[Exsubmariner]

Oh the party has begun.

This is really fascinating. Of course, I have heard this before from spineless egg heads wishing to prove their superiority over men who are actually capable of accomplishing great things. There may be a correlation between the type of people who make this sort of argument and the conspicuous lack of economic prosperity of the extremely well educated egg head class who may or may not be jealous that the star quarterback types grew up to own businesses and marry cheerleaders.

I really don't want to take this discussion to that level, though. I'd like to talk about masculinity in the realm of political ideaology for a while.

Consider if you will, the first man to take ideals of masculinity to their conclusion who actually significantly changed the world. I'm talking about Phillip of Macedon. Father, or step father, of Alexander. Phillip had a vision. His vision was to take a relatively small number of men and train them into a highly efficient fighting force using the best technology available at the time in order to go out and take on the biggest empire on Earth. He figured that a well trained fighting force would be able to conquer a vastly numerically superior, but tactically inferior force and put an end to centuries of relentless invasion of Greece by the Persians. Couple his vision with the military genious of Alexander and the the world was changed forever.(BTW, I realize Alexander was at least bisexual, as was Phillip, so please don't try to derail the discussion by going down the gay agenda path. Oh yes, I've been wondering about your preferences.)

Phillip, by creating his army, brought about a period of human history in which adventurer conquerors shaped the world. Ceaser, Antony, Charlemaine, Attilla, Genghis right up to Napolean and most recently Hitler.

The things you can achieve with the proper application of a masculine ideal are staggering. You want wealth, conquer. You want to defend your home, conquer. You want to independence from the British Empire, conquer. You want to stop Facism, conquer. You want to win the Cold War, produce enough weapons that your enemy goes bankrupt trying to maintain parody. You want to stop terrorism, conquer.

Winning is not simply one thing. It's the only thing. Do you like to win at poker, Dvault? Where do you think that urge comes from? I'll tell you it's not from the organ that came up with "this is just one big penis size contest."

I can remember reading some studies done by the Army after WWII. What they found was that in combat, only 10% of soldiers actively sought to kill the enemy without being immediately put in personal physical jeapordy themselves. Later studies found that same 10% figure amoung people who were successful in business, sports, or other activities. God, I wish I had links. I'm going to look around and post them at a later time.

The point that I'm driving at, one of several actually, is that the 10% of the human population that I am talking about are going to have a disproportiate amount of control over resources. Another point is that same 10% are going to be directly interested in maintaining their ownership of those resources. They are not stupid by any stretch of the imagination and will wield their wealth to control policy and maintain the status quo to keep their positions when they feel threatened. These are the people who are going to go out and actively seek to kill the enemy in combat. Why? It serves their purposes. Simple. Pure.

Politics, at least the species you like to engage in has a shortcoming. That short coming is looking only for the win/win scenario. When something comes up that cannot have a win/win solution applied, the answer is invariably to stall the present situation where it is at so that it doesn't escallate. This is the thinking of Jimmy Carter, Neville Chamberlain types. Don't get me wrong, they were very smart guys. Jimmy could even be counted amoung the ranks of the "Nucular" (intentional Washington D.C. spelling) Navy. They just were incapable of taking the next logical political step that Churchill and Reagan, who came after them were capable of making.

I don't think you get the idea that sometimes, in politics, statecraft, whatever you want to call it, you must do what is necessary. Sometimes, the ends do justify the means. Is it fair? Is it Democratic? It's not about fair or Democratic, it's about winning.

OK. Flame on.

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