All the talk of law and peaceful discourse will not stop an armed barbarian. He wants, for whatever reason, what you have, and will take it by force.
Europeans don't understand that to real Americans that is a compliment. They should hear what we say about them ---but then maybe they take that to be a compliment.
Hate to say that I used to believe this. Maybe it was that guy in the Village People.
Why is the left is always talking about "Eurocentrism" when it is the Europeans who are always launching the left-wing schemes they only dream they can launch at home?
How about those "evil" guns - what self-respecting cowboy doesn't have at least 2 (one on the belt, one in an ankle holster), and probably a third (rifle in the saddle or pickup gun rack)? To me, this is the essence of the cowboy - the willingness to use force against evil, which the moral relativists decry.
The political equivalent of a cowboy (as well as the real thing earlier in life) was Teddy Roosevelt. During his presidency, nobody challenged us, as they knew that he'd respond as a cowboy. Compare with a contemporary and rival of his, Woodrow Wilson, probably the archtypical "tenderfoot." He so studiously tried to avoid war by being passive and peaceful (i.e. anti-cowboy), that we got ourselves into WW1 at a cost of some 300,000 dead.
The world despises the American cowboy because he represents American strength and resolve. They wish us to be like Wilson, weak and indeceisive, so that they can commit their aggressions with impunity. Bush is, so far, about 3/4 cowboy. The other quarter has begun to leak away in the last couple of weeks.
Now that's just good old fashioned common sense. I can picture John Wayne saying it.
One has to wonder if European intellectuals fear the cowboy because they instinctively understand that they're likely to end up on the wrong end of his gun for the evil they do, or at least the evil they desire to do in the name of "noble" ends.
There. Just a minor correction to an otherwise excellent and insightful commentary.
I don't fear my neighbor: I'm a better shot than he is.
Hitler was one, but he was the only one mentioned.
If it weren't for European (and other foreign) tourists, we'd have a lot less money and a lot fewer tourists in Arizona.
Monument Valley, rafting the Canyon, jeeping Chelly, Hopi Mesa, Europeans outnumber Americans two to one or better. And usually, Europeans get higher marks for NOT leaving trash, NOT throwing rocks at just anything, NOT bringing boomboxes, and FOR asking intelligent questions. Some of those Europeans tell me they've planned to see the Canyon, or other sites for two, three years. And we've got locals in Phoenix and Tucson living here for a lifetime that have never seen the Canyon. Probably just as well, as the most common aerovac out of the Canyon are American yuppies.
Just one opinion, just my opinion, but I'd much rather deal with German, or Kiwi, or Irish tourists than Californians or New Yorkers.
And, sir, there are still old timers in Arizona who aren't too fond of Roosevelt. Either of 'em. Now mention Barry Goldwater, and now you're talking about a real man.
Bred, born, life, and I sure hope I'll die in, Arizona
by the way whenever they start to make noise- just flash the pict of the Swastika flying over the Eiffel Tower. Only the Brits and Turks have true grit now
Liberal = Collectivism
Therefore, the liberal despises the idea of a cowboy.
Real cowboys did not pick fights. They--as their daily experience with Mother Nature taught them--were non-confrontational and non-interventionist. Above all they would not interfere in feuds of which they knew nothing.
Contrary to urban myth, the best cowboys did not "break" horses. They persuaded them at critical moments. They respected the nature of horses and didn't engage in fruitless efforts to make that nature conform to their prejudices.
It was not cowboys who fought Indians. It was the US government in one of its many "regulation" and human improvement schemes--schemes which we conservatives know and love so well.
The "violence" practiced by cowboys was always strictly limited--except, perhaps, when drinking. And that is kind of a self limiting activity.
So we can clearly see why the myth of cowboys must reamain just that-a myth.
By the way, cowboys abhorred blowhardism. For example if a "cowboy" loudly declared: "Osama, wanted dead or alive," and then, several months later shrugged and said "We don't really care about Osama," that cowboy would be seen as a callow blowhard....
Oh, and a real cowboy would not concern himself overmuch with contemplation of Evil--especially the purported evil of foreigners in distant lands. There was too much work to be done on the ranch.
Maybe America declined into an Empire because we have waaay too much time on our hands.