Thursday, February 14, 2013

 

Women in Combat

Walter E. Williams wrote a thought-provoking essay on this subject.

It provoked these thoughts:

There is one consideration no one as yet has seen fit to mention: Several days each month a woman is hors de combat from menstruation, with or without the accompanying PMS. Can’t you just see the women on a march, carrying the requisite 83-pound load, having to stop to change their tampon or pad?

Or shall we require all women in combat to have hysterectomies to bypass this physical inconvenience? Or accept only post-menopause females, whose physical prowess is even more reduced compared to males in their most robust years?

Maybe the thinking is that the only physical combat the women will be asked to do is sit at a desk and operate drones. Or maybe the women can be given steroids and testosterone supplements to turn them into Amazon warrior princesses.

It can't be just to pander to women's clamoring for equal rights and benefits, equal opportunities for careers in the military. The Pentagon must be running short of bodies to send to the near-1000 military bases and dozens of military action zones the U.S. is engaged in worldwide. The military has become a ravenous machine, devouring the people's money and the people themselves.

Do women really want a license to kill? Do they really want to kill people who are only defending their homelands which we have invaded, even though those countries have never attacked us?

Do we really want to ratchet up the degree of brutality in the world? Men by nature are programmed to protect women and children. That is the ostensible reason for wars in the first place: to provide a safe and sustainable environment (land, resources) for their populations. Now when a soldier faces a female enemy, that natural impulse must be suppressed. Just shoot.

If our government can justify shooting and bombing women and children, and teenagers because they might be militants, we have already gone over the edge of civilization. We are only one short step away from justifying and carrying out genocide. Do women really want to be in the forefront of that? Is that the only way to be the life-givers and nurturers they are created to be? Does exercising equal brutality constitute the only way to prove equality as human beings?

Women and men are not the same, aside from the physical differences. Women's brains work at a higher, more complex level. Women should be in the forefront of diplomacy, negotiation, and peace making. By trying to be more like men, women are actually diminishing themselves. By rushing to subordinate themselves to military discipline, obedience to orders and hierarchy of command, they are reducing their self-assertive sovereignty.

Women, you've been sold a bill of noxious goods. Think about it before swallowing that hook. The future of civilization hangs on your decision.


Saturday, February 09, 2013

 

Love wins! Musings on Valentine's Day

It used to be called St. Valentine’s Day, rooted in Christian history. Nowadays it has morphed into a commercial event for showing affection in general, not just for romantic wooing. We give flowers, cards, chocolates, hearts and cupids, a whole tossed salad of memes that say, “I like you. You’re special in my life.” Now we can say “Happy Valentine’s Day” to everyone we care about.

“Love makes the world go around.” What a picturesque way to recognize love as energy, the positive energy that holds not just personal relationships together but the very Universe itself. “You are my sunshine” is another poetic image of that same truth.

In some cultures, Valentine’s Day is banned altogether. They see it as a symbol of the West’s loose morals and preoccupation with sex. “Make love, not war” is viewed as hedonistic, not as the larger principle of benevolence over belligerence.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if, in addition to lip service on one official day, we would channel loving energy into every thought, every word, every act, every day of the year? How much healing and mending of conflicts, repairing of ruptures and restoring of peace could we bring about?

Love is the foremost example of a fusion of mind and heart. America will not win hearts and minds in countries it bombs. War is an illogical and self-defeating policy. Instead of an endless cycle of escalating enmities, what if we took the initiative to give love a chance. What if we set aside hawkish hype and declared non-violence as strength, not weakness? It takes real courage to resist the facile resort to force.

The greatest strength is love.


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