Manliness - For the Republicans

 Keep hearing Republicans talking about manliness (Josh Hawley, nothing you say will make you manly), and they sound mostly like nonsense to me. Overcompensation has that effect on me. (My PO has always presented a bellicose, browbeating attitude; he ahs left me thinking he is too neurotic about his own authority to be of use to me).

Well, today, Lapham's Quarterly provided something on the subject by my second favorite Republican.

Making a Man: Theodore Roosevelt’s virtues for the American boy.

Aboy needs both physical and moral courage. Neither can take the place of the other. When boys become men they will find out that there are some soldiers very brave in the field who have proved timid and worthless as politicians, and some politicians who show an entire readiness to take chances and assume responsibilities in civil affairs but who lack the fighting edge when opposed to physical danger. In each case, with soldiers and politicians alike, there is but half a virtue. The possession of the courage of the soldier does not excuse the lack of courage in the statesman, and even less does the possession of the courage of the statesman excuse shrinking on the field of battle. Now, this is all just as true of boys. A coward who will take a blow without returning it is a contemptible creature; but, after all, he is hardly as contemptible as the boy who dares not stand up for what he deems right against the sneers of his companions who are themselves wrong. Ridicule is one of the favorite weapons of wickedness, and it is sometimes incomprehensible how good and brave boys will be influenced for evil by the jeers of associates who have no one quality that calls for respect, but who affect to laugh at the very traits which ought to be peculiarly the cause for pride.

Well, that pretty much damns every Republican in Congress and running for President. 

They may also want to read Kipling's If. It came to my mind after I started recovering myself. I will not let it go, again.

sch 10/29