tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3995346500810873164.post9200538127757262381..comments2024-03-26T17:43:56.256-04:00Comments on piccolo's hash: There is a gamepiccolohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02185649590699727649noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3995346500810873164.post-55007039314317017842016-08-11T22:20:59.699-04:002016-08-11T22:20:59.699-04:00A guy that's a drunken whoremonger that jumps ...A guy that's a drunken whoremonger that jumps on a grenade to save his squadmates is a hero in my book, his other problems not withstanding. <br /><br />I was aware that MLK was had a really immoral private life. <br /><br />However he is a hero for what he did in the Civil Rights movement of the 60s in spite of his faults. For what he did there he is a hero.<br /><br />Look at MOH awardee bios some time. The MOH is awarded for a specific act. Look up 'Snuffy' Smith's bio. He was a real jerk for all but a couple of hours of his life. <br /><br /> piccolohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02185649590699727649noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3995346500810873164.post-69752645296193506152016-08-11T11:36:44.671-04:002016-08-11T11:36:44.671-04:00How humans pick their heroes is very interesting. ...How humans pick their heroes is very interesting. I’ve often admired people and then later thought what was I thinking? None of our heroes are or were perfect. When I was a kid, I idolized Jim Thorpe, gold medal winner of the pentathlon and decathlon in the 1912 Olympics. He was also a football and baseball star. Later in life I read about his personal problems with drink and women. I finally concluded that Thorpe was a great athlete (maybe the greatest), but as a human being he wasn’t a good role model. So what do I do with Thorpe? Well, he didn’t cheat in his profession. Had he done so his accomplishments wouldn’t have meant squat. But he didn’t, like so many that do, and are still relegated to hero status. The public seems anxious to elevate and overlook their latest sports hero even with the knowledge that their hero is a cheater. Maybe winning is that important. <br />Is it the idea of just winning that draws people to Mrs. Clinton? I doubt there are many people on the planet that don’t know how corrupt she is, but she still receives support. Unlike Thorpe, Clinton cheats at her profession. And, she’s not alone. <br />Then there are the church leaders: men and women that have chosen the profession to be spiritual leaders to their congregations. Is an immoral spiritual leader qualified to lead? Applying the same formula applied to Thorpe, the answer would be no, because these immoral leaders are cheating in their profession. I’ve never thought that Martin Luther King Jr. was deserving of a hero or elevated status. In a Joseph Smith style, their charismatic approach to speaking mesmerized their audiences. The Smiths, Kings, Bakers, Swaggarts, along with many others, all turned out to be hypocrites at best and con artists at the worst. Giving credit to King as a Civil Rights leader makes sense. He was instrumental in the movement. As a person he was pretty horrible. He was dishonest earning his doctorate; much of his thesis was plagiarized. He cheated mercilessly on his wife. He was not a good person. <br />So what do I do with King? First of all I recognize as a spiritual leader he was not a great leader. He was a failure. That leaves his involvement in the Civil Rights movement. If I separate King, the Civil Rights leader from his horrible personal life, I feel gratitude for his contributions. He falls way short of being a hero though much in the way that Pete Rose could never be a hero.<br />We toss the word hero around a lot these days. Interestingly, we often avoid awarding hero status to the folks in academia. People, who can play a sport, sing or play an instrument, act on film, or find an outlandish way to make their voice heard are popular heroes today.<br />Heroic feats are performed daily, but I am often disturbed by the marginalizing of the word hero. I don’t have the final word on who should and should be considered a hero but casually tossing the word around diminishes the spirit of the word. <br /><br />Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06253591796345010455noreply@blogger.com