Saturday, January 19, 2008

Scar


I didn't go looking for a fight story. I was minding my own business when the fight story came my way. Just a few days ago I wrote a seemingly opaque comment at Covenent Zone in which I argued that it is better to fight and suffer the consequences than to suffer from the pangs of cowardice forever. And today, sure enough, there is a story about the very sort of thing I wrote about, except that it's not exactly what I meant at all.

"Why we fight" Adam McDowell, National Post Published: Monday, January 14, 2008

For John Wayne - or at least John Wayne's character in 1976's The Shootist - the rules were simple. "I won't be wronged, I won't be insulted, I won't be laid a hand on," he said. "I don't do these things to others, and I require the same from them."

[....]

Why should you put up with being pushed around or insulted, or allow this to happen to those who can't defend themselves? Nowadays we are told violence never solved anything. This is nonsense. We may have our reasons for choosing not to hit someone: ethics, fear of arrest, a hand modelling contract, cowardice.

But it is a lie to suggest that the employment of gentlemanly fisticuffs can't help when dealing with the hooligans, ruffians and rogues who infect our streets. Herewith are five reasons you should at least consider putting up your dukes the next time a fellow is asking for it.

1. Ungentlemanly behaviour must be corrected

What are you supposed to do when a guy spits on you?

Jericho is the name of the obnoxious hippie Chris Jones dragged out of a quiet neighbourhood pub and beat up last year. "These f---ing guys were being so loud," he explains over the phone from his home in Ottawa. Jones asked the Biblically named patron and his friends to quiet down; when Jericho "loosed a throat pony" on Jones's face, Jones pulled him outside by the beard and punched him out.

"I definitely think spitting in someone's face is provocation," Jones says.

Jones happens to be a staff writer for Esquire magazine. He recounted his bar bout in the November issue in a piece called "Why I Started Punching Jerks Again" (retitled "In Defense of the Fistfight" for the online edition).

"Believe it or not, there was a rational process leading to this point," he says. "The fact is, more and more people are acting, like I say in the story, like they're above being edited. No one has ever challenged them."

Nowadays, Jones reluctantly provides that challenge if provoked. "The fact is, I'm not a violent person. I would rather there not be any fights. But that would necessitate that there not be any a--holes."

2. Fighting could make you a real-life Tyler Durden

The moral of Jones's story - that, like it or not, standing up to the Jerichos of this world means being willing to punch them [in the] face - resonated with readers. He says he's had more feedback for that one short piece than for any other he's written, overwhelmingly from men. Like the narrator of Fight Club (a 1996 novel and 1999 film), fighting made Jones the subject of unexpected admiration.

[....]

3. Fighting could make you a star on YouTube

If men don't have the opportunity to get into a real-life fist fight, they'll watch one.

"I really don't know why this video got so big. If you really think about it, it's just a fight on a bus," says Anthony Bloch of Thornhill, Ont., whose camera captured the video that became the online hit "Drunk Bus Fight on the Vomit Comet."

The video depicts a rider fighting off three other young men on a late-night bus in Toronto. Bloch had a good view from his seat when the fight went down last fall. "The guy who's standing on top, I think these guys said something to his girlfriend," he says. "He was definitely protecting his girlfriend. He was holding her in place in that little corner while he was fighting off all these people."

While violence is everywhere in the media, examples of real-life chivalry are rare. Grainy footage of a bus fight is irresistible viewing to men, especially when the hero wins a three-against-one donnybrook in defence of his lady's honour. Drunk Bus Fight's hit count ballooned to nearly 60,000 after it appeared on the local TV news.

4. Knocking a guy out is easier than you think

"The great myth of the bar fight is that it's 20 minutes long, if you watch these movie fights. The fact is that if you catch someone squarely in the face, the fight's over," says Jones, who is five-foot-10 and has a little boxing training. "There shouldn't be a lot of windup. It should be quick."

[....]

5. Fighting actually feels good

The old, non-violent Jones failed to intervene one day when a pair of young men slapped a beer out of a homeless man's hand. The incident ate at him for years. "I was carrying these burdens from fights I didn't fight far longer than any bruises would have taken to heal," Jones says. Punching the grin off Jericho's face made him feel much better.

Exchanging blows can make you feel like a million bucks even if you get hurt. "The feeling of the fight - you never really feel more alive," says Hominick, though he still recommends keeping a cool head.

When it comes to dealing with people with a bully mentality, Jones says most of the time you won't even need to throw a punch. Bullies rely on intimidation; when they see you're willing to fight, they typically back down.

"What's amazing is how often it doesn't actually get to a fight," he says. "You still get the good feeling about standing up for yourself or for someone else." http://www.nationalpost.com/life/story.html?id=237409

My comment at covenant Zone is about Islam and Left Dhimmi Fascism. I used some local examples to make a broader point: that when America is attacked, we must rely on our government and its legitimate armed forces to do our violence for us in a rational and laawful way; but that if that fails us, then we must act on our own, outside the bounds of our lands, and then, if and when captured, we must willingly submit to the punishment that comes of our actions.

If, as above, a foreign nation spits on us, we should punch that nation in the face and ensure no other nation treats us that way again. Harsh? Violent? Disproportionate? Of course it is, and it must be so. It is the nature of Nature that the weak are beaten for no other reason than that they are weak. It is the nature of our Modernity that we do not beat others simply because we can; we are rational and moving ever further toward justice in our laws. But we have missed a point of interest: that we must not be rational to the extent that we are irrational. A nation hurts us? We must stomp it and its innocent civilians into the bloody ground to ensure no other nation does the same to us again or to any other nation. It is rational, it is just, and it is beyond me why there is widening rationalizations for the unjust. America and the West as pitiful weaklings brings out disgust and hatred in many non-Modern people. We either to learn to deal with them as they are rather than as how we think they are or how we think they should be, or we die or become enslaved from sheer ugly cowardice.

But the fact is that men are men and men can only put up with so much shit before nothing else matters but being a full-blown man. Then all the years of schooling and office-politicking and being Mr Nice-guy trying to get laid come to a full stop. Then comes out the man and the fight gets nasty.

Jihadi-bent Moslems? Left Dhimmi Fascists? Our Sensitive New Age CIA? Roll over, boys. Men are coming to town soon enough.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

BRAVO!

Dag said...

"Bravo." Spanish for "wild." I like it. I reread the post just now, and I like it too. I forgot what I wrote s soon as I posted it, having had a busy day, having to move on immediately to other things; but in reading it today with fresh eyes I like it too. It is good to punch out an arsehole. Even in th e short-term it saves a lot of grief, and in the long-term it will save whole nations from destruction if only we figure it out in time to stop ourselves from going crazy and pummeling the bastards.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I'm having a nice time with normal people who get along nicely in the world. It's just like real living.

Anonymous said...

Dag,

You mentioned tourism to me a few weeks ago. Looks like something of the sort is starting.

Dag said...

Greetings, Visitor.

It's funny that I came across that post a few days ago by chance, not often venturing so far afield as the Gates of Vienna. But I went, and I spotted that title and I read the post.

I write on this theme on occasion, having up something long ago on the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War, and more recently something on the Flying Tigers from World War Two.

The point is that we are people who should extend ourselves. All people should do so if they are capable. I posted early in my career here the Melian Dialogue. I wrote another on Euripides, one on William Walker, and something on "Let's invade Sweden." I'm consistent, if nothing else.

Yeah, I am big on sports. That might be why I despise Islam and Left dhimmi fascism so deeply. There's no sportsmanship in them.

I'll have to sit back for a while now and think through how to elaborate on that, likely having darkened every readers understanding of what I'm trying to get across. Time and a bit of thinking might bring out something I can fell OK about posting here.

Thanks for the thought provoking.

Anonymous said...

The Covenant Zoners should get in touch with Frank Hilliard, the dour-looking gentleman from Grand Forks, B.C., who is keen to be part of the tourism business.

Dag said...

V.V., as you see, I published your comment. I came close for the first time in the long course of this endeavor to refusing to publish. However, here it is.

My reasons for feeling unsettled about the comment? It is all too plain what the post at Gates of Vienna is about. It is also clear that anyone who goes to said place above will be going for only one reason. It's that to which I object, sort of.

I am not going to sanction extra-parliamentary opposition within the confines of legitimate nations, i.e. Western democracies. I'll go even further at the risk of pissing-off my numerous reader, whoever he might be: I cannot sanction extra-parliamentary opposition if it violates our nation's or nations' treaties with hostile sovereign nations or their citizens-- within the bounds of our laws.

I'm posting your comment with the full expectation that those reading it will understand that it is meant as a call to arms only in a metaphorical sense at this time.

Having made that point, I will also write that outside the bounds of our laws and our lawful states and outside the bounds of our protection of others by treaty, fuck 'em to death any way possible.

Our government failed us after 9/11 because our people failed us by not demanding war against those who waged war on us. We as a people have not agreed to wage war on our enemies, and until we do I can't take it upon myself legitimately to wage that war on my own without violating the pact, the covenant, of my membership in this collective union of individuals. I cannot rightly bring discredit on my own people by violating their agreement to do nothing positive. Yes, it hurts to stand by while we are attacked and beaten. But as a member of this communion I have no right to move against my own even in their defense nor in my own abstract defense. Yes, of course I see what's happening and others do not. My task then is to show others rather than to take it upon myself to wage war on our enemies. Our government won't wage war because we fail to make our government act rightly. I abide by the evil choices of our own, hating it as I do.

You know, of course, that that's not my full position. It is, to sum up, that we have no moral obligation to die gratuitously at the behest of the government. Nor do we have to obey the positive laws of an illegitimate government, i.e. a government that practices sharia. If we were to find ourselves in a state that required us to forego our own good values for the sake of abiding the evils of another land, then we are duty-bound to act to preserve ourselves.

I've written before and even often, that it is a moral and legitimate position to filibuster for universal Modernity. My only objection to doing so universally is one of obeying our own laws or of not violating our laws elsewhere. If we don't violate our own laws and if we don't violate our own principles, then I would suggest we act in full favor of the Good.

There are sticky points in international law concerning those who wage war without the legal sanction of lawful states in a legitimate state of belligerence. If you fight another nation when you are not part of a lawful nation's military, and if you are not in proper uniform, then if captured you will be shot on the spot as a mercenary, and to my mind, rightly so. The same does not hold true for those on our soil: we allow them constitutional protections given to our own. Too bad for us. But, we deal with the realities at hand. One is that others are not so generous as we, and if captured as mercenaries, expect to be summarily executed without remorse.

This brings me to a point many might not think a worthy of our filibuster: that to make any of our effort worthwhile as well as worthy of the man himself we must look upon ourselves not merely as people doing God's work in the world but as men and women who are out to make it rich. I offer this as my best point for engaging Islam outside the legal boundaries of our democracies and protected client-states: That our enemies have waged unprovoked war on us, and that w in turn should fight them at every lawful junction for the sake of the Moral and also to make a lot of cash and goods.

Are we to be thieves and murderers? I argue that self-interest in war is a good thing. If citizens fight a nation for the moral right, they should also fight for livelihood. If there were a notion beyond the legal Pale, which I can't claim to know of, I would feel fine in looting and burning till my heart was content-- if that nation's people are my enemies, and if my government is not allied with them in some legal way.

So your comment goes up. I trust my readers to understand the discussion as one of speculation rather than some ill-tempered rant urging crime against the innocent. At some point people are responsible for their own ideas, and they can't really blame those ideas on others. I hope and expect that others will do the right thing, and in that I will back them to the best of my abilities.

And yes, I like Grand Forks, a lovely place. Maybe I'll see you there.