Here. Read this essay.
Much has been made of an alleged “crisis of masculinity” among America’s young men. This sort of sweeping cultural proclamation should always make you skeptical. As an angle, it is catnip because everyone can fill in its details based on their own lives, and male writers, in particular, can use it as a launching pad to subtly cast themselves as the sort of well-developed masculine figure who might—now that you mention it—serve as a good role model.
I don’t know about all of that. What I do know is that if you are looking for negative role models for masculine virtue, there is an easy way to find them. They are employed by ICE. They are employed by the Department of Homeland Security. They are employed by the sprawling and unaccountable security state, and right now, they are out on the streets of our cities, snatching up mothers and infiltrating elementary schools. There is much to be said about the political processes that deployed these men, and the chain of socioeconomic failures that placed our nation in the position we find ourselves. But there is another important thing to be said directly to the men who go to work every day and don the tactical vests and facemasks and act like the willing gestapo agents of our idiot political leader: You guys are fucking cowards.
Tough guy? No. Straight up fucking coward, man. Pathetic. Jesus. Have some self-respect.
Exactly. Tough guys don’t wear masks and rough up working class people on the street. And they don’t follow the orders of America’s psycho version of Goebbels like these petty thugs on a power trip.
The Wall Street Journal reported on a meeting last month where Stephen Miller summoned ICE’s leadership to a meeting where he demanded that federal agents lower their standards and “just go out there and arrest illegal aliens,” outside of 7-11 or wherever. “‘Who here thinks they can do it?’ Miller said, asking for a show of hands.” The outcome of that demand can be seen in the ongoing terrorization of immigrants happening across the country.
Now, Stephen Miller is a little rat-faced Nazi bitch. Since his youth just about everyone around him has despised him because he has always been a miserable racist little shit whose evil heart is manifested in his detestable rodent-like visage. Knowing that, I like to imagine all those big, bad, ICE agents, manly men, so macho, shifting uncomfortably around a conference room table as they are harangued by that psychotic little bureaucrat, and then rushing out to kidnap working men from a Home Depot parking lot in order to demonstrate to their master, Stephen Bitch Ass Miller, how good they are at being America’s new gestapo.
You want to see real bravery? Click here. There’s the hero we need.
Twitchy, puffed up, goofy ass cops. No amount of guns and steroids and tear gas will ever make you cool. Fuck off, losers.
In case you’re looking for role models, here’s another one.
California is creating absolute legends.
Too many people confuse strength with bullying.
Think that “toughness” means being cruel and emotionally repressed rather than, well, actually tough.
Think refusing to be compassionate is a sign of strength and machismo rather than the corrosive flaw that it is.
“We decided to risk melting our guns as a show of strength.” – Marillion’s “Living in FEAR”, 2018.
Hey, rodents are cute. Miller’s more like that parasitic humanoid in X-files. The one that lived in sewers and outdoor toilets.
So much this. Toxic masculinity is cowardice, cruelty, and childishness.
Give me caring fathers, men who stand on principles, and those who respect women in positions of expertise and authority.
I’ve seen a number of posts from ex-military guys, one a former Marine, reminding the troops that their swore an oath to uphold the Constitution, not Donald Trump’s fragile ego or Steven Miller’s fascism.
By the way, I saw a clip of Anderson Cooper interviewing David S. Glosser, Steven Miller’s uncle, calling Miller an “immigration hypocrite”. The family is here in America because of family immigration as a grandfather and grandmother of Miller’s immigrated from Russia in the early 1920s fleeing pogroms in their native Belorussia. Much of the family died in the Holocaust.
Robro @5
Would that republicans in congress remember their oath, which I’m pretty sure was not to uphold those things, either.
good stuff, although comparing Miller to rodents is an insult to rodents.
I was going to send the NIH link to a study showing that rats (unlike Miller) have empathy, but it’s broken. More Trump shit? Dunno. Here’s another link: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41386-019-0572-8
Why hasn’t Sask. called for military help? The province says it needs wildfire expertise
Wow, different tasks require different skill sets and training? Hooda Thunkett‽
I remember the first time they tried to arrest Clive Bundy. Swarms of idiots in cammo and webbing vests pointing rifles at cops from behind cover. I remember the Ferguson protests. Cops cosplayed heavily armed BMX bandits pointing high powered rifles at protesters carrying cardboard placards. You tell me which protesters had courage and which didn’t.
As much as I should despise neocon bastard Bill Kristol and maybe otters in the Bulwark orbit, I still follow him on Bluesky because as hated as he was a generation ago, even he tapped out on shit like this. That’s scary. His breaking point was transcended by MAGA?
hillaryrettig1 @7
To me “rodent-like visage” conjures up an image of cute squeaky guinea pigs, chinchillas, and hamsters. Rats have more negative connotations being known as pest species for good reason, but anyone who can get past that should find them to be good pets. Snakes have a similar image problem, though they can help mitigate a rodent problem. I’m not saying we scour the Everglades to find the right python to deal with Miller. People might be saying that, but I am not.
Hemidactylus @10 What did otters do to deserve your contempt?
Rob Grigjanus @3
and
hillaryrettig1 @7
I hear you. As someone who read all the Freddy the Pig books as a child, I find the practice of calling the Police, ICE etc. “Pigs” highly offensive.
Also I do find it a repugnant idea that people are saying Stephen Miller recently got cucked by Elon. I mean I don’t even want to envision that scene. Thanks people!!!! Why did you put that out there?
I mean I would not say “Damn Katie you need corrective lenses AND a better moral compass”. Others might say that, but not me.
Musk never tweeted “Boom I got your girlfriend!”
Grok itself even got it wrong:
https://www.thedailybeast.com/musk-trashes-his-own-ai-over-embarrassing-post-about-him-taking-stephen-millers-wife/
So this is NOT the soundtrack of Elon and Katie. A Stephenrat vs Muskrat is a bad choice array for anyone if they found themselves in that position:
https://youtu.be/msyc4rkL4Co?si=7qYuUcCsn1nnF4M3
Militant Agnostic @12
I really otter pay more mind to the spelling of “other”. Was not the first time I let that slide.
“Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough.” – FDR
Oblig. at mention of stephen miller
“There’s a theory in the field of aesthetics called the uncanny valley. It holds that when something looks almost like a human being […] it creates revulsion in the observer, because the appearance is so close to human, yet just off enough to evoke a feeling of uncanniness, of something that is both familiar and alien.” – Blake Crouch
@ 3
Fluke Man. You’re thinking of Fluke Man.
Glad to finally see protesters carrying American flags.
Wasn’t it only about 50 years ago that women were “too masculine?” I heard that if you give women the pill, the next thing you know, they’ll be tying up Dabney Coleman. Well that’s at least one crisis averted.
StevoR@1:
Do you know what I call the toughest people I’ve ever known?
Mothers.
I think we have our first tank man!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I hope for more!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
https://bsky.app/profile/jeremotographs.bsky.social/post/3lr2gk2jplk2y
Sorry, I forgot to include the link. I blame the deep state/s
Me: what was the fate of tankman — the dude with the shopping bag in front of a tank?
Bubblebot: The fate of Tank Man, the unidentified protester who stood in front of a column of tanks in Beijing on June 5, 1989, remains unknown.
After blocking the tanks, he was eventually removed by two unknown individuals. Some speculate they were government agents, while others believe they were concerned civilians. The Chinese government has never confirmed his identity or whereabouts. Jiang Zemin, then General Secretary, once stated that he believed Tank Man was not killed, but provided no further details.
—
You really sure you hope for more, rock-hugger?
I doubt he has had a long and healthy and happy life after that incident.
(Martyrs and symbols, O my!)
So…. Has anyone here finished the last season of Andor? It seems right on point at this time…
Phrenotopian, even did I have a Disney+ subscription, I’d not care to watch that derivative shit.
But sure, I’ll bite: how does it seem right on point at this time?