Joe Biden at the Democrat convention offered this:
For some reason the commentati think this was a wonderful thing for Biden to say. I demur. I was never going to vote for Obama/Biden anyway, but really, do we want a VP, one heartbeat away, as they say, who thinks that schoolyard swagger is a valuable lesson to bring into the administration of the most powerful nation on the planet?Joe Biden treated the Democratic audience to some of the pearls of working-class wisdom his dear mother passed on to him when he was growing up. [...]
"And when I got knocked down by guys bigger than me - and this is the God's truth - she sent me back out and said, ‘Bloody their nose so you can walk down the street the next day.’ And that's what I did.” (To which Mama Biden nodded and said, “It’s true. It’s true.”)
And they called Bush a cowboy. What shall we call Joe Biden, who thinks kids should go around bloodying each other's noses?
Surely Joe was also taught there is a "more excellent way."
"You have heard that it was said, "You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven." (Matthew 5:43-48)Make your own call.
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1 comment:
Standing up to a bully isn't "schoolyard swagger", though.
Hitting them back is the only effective way (when one is forced to deal with them daily) of stopping it.
I see no indication that Biden thinks kids "should go around bloodying each other's noses" - just that bullies who knock down smaller kids should be fought back against.
I read it as just a story meant to evoke standing up for oneself, and not running from an oppressor, not a call to pointless youth violence.
But even if it were a policy statement, I'm not sure it's entirely negative; imagine if Chamberlain had had that policy in 1937.
(Not that there aren't plenty of hypotheticals where such a policy is highly negative either...)
(Besides, if one loves one's enemies as one loves oneself, might one show that by smacking them in the face, as one would want someone to do if one had fallen into the destructive path of bullying?
As I believe Lewis wrote, loving one's neighbor (and enemy) as oneself doesn't involve liking them, or even being nice to them, but wanting them to do right, and not hating them, as one does for oneself.)
I'm also not going to vote for an Obama/Biden ticket, but this won't affect the calculus at all.
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