You know the "there are two kinds of people" thing?
I divide it into the people that have never had someone try to kill them, and the ones who have.
I'm in the second group, and we are definitely NOT the same! All that theoretical nonsense goes out the window about the first 3 milliseconds, and it's reduced to survival, nothing more, nothing less.
But a funny story, I had read an account by a soldier who had served in Merrill's Marauders in WWII, and he said the first time someone tried to kill him his reaction was basically how dare they try to kill the most important and wonderful guy in the world. Well, that was my exact reaction, it was like I "did the meme"! It's deflating, to say the least. 🙄😏🤣
When I teach Machiavelli, I don't use The Prince much but instead his Discourses on Livy. Here's one of my favorites:
"There are two ways of contesting, the one by the law, the other by force; the first method is proper to men, the second to beasts. ... Achilles and other princes of old were given to the Centaur Chiron to discipline; as they had for a teacher one who was half beast and half man, so it is necessary for a prince to know how to make use of both natures, and that one without the other is not durable."
A leader must be able to make use of "both the beast and the man". We slink away from Machiavelli. We want to pretend he's part of a bygone era that we've outgrown. As Christians, I and my students certainly want his atheistic view of the world to be wrong. But he was a very astute observer of practical human nature, and if you're honest, you find him VERY hard to argue with.
Civilization is held together by the collective ability and willingness to use violence against the barbarians, whether internal or external. The wanton use of violence is the enemy of civilization. But a civilization that refuses to use violence will (fairly quickly) cease to be civilized as well. hence, the "man and the beast" on balance with each other.
One of the other things Machiavelli says (this one is from The Prince): "A man who wishes to act entirely up to his professions of virtue soon meets with what destroys him among so much that is evil.” This is where modern liberals' virtue signaling will end up.
BTW: Max, I absolutely love that Radical vs moderate Islam cartoon. I haven't seen it before, and yes, the performance of the Muslim student body President at the Oxford Union debate demonstrated it perfectly.
Liberals and libertarians think countries are multicultural economic zones. They're putting the cart before the horse. First and foremost, countries are defensive alliances. What brings people together into political union is so they can collectively direct violence towards a common enemy. Even the UN was initially created as a way to control the violence states employed against one another.
Sebastian Junger in Tribe (paraphrase): "Anyone who fails to realize that a nation is just a very large foxhole has likely never been in a foxhole and understands little of what it means to be a nation."
From what little I know of Junger, he says all the right things, but they don't translate into political views. He probably thinks America can still be a foxhole.
I recommend that people read the blog written by Selco Begovic. Selco survived the Bosnian War ( 1992-1995). The winter Olympics were held in Sarajevo in 1984. Eight years later it was a war torn hellhole. Right now, in the U.S. there is a lot of frustration and hate building up inside of people. It WILL be released at some point. If you don't think it could happen in America, then you don't know human nature or history.
I discuss Selco plenty. I think the violence that's coming to America won't be at the scale seen in Yugoslavia, which saw a state collapse. I think what we'll see in the U.S. is just blatant disregard. People will die at the hands of criminals, Muslims, whomever, and people will just enjoy or otherwise turn a blind eye to it because the "right" people died.
In fact, a woman Selco interviewed for one of his books was the one who said that even during the Bosnian War, women had to offer something aside from being a woman to join a group and enjoy the benefits of protection and resources.
Liberal White Karen's aren't going to like THAT! Sadly, they do not have enough self-awareness to realize that it is their voting habits that brought us to this place.
Feminism is premised on the pseudo-religious belief women have no responsibility towards anyone but themselves. Ironically, this would mean they don't belong in any kind of civilization, since civilization is built, in addition to violence, on a series of spoken and unspoken responsibilities to one another.
Good essay. Think it was Heinlein (among many others I am sure) who said something along the lines of "people say violence never solves anything - throughout history, violence has solved many things." Not promoting violence over conversation - just acknowledging that violence took care of the Nazis and so forth. I am a Boomer and have all my life despaired of the willful blindness of the liberal half of my cohort that insists in the face of evidence to the contrary "we're all alike - talk it out - lay down your guns" - no, thank you. Leave your own children and grandchildren defenseless if you will - I refuse to be so unloving and irresponsible.
"But one thing guaranteed to both exacerbate existing problems and create new ones is an unwillingness to use violence for perfectly valid means."
Totally agree.
That should apply equally to both criminals wearing blue and criminals not wearing blue.
The former almost always "get a free pass", more than the latter.
You know the "there are two kinds of people" thing?
I divide it into the people that have never had someone try to kill them, and the ones who have.
I'm in the second group, and we are definitely NOT the same! All that theoretical nonsense goes out the window about the first 3 milliseconds, and it's reduced to survival, nothing more, nothing less.
But a funny story, I had read an account by a soldier who had served in Merrill's Marauders in WWII, and he said the first time someone tried to kill him his reaction was basically how dare they try to kill the most important and wonderful guy in the world. Well, that was my exact reaction, it was like I "did the meme"! It's deflating, to say the least. 🙄😏🤣
Statistically there are very few piranha attacks against women. Clearly women are safer with piranhas then the average man
Imagine a college-educated woman struggling with the concept of "Might Kill You" (Man) vs. "Guaranteed To Kill You" (Bear).
Sigh.... gender studies majors no doubt.
When I teach Machiavelli, I don't use The Prince much but instead his Discourses on Livy. Here's one of my favorites:
"There are two ways of contesting, the one by the law, the other by force; the first method is proper to men, the second to beasts. ... Achilles and other princes of old were given to the Centaur Chiron to discipline; as they had for a teacher one who was half beast and half man, so it is necessary for a prince to know how to make use of both natures, and that one without the other is not durable."
A leader must be able to make use of "both the beast and the man". We slink away from Machiavelli. We want to pretend he's part of a bygone era that we've outgrown. As Christians, I and my students certainly want his atheistic view of the world to be wrong. But he was a very astute observer of practical human nature, and if you're honest, you find him VERY hard to argue with.
Civilization is held together by the collective ability and willingness to use violence against the barbarians, whether internal or external. The wanton use of violence is the enemy of civilization. But a civilization that refuses to use violence will (fairly quickly) cease to be civilized as well. hence, the "man and the beast" on balance with each other.
One of the other things Machiavelli says (this one is from The Prince): "A man who wishes to act entirely up to his professions of virtue soon meets with what destroys him among so much that is evil.” This is where modern liberals' virtue signaling will end up.
BTW: Max, I absolutely love that Radical vs moderate Islam cartoon. I haven't seen it before, and yes, the performance of the Muslim student body President at the Oxford Union debate demonstrated it perfectly.
Liberals and libertarians think countries are multicultural economic zones. They're putting the cart before the horse. First and foremost, countries are defensive alliances. What brings people together into political union is so they can collectively direct violence towards a common enemy. Even the UN was initially created as a way to control the violence states employed against one another.
Sebastian Junger in Tribe (paraphrase): "Anyone who fails to realize that a nation is just a very large foxhole has likely never been in a foxhole and understands little of what it means to be a nation."
From what little I know of Junger, he says all the right things, but they don't translate into political views. He probably thinks America can still be a foxhole.
I recommend that people read the blog written by Selco Begovic. Selco survived the Bosnian War ( 1992-1995). The winter Olympics were held in Sarajevo in 1984. Eight years later it was a war torn hellhole. Right now, in the U.S. there is a lot of frustration and hate building up inside of people. It WILL be released at some point. If you don't think it could happen in America, then you don't know human nature or history.
I discuss Selco plenty. I think the violence that's coming to America won't be at the scale seen in Yugoslavia, which saw a state collapse. I think what we'll see in the U.S. is just blatant disregard. People will die at the hands of criminals, Muslims, whomever, and people will just enjoy or otherwise turn a blind eye to it because the "right" people died.
In fact, a woman Selco interviewed for one of his books was the one who said that even during the Bosnian War, women had to offer something aside from being a woman to join a group and enjoy the benefits of protection and resources.
Liberal White Karen's aren't going to like THAT! Sadly, they do not have enough self-awareness to realize that it is their voting habits that brought us to this place.
Feminism is premised on the pseudo-religious belief women have no responsibility towards anyone but themselves. Ironically, this would mean they don't belong in any kind of civilization, since civilization is built, in addition to violence, on a series of spoken and unspoken responsibilities to one another.
Good essay. Think it was Heinlein (among many others I am sure) who said something along the lines of "people say violence never solves anything - throughout history, violence has solved many things." Not promoting violence over conversation - just acknowledging that violence took care of the Nazis and so forth. I am a Boomer and have all my life despaired of the willful blindness of the liberal half of my cohort that insists in the face of evidence to the contrary "we're all alike - talk it out - lay down your guns" - no, thank you. Leave your own children and grandchildren defenseless if you will - I refuse to be so unloving and irresponsible.
When we teach kids to talk it out, who's telling them to do that? Adults who have the ability to impose consequences.
Violence. It's always there.