[Slynky]

Originally posted by Loser:
Kids these days are dumb and start their fights out with shoving matches, like some lame kind of foreplay to violence.

If a man is shoved, and responds by immediately punching his 'assailant' in the nose/face/jaw, could it be called a sucker-punch?

Kids these days? Kids these days have changed (depending on what you mean by "kids"). When I was a kid (age 7-12), a fight was pretty much "gentlemanly". It was usually a wrestling match and the winner pinned the shoulders of the loser to the ground and the word, uncle, was usually mentioned. After that age, fists became useful and prevalent. Bruised eyes and bloody noses were the norm all the way into high school. After a fight was over, it was usually over for good.

Kids these days? I'd hate to guess. I hear too many horror stories. And the amount of violence in TV, movies, video games, etc., coupled with the environment a lot of kids live in seems to have led to this: if you lose a fight, you plot a way to get even and USUALLY it involves some sort of escalation (if someone hit you with a stick or pole, you bring back a knife; if someone pulled a knife on you, you get hold of a gun). Fights between kids these days can result in permanent damage ranging from teeth and eyes to, well, death.

Now, to men, as you segued. First of all, I don't think a person is less of a man for walking away from a shove. Sounds like a cliche', I know.

But, to analyze it (to death, probably...pardon the pun), situations are very different. The reason for the shove is the essence. Why did it occur? A drunk? In public? At a private party? A friend? A stranger? Is talking a viable alternative?

Well, you had better have been working on all those answers before that shove occurred. When I was in the army, stationed in Asia, I studied martial arts. For the uninitiated, martial arts, in its truest form, is more of a life style than a way to fight. You learn fighting techniques but we spent much more time on awareness, control, diet, and a balance in life. I'd like to think that what I learned in 2 years is partly attributable to me avoiding situations where things turned physical. Recognizing the signs things were "turning bad" early. Yes, I have found myself in situations where I thought a confrontation was going to turn into conflict. Now, don't get me wrong...I don't fancy myself some great fighter. I haven't practiced in over 20 years. But from the day I gained some confidence in how to handle myself in a fight I also gained some insight into what it could result in. I always asked myself (at some point when things looked like they were turning for the worse) if the argument justified someone dying (because that has been my goal for quite some time now...killing anyone I get into a fight with...so I don't have to look over my shoulder day after day when the fight is over). Or dying myself. Every answer has been NO! Again, don't get me wrong...I've only found myself in situations where voices were raised to yelling levels and the usual 4-letter cuss words a major part of the vocabulary 3 or 4 times in 25 years. None of those situations made me answer YES to the question of "is this worth someone dying?". As a result, none of those situations ever got physical. I walked away, or apologized, or said I had done something wrong or SOMETHING. Oh, and in one case, at a poker table, a guy accused me of cheating and threw back his chair and stood behind me daring me to get up (while everyone else sat there and watched)...I just sat there (judging where his crotch was in relatinship to my elbow) and waited to see if he would hit a guys whose back was to him and sitting down. He called me a few more names and finally people at the table got him to sit down. Did I care if I looked to be the coward? Nope. It wasn't worth someone dying (perhaps). Another time, a few years ago, it was a (casual) friend who got drunk as hell and thought I made an inference to him being gay. Again, though he was in my face and had his hand pressed against my chest, circumstances dictated it wasn't worth the possibility of death or a hell of a maiming. I can still remember getting my fingers ready to put through his throat and shifting myself to aim my knee at his croth (and shaking like hell at the thought of what was getting ready to happen).

Yeah, long-winded. Fighting very rarely is worth it. These days, fighting, whether it be teens or adults, can result in a death at the point of the fight or a death later as the loser broods over how to get even. It's tough trying to teach some of this to our 11-year-old...I don't want him to be a "pansy" or become "bully-bait" but I don't want him to get in fights all the time over stupid kid crap either just to be macho. I also don't want to receive a call about him from a coroner.

I didn't vote because there wasn't a choice for me.