were quite young that it takes two to fight. And either person can refuse to participate at any time.A lot of Iraqis under Saddam who displeased him or his Hitler Youth kids may have thought that - before they were arrested, beaten and tortured to death.
Really, posts like this make me wonder what planet some anti-American types are from. What she taught her kids "when they were quite young" - what rubbish. Sounds like Jimmy Carter saying how wise baby Amy was about nuke-u-lar weapons. We could have "refused" to fight the Japanese and Germans, too, lady, but you wouldn't be writing in English right now if we had.
To: fourdeuce82d
Violence solved Hitler.
To: Behind Liberal Lines
sarcasm
She's right. Lincoln should have let the South keep slavery.
/sarcasm
To: Behind Liberal Lines
What does nonviolence do? I love the story of the British turning tail and going home in shame after facing Gandhi's passive resistance. Nonviolence was an effective tool in overcoming violence. Good thing for Gandhi that the Nazis never got ahold of India.
14
posted on
04/02/2003 9:45:20 AM PST
by
Celtjew Libertarian
(No more will we pretend that our desire/For liberty is number-cold and has no fire.)
To: Behind Liberal Lines
Donna Beckwith
What an insufferably stupid twit. Did she ever consider that the Jews offered Hitler nonviolence? Did she ever consider that the middle classes in Cambodia offered Pol Pot non violence? I wonder who prompts her to breathe since she appears too stupid to do it on her own.
15
posted on
04/02/2003 9:45:21 AM PST
by
from occupied ga
(Your government is your enemy, and Bush is no conservative)
To: Behind Liberal Lines
I taught my kids when they were quite young that it takes two to fight. And either person can refuse to participate at any time. ...and have the crap beat out of them.
To: Behind Liberal Lines
Right now we have a Texan occupying our White House who is painting himself and his posse as the good guys, the guys in the big white hats
Damned Straight!
17
posted on
04/02/2003 9:45:55 AM PST
by
TADSLOS
(Sua Sponte)
To: dead
Liberal idealists are just so darn cuuuuute, aren't they? You just want to pick them up and cuddle them and pet them and then grab the Clue-by-Four of Reality(tm) and take it upside their head over and over and over and over and over again until the bloody pulp that used to be a liberal idealist finally gets it.
The moral power of a Gandhi is indeed wonderful. And nonviolence can work. But it assumes that the people on the other side have at least a little bit of humanity. Does this author think nonviolence would work in, say, a maximum-security prison? "No, I won't fight..." OK. Hope you like being Tyrone's prison bitch.
A murderous tyrant like Saddam Hussein understands one thing: Force. It's sad, but it's reality.
}:-)4
18
posted on
04/02/2003 9:46:09 AM PST
by
Moose4
(Mew havoc, and let loose the kittens of ZOT!)
To: Behind Liberal Lines
What does nonviolence do?It allows every terrorist and murdering dictator to wreak death and destruction without hindrance.
Ithaca is doing their part to keep terrorists employed. Hoorah for them.
19
posted on
04/02/2003 9:47:41 AM PST
by
Luna
(Evil will not triumph...God is at the helm)
To: Behind Liberal Lines
Good to know that non-violent dissent would have stopped Hitler
20
posted on
04/02/2003 9:47:53 AM PST
by
CyberCowboy777
(In those days... Every man did that which was right in his own eyes.)
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