Or so some in the media would have you believe<\/b>
\nThere was so much ink flying around Washington last week in the final days of the Battle for Kavanaugh Bridge that it was impossible to keep up with all the stories. Much of that media effort was focused on finding various ways to undermine the judge\u2019s credibility and convince a few wavering Senators to switch their votes to no. One of the more desperate shots across Kavanaugh\u2019s bow came in this op-ed at the Washington Post from Antonia Noori Farzan. The subject? Bar fights and what they say about people.
This all arose from the revelation that as a young man, Kavanaugh had been out carousing with his hard-drinking, macho pals and gotten into a brawl which resulted in injuries and arrests. ( Checks notes) Okay\u2026 actually it was an argument during which Kavanaugh threw ice at someone and another person was briefly taken in for questioning. Hey\u2026 the same thing, right? Still, Farzan manages to read some entire new GOP, male violence and machismo theme into the entire sorry episode.
It should be noted that bar fights frequently result in injury, and sometimes even death. Punching someone in a bar can result in assault charges.
Critics were quick to announce that they had not, in fact, engaged in bar fights. Getting into a drunken spat doesn\u2019t prove anything, they argued \u2014 except for how obnoxious you are\u2026
For hundreds of years, men would resolve conflicts and respond to insults by engaging in duels. But starting in the early 1800s, the concept gradually fell out of favor, Jonathan Gottschall wrote in \u201cThe Professor in the Cage: Why Men Fight and Why We Like to Watch.\u201d By the end of World War I, he explained, men were no longer solely responsible for defending their families and their property, because the police state had taken over that role. Defending one\u2019s honor no longer served a practical purpose.
But in some senses, nothing has changed, Gottschall wrote.
Maybe it all depends on where and how you grew up. My first memory of a bar fight (which I was not involved in) was when I was in my early teens. My dad used to take me some Saturday afternoons over to the local watering hole where he would have a few beers, I would have a soda and he\u2019d play some pool. One of those instances resulted in a rather large man becoming quite belligerent toward my father. Dad was not a large man (and neither am I) but he was still an Army sergeant through and through. I still remember clear as day the sight of him standing and backing away a few steps along the bar as the larger man approached. Reaching out with one hand he grabbed a cup full of those plastic stirring straws you usually get in drinks and flung the entire batch at the guy\u2019s face. He reacted as if a swarm of bees had come after him, throwing his hands in front of his face. That gave dad the moment\u2019s distraction he needed to step in toward the guy and land a shot to his chin that dropped him.
The fight was over. It was what my father used to describe as a two hit fight. \u201c Me hitting you. You hitting the floor.\u201d
I managed to avoid getting into any bar fights until the week I graduated from boot camp. Then I wound up in one at the enlisted men\u2019s club at the base. I still have no idea how it started or who was involved, but it swept up most of the place. I hit a few people, a few people hit me, then the MPs broke it up. Throughout my twenties and early thirties, I was probably in between one and two dozen bar fights, faring better in some than others. I honestly don\u2019t remember them all in detail.
So does it say something about men if they\u2019ve been in bar fights? Does it make you more masculine and impressive? Does it make you crude and low class? Maybe it\u2019s just something that a lot of us went through when we were young. What Kavanaugh was involved in doesn\u2019t even meet the basic definition of a bar fight. In fact, throwing your drink at somebody would probably be looked at as more of a passive-aggressive move in some circles. And I highly doubt it says anything about a man in his fifties serving on the bench. But hey\u2026 it gave us all a chance to walk down memory lane for a little while and recall precisely how dumb we could be at times. So good job, WaPo. I\u2019m sure one person who will enjoy reading about this over and over is Supreme Court Associate Justice (for life) Brett Kavanaugh.<\/p>\n

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