The American Spectator

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Now, it's tempting to say that the white's fears of sexual violation, brutality against women and wanton murder by Indian "savages" was precisely the sort of vicious stereotype the movie was meant to illustrate and refute and one more example of liberal guilt. But that ignores that Ford showed that is precisely what the Indians were expected to do, given the chance, and precisely what they in fact did. One would have to conclude the white's fears were well grounded according to Ford. So was Ethan right or wrong to despise the Indians if his understanding of them is what in fact came to pass? Are we wrong to judge Ethan harshly now, according to Ford? If Indian savagery is nothing but a stereotype, historically untrue and just a Hollywood trope, then why would Ford, if on a mission to dispel such notions, illustrate it so graphically in the very vehicle of that mission? Had Ford wished to prove Ethan's suspicions unfounded and nothing but white racism he would've showed Ethan's fears come to naught and the girl still alive to the end as he did young Debbie. Instead, they were fulfilled beyond his worst fears. Even in Mr. Higgins' version the Indians forcibly take unwilling captive wives, so what are we to make of that? In short, Ford never glosses over the nature of the Indians, their motives and methods are a given, but rather directs Ethan's blind hate towards Debbie herself in a sort of irrational quest to expurgate any vestige of civilization once contaminated by barbarism so as to keep the divide between the two. Early on Ethan is portrayed as playing God, determined to separate the light from the dark.

This is an important distinction by Ford and one I think doesn't completely refute Higgins' contention of liberal revisionist storytelling but shows a far more complex and mature understanding of cultural conflict than today's liberals give the movie credit for. Indeed Ford's script would seem to suggest not that there isn't such a thing as barbarism and our fears ungrounded but rather how we must be on guard not to allow our hatred of it to make us too much like them. A classical Liberal position to be sure, but at least an older, more bracing version capable of moral distinctions. When watching the movie one understands the implacable, irreconcilable nature of the struggle between the two cultures and, true to what liberals used to stand for and one Ford doesn't shy from, that the Indian's were indeed men and capable of all the good and evil of any men of any stripe. What the modern liberal reviews show is the real problem with modern liberalism -- its reductionist condescension of other cultures. They treat others as children, not as men, who are not responsible for their ideas and actions but rather forever merely reacting to what we do, thus whatever depredations they may commit are our fault. This is why modern movie "critics" decry Ethan's desecration of the dead Indian with vehemence but nary a discouraging word on the Indians forcible capture, rape, enslavement and murder of innocent girls. (Here's a riddle for liberals: If men of a victim culture forcibly take captive "wives," is that rape? Does No still mean No to our feminist friends if the perp is of a victim culture resisting white supremacy and hegemony?)

So it is with the present clash of cultures and why libs cannot be trusted. They fail to take the Islamists at their word or to credit their actions with a self-motivation apart from anything we may believe or do. That our enemies are men who think and do what they will of their own accord irrespective of our views. Libs cannot fathom that when some mad mullah or Imam says we must convert or die and that they are prepared to kill and die to make it so that they really what they say. And, unlike Ethan, libs having long lost believing there is any cause worth fighting, killing or dying for and so they put us at a supreme disadvantage to men who can.

Why did Ethan suddenly alter his purpose and rescue Debbie rather than kill her for her supposed contamination? I believe the same impulse that drove Ethan for five years to right a wrong opened his eyes in the end. In a sense he set out to rescue civilization from barbarism and to do that meant discerning the innocent from the guilty and the perpetrators from those unwillingly associated. At the moment of crisis he realized her innocence and was moved to save her but his compassion for her in no way impeded his ability to battle and destroy the guilty. One cannot recognize the innocent without a concomitant recognition of the guilty. It's important to note that at no time in the movie does Ethan gratuitously murder, rape or enslave any Indian. Indeed, though the libs' reviews denounce his vindictive desecration of a dead Indian one cannot fail to notice the difference in the combatants' methods and aims. The one fights to terrorize and makes no distinction among his enemies the other in self-defense and targets only male combatants (sound familiar to our times?) Ethan fights or shoots only those he must in self-defense or in the act of rescuing the innocent, including several white men out to rob and probably murder them in their travels.

The movie doesn't condemn Ethan and in the end, he does rescue the civilized from the barbarians doing only what must be done and by making the very distinctions neither his enemies nor our liberals of today would make. Having accomplished his mission he returns an obviously changed man so Ford must have meant to convey something redemptive in Ethan's evolving discernment of good from evil, innocence from guilt. My take is Ford meant to show us the folly of blind hatred to the point of moral confusion, a lesson I would suggest Ford would say modern liberals have failed. Moral clarity of purpose and means is self-evident for as Ethan and Debbie finally reach home it is clear they are saved only because Ethan was willing to "do what a man has to do."

p>Oh, were only our liberal friends of today able to make such distinctions and offer us an Ethan Edwards for we'd be invincible defeating the new barbarism. br> -- Mark Shepler br> Jupiter, Florida /p> p> Let's see, he's a racist because he hates Indians. They killed his brother and his brother's family and kidnapped his niece. Apparently he needs to dialogue with the Indians to find out why they hate him. Maybe he should offer them his horse? I know the real answer, it's George W. Bush's fault that all of this happened. br> -- G. Baum br> Westerville, Ohio /p>

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