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The cowboy knows better. He knows that some people are evil, and their evil afflicts the innocent. Maybe they have an excuse for their evil, maybe they don't, or maybe they're just no damn good, but ultimately what matters is keeping that evil from destroying the good.

Now that's just good old fashioned common sense. I can picture John Wayne saying it.

One has to wonder if European intellectuals fear the cowboy because they instinctively understand that they're likely to end up on the wrong end of his gun for the evil they do, or at least the evil they desire to do in the name of "noble" ends.

I've had a minor inspiration...

How about shame as a motivating factor? What's the idealized 'gunfighter' movie? Lot's of good guys with no guns and/or guts, one man with a lotta both.

So how does that make the 'good guys' feel? Grateful? Sure, at first, but then they think that maybe old so-and-so wouldn't have gotten shot if the hero hadn't intervened. After all, life wasn't all that bad before...

I think it's a big 'ol case of 'we realize we're weak and innefectual, but we've spent decades telling ourselves this is the way to be'.

Then here we come and start kicking butt. Why couldn't anyone else have done it? Because they're better at appeasement than confrontation, and they know it. But they don't like being reminded of it!

IMHO, of course.