Back in the day there was a movie “High Noon” in which Gary Cooper as a sheriff has in his jail a most unpopular person. A rabble rouser garners support from the locals much as rabble rousers do. The man in question incited the locals to storm the jail and so the whole unruly bunch turn up at, you guessed it, noon, to insist that the prisoner in question be given to them for summary execution sans trial. Cooper stands alone in front of the group and after some dialog the crowd disperses, and the cowardly rabble rouser slinks off leaving the courageous sheriff stand alone.

There once was a time when we admired courage.

I found myself actually agreeing with George Will, a most disconcerting position, with a column he wrote about Zelensky. He extolled the man’s courage without which Ukraine would be a Russian satellite by now.

For many decades I have held Anwar Sadat as a personal hero. Knowing the extremely likely consequences of his rapprochement with Israel, he went ahead because he saw it the right thing to do. He was executed by a dissident for his courage.

Courage isn’t fearlessness. Courage is going ahead, despite the fear and likely consequences. Courage is facing fear and owning the consequences.

Today, we are inundated with myriad examples of disgusting cowardliness. Over worries about how their constituencies might react to one position or another, our chosen representatives refuse to do even the smallest helpful thing lest they might annoy someone or be the victim of a nasty tweet.

Piss ant cowards.

Kevin McCarthy is sniveling worm who would sell his soul just to be the Speaker of the House. That man has no principles or values he would not sacrifice just to get that title.

Cowards do not take responsibility for their situations but demand someone, anyone else be held accountable. Donald Trump, a consummate coward and bully, having lost an election and being unable to imagine the fault laid not in the stars but in himself, has spent the last couple of years spreading absurd and universally debunked conspiracy theories. If in fact the Democrats were even slightly as organized as such an endeavor would require, they would have every seat every where.

Everyone has seemed to clutch the manual of victimhood to their breasts, insisting that some individual or group is trying to hurt them. The ridiculous culmination of this trend is successful white men declaring themselves victims, apparently no longer always being at the front of the line taking the biggest potions is just not fair.

Wow.

We are inundated by “superhero “media in which hulking folks with some special power or another save the world from destruction. The reality is that unless and until we as individuals throw off the mental of victimhood and take ownership of our own lives, the reign of the cowards will continue.

We are currently being given a lesson every day in what a person with great courage does. Zelensky stands in the street and leads his people. We likewise are given a lesson in cowardliness as Putin hides in an undisclosed bunker ordering underprepared and under equipped citizens of Russia to rain havoc on Ukrainian civilians.