In the movie GI Jane, this was a brilliant liberal statement. A woman senator was complaining publicly about all the combat jobs closed to women. In response, a lady reporter said women might not be as physically fit as men to fight. So the genius lady liberal said, "How strong do you have to be to pull a trigger?"

So how do national conservative spokesmen deal with a pathetically stupid statement like this? The conservative reply to brilliant liberal arguments like this is to repeat the motto and mantra of conservatism:

"DUHHHHHH!"

The conservative then respectfully disagrees with the liberal point, but only in the exact way that the liberal made it (please see September 11 article -- "Respectable Conservatives Read The Script Exactly The Way The Liberals Write It").

If the liberal limits the statement to women, then the conservative talks about women. As a result, the basic point, the fact that liberals are always saying things like this that are simply nutty, gets missed completely. Nothing liberals say makes any sense and nothing they do WORKS, but conservative spokesmen save them from the public exposure and humiliation they deserve.

Now, let's pretend there is a conservative spokesmen with an IQ above room temperature. Let us further assume he has not degenerated into a hopeless theologue or nutcase (please see July 24 articles, "How Right Wingers Go Nuts" and "Why So Many Right Wingers Go Nuts").

An intelligent conservative spokesman - - yes, I KNOW that's an oxymoron, but this is an exercise in fantasy -- would look beyond what the liberal said. He would not just try to prove he knows how to respectfully disagree with his liberal master. Instead, such a spokesman would make up some policy himself rather than following the liberal along like a puppy dog.

So what is the GENERAL POLICY IMPLICATION of, "How strong do you have to be to pull a trigger?"

The general policy statement is that there are NO PHYSICAL REQUIREMENTS FOR COMBAT DUTY!

This, in fact, is the policy implication of ALL liberal statements on women in combat.

To demonstrate this, our nonexistent intelligent conservative could demand that a liberal follow his own logic. He could make a constructive proposal on the basis of liberal statements about women in combat. To be specific, he could say that the same argument be used to allow OLDER MEN to be accepted for the military.

Women are allowed to participate in the military despite the fact that women in general have less strength and endurance than men do. Using the same logic, OLDER MEN should be allowed to join the service. Older men are only kept out because they have less physical strength and endurance, ON AVERAGE, than younger men do.

If we can change these requirements for women, why not for older men? If this allowance is made for women, then why is it not also made for older men?

The liberal will insist that, if older men are included, then older women should be included, too. The conservative would counter that, since a special consideration has to made for these older women's average lack of stamina and strength, then yet OLDER men will have to be included. And so on.

The problem here is that ALL age requirements are based on the AVERAGE for that age group. If one insists that the average be forgotten in the case of women, then one must insist that all averages be forgotten for age. So if women are included despite their lower physical averages, then all age requirements must go.

In other words, the liberal must either admit the sexes are different, or he must drop all age limitations on enlistment!

Naturally, no one brings this up. No one brings it up because conservative spokesmen are not bright enough. They are also not brave enough. Even if they thought of this proposal, they couldn't use it use it because it puts liberals in an impossible position.

Liberals need to keep the older men out, because their goal is to make no distinction between women and men. But if conservatives were to insist that the same break be given to older men as to women in the younger age brackets, that would be a recognition of the reality of innate sex differences.

Recognizing the differing nature and roles of men and women is supposed to be a conservative goal. But nothing is a conservative goal if it requires either brains or guts.

As the next article shows, the idea of "courage" for so-called "leaders of the right" is for a conservative to repeat liberal cliches.