Oh boy. Once upon a time, I had NPR programmed into my car’s radio. In my last job, I drove a lot, so having the right tunes and stations immediately available was important.
NPR offered me a constant flow of news, so I gave it a chance.
Then the problems started.
I began to feel lethargic, depressed, and my usual Herculean libido began to wane. Also, my fingernails became brittle, and my voice: Lispy.
I noticed these symptoms were particularly bad right after listening to an NPR commentator tell me how big oil was contributing to the death of Giant Pandas in China, and about experimental lawn mowers, which were powered by huge windmills.
Then, I found myself enjoying talking. Not just the normal desire to communicate with those around me, but an overwhelming need to express my feelings. Mind you, I didn’t want to discuss possible solutions to problems, I just wanted to whine and complain, and remind people that the Earth is a fragile place. Fragile had a fairly ephemeral meaning in my mind at the time, so I was able to block out the fact that we’ve exploded atom bombs all over the earth’s surface, yet, here we are.
Next, I found myself wanting to negotiate with cultures that boast of killing and beheading Americans. Photos of Jihadists holding severed American heads filled me with sorrow, not for the American, but for the AK-toting Islamist. What had America done to that poor fellow to make him want to saw heads off?
Finally, I became obsessed with stopping the horrible practice called Water-Boarding. Darfur didn’t bother me much, but the thought of jack-booted CIA agents pouring water over the head of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and forcing him (against his will!) to tell us where other terrorists were made me all weepy.
I cared. I really did.
It wasn’t more than a few weeks of daily NPR listening before I realized I’d changed. My neck had grown thinner, and I was thinking of buying an IMac. But something deep inside my brain was calling to me. It was my old self, wishing to be free, wishing to drink beer again, to tough life out, to stop worrying about how much CO2 my toaster was spewing. I just wanted to eat toast, not think of invisible gases. Is that so wrong? Most of all though, I missed the feeling I got when I saw women in short skirts. That special feeling.
I went to the doctor and had some tests done. The doc told me my testosterone was low. I explained that I’d never had this problem before. Actually, I thought I had too much of the stuff; I enjoyed football, beer, UFC fights and the idea of sending Jihadists to their virgins. Now: Not so much.
The doctor suggested testosterone injections, but I resisted, preferring the natural approach. Instead, I removed NPR from my programmed radio stations. Within a couple days, I was feeling my old self again. I liked girls with tans, I liked arm-wrestling, the frequency of noise that’s emitted from liberal whining hurt my ears. I even hated to be a victim–of anything!
It’s not that I’m trying to get people to change what they listen to. After all, I feel like the more men with low testosterone there are, the better chance I have in running roughshod over them, in pretty much any endeavor except feeling sorry for terrorists. But who can be good at everything?
The Political Realist: post-modern Hobbesian views 
The point of your article seems to be to say that things like sex, having a strong build, and fighting are manly, and that feelings, responsible stewardship, and an acknowledgment of complexity are unmanly. I realize that it probably felt good to write this, but do you really believe that? Is it really unmanly to approach our complex world and ask questions, seeking the real answers? To acknowledge that, though nothing justifies what terrorists did on 9/11, that their behavior might perhaps be _explained_ as resulting from decades of our country interfering and doing whatever it likes? I don’t think those things are unmanly. I think the manliest thing in the world is the Truth, the prevailing of Good over Evil, the application of reason and intellect to problems. Beating your chest and claiming people who see differently than you are pussies is decidedly unmanly. It is how animals decide differences in opinion; God gave us humans a bit more to work with.
“Nothing is so strong as gentleness, and nothing so gentle as true strength.” In WWII, there were reports of our enemies — people who had done vicious, evil things to many, many people — throwing down their weapons when they knew a battle was lost, because they knew that the Americans could be trusted to treat their captives with the dignity and respect that are due to all people. Manliness comes from adherence to a set of principles, discipline, and overcoming our emotions, such as our desire for revenge.
No man could ever justify the institutionalized torture and regular subjugation of humanity that’s so popular with our current administration. It is only people who fear they are not men who need to beat their chests and prove to the world that they are bound by no laws. True patriots recognize that the principle lesson of history is that men will abuse power, and that unchecked, unaccountable power will always lead to tyranny. It is only a matter of time.
Hey Matt,
Did God bless you with a sense of humor? I hope so.
If He did, then surely you can see my use of hyperbole to make a point….
Oh, and Matt,
Our enemies still surrender to us en masse.
But please don’t use WWII as an example of the US’s “good” behavior. You do know about the fire-bombing of Dresden don’t you? What about that thousands of civilians reduced to so much as shadows on sidewalks in Nagasaki and Hiroshima?
I swear some people get up everyday and think that what they see going on around them is happening for the first time. They’ll endlessly quote Eisehower’s speach on the Military Industrial Complex.
Moonbat: “Did you know that Eisenhower said that we should look out for the Military Industrial Complex?”
Me: “Yes. Did YOU know that the Eisenhower Doctrine states that the US should “be prepared to use armed force…[to counter] aggression from any country controlled by international communism.”
Moonbat: “Well, I’m voting for Barack Obama.”
Me: “Ok.”
I definitely get what Matt is trying to convey here.
“Is it really unmanly to approach our complex world and ask questions, seeking the real answers?”
Of course not! But I’m an avid NPR listener and this post just made me laugh and laugh. I’ll bet I could find a quote from “What Do You Know?” that pokes just as much fun at NPR, but then it’s OK because the host is a liberal Jew, even though he makes fun of himself in the same way! I think Carl Kasell would laugh at this post, and even joke about himself being wimpy.
If you take it literally, without the humor, of course it seems coarse.
Still, if your religion’s mantra is to kill me, even if killing me is the right thing to do, I’d much prefer to kill you first.
“No man could ever justify the institutionalized torture and regular subjugation of humanity that’s so popular with our current administration.”
OK, Matt, but why did Bill Clinton never outlaw waterboarding? Did you know John F. Kennedy created the U.S. Army’s Special Forces, and that to this day a green beret sergeant perpetually guards his tomb? Hang on, was JFK a republican? He must have been if he created that evil outfit, right?
If you’re a bad guy, don’t get caught by the green berets. They might make you hold your pee until you tell on the other bad guys. In case you don’t know, that’s regarded as torture. And JFK said OK. And Bill Clinton said OK, too. And I say make him piss his pants, too.
OK, Carl Kasell’s show is “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me” I just realized that as I posted this.
Sorry Carl! I still listen every weekend!
Matt,
You’re a pussy.
MuttDog
I do have a sense of humor, but the Internet is a serious impediment to it. Actually, I did think your piece was quite funny and well-written and, as with a lot of humor, there is an element of truth to it. Or, as Mike pointed out, would have been those things had I known the person behind it actually liked NPR.
What motivated my response is that there *is* this meme out there, used by people who are in favor of The Current War or in favor of whatever the US happens to be doing at the moment, that people who oppose those things, or question power, or question the intentions, motivation, or competence of the people in charge of executing them, are unpatriotic, weak, and effeminate. From that perspective, and not knowing exactly what your political views are, I read your piece as furthering those views, which I absolutely reject (and think to be dangerous to the health of a good republic). I don’t align myself with either party, but there is an awful lot of anti-intellectualism out there, and sadly I think that most of it comes from the right. This seems seems wrong-headed to me, because I thought that distrust of government was a basic tenet of conservative ideology. I’d like to see all of America get on board with a distrust of government. If history is clear on anything, it’s clear on the fact that people in power will abuse it. That’s why we’re supposed to have checks and balances, and accountability.
As for Bill Clinton, I’m not a fan. The reason he didn’t outlaw waterboarding is because it is already illegal under US law; there is no need to outlaw it explicitly. The recent move to do so (vetoed by our manly president) was mostly a political game played by the Democrats to justify to their base their approval of Mukasey, another man who cares very little for the law.
Matt,
I’ll cede the waterboarding debate because you are right. Laws are not usually passed to outlaw something already on the books.
Be very careful in trying to point to WWII as the moral war. We shot and killed prisoners lawfully on the battlefield because there was nowhere to put them. Living witnesses to this still exist. We nuked Japan, as magus71 cited in his post.
The internet is the polar opposite of what you said. It is the best vehicle for intellectuals ever created. When someone is an idiot, and you can’t tell, the folly is your for not spotting it.
If you want to practice mental hygiene, unplug your router.
I am not happy about the Iraq war, but the best thing they could have done to restore infrastructure and services was to declare martial law. Whining liberals make it so hard to allow the military to make such a decision that we have to suffer what Iraq has become; a spoiled child. We are asking Iraq, “What do you need daddy to do for you to behave?”
So, by avoiding a few deaths by declaring martial law, we now have more deaths in the name of letting them rule themselves.
I hate the war, but be open minded about the specifics.
“…not knowing exactly what your political views are, I read your piece as furthering those views, which I absolutely reject…”
Anytime you ‘absolutely reject’ anything, you are showing a closed mind. Close-mindedness is the key to becoming what you don’t want to be: A victim.
Testosterone is not evil.
Matt, do you understand what a joke is? I am going to put this site on my blogroll at conservativenuke.wordpress.com.
Mike, you seem to know a lot more about this than I do, but what about the situation in Iraq are you trying to attribute to liberals? I really can’t think of any situations where any democrat has had a huge influence on this war yet (for better or worse).
Either way it’s pretty funny how often each party betrays their own ideology. To justify Bush’s war, many conservatives say it’s immoral to pull out now, but this seems to intuitively go against classic conservative thought. Democratic politicians know that we can’t afford this war, but sometimes they only oppose the war because it was Bush who started it, and they use the anti-war cry to appeal to the hardcore left… truth is, either way, we just can’t afford it.
By the way, this post was perfectly fine with me… I love NPR and i completely saw the humor until the part about the terrorists was mentioned. That was the turn off… to me that was a pretty crappy turn for the post because during the last 7 years or so that exact same rationale has been used in very serious contexts (like convincing everyone down here in Louisiana to be pro-war, since all Arabs chop people’s heads off). I’m not sure where the author of this blog is from, but where I’m from what he said was not humor, it is serious, and it’s the reason the whole southeast was covered in red last election.
Scott,
It is serious, but I chose to juxtapose waterboarding against beheading. And who said all Arabs cut people’s heads off? That’s a straw-man argument because it’s not mine, nor most people’s I know position. But I don’t hear the outcry from the left over those actions. There’s a deluge of complaints about water-boarding, hardly a squeak about terrorists sawing the heads off 20 year old marines and holding them to cameras. Just be consistent, and at least pretend that you care about our soldiers; that’s all I ask… At least we can discuss it here, in America. If you want photos of what Al-Qaeda is Iraq does to our soldiers when they’re captured, I can provide you with some.
We can afford the war. The question is do we want to….
Thanks for stopping by.
Yeah what I meant to point out was the implication that liberals in general weren’t as disgusted by those scenes as every other American was. It was very similar to the types of emotional games that the Bush administration has played with this country. The idea of characterizing intelligent dialogue with foreign leaders as sympathy for terrorists is ridiculous. No liberal or conservative politician in this country would do anything short of order a military attack on Bin Laden if they knew where he was, but that doesn’t mean George Bush can’t attend a meeting with Ahmadinejad… I think that’s logical, but the post seemed to lean the other way.
It is ASSUMED that our Armed Forces conduct operations at a higher standard of morality than other countries, that’s why it’s so hard to hear about shit like Guantanamo, where it has been confirmed that people with no connection to 9/11 like Murat Kurnaz have been held for several years based on faulty intelligence.
Yeah, we shouldn’t forget who our enemies are. Just because I disagree with Israel’s existence as a country, doesn’t mean I should warm up to a monster like Ahmadinejad, but stuff like that goes without saying. What all this does mean is that now that a lot of the smoke has cleared, 9/11 is 7 years behind us and 4000 troops have died in Iraq for the most expensive war in our history that has accomplished nothing to benefit us now or in the future, we need to have a very serious intelligent discussion about the costs and benefits of this war and the civil liberty trade-offs that we want to make permanent in a post-9/11 context. It’s no longer reasonable and it has never been ethical to use 9/11 as an emotional tool to achieve political objectives.
Four Democrat candidates of the past and present voted for the war. They would, in all probability, done exactly as Bush did were they president.
If America were so bad, you wouldn’t even know who Murat Kurnaz was…that’s why we have a system of checks and balances, because our founding fathers knew that everybody messes up, regardless of their good intentions.
America still works, Iraq did not and will not break us. No one will know the ultimate outcome of this war until another 10 years have passed. Somehow though, I doubt we’ll look back and wish that Saddam’s maniac sons were running the show.
Ahmadinejad is a terrorist and a madman. He fears life more than death, I suspect, and he has an apocalyptic vision for infidels like you and I. Sympathizers of his cause can go quietly and smile and share tea with him. I choose not to, because apocalyptic terrorists cannot be reasoned with. A huge mistake that the Left makes, and has made for 50 years is in thinking “we’re all alike.” I don’t know what kind of statement about the world-order could be more provably wrong than that. We’re not all alike. In Iran, fathers stone their 13 daughters to death on dirty streets for kissing boys. I’ll never justify that, and I’ll never stop speaking out against the worst evil of our times: Jihadist Islam.
Scott,
As a veteran of the U.S. Army (1989-1992) I can say 4000 guys dying is not a lot relative to hundreds of thousands of people deployed in an area for many years. I went on a field exercise once where we lost a dozen guys just from M1 tanks running people over, and workplace accidents – In 3 days!
I live in a county of 400,000 people and we’ve lost more than 4000 since the war started. We’re not at war, just driving our cars and committing domestic violence crimes, having heart attacks and, as always, smoking.
Magus71, don’t you have any veterans on your blog? Where’s the wisdom here? Everyone knows something, but do they know what it’s like to be deployed? I’ve got news for all of you sissies whining about the 4000 deaths: Being deployed isn’t that bad. Here’s my favorite stupid tagline from non-vets:
“I really, really, deeply admire and respect and appreciate the tough dangerous, awful, terrible job you heroic guys do…”
“But…”
Hey man, we were all volunteers. The dead guys, too. Save the buts.
By the way:
I agree with Israel’s existence for the same reason I agree with the U.S.’s existence:
We beat all enemies who want to kill us and therefore we exist.
Hard to argue with that.
Would you let someone kill you?
I need an intervention. I’ve spent the bulk of the past two afternoons sitting in front of my computer reading your blog. *sigh*. This post is definetly one of my favorites so far…this one and steak well done, of course.
Careful, if you delve too deeply into my blogs, you’ll find that I’ve accrued more than my share of Moonbat hate:
As seen on TV, here: http://h152.wordpress.com/
…and here: http://h152.wordpress.com/2008/04/10/come-fly-with-john/
There’s a lot more, but Will really hates me. He says I’m a terrorist, should be water-boarded and he states emphatically that he’s not my friend…
I just wish they could see what a happy-go-lucky kind of guy I am when I’m not brooding about Moonbat encroachments on my country’s well-being. Heck, I’d drink a beer with any ‘ol Moonbat anyday. And when I smile, they get really mad. Most people like my smile, but not the Libs.
It ain’t easy being me.
Poor Will…I picture his pudgy little fingers flying across the keyboard in an attempt to best you and eventually just dissolving into a fit of tears a la Chris Crocker in “Leave Britney Alone.” [Am I going to be stoned for referencing that?].
I’m going to sound like a mother giving a half-hearted pep-talk to her socially outcast teenage daughter, but here goes: He’s just jealous of you Doug. And you have a great smile 🙂
🙂
damn this took a turn for the worse after i stopped checking it. Do you know how and why Israel was started? It wasn’t that long ago man. No politician has the balls to stand up to these guys. Israel definitely exacerbates our relations with anyone in the middle east. Israel was basically stolen from the Palestinians by the British after WWII. The difference between us and Israel, is that we’ve been a willing ally to many middle-eastern countries at times, but this often fails due to the radicalization of their government and also they get pissed because they don’t know know how to refine and distribute crude, so they get mad when we process it for them and sell it back at a higher price… (but this isn’t our fault. If they had the capabilities they could/should drill on their own). Israel, on the other hand, has never extended a hand of friendship towards the middle east, they have stolen land that doesn’t belong to them, they have evicted Palestinians from their homes and deployed tanks on defenseless villages. Israel is a state sponsor of terrorism… the reason nobody care is because it just so happens that Israel is fighting SOME of the same people that we’re fighting…. or at least they would like to believe that, so that big uncle sam has a reason to come and save them when they’re in trouble.
While I tremendously respect anyone who has served in the military mike, it doesn’t make you an expert on military conflict, and obviously I’m not either. Of course you will have different insights than anyone who has never been deployed, but obviously, being deployed didn’t teach you about the history of Israel. It also didn’t teach you about the current account deficit and how expensive this war is.
And how am I a “sissy” because I think 4000 troops is a high number of troops killed for a war in which the costs greatly exceeded (and still do) the benefits? People in Iraq are dying for no good reason. If we wanted to rid the world of a tyrant, we should have went to iran or north korea. bush and his administration went to war based on intelligence that the CIA said was negligible and shouldn’t be grounds for conflict. Even if we have a moral obligation to stay in Iraq now, we can’t afford it. Not to mention how vulnerable we are. What would happen if North Korea and Iran attacked us today? I’m sure you realize how much longer it would take to defend ourselves than it would if we weren’t deployed in Iraq.
Would you prefer to live in Israel or the Arab states that inhabit the Middle-East?
Even if Israel were unjustifiably created, what’s the answer right now? Will the formation of a Palestinian state quell the violence? No. The PLO has too much to gain from continued friction. That being said, I think the Palestinians should be given their own state. But I know that it won’t fix the problem, which at its heart, consists of this: Muslim culture in the Mid-East refuses to move into the modern century. They hold to myths which gratify their need to hate and blame. In todays world, and quite probably for all of history, the maxim is: keep up, or fade away. The Muslim culture is fading. And it’s not our fault.
We destroyed Berlin, nuked Japan, faught England in two bloody wars, smashed the Spanish Empire–and yet those countries have managed to thrive. Islam, as seen by its fundamentalists, effectively forbids its people from advancing, and is strangling any chance these nations have of establishing effective and nourishing societies.
I agree with most of that but not to that extreme. Guys like… i forget his name, the guy who runs Dubai, he’s somewhat of a reformist. Hopefully people will see what it’s like to be prosperous and embrace freedom.
The worst part is that it’s hard to tell how many muslims want theocracy vs how many want democracy. That seems to be the key problem… watching the news (not a good source…) it seems as though many muslims claim to be oppressed, but whenever there is a coup instead of creating a secular government, they just want their own sect to run the show. I’ve heard that Iranians are actually relatively liberal… but who knows.
and in layman’s terms: i think what sucks for palestine is that there just happens to be so much bad muslim shit going on that gets mixed up into their problems and helps destroy any progress they can make.
I don’t think I beleive in God, but if I did, I admit that muslim is the last thing I would be.
BTW: what the hell is a moonbat?
that was an accidental smiley face earlier
🙂
Of course no statement about any demograph of culture can encompass every person or group. But statistically, I stand by what I said.
Moonbat? A Moonbat is someone who inhabits the far, far left. Picture Rosie O’Donnell and Michael Moore having a love-child.
There is also a creature, rarely observed in its natural state (it could never live in nature as it would be consumed by those who have a solid purchase on reality). It is known as the Dire Moonbat. It’s a much severer case of Moonbattery. The mere thought of its terrible eyes and glistening, flickering tongue make me shiver. And the sound of its screams–horrible beyond words….