FROM JOHN KANG, thoughts on law and the obligation of “manly courage:” “Congress defends restricting the military draft to men based on the view that they are more courageous than women, a decision upheld by the Supreme Court. Military courts martial have only disciplined male soldiers for the formal offense of ‘cowardice,’ as though it were natural to expect courage from men, but not women. State criminal laws exploit men’s fears by permitting the excuse of deadly self-defense only for, in the law’s words, a ‘man of courage,’ not a ‘coward.’ . . . No man, according to society, is amazing, or even plain acceptable, unless he proves his mettle. That does not mean that courage alone will suffice to make you a man but, for good or ill, without it, no one will think of you as one.”