August 7, 2012

"Liberals hate male strength. Liberals do not like male strength at all."

Proclaimed Rush Limbaugh the other day.
They don't like the use of force unless it's for their own ends.  They love the military when they run it, but at no other time.  They're a bunch of metrosexuals.  Metrosexual culture is pacifist.  That's why metrosexuals are liberals that rely on government force to perpetrate their agenda.  They don't do it themselves.  Government force takes the place of powerful men.
This came at the end of a rant about how liberals want to ban football. I thought it was a tad strange, actually, even though I do tend to think that liberals would like to set up the government so that women would see it as serving an array of purposes traditionally assigned to husbands.

68 comments:

Triangle Man said...

Rush is ripping off the anti-hipster rants and applying them to "liberals".

edutcher said...

They certainly hate anything like a strong male figure, that's for sure.

Think TV the last 60 years.

Ipso Fatso said...

Homo's in my neck of the woods, who tend to be lefties, are some big, muscly dudes. Not sure I agree with Rush on this one.

Farmer said...

Metrosexual men understand the benefits of moisturizing, I'll give them that.

Methadras said...

Ipso Fatso said...

Homo's in my neck of the woods, who tend to be lefties, are some big, muscly dudes. Not sure I agree with Rush on this one.


The muscle boys are a different type and level of hypermasculinity. Some of them are bisexual and into the dom/sub subculture. I don't think their example would even apply to what rush said and I could imagine that some of them aren't even liberal.

shiloh said...

Seriously Althouse, your Limbaugh fetish has totally consumed you lol. Much like mittens.

bagoh20 said...

When you imagine yourself the intellectual, then naturally the physically strong are the enemy. The only thing that your superior mind has to fear is a strong stupid man (wingnut).

I think this is the theme of a lot of scifi, and kind of a cultural classic.

test said...

Most of the football animosity derives from academia. There it is a competitor with victim studies for student and media attention.

There's a lesser current who dislike it as part of their fervent belief that all cultures are superior to American. Pay attention the next time the World Cup rolls around. People who hate American sports as as useless bourgeois wastes of time be lecturing you on the inherent superiority of a sport which regularly spawns drunkenness and rioting on a level even the Cocktail Party can't touch.

It's not metrosexualism.

Balfegor said...

I don't think liberals hate male strength at all. I'm sure some of them feel threatened by traditional displays of male strength. But there's a kind of hyper-macho peacocking that many liberal public figures engage in that suggests they revel in the image of male strength. I don't think it's just for the voters either.

Alex said...

bagoh - that's why geeks like me are hitting the gym hard.

bagoh20 said...

"Think TV the last 60 years."

At least the last 30 anyway. If any minority was represented the way straight men have been on TV for decades it would be "a civil rights issue that is eroding their self-esteem. I think it has actually eroded the esteem of men in the eyes of women. Women often treat me like an idiot, and I blame their TV choices.

Rusty said...

Dispite what women tell you, they really like a strong man.
A strong man that can fix things.
Red Green had a lot of insight on this.

chickelit said...

I didn't hear Limbaugh, but I think he is on to something. Take Atticus Finch for example. He shot a rabid dog in the street (at the behest of law enforcement) and shot another one down in the courtroom. Liberals are down with the latter but cringe at the former nowadays. Which act directly protected his family and which act defended the family writ larger? It's those individual acts that make liberals squeamish--perhaps because such acts are unevenly--and thus unfairly--distributed. Both acts impressed his children, yet the acts of ridiculed individual (Boo!) saved the children.

Farmer said...

bagoh20 said...
Women often treat me like an idiot, and I blame their TV choices.


It's not even fair to take a swing at a gigantic slowball like that.

bagoh20 said...

"bagoh - that's why geeks like me are hitting the gym hard."

I would think you get a pretty good workout just from running back and forth from left to right like you do.

traditionalguy said...

It's the digital devices. They give the young folks all the violence they can watch at warp speed until they are worn out.

And then their sexual satisfaction is shared over the internet too. How is the Japanese disposable vagina market doing?

IMO Rush was throwing out the prime red meat for us boomers. He is an entertainer first. Nice rant Rush.

Politicising football sounds so wrong. It's a boys game with bruises, breaks and knee injuries that are acceptable.

But the football culture does face a very serious problem: The players are a third heavier and a third faster since 1980. So their kinetic energy being mass times the magnitude of velocity has nearly doubled.

But the defense for soft brain tissue inside the skull has not doubled.

Football is therefore sentencing our gladiators to Muhammed Ali brains as they age.

Peter said...

Then there's the way many conservatives in the blogosphere subscribe to what I like to call The Quasi-Homoerotic Black Male Physical Superiority Fetish. They believe that compared to men of other races black men usually are larger, stronger, and with far superior street fighting skills. Of course poor George Zimmerman had to shoot; when oush comes (literally) to shove, a non-black adult man is no match for a scrawny black teenager.

ignatzk said...

As long as someone else comes up with the money, liberals prefer a matriarchy of committees.

campy said...

The Quasi-Homoerotic Black Male Physical Superiority Fetish

This is about your 3rdh or 4th attempt to hijack a discussion to this "topic," isn't it?

Lotsa luck.

Anonymous said...

Then there's the way many progressives in the blogosphere subscribe to what I like to call The Quasi-Homoerotic Black Male Physical Superiority Fetish. They believe that compared to men of other races black men usually are larger, stronger, and with far superior street fighting skills and have greater moral authority. So, when confronted with a scrawny black teenager they just get in the fetal position and take the beating.
They'd rather have a ruptured kidney than be called 'racistt.

Pettifogger said...

Ann Althouse said: "[E]ven though I do tend to think that liberals would like to set up the government so that women would see it as serving an array of purposes traditionally assigned to husbands."

When is the government going to install a designated roach and spider killer in each home?

Bruce Hayden said...

I thought it was a tad strange, actually, even though I do tend to think that liberals would like to set up the government so that women would see it as serving an array of purposes traditionally assigned to husbands.

I don't listen to Rush much (often out of range of a decent AM channel carrying him), but happened to hear this rant of his. I think he went on about metrosexuals a bit too.

And, I do think that Rush overstates his case, but...

I think that we have seen a big feminization movement in the education industry, and esp. K-12, but also at the university level, and that you may be too close to see this, being a part of it (the university, and probably not the feminization, per se).

I noted when my kid was coming up through school, how things had changed in the 40 years between us. In public schools, they tend now in a lot of cases to medicate rather than give the boys their needed exercise, and group projects are far more important now. Back when I was in school, I could get As in classes that I would likely now get low Bs or Cs in, because I would ace the tests, and skimp on the homework, and didn't do group projects well (mostly because which group you get into often determines your grade).

If you rig the grading systems K-12 to prefer or benefit girls, then should it be any surprise that more of them go to college? And, if college is now more feminized (same problems with grading - just not as bad - yet), should anyone be surprised if more women are graduating than men? And, yes, some of the more masculine parts of college seem to have been downgraded a bit too, such as football and fraternities, and the elimination of male sports to fund female sports, despite the difference in interest in participation in such between the two sexes.

machine said...

What a bunch of crap...and you all eat it up.

Why didn't Rush enter the military and serve his country? A boil kept him out, right?

What a manly man...

Alex said...

But think about how NFL violence is worshiped. Fans love when players get their "bells rung" or "flattened" by a devastating hit that "sends them into next week". We love the violence. The NFL stadiums are the modern Roman Colosseum. Bread and circuses, non stop!

Freeman Hunt said...

I'm not in favor of banning football, but there's no way I'd allow my kids to play it with the recent studies about the brain damage it seems to be causing. I'm guessing this stems from equipment that is too protective and so encourages the players to make dangerously hard hits with their heads.

Tim said...

Federal and state welfare policy completely diminishes the value of men to families; federal and state welfare policy provides cash incentives for women to have families without men (beyond insemination, that is); federal and state environmental and labor policies diminish the value of traditionally male jobs such as construction and manufacturing; federal and state education policies forced schools to eliminate traditional male sports like wrestling to provide "equal" opportunities for women in athletics under Title IX; federal and state policies empower women to kill their unwanted child in utero without any say so from fathers while forcing fathers to provide financial support for children they did not want, again without their say so. Everyone knows all of this to the point these are mundane facts; equally true is that all of these policies, even if conservative opposition was worn down or muted to the point of near silence, were aggressively promoted by liberals.

There's a reason why women, particularly single women, register and vote Democrat disproportionate to all other electoral cohorts.

Who's their daddy? Uncle Sam.

Just ask "Julia."

Amartel said...

Hey, shout out to Quasi-Homoerotic Physically Superior black guy obsession commenter! Finding the time to work out his issues in between watching track & field events on the TeeVee.

Æthelflæd said...

Almost all the men in my life, on both sides of the family, played football. None of them are addled in the brain. My son is playing football, and I am very happy he has the opportunity. It is a fun way for boys to learn how to work through the sweat and the pain that real life will bring later. I worry about him driving more than the football playing. Statistically, I believe I am being quite rational. Anyway, if we don't want our young men turning soft, I guess some of us mothers have to be Spartan about things - come back with your shield, or on it.

Tim said...

Alex said...

"But think about how NFL violence is worshiped. Fans love when players get their "bells rung" or "flattened" by a devastating hit that "sends them into next week". We love the violence. The NFL stadiums are the modern Roman Colosseum. Bread and circuses, non stop!"

Indeed. Packer fans will be cringing when the 'Niner D crushes the Geisha Girl-like Packer O-line and abuses Aaron Rodgers like a hungry Pit Bull with a squirrel.

Can't wait!

Bruce Hayden said...

I also think that there is something to the idea on the left that the state should replace men in families. The Julias of this world don't want to be bothered with having to deal with male peculiarities. Rather, they want to have and raise their kids their way. If they need to look to the state, then fine. That is what it is there for.

Of course, they ignore the reality that their kids will most likely be losers in life, regardless of whether we remain somewhat capitalistic, or go more socialistic, because boys raised without strong father figures tend to not be properly socialized, which means that they are more likely to end up in prison or as general slackers, and girls raised are more likely to need male approval, etc.

Of course, as is most common, and inevitable, this falls prey to the law of unintended consequences. Not only do the young males not come out properly socialized, a lot of them these days seem to see no reason to settle down into a career. Rather, we have the slacker generation, where they live at home, and maybe work enough to support their play. And why not? If they are unlucky enough to father children, they won't be responsible for them. Or, maybe they will, but are unlikely to be able to have much impact on raising them, outside paying to raise them.

It probably shouldn't be much of a surprise that females are happier with the communitarian approach of the progressives than are men. Males tend to be much more hierarchical, and thus are much happier with not spreading the wealth around as much, but rather, rewarding based on hard work, intelligence, etc., which is the anti-thesis of progressive and socialist dogma.

Finally, how do you explain the hyper-masculinity of the leadership on the left? My theory is that a lot of them got into it because they saw that they could succeed there, esp. in the Democratic party, but more generally in progressive/socialist circles, than they could elsewhere. Note how much more often Republican politicians are self-made, and how they tend to be better looking (implying, I think, that they could get their success, both financially and sexually outside of politics). The libs often come across as hyper-masculine because their power is a result of their political power, and not their innate power as a male (think no further than our mom-jeans President and his closest male advisors, and how masculine his Administration is at the top).

Amartel said...

Ann Althouse said: "[E]ven though I do tend to think that liberals would like to set up the government so that women would see it as serving an array of purposes traditionally assigned to husbands."

New OFA campaign ad:
Ladies, the government will, like, totally screw you! Hard!!

Freeman Hunt said...

Anyway, if we don't want our young men turning soft, I guess some of us mothers have to be Spartan about things - come back with your shield, or on it.

So it's play football or you'll turn soft?

Tim said...

"Of course, they ignore the reality that their kids will most likely be losers in life, regardless of whether we remain somewhat capitalistic, or go more socialistic, because boys raised without strong father figures tend to not be properly socialized, which means that they are more likely to end up in prison or as general slackers, and girls raised are more likely to need male approval, etc."

While there are obvious exceptions we've each seen, on balance, as supported by statistics on this, children raised by single mothers tend to be less educated, with more disciplinary , social adjustment and health problems, especially boys, than children from traditional, two parent, Mom and Dad families.

This in turn creates more demand for public programs.

Some might think this a bug, but for proponents of public social welfare programs, fostering dependency, especially multi-generational dependency, is clearly a feature.

It's one reason why voting Democrat, ever, is culturally self-defeating and, in the end, just plain immoral.

Michael said...

The high swings are gone from the playgrounds. The monkey bars have been lowered or removed. The dirt has been replaced by wood chips which have been replaced by rubber pellets. Bit by bit the allure of danger is being removed from us, trophy by trophy the competitive strain atrophies. We will deserve what we get and we will be getring it sooner than we expect.

This week a female referee will work a NFL game.

garage mahal said...

@Michael
Good article here at Salon on "safe" playgrounds.

There’s a public school just a few blocks away and the principal told me they’d had two to three broken bones this school year already,” says Frost. Meanwhile, over at Redeemer, “In three decades, we’ve averaged one per decade on our playground — and our kids jump off 4- to 6-foot decks at a dead run. They play chase games all over the equipment, and all over the country you’ll find schools that won’t even allow it.”

Alex said...

Freeman - yeah that's basically what she said. It's either be a pansy, lily-livered metrosexual or Spartan. There is no in between. Choose now.

Synova said...

Gymnastics is at least as dangerous as football, and I've heard that cheerleading of the competitive sort is even worse than that (as it's gymnastics with none of the safeguards.)

It's sort of Rush's job to be over the top, and he tends to be good at that.

But I think there is a great deal to the distaste of violence and simply competition that deserves the ridicule. It's hard for parents to accept any physical risk at all, of course, but I wonder if we are to ready to accept the idea that the proper amount of risk is none.

And yes, people do enjoy watching other people do dangerous things, be it football or the rodeo that was on television last night. It's not about wanting someone to get hurt, at least for most people, about admiration for someone who is daring.

The difference might be... Do we admire the test pilot or find him sort of primitively masculine and vulgar? Can we imagine an astronaut dying terribly on the surface of Mars and believing it was worth it?

Is the most important thing being safe?

I've been pondering a related issue for a couple of weeks, actually, and decided that without one-up-manship we'd likely all still be living in caves.

But we're not supposed to admire that human trait either. WE got curiosity to Mars. Neener-neener. Now what can YOU do?

Pulled us out of the stone age, that did.

And I think that our modern, very safe, life might be making a terrible misstep to make non-risk and non-competitiveness into the ultimate virtues.

edutcher said...

machine said...

What a bunch of crap...and you all eat it up.

Why didn't Rush enter the military and serve his country? A boil kept him out, right?

What a manly man...


The mindless automaton thinks you have to be a Green Beret to be a strong man?

How positively macho!

Such an attitude will get him drummed out of the Men's Auxiliary of NOW.

Titus said...

When I think of Rush I think of episodes of The Family Guy when Peter Griffin takes his clothes off and no one can see his cock.

Nothing is more unmanly then being naked and because you are a fat fuck no one can see your cock.

That is just so unmanly and nasty.

shiloh said...

So Titus is sayin' Althouse's lover boy has bigger tits than hers.

Synova said...

"Why didn't Rush enter the military and serve his country? A boil kept him out, right?

What a manly man...
"

They gave me a penis when I enlisted. I had to give it back, though.

dbp said...

bagoh20 said,

"Women often treat me like an idiot, and I blame their TV choices".

I agree, but have found a relationship between the kind of women who treat me like an idiot and those who don't.

Women who treat me like an idiot:

1. Ones that don't know me well.
2. Single women.
3. Women married to idiots.

Women who don't treat me like an idiot:

1. Women who know me well.
2. Married women who have smart husbands.

Æthelflæd said...

"So it's play football or you'll turn soft?"

No, but I think the calls for banning football are a symptom of our safety-is-the-ultimate-good culture. As others have said, this is not the culture that produced pioneers and walks on the moon. I want my sons (and daughters) to take risks, and value men that do.

Freeman Hunt said...

No, but I think the calls for banning football are a symptom of our safety-is-the-ultimate-good culture.

I can agree with that.

Carnifex said...

Julia didn't make this. Someone else made it happen

The Meme

bagoh20 said...

Shana,

You are my Christian Grey.

bagoh20 said...

See, this is what happened at Roswell back in 1947. The aliens came down planing conquest, but ran into the greatest generation's men. They got their ass kicked, and came up with a new strategy. They planted the seed of feminization. Let's call it The Great Feminization Insemination. Then they waited for germination and eventual flowering where we are today. They will be returning shortly to mop up that conquest. "To serve man".

Astro said...

The problems with this are numerous including:
1. Rush is really following up on the rant of baseball-loving/football hating George Will, who's a conservative, not a lefty. As a conservative, Will has always come across as a rather wimpy guy. So Rush's rant starts off on soft ground.
2. George Will pontificates like he's the pope of neuro-medicine. When did he get his medical license? He got second hand info from a doctor or medical report somewhere, and we're supposed to believe that BS?
3. Will ignores advances in technology. At some point, a sports company will develop a new soft-shell helmet around a lightweight plastic cage that does a better job of protecting both the wearer and the player who gets whacked by the helmet. Likewise, new shoulder pads that are cushioned on both sides to protect the tackler and tackle-ee. And when this happens George Will's whiny complaints will be conveniently forgotten.

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

Liberal women admire a strong man, as much as most women do. No one wants a pushover, no on wants a Neanderthal either. There is middle ground here despite what Alex said.

My son played football, did "boy" things that made me turn my head, because watching made me gasp with fear. He drag races cars that he's souped up, works as a millwright journeyman. He's a liberal and a union member.

Limbaugh is simply "entertaining" his flock again.

Æthelflæd said...

The thing that interested me about Will's column was the comments. There seemed to be a "football is what those ignorant red-state hicks do with their boys" theme runnng through them. I wonder how that will play out in the future. I think I have an idea.

Anonymous said...

And my daughter wears Marine boots.

Æthelflæd said...

Bagoh20, I had to google Christian Grey.

Uh, thanks?

Brian Brown said...

Interesting.

I was just listening to an Army drill Sergeant and a black wrestling coach rail on this topic yesterday.

The Drill Sarge said the level of "pussiness" ingrained in today's 18 years olds is unbelievable.

The wrestling coach said the same thing but with gentler words.

Brian Brown said...

Peter said...

Then there's the way many conservatives in the blogosphere subscribe to what I like to call The Quasi-Homoerotic Black Male Physical Superiority Fetish


Stop projecting your sick sexual fantasies here.

There are other blogs for that.

Synova said...

I think that it's sort of silly to view the military as some particularly masculine thing, but the question of what is masculine and what is feminine is one I always found rather confounding. Yes, there are male and female differences in both outlook and physical expression, that's not what I'm talking about.

Men and women are both profoundly, biologically, protective. There are a couple of reasons that the military is better suited to men than women but as far as I can tell those reasons are practical ones rather than a matter or manliness or femininity. Men are physically stronger, women have babies.

Testosterone seems connected to youthful risk behavior, so in that sense removing risk is feminizing, and the military involves more risk than some other occupations. (Though I have to say that I've known a remarkable number of young women with the self-preservation instincts of an armadillo crossing a Kansas highway.)

Maybe it's nothing particularly more significant than wanderlust. One doesn't, of course, say so, but given a choice in an all-volunteer situation and barring a huge event like 9-11, does an 18 or 20 year old go out of duty, or is it about a need for adventure?

As I said, one doesn't *say* that, but I know too many homebodies that make no sense at all to me. They may vacation at the ends of the world, but they never ever leave home. Ever.

J Lee said...

Will seems to harbor a bit of a grudge against football for displacing baseball as the No. 1 U.S. spectator sport back in the 1970s. But he is correct in that concerns over concussions will allow the tort lawyers to eat the sport alive unless the NFL, colleges and high school federations take proactive measures as soon as possible to lower the incidents of head injuries (which will be intensely focused on in news reports during the upcoming NFL and college seasons when they happen).

Meanwhile, the difference between someone like Will, conservative or liberal, and others mentioned above, who do take the attitude of "Everything's better outside of America" is that those types wouldn't be major proponents of the return of baseball to dominance of the American sporting public's dollar; they're the ones who are the soccer fanatics, mainly because others in the U.S. aren't (and soccer's perpetual problem from a TV spectator's aspect is even on HDTV screens, you can't see the plays developing, because much of the strategy happens away from the ball. In football, baseball and basketball the strategy is almost always near the ball, which means fans on TV usually have a better view of the game at home than at the stadium. That's not true with soccer).

PianoLessons said...

All one really has to do is Google Kurt Vonnegut's wonderful short story (VERY SHORT) "Harrison Bergeron" to understand what Rush was trying to say ------in less litary terms.

Plus - this story is a complete MUST READ for our times......make sure you spend ten minutes with the free copies all over the web....

Enlightening.

AlanKH said...

Maybe this supports Rush's hypothesis...Does watching football lead to domestic violence?

As I recall, Rush once directly addressed this meme ages ago.

Kovacs said...

Football is a very gay sport. The tight, garish costumes; the men grappling and lying on top of each other in big piles. The cheerleaders are there to help all those manly men in the stands convince themselves that they're watching something other than a big, gay pagaent.

Rush's epitome of male strength: men in tight, gaudy costumes piling on each other while their socialist, revenue-sharing overlords sip champagne in skyboxes.

Rusty said...

It has nothing to do with liberal or conservative, straight or gay.
What it has to do with is when there is something that needs to be done, no matter what, the real man doesn't stand around waiting for the consensus he goes and does what needs to be done.
As Mclain would say'That's why he's "that guy"'.
The fact that you have to stand around and talk about what makes up that guy means you ain't that guy.

Robert Cook said...

"And my daughter wears Marine boots."

For many years I couldn't figure out why or how this line, "Your mother wars army boots!" (probably pronounced as muddah) was an insult.

After mulling it over, I came to my own conclusion, which is the only one that makes sense to me, but perhaps others can offer another:

If a man's military accoutrements--"army boots," say--were found in a woman's home whose husband was away at war, it indicated she was sleeping with another man who was still stateside. Saying "your mother wears army boots" was an ironic way to refer to the presence of this "other man" in her boudoir.

Kids today have never heard this insult at all, I'm sure. I was born in the 50s, but one still heard this reference when I was young, in movies or cartoons of WWII vintage.

Robert Cook said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Robert Cook said...

With regard to Limbaugh's incredibly inane remarks, I have to recall the judgement made by an eminent contemporary commenter, "Rush Limbaugh Is A Big, Fat Idiot."

As true today as ever.

Anonymous said...

Robert Cook, I was born in the 50's also, but never knew the true meaning of the phrase. I should clarify she really DOES wear Marine boots, her own. :)

Kevin said...

This is all about oikophobia, not anti-masculinity specifically.

Lefties are in a constant state of reliving junior high and high school. Male football and basketball teams domintated most people's junior high and high school experiences, and everyone else saw themselves as oppressed by the jocks. Most people got over it and moved on with life. Lefties didn't, and you see it everywhere from Glee to A Chorus Line to True Blood etc.

Amartel said...

"Football is a very gay sport."

We see what we want to see.

Kovacs said...

"We see what we want to see."

Exactly. That's why football fans see an activity where men in tight pants bend over, grapple one another, sit and lie on top of one another, and slap one another's asses as something other than extremely gay.