On Sat, 23 Jul 2005 22:43:55 -0500, "Todd Fatheree"
wrote:


"Prometheus" wrote in message
.. .
On 22 Jul 2005 15:28:54 GMT, Dave Hinz wrote:

On Fri, 22 Jul 2005 07:39:01 -0500, Prometheus
wrote:

Um. You _do_ know that the Normans (Norse Men) were vikings hung out in
France for 2 generations before joining the Norwegian vikings to take
over England, right?

My grandpa came to the US from Austria in 1939, and then he and his
brothers went back to fight the Nazis as a member of the US military-
and he was the only one to survive. Two of my uncles and a cousin
from Czechoslavakia fought in Vietnam, and one of them gave his life
as well. So, does that mean that Americans are cowards as well, since
they had to have Austrians fight their wars for them? You don't just
kind of *hang out* in a country for multiple generations- they were
French.
On Thu, 21 Jul 2005 15:47:00 GMT, "Dave" wrote:

Do you suppose the Normans considered themselves French? I really don't
know the answer, but I have my doubts.

Neither do I, but I would think it would be awfully hard for them not
to. I've never considered myself a non-American because I'm only two
generations from Ellis Island- this is the place where I was born, and
it's where I live, why pretend to hold an allegance to some other
place I've never seen?

Courage comes in different forms, and not all of them erupt from the
barrel of a gun.

Right. Tell me again how surrendering as quickly as humanly possible is
"couragous"?

You do not have to fight a war to have courage. Courage is being
willing to do something you feel is right, even if you are afraid of
the possible consequences- it's not directly linked to blowing things
up. When a country the size of Texas stands toe-to-toe with the sole
superpower on Earth and says no, it's courageous whether you agree
with them or not.

What did the French have to lose by saying "no"? It's not as if the stakes
were "agree with us or we start dropping bombs on Paris". Heck, I still
hold a grudge that we couldn't get clearance to fly over France to bomb
Khadaffi, and he definitely had it coming.

Again, there is more to life than bombs and guns. Hell, there's even
more to war alone than that. Just because you don't bomb a city
doesn't mean that there aren't ways of punishing a country by other
means. Economic embargoes, tariffs, pressuring international
organizations to prevent people from gaining positions of influence,
withholding disaster assistance; you name it, someone has done it- and
some of those things are far more damaging than blowing up a city.
Going along to get along is much less courageous than standing in
opposition, no matter whether the stakes are lunch-money or
thermonuclear war.