America Was Built by Rough Men
A Case for Recapturing Manhood
“For the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.”
Declaration of Independence
America was built by rough men. Men that understood sacrifice and toil for the greater good of the idea of America. From the men who signed the Declaration of Independence who were willing to sacrifice their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor. To the rough men that blazed a trail west, to the men that have sacrificed everything in defense of the American idea. America has been defined by rough men who are willing to do what others were not.
As men our masculinity is being stripped from us, everywhere we look the media holds up weak men as the standard for the way in which we should act. Rarely can you turn on a television program and not see a strong woman running the family as the husband bumbles around like a grown child. There has been a conscious effort to weaken men in the court of public opinion and claim that all rough men are bad and the ideal state for man is to be harmless.
To be a good man is not to be a weak or harmless man, a weak man is just as dangerous as a rough man gone bad. Those rough men that intimidate, bully, and abuse give rough men a bad name and have only given us the choice between the rough man that is bad and the weak man that is good.
“A harmless man is not a good man. A good man is a dangerous man, who has that under control.”
Jordan Peterson
By under control Jordan Peterson means disciplined. He means someone that has the capacity to do harm but has the moral compass to ensure that harm is not done unless necessary. These are the men that have the capability for darkness and mayhem but realize the consequences of acting on it.
This is not a blog to lift good men at the expense of women. As a country we also need a country full of good women as well. What I am writing about is a reaction to the societies weakening of men. Of a society that is attempting to diminish the role that men play by telling them that their natural masculine inclinations are somehow wrong.
Masculinity is what makes rough men, and a rough man is a man of sacrifice. A man that cannot stand idly by while people are being bullied or abused. A man that feels a sense of duty to be the protector, both to those he loves but also to the ideas that he holds dear. A man that is dangerous when he needs to be but is caring when the situation calls for it. A man that knows the dangers of reliance on government and holds freedom as the defining principle of their lives.
SOLDIERS
“People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.” George Orwell
Soldiers are the definition of rough men, men that are willing to do violence for the sake of a cause greater than themselves and do so without asking for anything in return. Freedom is built on the backs of these rough men and the cost has been great both physically and mentally.
Why do men do these jobs? What would make them sacrifice to the extent that is required? They do not do it for the fame or for the money so what truly makes a rough man make that sacrifice? For myself I can say the decision was made from a sense of duty to the country that has given us all so much.
As soldiers we have paid the price for freedom, we have answered the call to stand watch when others would not, and most would pay it again and again so as Orwell said people could “sleep peaceably in their beds at night”.
INTELLECTUAL ROUGH MAN
Rough men are not only men that put their physical safety in peril, but those who also have the intellectual courage to stand up for their beliefs regardless of popular opinion. While it is easier to find rough men in the physical sense, it is rarer to find rough men in the intellectual arena. Those that can put aside all criticism and stand for what they feel is truly right.
It is hard to be an intellectual rough man, in a society full of those that do not question, it can become very costly to be the person that stands up against the tide of public opinion. To stand strong when the scorn and criticism is being hurled at them at every turn.
Freedom is currently under attack in our country, from increased government intervention in our lives, to our increased acceptance of government support, we have seen a degradation of freedom and self-reliance. In previous generations the fight of the rough man has been on the battlefield, today the fight is for ideas. We need intellectual rough men to stand up and trumpet the cause of freedom and secure it for the next generation.
FATHERS
Regardless of what you may see in popular culture, to raise a good man a father is required to play a role in the life of their son. While I applaud all the single mothers out there that are struggling to get by and doing the best that they can with their sons, we are seeing a failure in society in sons that were raised without a good man as a father.
Our society is irreparably harmed when sons lack fathers, from crime, to gangs, to drug use, boys will seek out father figures wherever they can find them. The issue becomes when those father figures are those that lead them on a path of their own destruction.
We have heard a lot lately about how women can do anything a man can do.
“there’s not a single thing that a man can do that a woman can’t do as well or better,”
Joe Biden
They cannot be fathers; they cannot be that strong example of what it is to be a good man. This is not to take away from mothers, sons need their mothers as well, the traits that a mother brings in the nurturing of our sons is vital to their development and I applaud all the great mothers out there, but they cannot teach our sons how to be men.
TO OUR SONS
Good men are built by being raised by rough men, not by weak men. Sadly, we have started to see a culture where men are told to be weak, there has been an attempt to feminize men and alter our true nature. Our true nature as men is to be dangerous, but it is also to be virtuous. To be disciplined enough to know the harm and destruction that we can cause but to only display it when absolutely necessary. Sadly, I feel that these are not the traits that we are passing on to our sons.
Being a rough man does not mean being uncaring, unemotional, or insensitive. Rough men are protectors, they are often those that are willing to sacrifice for those things that they truly care about. They can often be a little rough around the edges at first glance, but, good men have a sense of duty, and attempt to always do what is right regardless of the costs. These are the type of men that built this country and will also be the saviors when the situation turns bad.
Currently we are raising a generation of men that are addicted to video games and porn that have a refusal to grow up and take on the responsibilities of manhood. While this does not characterize all members of the next generation more and more males are shirking the responsibilities of manhood that are normally passed down from generation to generation.
We need fathers of this generation to step up and to start raising rough men capable of taking on the challenges for the next generation. What happens when the next generation of men step into that role and are not prepared to carry the mantle of manhood? When we have a country full of weak men that cannot act as the protectors of freedom? What happens when we have a country full of intellectually weak men that are not willing to trumpet the cause of freedom?
I refuse to be pessimistic and believe that in the end rough men, both physically and intellectually will step up to the plate when the time comes to be that protector of freedom. For that to happen though, fathers need to ensure that the opportunity to raise these rough men does not slip through their fingers. That we take advantage of the time we have with our sons to change course in a culture that is attempting to weaken our sons. It is up to us as fathers, like our fathers before us, to ensure that we provide the protectors necessary to carry on the task of securing freedom for the next generation.
I will leave you with a quote from D.H Lawrence that gives us a warning:
“Men fight for liberty and win it with hard knocks. Then their children, brought up easy, let it slip away again, poor fools. And their grandchildren are once more slaves.”
D.H. Lawrence