Eunuch Nation

Living in Pittsburgh, which is -- as far as I can tell -- the nation's capital of unapologetic, testosterone-saturated male primates, it's easy to forget what a large percentage of America's males are castrati, wandering around in a daze wondering what happened to their balls. Of course, Pittsburgh has its share of what I call "apologetic males" -- most of them can be found at the door prize desk at the annual orchid show -- but, by and large, the local specimens of the male persuasion go about in full confidence that God had a purpose when He created the male of the species (not "mankind" or "Man", which includes both genders). These are guys for whom beer, NASCAR, and the Steelers are the be-all and end-all of existence... and, yeah, you might want to throw a wife and kids into the mix because, otherwise, whaddaya gonna do, spend Christmas and Thanksgiving at the local tavern? I don't think so. And, for better or worse, these guys are hard-core, unquestioning patriots. They never question the justification or reasons for a war -- the fact that we're fighting a war is reason enough. And sure enough, when the flag goes up they enlist -- not just for a steady job, or to please the old folks, but out of a genuine, if distorted, sense of patriotism. And if you think the minor offenses at Abu Ghraib were bad, wait 'til you find out what these guys would _really_ like to do to all those damn rag-heads! Geneva Convention? Fuhgeddaboutit. Any enemy of "America" is an enemy of mine, is their attitude -- and the Regime makes full use of this idea. These guys are the cannon fodder of our benighted foreign policy. They come home scarred -- psychologically and physically... maimed... brain-damaged... dead... none of it matters. All of the misfortunes they suffer "in the service of their country" and of "democracy" and "freedom" are met with stoic acceptance, as if to say, well, this was a job that had to be done, and if not by us, who? Those who have suffered the greatest losses will be the first to march (or ride) in the Memorial Day and Forth of July parades... they will be honored with plaques, awards, testimonials at the local VFW. For them, whatever war they happened to participate in was the highlight of their life, never to equalled by any other achievement, whether in business, domestic affairs, or -- don't even think about the spiritual side. That's for women and "fairies". And the one thing forbidden -- that is never allowed to be brought up in their presence -- is that they were used, exploited, played as dupes and suckers by a corrupt and evil regime. This cannot be tolerated, since it violates a deep metaphysical premise -- the deepest one they possess. So the cycle of propaganda and exploitation goes on, and it's the victims who are the most committed to its perpetuation. Surely the people who _use_ these poor devils are not committed to anything, save their own lust for power and wealth. But the amazing thing is how few see through it. They assume, for example, that people like Dick Cheney actually care about the welfare of the nation and of its citizens, when every bit of evidence points in the exact opposite direction. And yet, "where is the outrage?" -- and I suppose that these events would not have happened at all if the American public had any capacity for real outrage. But for that to happen, you first have to have insight -- and for that to thrive and not be snuffed out at birth, you have to have some degree of distance and objectivity, and if there is one thing missing in the American public it's the ability to judge the actions of its leaders based on principle. And in this, we are not all that unique -- nations all throughout history have followed tyrannical, demented leaders into catastrophes -- but one always hopes that the mere fact of "democracy" serves to instill a slightly more sophisticated frame of reference into the minds of the citizenry. Unfortunately, this is seldom, if ever, the case. We treat our presidents like kings... our representatives like a royal court... and our judges like Solomons, rather than like the slightly-better-educated humans that they are. Authoritarianism seems hard-wired into the human psyche, and skepticism is always reserved for the oddballs.

So... are all the troubles of the world "deserved", by and large, because people refuse to think? What is more serious is that they refuse to compare what their leaders do with what is morally right and just -- and for this there is much less excuse than simply a failure to "think" like some egghead academician. There was a time when leaders were expected to be -- believe it or not -- _more_ moral, and ethnical, than the rest of us. Now it is a surprise when they turn out to be anything but psychopaths. This, I submit, is the leading sign of a degenerate society overall -- when we cannot recognize virtue, or its opposite, when it's staring us in the face. And, of course, the inability to recognize, not to mention value, virtue is an open door to the non-virtuous, who will quickly move in to fill the gap. There is some sort of unwritten law in politics whereby, when the citizenry adhere to moral principles, the leadership can violate them only up to a point, after which they are, hopefully, relieved of duty. In other words, a moral citizenry is not air-tight insurance against corrupt leadership, but it does constitute a limiting factor. But a morally clueless citizenry has no defenses against corruption in high office. For one thing, they never recognize it on principle, only its effects, i.e. on them. But that is like "special pleading" -- a leader is corrupt because he's hurting _me_, and everyone else can look after themselves. This is about as far as it goes these days, as witness the obsession with "fairness" to the exclusion of principle. But what this means is that, while the leadership may be corrupt in the usual ways, the citizenry is also morally corrupt, so they can expect little else from the leadership than "rotating neglect" -- i.e. unfair treatment which kind of circles around like a searchlight, picking out victims (and beneficiaries) at random. Needless to say, the sum total for society overall will be negative, i.e. while some may benefit many more will lose out. This is, in fact, the earmark of totalitarianism -- despite the ever-present propaganda. The elite -- the "nomenklatura" -- profit handsomely, while the rest are left to starve, and live out their lives as part of a gray, faceless mass. And isn't this what we're coming to -- correction! Isn't this what we've already come to, in this society? A huge proportion of the populace thought they were rich, or at least "OK", merely a year or two ago -- now they find out they're poor. Security has been replaced by anxiety, complacency by fear. And is this a failure of "the system"? That's what they'll tell you, but in fact it's a failure of leadership -- or, actually, a _success_ of leadership, in that their situation has improved while everyone else's has deteriorated.

But what does any of this have to do with "Eunuch Nation?" Only that there is an acceptance -- a fatalism -- that, in previous times and for previous generations would have been totally unacceptable. In an earlier day, by now all of the Wall Street "operators" would have been hanging from lampposts... and their facilitators in the political arena would be (1) out of office, (2) arrested, and (3) in jail. But again, where there is no moral substrate to begin with, one cannot be created out of nowhere simply based on need. A nation of passive victims cannot be turned into a nation of principled militants overnight -- and hardly even in a generation. For that, you need a revolution, and I don't see any signs of one about to occur. So again, do people "deserve" all that they are suffering simply because they have been negligent when it comes to keeping up with current events? My answer is -- yes! Because, as much of a shambles as our electoral process is, they could still have voted for someone other then the usual suspects. They could still have pressed for impeachment when their liberties were threatened... they could still have refused to cooperate (e.g., by not joining the military), or engaged in passive resistance in a million different ways. But they did none of these -- so this is what they get in return -- a government that is, in no significant way, different from the Fascism of the 1930s... perpetual war... and indebtedness that will persist for generations to come.

"Show me a real man." One doesn't even see this in Hollywood these days, or on TV. The "male models" we're presented with are all, basically, boys who have been on the shelf too long and are obviously shopworn. So what happened to the "masculine mystique"? It was forbidden by politics (another blessing of "feminism") -- and by law as well, in many cases. And yes, as unsavory as some of its lower-grade manifestations may have been, it was, I will argue, the only thing standing between us and domination by the high-powered eunuchs of Washington and the EU. Are real women afraid of real men? Well, was Margaret Thatcher afraid of real men? I don't think so; she reveled in their presence. Is Hillary afraid of real men? You betcha. Her husband is not a real man, but a parody of one, the way Mae West was a parody of womanhood. And the only way Obama gets away with being an unapologetic male is that he is also black. Otherwise, we have a vast array of clowns and buffoons among our leadership and our role models -- our "icons".

We have just passed a major milestone in American history, namely the death of Robert McNamara, who was, among many other things, the very embodiment of the the sexless "egghead" -- and what did all of his alleged brilliance provide us? The Vietnam war, and thus, indirectly, the 60s, and the cultural revolution that took place then and whose reverberations haunt us to this day. The testosterone-laden military had to follow the orders of a little creep with patent-leather hair; how humiliating was that? And dare I say that that was among the first manifestations of the ascendency of the eunuch and the setting aside of masculinity? McNamara was an expert at "systems analysis" -- which is based on a bloodless model of the human condition, i.e. no hopes and dreams, no hormones, no loyalties -- just a somewhat more complex wiring diagram than the average hi-fi system. His system "war gamed" very well, let's admit -- and it would have been so great if it had been left right there, on the sand table. But unfortunately, he had the power and influence to send out armed forces into the Valley of Death -- and there they stayed, for years, until the final humiliation. For better or worse, a real man would have... well actually, he wouldn't have gone over there at all because, hey, what did those little yellow devils have to do with us, anyway? But failing that, he would have nuked Hanoi instead of fooling around with a "war of attrition" (which actually worked -- for them). You see, the male always has a choice of whether to act or not. The choice he does not (or should not) have is the choice of acting like something other than a male. The libertarian point of view is extremely masculine -- fight like a demon for what is of value, and screw the rest -- not "fight to spread democracy" or some other abstract idea that no one else is interested in anyway. And certainly not "fight to preserve some other country besides our own". What kind of idiocy is that? If an enemy landed on our shores, how many males of any stripe would refuse to take up arms to repel the invader? But when it comes to helping Israel get rid of Iraq... no wonder the Recuiting Command has a problem. Loyalty to "ideas" is an egghead kind of thing -- it's for the McNamaras of this world. Loyalty to things that really count is a male kind of thing, and there are precious few opportunities left to express that. So they have to be convinced -- and, in their simple, naive way, most of them are -- that wars that are completely fraudulent are, somehow, legitimate, and have something to do with hearth, family, home, and country. "We are defending the American way of life." But what if the American way of life is to invade other countries for no good reason? Maybe that's what they mean -- but I doubt it. And it seems to me that the right sort of masculinity would immediately bridle at all of the propaganda and brainwashing that goes along with our foreign policy -- and the cry of "Bullshit!" would ring out across the land. But this is seldom heard, except within the confines of the Libertarian Party and the paleocons. And they would all rise to a genuine defense of what is real, have no doubt. But to rise to the "defense" of what is an illusion created by professional deceivers -- well, no. That is best left to the eunuchs -- or to those who have been made eunuchs, even though they still fancy they are otherwise.