Pirates

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by sandinmytea

I've read a lot of material since my deployment to Afghanistan that came my way through a few of my Marines. This one author promotes (mostly to military infantry/ law enforcement types) the notion that the world is populated by sheep, wolves, and sheepdogs...

Thanks for your service.

William J. Bennett, characterised criminals as "wolves," police and soldiers as "sheepdogs," and everybody else as "sheep”, in a lecture to the United States Naval Academy on November 24, 1997.

Excerpt:
"... This business of being a sheep or a sheep dog is not a yes-no dichotomy. It is not an all-or-nothing,
either-or choice. It is a matter of degrees, a continuum. On one end is an abject, head-in-the-sand-sheep and on the other end is the ultimate warrior. Few people exist completely on one end or the other..."

➥ http://hs223.org/EchoCo/commandersme...dsheepdogs.pdf

H. L. Mencken defined a demagogue as "one who will preach doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots." One of the hallmarks of demagoguery is the emphasis of simplification and repetition, in making use of emotions, popular prejudices, and false claims and promises.

“Political extremism involves two prime ingredients: an excessively simple diagnosis of the world's ills, and a conviction that there are identifiable villains back of it all.”~ John W. Gardner

[44'cruisingcat]

Seems a lot of boats use organised rallies to get through the more dangerous parts. Is this effective? Have any boats from these rallies been attacked?

[David M]

Sometimes things are complex and sometimes they are simple. It is simple minded thinking to believe that they are always complex or are always simple. -Me.

[sailorboy1]

Are there any real statisitics for pirate attacks on sailboats? Seems almost everyone I tell my sailing plans to asks me about pirates. I normally respond that it is pretty safe and most crimne aganist cruisers is stealing their dingies.

But now we keep hearing of sailors etc getting taken hostage so I wonder is this really a problem we should spin a lot of time worrying about. The trouble areas are generally all known because they have a higher NUMBER of problems, but does this really mean we should be so scared? I mean what are the odds? How many boats go though these trouble spots with no problems compared to those that have them (escpecially cruiser type boats we talk about here, not super yatchs or freighters)? Is the sea risk really better going all the way around the Cape? Does the pirate risk even come close to the risk one takes in getting into their car and going out onto the interstate?

I think we are just falling into the news networks trap where they try to keep us in a state of fear!

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by David M

Sometimes things are complex and sometimes they are simple. It is simple minded thinking to believe that they are always complex or are always simple. -Me.

As A. Einstein said:
"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler."

And as Henry Louis Mencken said*:
“For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.”

*Sometimes quoted as: “There is always an easy solution to every problem - neat, plausible, and wrong.”

[David M]

Great quotes Gord.

[David_Old_Jersey]

Originally Posted by GordMay

William J. Bennett, characterised criminals as "wolves," police and soldiers as "sheepdogs," and everybody else as "sheep”, in a lecture to the United States Naval Academy on November 24, 1997.

Excerpt:
"... This business of being a sheep or a sheep dog is not a yes-no dichotomy. It is not an all-or-nothing, either-or choice. It is a matter of degrees, a continuum. On one end is an abject, head-in-the-sand-sheep and on the other end is the ultimate warrior. Few people exist completely on one end or the other..."

IME people move along the wolf and sheep continium categories depending on circumstances. John J. Rambo may well be the ultimate alpha male warrior wolf when part of (or supported by) a large pack - but walking alone around the hills of Helmand province he is a sheep, no matter that he is still a well armed badass.

One of the things that used to make me smile about my time in Thailand was that being away from "home" is a great leveller, and IME those who were more used to thinking of themselves as da badass wolf and acted / reacted accordingly often had a more sudden learning experiance (from both the locals and non-locals ) in realising that they had moved down the wolf / sheep food chain.......simply from no longer being "home". Indeed in a world with a few Tigers and the odd Alligator don't really matter how much of a badass wolf you and your pack be. or wannabee.

[MarkJ]

The wool sheep analogy is about the most lame I have ever heard. It makes people want to 'act' more aggressively. Act as in B grade Hollywood.
It could only be an argument put forward by that infantile gun club in the USA.

David, instead of travellers finding bigger wolves out there it may just be that outside their country of origin their posturing just makes them look like total wankers.

Pumped up, steroid ridden drug users can walk down the streets of Sydney and New York but in the rest of the world are just seen for what they really are: People pretending to be something they are not.

And they get seen through, as you say, by locals and local officials.


Mark

[Chief Engineer]

I love the word wanker.....