Manliness and Iraq

As we have seen here at Road to the Middle Class, the MSM don’t like Harvey Mansfield’s Manliness. And you can understand why. The whole concept of manliness, the masculine trait of confident risk-taking goes against the central principle of the progressive class and their Precautionary Principle, the idea that you should not risk anything unless you are really sure that nothing can go wrong.

It therefore makes complete sense that the MSM would be against the Iraq War. Just read what Mark Steyn has to say on the Hugh Hewitt Show (perm) about why. It’s the passivity, stupid.

Oh, we can't do this, and we can't do that, because something may go wrong, and it may not be easy, and this will happen, and that will happen. And we don't understand any of these strange, wacky foreign places anyway. That passivity will end freedom in the world.

We know where that passivity comes from. Liberals have spent half a century doing everything in their power to build a society without traditional gender roles. Actually, that is not strictly true. They have tried to stamp out the difference between the sexes by stamping out manliness, the manliness of the patriarch, the manliness of the soldier, the manliness of the prudent risk-taker.

So when a world-historical challenge emerges, like the eruption of Islamism, they are completely flummoxed. The only response is manliness, to take measured, courageous action, balancing all the risks, and having the courage and the fortitude to see it through.

But that is just what liberals have just spent half a century saying you must not do. No wonder they are angry and confused, hoping against hope that Bush is wrong, and calling him a jerk.

Because if Bush is right then liberals are wrong. And that just cannot be.