The Hypocrisy of the Police State Advocates

Ever notice how “gun control” advocates always pretend that they’re only violating the Constitution in order to reduce violent crime… yet their efforts are all centered around disarming NON-CRIMINAL American citizens?

Ask one of them why they’re so intent on violating the rights of people who have committed no crimes and they’ll pontificate about how a legally-obtained firearm can find its way into the wrong hands. Therefore ban and confiscate.

Engage that same person in a conversation about how dictatorial powers are (unconstitutionally=illegally) being given to the executive branch of government, and watch their attitude spin 180 degrees.

“Oh, it’s perfectly harmless to consolidate all the powers of a police state into the hands of one person, because only responsible, benevolent, humble idealists will ever be in a position to use them, hence they will only be used for good.”

So as to not cause a coronary event, I’ll just bring up one topic tonight: The National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 (NDAA).

What this illegal legislation does is give the individual in the Oval Office the approval of fellow criminals in Congress and the Courts to indefinitely detain  American citizens without trial. (If you don’t speak Legalese, read that: “throw your ass in prison until you die.”)

The wording of the NDAA was left deliberately vague so politicians can interpret it as they see fit. But one listed justification for the Storm Troopers hauling you away to never be seen again is if you’ve committed a “belligerent act.”

Under the rule of law, you’d have the benefit of a jury trial if accused, and a court would have to determine if you committed a “belligerent act.” In a police state, the dude with the power decides whether you’ve been naughty or nice.

Guess which system we have now?

Wanna guess who the globalists had in mind in pushing for this legislation? It wasn’t Islamic terrorists. When asked to define “belligerent act,” the politicians behind the NDAA balked, feigning ignorance. But after it was passed, our benevolent public servants released the START report, which on page 10 tells you who they consider the next terrorists:

Groups or individuals who are “reverent of individual liberty”, “suspicious of centralized federal authority”, who “pay with cash”, “travel illogical distances”, “stockpile food” and so on. 200 other such adjectives are listed that can define you as a suspected terrorist.

 

Why are militarized police not already kicking in doors and hauling “potential terrorists” away to detainment centers en masse? Because about three percent of the population is both armed and willing to fight the jackbooted goons when that happens.
Any mystery why the police state hypocrites are so worried about weapons in the hands of NON-CRIMINAL American citizens?

Action-Adventure and Feminism Part 1

This year I  discovered something called “the Manosphere.” Is it possible to discover something you’re already a part of? Because as near as I can tell, I’ve been part of the Manosphere since starting the Two-Fisted Blog a few years ago. Granted, the 2FB was never about game or gender relations, but it was written by a man, for men, and usually about men. Specifically red-blooded heterosexual men. I’ve never pandered to the feminists on my blog or in my books, nor will I ever. I was a manosphere poet and didn’t know it.

But now I know it.

My epiphany began after hearing the phrase “alpha male” for the umpteen-zillionth time, and deciding to find a definition for it. I got a lot more education than I bargained for. To summarize briefly, there are names for the phenomena and personalities I’ve observed; for the theories I’ve formulated and even some attitudes I’ve adopted. And yet there’s still a lot I had not discovered strictly on my own via the School of Hard Knocks, so other blogs in the Manosphere have been like a crack addiction to me lately. My vocabulary increased overnight to include terms like “white knight,” “mangina” and “NAWALT.”

NAWALT – Not All Women Are Like That. Frequently heard on Manosphere websites, usually used by intruding women or trolls who want to derail an assertion. If only one out of a million women “aren’t like that,” it’s still technically true (but Diogenes wouldn’t waste the lamp oil to go looking for her!).

White Knight – (1) a man who “comes to the rescue” of a woman, or of women, reflexively, emotionally-driven, without thought or even looking at the situation; (2) a man in authority who enables Team Womyn in his legislative actions, judgments, or rulings, reflexively, emotionally-driven, without thought or even looking at what’s right.

Mangina – an unfortunate (in all ways) combination of “man” and “vagina”. Generally used to describe a male person who has left his balls in some woman’s purse.

I’m not going to start blogging sex or dating advice here. But some very astute observations have been made in the manosphere and some of them have helped me put something into perspective. For lack of a better subject heading, I’ll call that something “GENDER BIAS IN POP CULTURE (IN GENERAL) AND ACTION-ADVENTURE MOVIES (IN PARTICULAR).”

Action-adventure has been a predominantly male genre, and marketing gurus will tell you it still is.

In literature it was once labelled “men’s fiction.” This genre disappeared from traditional publishing circa 1990. A handful of authors (including myself) have done our best to resurrect men’s fiction (in various sub-genres) for the last few years. In fact, that was one goal of the Two-Fisted Blog and, now, Virtual Pulp Press.

The obstacles have been large and numerous. One is the astronomical volume of available books in the online age, now that anyone/everyone can get a book published. And does. So just getting a reader to discover a particular book is a significant hurdle. And with so much garbage being published by the aforementioned anyone/everyone, indie authors suffer guilt by association, rendering odds of discovery even worse. There’s an assumption that if the New York Publishing Cartel (NYPC) didn’t publish it, it’s not worth browsing/sampling. And finally, the target audience for the genre (red-blooded heterosexual men), by-and-large, just doesn’t read much anymore… besides Twitter posts and videogame subtitles, anyway.

Men still pay to see action movies, though.

And despite the wives or girlfriends who accompany them to the theater on occasion, nobody disputes the audience for this genre being male at its core.

 

The genre appeals to traditionally masculine impulses. It was designed to be escapism for males, giving them heroic, masculine role models that, at least subconsciously, men and boys aspire to be. Why then is it absolutely obligatory (so far as film makers are concerned) to have at least one woman in every action movie who is at least as masculine, if not more so, than the hero? (This certainly isn’t limited to the big screen, BTW–you find the same fetish in comic books, videogames and other media, but movies have the largest audience, and this fetish is apparently a requirement in film.)

The motives and reasons behind this are too numerous to document here. What it boils down to is that this convention is one symptom of a feminized culture, in which worldview, opinions and thought patterns are conditioned by pop culture and mass media.

In my aforementioned crack spree intensive research, I discovered two counterculture (or perhaps anti-establishment is a better description) websites: The Rational Male and Return of Kings. If the latter was an automobile, there’s no doubt in my mind it would be festooned with “No Fat Chicks in Bikinis” bumper stickers. But despite the frequent superficiality, and what seems to be a conscious effort on the part of the writers at times to resemble the “sexist pig” stereotype, there are some interesting conclusions reached there. Here’s an excerpt from one of their articles about the myth of “male privelege:”

Women…see media as a source of therapy. …They expect to be able to turn on any media outlet and have their egos massaged. …Of course, ferocity, independence and intelligence are always assumed on the part of the woman. Think about that – female egos are not even worried about actually being smart or tough, as they assume that they are that just by existing.

This assumption is regurgitated in action movies.

The hero in an action movie is nearly always an exceptional man. Often he has undergone extensive training to achieve his level of physical prowess; or sometimes he towers above other men due to superpowers. Traditionally, only the villain mastermind approaches equality with him in unarmed combat…

With the exception of female characters.

A woman can be a waitress, or receptionist, or welfare queen–it doesn’t matter. There’s no necessity of rigorous training or superpowers–the very fact that she has a vagina automatically makes her equal (or superior) to the action hero. Look at the TV portrayals of Lois Lane for the last 20 years, just for one example. She’s such a badass you just know she’d thrash Superman back on Krypton. Bet you didn’t know reporters were one-woman armies, dijja?

In this case it’s not even necessarily women who are dogmatically inserting this female dominance fantasy into action movies. More often it is feminized males (white knights and manginas) behind this overused canard.

More on that in another post, perhaps.

Indeed, pop culture is not just a propaganda tool of the political left; it is a cohesive theraputic strategy for the female of the species. She turns on the idiot box television, and watching any sitcom, the denigration of everything masculine is reinforced…at least when embodied in a male character (because it’s not enough to flatter empower women by virtue of their being born female; men must also be ridiculed for the cardinal sin of being born male).

 

Special little snowflake Jane Public goes to watch a romantic comedy and reviews how women are emotional victims of alpha males, and the only sympathetic male characters are white knights, metrosexuals, or homosexuals. She watches a dramatic movie or TV show and it is reinforced that 1. women are simultaneously victims and strong, take-charge leaders while 2. men are cheaters; bullies/cowards; rapists; abusive; ineffectual; incompetent; weaklings; or some combination of the above. And when she sits through an action movie with her boyfriend (poor fool), she is conditioned to believe there is no physical difference between men and women besides breasts and genitalia.

Here’s what a woman who could physically compete with a man would actually look like.

Next thing you know, special little snowflake Jane Public (and her white knight cheerleaders) regurgitate originate ideas like: “Why shouldn’t women be in combat? Obviously women are just as tough as men–usually tougher, in fact.”

Hmm…I can see I’m going to need more than one blog post for this subject. To be continued…

007 In Film and Fiction

 

Thanks to Books on Tape, Blackstone Audio, et al, and now Audible Audio for my Kindle, I’m tearing through books at a steady rate during work-related travel.

After paying for my subscription to Audible Audio, I decided it was finally time to read the source material for the spy movies I grew up with. I had previously read Casino Royale and You Only Live Twice which were fairly good reads, but were quite a different flavor from the Bond flicks I’d seen. So anyway, I set out to go through the rest of the Bond canon in the order the novels were written. So far, in addition to the two mentioned above, I’ve read Live and Let Die, Moonraker and From Russia With Love.

The first Bond I ever saw on screen was Roger Moore. It wasn’t until my teen years I began to see some of the Sean Connery flicks. I knew nothing about the literary Bond, and didn’t favor one actor over the other, but I liked the Connery flicks better. My favorite became Thunderball. How can you go wrong with an underground battle between frogmen using spearguns and submerged jet skis?

My senior year in high school I got a chance to see Dr. No and I really liked it. Not many cool gadgets, but the feel of it was groovy, and Connery’s Bond in this flick was one cool customer (closer to Ian Fleming’s character, in my opinion, than any actor has come until Daniel Craig or perhaps Timothy Dalton).

Speaking of Timothy Dalton, I just saw License to Kill this month. Hollywood finally did to Felix Leiter what Fleming did to him in the second Bond novel. I was shocked to read about the fate of Bond’s CIA counterpart in Live and Let Die, not just because it was gruesome, but because Felix Leiter had been a healthy, able-bodied staple in just about every Bond movie.

I’m sure this topic has been analyzed to death, so I won’t ramble on too long. But reading the books does take some of the Bond mystique away.

The silver screen Bond is a supercharged exaggeration of the character in nearly every way, as are his adventures. The literary Bond has only used his “license to kill” a couple times in his career. The movie Bond kills anywhere from three to a dozen times in any given story.

One of those kills to Bond’s credit, by the way, occurred during the war if I remember correctly. What war? Fleming’s Bond got into intelligence work during WWII, and continued serving in that capacity into the Cold War. In the movies, he was strictly Cold War, and we were never given any indication how he got into the business. He was conceived in a test tube by M for all we knew. With all the reboots, I think even the Cold War origin will soon be swept back (if it hasn’t been already). And with the Daniel Craig films delving more into the Bond character than any previous flicks, we’ll probably get his background filled in, too (retrofitted, of course).

Hmm. Just checking the canon, I realized I skipped Diamonds Are Forever. Have to remedy that. I was actually checking because From Russia With Love ended in an almost cliffhanger fashion and I wanted to see what followed it, guessing it would be You Only Live Twice.

Nope. Dr. No.

My least favorite Bond is, hand’s down, the Pierce Brosnan dynasty. That’s when the writers and directors transformed our favorite sexist pig superspy into just another action hero franchise. Along with that, the amazon superninja has become as obligatory in OO7 flicks as in every other action movie.

I’ll be glad to watch Halle Berry strut up out of the ocean all day long, but watching her out-macho the male lead is about as interesting as an old Wonder Woman rerun.

Look for Bond to get a sex change in the future, much like Thor, the Terminator, etc. “Bond. Jane Bond. I’ll take a sloe gin phiz, shaken, not stirred.” Maybe some “Bond boys” with names like Dick Steel, Bolt Upright and Hardin Cox.

Well, my Bond education will continue. Though the books are interesting, I don’t like them enough to make them a priority. So this could take a while.

 

Neocon/RINO Campaign Slogans For 2014 and Beyond

After what happened in 2012 it’s unlikely that elections in America will ever again be decided by living US citizens who cast one vote apiece… But just in case I ever get commissioned by the GOP to handle their public image, I came up with a list of some catchy campaign slogans for electable candidates like the Bushes, Boehners, Bob Doles, John McCains and Mitt Romneys who are drafted from the abyss establishment as the antithesis to the Democrat thesis in the ongoing Hegelian political theater in America.

Vote RINO! Because we won’t destroy the country quite as fast as the Democrats.

Vote RINO! When it comes to your rights and freedom, you need someone willing to compromise.

RINOS: Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory for generations.

NeoCons: Whining about new usurpations; defending them once they become status quo.

Vote RINO! Because a sheep in wolves’ clothing is preferable to a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

Vote RINO! If you absolutely insist on voting for a non-Democrat, the mass media conglomerates prefer it be for one of us.

NeoCons: Everything in moderation–especially principles and truth.

NeoCons: Yeah, sure: Life; liberty; blah, blah, blah. Don’t get all carried away.

RINOS: Banking on your post-election memory disorder.

NeoCons: We play games with the symptoms, because attacking the root illness is the inexcusable behavior of crackpots.

RINOS: Why insist on a representative, when you can settle for a politician?

Vote NeoCon! Because everything tastes better watered-down.

Vote RINO! When in doubt, sell out.

Vote NeoCon! You need someone in Washington who will cower in the face of evil!

NeoCons: Victory is not an option!

Vote RINO: Appeasement is the new fortitude!

RINOs: Double-crossing you can bank on!

RINOs: A full ten years behind the Democrats’ Marxist schedule!

RINOS: The lesser evil.

“Talks tough!” “Less evil!” “Talks tough!” “Less evil!” (Imagine two factions shouting this back and forth in a bar…or at the polls.)

Vote NeoCon: This turn, we’ll play the good cop.

RINOs: Listen to our rhetoric. Don’t study our voting record.

John Wayne: Textbook Alpha Male?

For those who know who John Wayne was, the typical assumption is probably that the characters he played were alpha males (for those familiar with the term “alpha male” anyway).

Having seen my share of Duke flicks, I can testify that his characters were never pick-up artists (PUAs)–something that seems to go hand-in-hand with alpha behavior. (In fact, it was usually the woman who pursued and approached him–especially in the Howard Hawks movies.) That and a few other personality traits perhaps make a further study of the John Wayne persona worthwhile in the future.

waynerifle

 

But I used the word “persona” intentionally, rather than mention any specific role he played. Critics of the Duke point out that he wasn’t really an actor, but a movie star. There’s some truth to that, because the characters he played were usually the same guy, just with different names and historic contexts for the different movies.

To over-simplify it for a moment: John Wayne was almost always the hero.  I say “almost” because there are a couple exceptions when he was called on to play an antihero.

One of those exceptions occurred when he was curiously cast as Ghengis Khan in The Conqueror. The most interesting exception was the role he played in a John Ford western called The Searchers, and that’s what we’ll look at now.

The Searchers is a great film for many reasons. One of the most basic of those reasons is the characters it is built around.

The role of Ethan Edwards was a real departure in the screen career of the Duke. Yes, he still exuded toughness, strength and cocksurity, but underneath that was a vengeful, bitter racism that made him the darkest character Wayne ever played.

Unless you watch carefully for details, you’ll miss that Ethan’s

The tombstones in this scene reveal that Ethan's parents were killed by Commanche, but you have to be a speed-reader to catch it.
The tombstones in this scene reveal that Ethan’s parents were killed by Commanche, but you have to be a speed-reader to catch it.

parents were murdered by Commanche. Ethan Edwards is a fanatic. His hatred of the Commanche has caused him to learn their language and customs, and even think the way they do. Ironically, this obsessive racism has made him a perpetual outsider among the white settlers in 1868 Texas.

The clip below reveals a lot about the plot, the characters, and what’s gone on behind the scenes. Watch carefully and take special note of how the hierarchy shines through.

You can spot the alpha dog right away, can’t you?  Ward Bond’s swaggering alpha bravado is right at home in…nay, demands to be…the center of attention. He’s a natural leader, and he barks orders at everyone lest they forget who’s in charge. The posse he’s putting together is made up of betas and arguably a couple delta males. Then you can feel the power shift as Ethan Edwards makes his presence known.

Ethan Edwards at this stage of his life is a “sigma male.” He’s the only one in the film the Reverend/Captain Samuel Johnson Clayton (Bond) can’t bully, intimidate, or inspire to follow his leadership. Not only that, but Ethan overrules his authority without hesitation or apology, and turns the impromptu interrogation around on Clayton by questioning his loyalty to the Confederacy.

Exhibit B is Ethan’s sister-in-law Martha. Notice how she caresses Ethan’s coat, and all the unspoken feeling that passes between them when she hands it to Ethan? Important subtext was revealed right there:

Martha married and bore children to stable beta-male provider Aaron Edwards, but her desire is (and always has been) for bad boy Ethan, who left her to go fight in the Civil War.

Female hypergamy hasn’t changed at all since 1868.

Also notice how Sam Clayton witnesses this, but doesn’t find it surprising at all.

Another interesting character is Martin Pawley, played by Jeffrey Hunter. He’s an adopted orphan, in his late teens. He’s an outsider when the story begins. Seems like a beta male, with some alpha tendencies that grow as he matures into a man. (Unfortunately, he fights like a girl.)

Back to Ethan Edwards and the Reverend/Captain Sam Clayton: waynes&bondThere’s a scene leading into the climax of the film where a young cavalry officer finds Ethan and Martin who have just crashed a wedding (and Martin took back the bride-to-be from his beta rival, Texas Ranger Charlie McRory). The cavalryman is looking for the Captain of the Texas Rangers, and, upon observing those present, he assumes it’s Ethan Edwards until corrected.

Something about Ethan just makes people assume he’s in charge. Sam Clayton is miffed about this and takes to humiliating the young lieutenant. Ethan, who is often amused by the drama that goes on between other people (most of whom he regards with barely-hidden contempt), actually joins in on the roast of the young Yankee officer (who is played by Wayne’s son and becomes an increasingly comedic/pathetic character as the film goes on).

There are a lot of reasons to watch The Searchers, re-watch it, and analyze it visually and thematically. One reason is that, half a century before there was a “manosphere” or any discussion of the socio-sexual hierarchy, director John Ford knew how it all plays out in the theater of life.

 

Alpha Males in Pop Culture

I’m not sure if I’d even heard the term “alpha male” a couple years ago.  But enough people have bandied it about in conversation recently that my curiosity was piqued.

Turns out there’s a whole alphabet used to rank men by their personality and status. Not surprising that many disagree on the definitions. This breakdown of the hierarchy might not be the most accurate or popular, but I did find it to be the best articulated.

So in an effort to better understand this classification system, I’m gonna attempt to identify and label some well-known characters from the big and small screen.

The Original Star Wars Trilogy:

Han Solo is an obvious alpha. Loud, bold, overconfident-bordering-on-arrogant and with a big selfish streak. I don’t remember him ever accepting second-fiddle position to anyone. His alpha traits were watered down occasionally for comedic or dramatic effect, so he’s not 100% consistent…but that will probably be true for any fictitious hero.

Chewbacca, being content as Han’s sidekick, might be a beta. But his low SMV (sexual marketplace value) might make him an omega–at least among non-Wookies.

Luke Skywalker looks like the textbook beta. He’s intelligent, competent, with a high SMV, but also comfortable in the sidekick role. After the wars are over and he retires from the Rebel Space Force, he’ll probably settle down in the suburbs behind a white picket laser fence and raise some spoiled brats with a reasonably attractive wife who gazes lustfully at the old holograms of a young Han Solo when Luke isn’t looking. In fact, she was probably one of Han’s conquests, once.

Princess Leia will eventually settle down with a beta provider suitable for her class and status, after breaking up with Han. Han will eventually be caught smuggling Tattooine moonshine and die in prison, or be killed in a bar fight at Mos Isely Space Port.

C3PO may be a droid, but he sure comes off like a delta. I don’t know how to classify R2D2–he’s more like a child or a pet.

Meanwhile, over on the Dark Side of the Force, Darth Vader looks a lot like a sigma, while the Emperor is more like a gamma with latent lambda tendencies.

Shallow Hal:

I bring this up because I couldn’t help picturing the title character when reading Vox Day’s definition of a delta. Jack Black’s role was textbook delta. Textbook.

Famous Detectives:

Achieving clear-cut definitions is tougher than I thought it would be. Still, I’m fairly confident that Mike Hammer is an Alpha. Sam Spade is probably a sigma. And Magnum, P.I. might be a beta who just whines a lot and likes to talk about his feelings.

Classic Westerns:

Generalities are necessary here for the sake of brevity, but I’ll probably go into more depth in the future.

Like most people, my gut instinct is to classify the typical John Wayne screen portrayal as alpha, but this deserves at least one entire blog post of its own, so I’ll leave it at that for now.

Jimmie Stewart seems to fit the beta mold. Maybe I’ll analyze that some day, too.

Clint Eastwood…I’m thinking maybe a sigma. Or maybe just the darker side of the Jimmie Stewart beta?

The villains played by Jack Elam were probably textbook omega, with occasional promotions to gamma.

The “Road” Movies:

I’m referring specifically to the Bob Hope/Bing Crosby comedies all titled “The Road to ______________”.

Bing Crosby’s characters were the obvious alpha of the pair, while Bob Hope invariably played a delta.