XPost: or.politics, or.general   
   From: seniorr@aracnet.com   
      
   >>>>> "gatt" == gatt   writes:   
      
   gatt> It takes balls to gamble your life and your religious   
   gatt> belief--the immortality of your soul--on what you -think- is the   
   gatt> right thing to do and to be able to summon that strength as if   
   gatt> instictually, the instant the need arises.   
      
   And it takes brains to see what isn't the right thing to do, the thing   
   that is stupid and self-destructive.  Which is more valuable, the   
   brains or the balls?  The people deciding to grind up folks in Iraq   
   and elsewhere aren't summoning up anything but their own drunkenness   
   on power.  The folks with balls are, no doubt, useful for exercising   
   that power.  But it tends not to make the balls-owners any better off,   
   in the short-run or the long-run.  Balls-owners run all the risks,   
   power-exercisers reap all the rewards.   
      
   I knew a guy at OSU, a fellow-member of the fencing team (I was   
   briefly a member).  He was involves somehow with the military (either   
   ex- or ROTC or both, i don't remember).  When he fenced competitively,   
   he had a habit of lunging and then falling on his knees and crawling   
   down the fencing strip after his opponent.  It definitely showed his   
   balls and determination, but it was also stupid, technically, because   
   he lost his mobility and thus gave a huge advantage to his opponent.   
      
   Balls, in and of themselves, aren't anything to particularly hold in   
   esteem.  By themselves they can do either harm or good.  And when   
   wielding weapons, the former more often and effectively than the   
   latter.   
      
      
   --   
   Russell Senior         ``I have nine fingers; you have ten.''   
   seniorr@aracnet.com   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)