"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling that thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself." - John Stuart Mill
Truer word have not been spoken. Since we are inundated with images of war and the subsequent blathering and hand-wringing throughout the media, I want to take a look at the institution of war. What is it? Is it good or bad? What happens without it? War at its essence is a fight between large groups of people. It's as simple as that. If you boiled it down, any argument that comes to blows between family members, neighbors or complete strangers is a tiny little war. It gets much bigger and uglier when we talk about violent disputes between nations or other large organizations. People disagree. People can disagree to a point where there is no middle ground for compromise. Take the current war on the part of radical Islam against the Western world. The West would be more than willing to let Muslims live as they wish. (Provided, that is, that we have access to the oil that they are fortunately to be sitting on.) The wacky Islamic militants and terrorists want the West to succumb or die. There really isn't much room to wiggle in that little disagreement. So then there has to be another way to resolve this conflict. When diplomacy is not a valid option you have be sure you beat the crap out of the other guy. I watched a little bit of the movie How I Won the War the other day. I tried to get into it because John Lennon acted in it, but I just couldn't. It was released in 1967 and is your typical "the utter insanity of war" kind of movies and books that came out in that era. And to be honest, there is a level of madness in war. If you think about it, who would want to fight one? It's ridiculous. That is until you consider the alternative. There is such thing as a good war. World War II was a good war. The Gulf War was a good war. The so-called War on Terrorism is a good war. The wars of conquest in the olden days when kings decided to send their subjects to fight on other lands in order to expand their kingdoms made less sense. The Korean and Vietnam Wars were a little more iffy. But let it be known that not all war is a bad thing.
I can still drive around town and see those silly yard signs that helpfully suggest "Wage Peace, Not War". Gee, that's a nice thought. Why don't we all just live in peace? Oh wait, that's right. There are evil people in the world that want to kill us! Standing in front of an enemy soldier whose gun is pointed at your face and handing him a daisy is a nice picture. That is until he blows your head off. I'm sure Israelis on a city bus in Jerusalem would like to wage peace just moments before they get blown apart by a bomber who is at war with them. The absence of war is not peace. It is acquiescence to totalitarianism. When citizens or nations do not defend themselves, they cease to be. War becomes an inevitability. The United Kingdom had a choice in 1939. They could have rolled over and had become a northwestern European province of Nazi Germany. They chose to fight. And thank God they did. Peoples will always have differing points of view and ways of living. But when one people insists that another comply at the threat of force, war is justified. The United States were at odds with the Soviet Union for half a century. But there is one reason why there was no all-out war between the two nations (other than regional wars in which each side either supported or actively fought) and that is the principle of mutually assured destruction. They knew we could vaporize them and we knew they could vaporize us. What would have been the point? But it did justify Reagan's doctrine of peace through strength. Without the proliferation of nuclear weapons, I believe there probably would have been a war in Europe not too long after WWII between the communist East and the free nations of the West.
And another thing...
I have to lighten this up a bit. It's been all terrorism and Iraq and Democrats and politics for too many months now. It's high time for some comments on a much less important topic: sports. I have compiled a list of things that I don't like about various sports and I just have to share it with you, those half a dozen people who might actually read this.
BASEBALL
The season has begun and there is not a better time of year. However, I am a
traditionalist and there are some non-traditional things that have crept their
way into the majors that I just don't like. They are minor and not of any vital
importance, but they just get on my nerves. My rule on uniforms is simple: Home
whites and road grays. Get rid of these batting practice alternative third
shirts that so many clubs wear. At first it was a novelty, now I see them for
some teams more often than not. Florida wears those black jerseys almost all the
time. The same with the Cubs blue. And others such as Cleveland, Houston,
Chicago White Sox, Oakland and others wear them fairly often as well. No, no, no. This isn't a weekend
softball league. Home whites with the team name on the front and road grays with
the city name. Exceptions can be made for initials instead of either. And the Phillies just have "Phillies" because Philadelphia is a bitch to have to fit on
the front of a uniform. And one other exception I can grant is the road beige
that the Padres wear. They have a history with that color. I'll allow them to
keep it. At least things haven't gotten as bad as they were in the 1970's.
Yikes! Kudos to the Yankees, Phillies and all the others who have not jumped on
the alternate jersey money grab train.
FOOTBALL
There was a lot of club movement in the past few decades. A team moves from one
city to another. The new city gets a new franchise or get one from another city.
Now we have teams playing in the wrong cities. Let's move them back. Here's the
plan. Move the Rams back to Los Angeles. Then take the Cardinals from Phoenix
and send them back to St. Louis. Phoenix does not really support the Cardinals,
so don't worry about putting a team back there. Then take the Colts and the
Ravens and swap them. The Colts belong in Baltimore. Rename the Ravens to the
Indianapolis Whatevers. Actually, now that I think about it, just move the names
and histories, not necessarily the teams and owners. I don't think the folks in
St. Louis would want to swap the Rams for the miserable Cardinals and the
Bidwell family. And I know that Cleveland would not want Art Modell back. Just
restore the histories to their rightful places and I'd be happy about it. They
could even take the Oilers name back to Houston if they wanted it. While I like
inheriting the history and legacy of the Oilers, it might be better for
Houstonians to reclaim it.
BASKETBALL
Oh boy, where to start? I have to state at the outset that it is a game I don't
much care about. I watch some of the NCAA tournament for the spectacle and to
root on the underdogs in the early rounds. I never watch the NBA. That is except
for the highlights on ESPN. And that is what I will focus on for this sport. Note
to sports news producers: I've seen dunks. They don't impress me. Everyone in
the league can do it. It's not special anymore. Stop showing them on SportsCenter and like programs. I mean, honestly. How many times during one
broadcast of SportsCenter do you see a dunk? Count them sometime. It's way too
much. Maybe the network has only a few seconds to show game clips. You will get
two dunks and a three-point shot. Not only do you get it during each game
highlight, but also at the end of the show with the daily top ten plays or plays of the week. Who
cares? And these days the dunk has gone from being a high-percentage shot to a
"look at me" moment for these stupid players. A dunk and a pose or thumping of
the chest or a scream is where the league is now. Not a team sport, but a ghetto
playground in-your-face game played by tattooed thugs. It's a good thing I was
never a fan to start with. I'd be really disappointed with where the sport has
gone.
HOCKEY
One word: fighting. My friend Bob has tried to explain this to me, but
I'm sorry, I'm just a little dim on the issue. We just had a six-game playoff
series between the Predators and Red Wings. Things got chippy in several of the
games, but the all-out fighting that is a staple of regular season NHL games was
lacking. All that happened was a little pushing and shoving. If that can happen
in the playoffs, it can happen the rest of the season. I know, I know. There is
more on the line in the playoffs and players don't necessarily want to get the
penalty that costs their team a cup. But a penalty that costs a team a regular
season game is okay? Here is my solution. There isn't enough of a consequence
for fighting. Five minute majors don't work. Suspend players for fighting. Every
other sport does. Bob would argue that one of the reasons for the fighting is to
protect its star players from cheap shots by opposing goons. I understand that.
But how about penalizing the cheap shots? If some player takes a crack at Jeremy
Roenick or Joe Sakic, let the league hand down suspensions for those actions.
Don't leave it up to enforcers on the ice. Fighting in sports is stupid, except
those that are fighting, like boxing. Come to think of it, boxing is pretty
stupid too.
SOCCER
My beef here is with American soccer. And it's not the usual claim that the
sport will explode in popularity if we just give it time for all the kids that
play to grow up and become paying fans. That has been said since the 1970's and
it hasn't happened yet. Sure the sport has grown in a real way. Crowds in MLS
are at least as comparable as those in the old NASL days and there are now more
stable clubs nationwide in the USL than there ever has been. The NASL was an
attempt at a big splash with big (albeit over-the-hill) names, but there were no
lower divisions supporting it and very few American players. The health of the
sport, while hardly on par with the other major league sports, is not too bad.
No, this is not what I want to address. (Although I guess I just did.) My
ongoing beef is with American attempts to want to change the game to make it
more appealing to the average stupid xenophobic American sports fan. Changes in
the rules of sports is not exclusive to soccer. Baseball brought in the
designated hitter. Basketball instituted the three-point line. Football has
moved hash marks and goal posts and made other little changes. But soccer is
such a simple game that it doesn't really need too much tweaking. And when the
Yanks do it, is comes across more as sacrilegious. The NASL brought us the
35-yard offside line. It may have actually been a good idea to promote scoring,
but FIFA never approved it and it was seen as an outlaw rule. And don't get me
started on shootouts! Then the USL concocted all sorts of weird rules to tinker
with things. Blue cards and team fouls and kick-ins instead of throw-ins did
little but infuriate soccer fans. And the points system seemed to change on an
annual basis. Different number of points for wins and extra points for goals
scored just confused hardcore and casual fans alike. The bright side to all this
is that most of the silly rules have fallen by the wayside. The U.S. leagues
have adopted a 3-1-0 points system. The USL has dropped the bonus points for
goals scored scheme. (It was supposed to promote and reward scoring, but it
never really did.) The shootout is a thing of the past, draws are once again
part of the game and MLS has even gotten rid of overtime. After more than three
decades of fiddling with things, they finally came around to the way everyone
else does it. It just took forever to get where they should have been in the
first place.
And another thing...