a sports analogy for every occasion

[rone]

Israel's like the obnoxious Yankees fan who insisted on moving to Boston because he can trace his ancestry all the way back to Plymouth Rock, then attends every Red Sox game at Fenway Park drunk to the gills, where he loudly taunts the locals about the Babe Ruth trade, Bucky Dent, Bill Buckner, Aaron Boone, and the Yankees' 26 championships.

And, to extend the analogy, Arab infighting is very reminiscent of the way Boston fans and media venemously argue over what the team should be doing next. And in the end, the Yankees and the Red Sox get way more notoriety than they deserve.

Comments

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

But I think the implication is that the Indians were more than made whole by the grant.

I don't. I don't even think the government "made them whole" by letting them have casinos. I have no idea where you're getting this.

[thedarkages]

I think it's inherent in the analogy. Suppose we eliminate the step of "redress" between what are now just two events:

1. The near-annihilation of the Indians
2. The Indians' enrichment at the hands of their near-annihilators.

There's now no causality between 1 and 2; the events are unrelated, except by sequence. The Indians appear to have gained the upper hand in their struggle, on a historical level. No judgment is made about their good fortune.

The entire reason I believed that the OP made his analogy was that he believed that there was causality, and that an over-balancing of justice had occurred -- i.e., that justice had erred too far in the other direction.

If, in fact, I am reading causality in, then the OP's analogy was non-judgmental in character, and would be an expression of Israel's paradoxical success at survival, an observation with which I can agree.

Thank you for helping me double-check my thinking.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

I read it primarily as an expression of irony.

Also, extending others' analogies is usually a recipe for trouble.