Dean Esmay of Dean's World snagged a real gem, in my opinion. What follows is admittedly a long exceprt of a really, really long essay. And after you finish here, go there and read the whole, long thing. You'll be glad you did.
"...To my mind, the greatest threat to democracy today is women without men, and men without willies. Both vote more often than everyone else... and people striving to build real houses need to stop and ponder."
I laughed a little at the mental image of the people he was talking about, for we all know them.
"I'm not trying not to be funny here. It's a serious thing. This brood represents a large part of American society that has lost sight of their House... a bunch that takes the existence of prosperity and security as granted as a little girl sleeping in her mother's arms in church. And they've lost sight in part because they don't know where it came from, and in part because they think they're above it. They have pretensions of being civilized above democracy, sort of like the French... only ... and here's the rub... there ain't nothing above democracy that is permanent. Regular people know that.
"But war has a place in a woman's heart that goes beyond mere politics. A woman's hatred of fighting runs just as deep as a man's love for it. Only difference is, men have done a better job of channeling that into less deadly arenas, while still keeping the real thing in reserve when needed. Women still ain't figured sports out.
"A mother, as you know, will defend her brood more viciously than any man. Put her cubs in danger, look out. A man can't match a woman for sheer meanness when the kids are at risk. Right?"
I nodded.
"Problem is, while she'll give her neighbor a cup of sugar without blinking, she's far less apt to send her husband over next door to fend off thugs attacking her neighbor's house. It's in her nature to rebel against sending her men-folk to the edge of town, let alone the next county, or godferbid, across the sea, to defend her nest. She's not dumb, she can make the connection, she just don't want to. She'll paw around at the ground, clench her fist and shake it at the heavens, postpone and postpone, hoping God will relieve her of this worry. But she won't act preemptively.
"So in the end, she's more apt to wait 'til the front gate's been knocked down, the front door kicked in, and she's retreated to the basement in one corner, sheltering her cubs... before she finally decides to get mean. 'Course, by then, it's too late.
"That's why both a man and a woman make up the true House and why the true House is crucial to a surviving democracy. They decide together."
After a pause, "It would help if both voted," he said with a sigh.
"You see, most politicians are natural-born cowards, and the vote is how they get their oil checked. Politics is more emotional and less rational today because more man-less women and pecker-less men vote. Politicians just reflect the mood of the times. They woulda been on the wrong side in Gomarrah, too.
Taking another peanut, "Against an enemy who ain't gonna quit, and who will kill or be killed, in their heart of hearts mothers only see two options.
"One, wait 'til they get up on the porch... and I just described how that works. Well, terrorists already done that, in New York and Washington. Only this is where a type of woman is apt to water down just what it is to be an American. A gal down in Prescott figures that would be last place the terrorists would come to kill, so, whether she likes it or not, a little voice tells her that "America" don't include New York anymore. Arizona's home. That's called "parochialism" until a sophisticated lady thinks it.
"Well, once you admit that to your own heart, there's no question who's holding all the cards. The terrorists don't have to blow up Phoenix in order to get that woman to start re-ordering her loyalties. All they have to do is cause the re-location of her men.
"In a complete House, there's a counter-balance to this impulse. In cases of security, the husband always carries the trump, just as the wife does in other situations. Although a woman might stomp and screech, I never saw a home break up because of a husband or a son voted to go past the front gate to defend the House... or to help a neighbor.
"But a lot of American houses, all doomed to fall in a generation or two anyway, for other reasons, don't have that balance anymore, so they can't see the stakes. Those are the ones who worry me.
"I'm not demeaning women in general, as most women still won't succumb to that nagging little urge to remove America from their House. But you better believe a woman in Omaha, seeing her son march off to Iraq, secretly wonders if it's all worth it, since the terrorists seem to want to blow up places she don't really care that much about anyway. Imagine my mother if they'd blown up the Playboy mansion in Chicago.
"All I'm saying is that, in a pinch, with all the cards played, a mother would no more voluntarily send her son off to defend a neighbor than a lawyer would give a refund.
"And for looking down the road, you better know moms with ten-year olds today are looking there to. Which leads to the other option moms secretly lean to."
"What's that?"
"Incinerate 'em. The whole damned lot. Just like Phil Sheridan and George Custer. A good Injun is a dead Injun.
'In victories he was swimmin', he killed children, dogs and wimmin', but the General, he don't ride well anymore.'
"Johnny Cash wrote that.
"It's been proved time and again that when people become so removed from violence as to no longer be able to see its curative power in the face of Evil or certain death, once they've used up their sparse arsenal of non-violent tools to do battle with Old Clootie... the over-civilized will usually try to bribe him or talk him to death... they almost immediately lunge to the extreme and go nuclear.
"Nope, there's a lotta ways to win this fight, but none of 'em include not putting some mother's son at risk, and too just many women hate that, and politicians don't know how to handle that...."
