All a man wants is to come home from a long day at work to a grateful wife and children who are glad to see him, and dinner cooking on the stove. This is literally all it takes to make a man happy. We are simple. Give us this and you will have given us nearly everything we need.
There's a lot going on there, but French immediately changes the subject to the question whether respect is "a key to happiness and meaning." And then the bulk of the column is about veterans returning from war who are often terribly unhappy, even when the world offers them great respect and they may have a loving family.
French himself served in the military — in Iraq — and he recalls coming home to his wife and children and still feeling "bereft" and "empty." He missed his military comrades and the "very clear, decisive and delineated mission" of the military. And: "Nothing at home was comparable to the sheer intensity of my deployment abroad."
But French doesn't say what men need is discipline and intensity and other men. He says, in his conclusion, what men need is "virtuous purpose":
Virtuous purpose is worth more than any other person’s conditional and unreliable respect. It is rooted in service and sacrifice, not entitlement. And those qualities bring a degree of meaning and joy far more important than the gifts that others — the 'grateful' spouse who cooks dinner, the implausibly reverential children — can ever offer. What we do for others is infinitely more rewarding than what we ask them to do for us.
Matt Walsh and his wife have 6 children. Why isn't creating and keeping a stable, loving home with children and a wife all the virtuous purpose a man needs? There's plenty of "service and sacrifice" there. Walsh said he worked all day and felt happy to come home to a wife and children who are glad to see him. He didn't say he needed the children to be "implausibly reverential," only glad — glad to see him.
The only problem with Walsh's tweet is that it's not just simple appreciation of his own life. He generalizes the simplicity: "We are simple." The simple counter-example of mentally troubled veterans powered French's essay. We are not that simple.
And yet French ended up on his own generalization: virtuous purpose. Isn't that also a "hallmark of much right-wing discourse"?
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According to Louis Armstrong, they’re both right:
A man wants to work for his pay
A man wants a place in the sun
A man wants a gal proud to say
That she'll become his lovin' wife
He wants a chance to give his kids a better life
Well hello, hello, hello brother
That is, assuming that the ideas of wanting to work for pay and giving kids a better life encompasses the idea of virtuous purpose.
These two ideas are two parts of a whole and not in tension with one another. We all need the self respect that comes from fulfilling a purpose and the respect of others that comes from building an intimate relationship with someone who will reflect respect back to us while we do the same for the other person. This, in my view, was what was lacking in the days of the patriarchal dominant culture because too many men took women for granted. The correct remedy would have been for women to demand respect for their feminine genius, but the feminist movement went the other way and decided they should show men what it felt like to not have respect.
As a matter of principle, it's not libertarian. As a matter of principle, it's anarchist in the left-right nexus.
Productivity is a hallmark of evolutionary fitness.
Virtuous purpose is a hallmark of some religions, notably Jewish, Christian, etc.
Leveraged virtue is a hallmark of left-wing ideology in service to a democratic/dictatorial regime with "benefits".
From the post:
"And yet French ended up on his own generalization: virtuous purpose. Isn't that also a "hallmark of much right-wing discourse?"
It depends on how you define 'virtuous.' To a devotee of socialism, state control and central planning are virtues. To a devotee of capitalism, profit and growth of GDP are virtues. I'm oversimplifying, but it's not hard to see how definitions can lead to opposite goals.
As a retired disabled veteran, attorney, and father of five, I find Mr. French to be insufferable. He wears his "deployment" like a parasitic skin suit. He went to Iraq as a JAG lawyer, if I recall correctly, and if you are unhappy with your family or your situation when you return from deployment as an attorney, then you are just an unhappy individual who thinks that the grass is greener apart from your family. He reminds me of partners who complain about life in big law. He should not write articles pretending to understand what gun bunnies go through on patrol or in battle or trying to vicariously glom onto the respect that is due to those closer to the fight. Thanks for your objective assessments on things, Ann; your ability to hold things at arm's length is a rarity in the blogosphere these days.
No one should ever listen to what David French has to say about manhood. We revoked his card years ago.
It starts with "we are simple," but when you get down to the nitty gritty of those simple needs--he wants his family to be glad to see him when he comes home from work, which means he needs a family. And work--he needs to be a major, if not THE major, financial resource for his family. Which gets to French's "purpose." And so on. Keep digging and it'll keep getting more complicated.
You are looking for insight in all the wrong places.
Happiness and meaningfulness are pretty obviously not the same thing. (See, e.g., Susan Wolf, Charles Taylor.) Coming home to respect and family and a hot meal is definitely a ticket to male happiness. Coming home from a remunerated days' work in support of your family -- as Professor Althouse ably points out -- is where we start to get into meaningfulness territory.
Walsh knows this. And French knows this. And French knows Walsh knows this.
French is being uncharitable because he needed to fill column inches. It's really depressing.
Men need family.
Quite a world we live in when a perfect obvious and benign statement can be so viciously attacked as Walsh's has been.
Democrats ought to be able to win; they control everything. But they are around-the-bend out of the minds.
None of this was left wing or right wing a generation ago. Following the left's obsession with (fictional and/or non-actionable) unconscious biases and targeting all things male they created a brand new ideological dead end. Feminism begat transgender support begat hate speech and speech codes begat the Jordan Peterson backlash begat the left walking the plank into self-contradiction.
The species needs functional and effective males. The species needs functional and effective females. There's plenty of room for individual differences but core reproduction and continuation needs remain core needs. Ideologies that don't respect this wander off the cliff.
Words don't need to be technically "correct" if people successfully follow in the footsteps of their ancestors and produce a similarly reproductive next generation. This is the... now conservative(?) ... backstop for all political debates. Come home to a wife and children or come home to play video games and watch p0rn?
Sounds good to me.
"All a man wants is to come home from a long day at work to a grateful wife and children who are glad to see him, and dinner cooking on the stove. This is literally all it takes to make a man happy. "
This is true as a generalization about men, but what those among us who insist on trying to design the perfect society do is to focus on the edge cases, if I may quote a Russian, Tolstoy said that "every happy family is happy in the same way, but every unhappy family has its own story." I would argue with that as an absolute truth, but still, when we try to create a society that works for every single person, we are doomed to failure, and perhaps we do more harm by taking cultural patrimony from some who actually could profit from traditions, to try to help others who, like Jesus said, "will always be with us."
Our dominant culture is being purposely destroyed, men being the main target. At least two of those Super Bowl commercials last night had elements of the humiliation of the kinds of men who become dadsl in their "sales pitch."
Traditional family is the enemy of marxists.
Not a typo. I no longer capitalize marxist or democrat.
"a hallmark of much right-wing discourse about masculinity."
Left-wingers are hostile to masculinity and fatherhood.
When a left-winger talks about family, he is hostile to patriarchy (i.e. fatherhood) and suggests that marriage and family subjugates women.
I think it's true that marriage and family subjugates women. Marriage and family also subjugates men. Both mothers and fathers are under God, subjugated to the family and the care of children.
In feminist world, men are demonized as fascist monsters. Women are innocent victims. Children do not exist until mom decides that her child exists and is worthy of her love.
Feminists also teach us that pregnancy does not concern men, or babies, only women. It is woman's health care to terminate an unloved baby.
Roe v. Wade, written by nine men, was not a feminist opinion. It was an opinion designed to rid the world of single moms by giving single moms the right to terminate unwanted children.
Single moms have skyrocketed since Roe v. Wade, because Harry Blackmun and the boys were idiots and liberals in general are oblivious to the possibility of "unintended consequences."
If you liberate human sexuality from pregnancy and love, you will get a lot of mean fucking and infanticide.
If you want to be happy and joyful, it is best for a man and a woman to find each other, love each other, form an imperfect union, and love any children that show up because of all the fucking.
“Respect” versus “a demand for respect” - that is the key distinction. A demand for respect is different than respect given voluntarily when it was never selfishly sought in the first place. What a man needs (what do I know but let’s roll with it) - what a man needs is strong connections of love, the same thing I presume women want and need. From my own random walk in life, it is occurring to me more and more than strong connections of love are best achieved by turning outward and helping others. Pulling things toward oneself in a demanding or selfish way is a recipe for a shrinking soul and alienation from others, it has been my experience.
To many, these things are self evident. To some, this is all genuinely invisible and inconceivable. (close your eyes, see Wally Shawn NOW)
The some are hogging the mike, to the detriment of the many. The many are tired of being bullied by the some. There's a LOT of tension. How it resolves will determine the next few years of our temporary future. It warrants our attention.
I can attest that this is true and self-evident even for those who, like me, do not have children and grandchildren. I can only imagine the degree to which my attention and interest would be magnified if I did.
Like most arguments, they are not arguing the same thing. Walsh addressed mens' happiness and fulfillment. French talked about post-combat let-down. Not comparable.
I am just starting a recently published book "The Good Life", by Robert Waldinger and Marc Schulz. They describe the ongoing results of the Harvard Study of Adult Development, the eighty-four(and counting) year-old investigation into happiness. The bottom line appears to be that good relationships, of all kinds, are what keeps us happy and healthy. So now we just have to define good.
French feels "bereft and angry" ever since Trump was elected. That's another reason why we should have left Iraq alone. Trump was right.
I remember there was a back and forth between Eric Weinstein and Jordan Peterson as to wether respect was negotiated between people (the JP position) or it was something you granted people because they are alive. I thought it was peculiar that it was Eric, the more principally secular of the two, that seemed to recognise the divinity of human beings.
I believe our divinity part is triggered by service, and can keep us going back/coming back for more.
"I'm simple. All I want is for others to structure their lives around my needs, without any effort on my part. Put another way, I'm a narcissist. And I'm lazy. Indulge my narcissism and my laziness, and you will have given me nearly everything I need."
He's a child who wants his mommy to take care of him and his toys to play with. Notice that he says "give me this." Adult life is about earning things, not things being given to you. It should include learning about other people and making them happy. It's on him to make himself into the kind of person whom others want to serve, and whom others will be happy to see.
I cook dinner in our house, by the way. I enjoy it more than my wife does, and it makes me happy to contribute to the family that way.
This post is all over the board.
French changes the subject entirely. Walsh can only be held to the words he wrote. Its nothing but trolling when French adds what he claims are Walsh's "true" message.
The respect thing is fairly simple. At least the way it was taught in our family
As kids we granted automatic respect to adults. That's really simple.
Also, special deference, (honor?) to some in our life.
Pastor
Teacher
Police
Military
ALL Seniors
Our behavior towards these people was automatic and non negotiable in public. As we got into the teen years, further nuance could be considered. Politeness could be substituted for respect. Any problems we had with a Teacher of Marine, could be talked about at the supper table, and our parents counseled a polite and gracefully leaving the room.
The short version, French was just trolling.
I served more than fifty years ago Getting off active duty and turning into a sillyvilian seemed kind of....not cool. But that was a matter of the times. Who'd want to be one of those....?
"virtuous purpose" has a near-infinite variety of varieties. Could be just keeping an eye on an elderly neighbor's home and lawn. And to spend a few moments every so often reviewing your plans for one or another problem....which is the best access for the EMT guys, just in case? I'd see an intruder from which window? I can use my push-reel lawnmower so i don't have to worry about when they nap. That keeps up my virtuous purpose--which is useless unless I keep my contingency planning up to scratch.
Happened to read a book by a really conservative Christian pastor about traditional roles in the family. Going to work isn't necessarily a power breakfast catered by a five-star outfit, followed by a really keen downsizing and a management retreat to Tahoe.
Dad comes home, not entirely sure of his job security, his boss is a jerk, he skipped lunch to save money and he got dissed at the DMV in his stop on the way home. All of which he is keeping o himself. He could use a serene and godly environment for a while at least, where people seem to think he's a good guy.
Anybody got a problem with that?
I “demand” children honor, respect and care for their mother. That’s all. If they fail to do that, I don’t expect them to be glad to see me. But they will see me (or hear from me.)
Extra points of approval for finding ways to help out around the house.
Oh, and with plenty of gas, electric and microwave ovens and stoves in the house, I can easily make my own hot meal if need be. Still, thanks for that warm bowl of risotto love. Can I get you anything?
--- the answer I came up with when I was a teenager and my father let me know he wanted respect: "[A] demand for respect or honor should be conditioned on being respectable or honorable."
As determined by? A teenage daughter?
"All a man wants is to come home from a long day at work to a grateful wife and children who are glad to see him, and dinner cooking on the stove. This is literally all it takes to make a man happy."
French works awfully hard to find something, anything wrong with simple truths. For a supposed conservative, he's hell on conservatives. What Walsh is writing about is appreciation, not respect. Children should be raised to be appreciative. Moms and dads should have some kind of positive feedback for the hard work of providing a home for their children. I think men have a stronger need for this kind of thing than women though they both deserve to be appreciated.
I would add: When I would get home from work, the dog first--because she was fastest, then the three kids, then my wife would greet me at the door. That bank of goodwill got me through hard days of work.
David French's objection to the Matt Walsh statement is based on reflexive tribalism rather than logic. If Walsh had said "water is wet" French would have found some way to explain how and why that was wrong, and probably found a way to blame Trump and DeSantis for it.
David French is the worst. He will do anything to make sure that the left knows he's "not one of those right wingers." Trump and Evangelical Christian hatred are his main topics.
I cannot understand why what Matt Walsh wrote is so controversial. And French can't outright disagree with it because of his previous professed beliefs, so he goes back to his other favorite stand by: his JAG deployment. So predictable.
Thank you too, Will B.
Another thing to say to Will B., not apt here, but for future reference: Whatever, Will B.
Walsh needs to get off social media. He can simper that his tweet was manly goodness, but a tweet like that is designed to get clicks and hate. It's an undeveloped wisp of phrase from a professional writer who could post something persuasive, vulnerable, and meaty if he walked away from his terrible addiction.
My ex stayed home with the kids for 13 years. She got to put them in pre-school and go work out every day. She drank herself silly as well.
I was sitting in Chicago traffic pulling off the one paycheck family. I had given her the choice. Work if you want, stay home with the kids if you want. Up to you. She chose the later.
I was working my ass off in a high stress job, sitting in Chicagoland traffic. All I wanted was to get home from work, and maybe see some smiles. I didn't even care about dinner. Hell, I'll pick it up. Matt Walsh is not far off from the simple things men want, and are willing to work hard to provide.
Mr. French is an arrogant beta-cuck.
Women: nagging, not happy
Men: put upon, no respect
Both are a formula gone wrong, epitomized by the TV series Get Smart in the 60s-70s. Barbara Feldon (99) was the hottest babe on TV, without actually being hot (search for her tiger commercial, unrelated to Get Smart, where she tries to be hot, so see it definitely not working).
She was hot because she followed the formula
1. Woman sends man on quest.
2. Man sets off, but being human, often screws up.
3. Woman shows man she's satisfied with him.
That repeats infinitely. The woman gets a man who at least goes to get what she wants, and the man for that (not for getting but for going) gets a show of satisfaction with him.
Feminism, having no particular man in mind, can't do #3, and that's nagging, as it is in a dysfunctional marriage.
Women wanting something is constant, and man setting off on quest for it is constant, but it needs the third step.
It's not respect that the guy wants but appreciation.
"I like to do just like the rest, I like my sugar sweet
But guarding fumes and making haste
It ain’t my cup of meat
Ev’rybody’s ’neath the trees
Feeding pigeons on a limb
But when Quinn the Eskimo gets here
All the pigeons gonna run to him"
Just for reference David French was a JAG deployed in Iraq.
That means he never left the base and there was no combat or anything scary near him.
If he somehow comes up with an article based on his "deployment" to Iraq and he doesn't address he was a fobbit that bought all the shit at the PX while we were out he is just being dishonest.
But David French is routinely dishonest. Exactly what most grunts expect from a JAG.
Walsh knows its better to be a good dad than to have a super bowl ring. French does not. Walsh was just trying to say that in a nice way, you know PC style.
I did my 23-year-old daughter's taxes yesterday. She made $24K in 2022 walking dogs in Milwaukee. Two employers. First employer (19K) messed up her W-4s and no federal taxes were taken out. She owed $1000 to the fed and got $470 back from WI.
So, I paid the $1000 and said keep the WI return money when it is deposited. Plus this week her car is in the shop needing a new tie rod, and I'll pay for that. I want to. She needs it to be safe. I got the oxygen sensor fixed in November and paid for that. In the last year I probably subsidized her for like $12 grand. She's only 23, and Generation Z has in tough.
I love her. She get's one dad, and I'm not a deadbeat. I'll always catch her. It's my job, and I couldn't sleep at night if I didn't.
But...I'm the bad guy. Don't see her much. Ex is the hero who sent her out on her own at 18 unprepared. That's the real definition of White Man's Privilege. Fatherhood is one of the most ridiculous roles a man will ever play. Especially after Homer Simpson wrecked it.
Are we back to pretending JAG dudes were actual soldiers?
"If you want to be happy and joyful"
I am told it is impossible to be happy or joyful, because of the environment and the state of present day Society.
The miserable Left can't even.
And: "Nothing at home was comparable to the sheer intensity of my deployment abroad."But French doesn't say what men need is discipline and intensity and other men. He says, in his conclusion, what men need is "virtuous purpose":Virtuous purpose is worth more than any other person’s conditional and unreliable respect. It is rooted in service and sacrifice, not entitlement. And those qualities bring a degree of meaning and joy far more important than the gifts that others — the 'grateful' spouse who cooks dinner, the implausibly reverential children — can ever offer.
Oh for fucks sake.
A Reserve JAG deployed to Iraq might have been woken up at night and had to pretend to go to an artillery shelter. There were shuttles to the PX.
His most dangerous duty was probably telling us we couldn't blow something up or trying to thrown a grunt in jail for shooting a kid.
French is a scum bag. He knows what Walsh was talking about and he knows that Walsh is correct.
A huge problem with our society right now is that 20% of the men are having children with 70% of the women in an unmarried state. Walsh is pointing out the path to a society where more people are fulfilled and happy.
French is a piece of shit being dishonest in service to his masters.
It seems to me that Mr. French lives in an echo chamber. It's hard to take seriously writings from that kind of place.
Speaking as a father, and as a human, I think one of the things that is important is to feel like you're needed. If you don't have that, and you're still happy, your personality is much different from mine (and that's okay, but I don't really understand it!).
The red flag here was "virtuous purpose."
Since Trump started running for President in earnest, David French has transformed from a reasonable conservative commentator to, at least in his mind, a beacon of virtuousness required in these troubling times of Orange Man Bad, lecturing all that will listen of how disappointed he is in all you conservatives. Those of insufficient purity, which is basically everyone, should be ashamed to have supported this man who explicitly advanced conservative causes, and instead the correct and virtuous thing to do is to not only shun the Orange Man, but also explicitly vote for Democrats and undermine everything you believe in until the Orange Man and all his false prophets are purged. He has, more than once, declared what is and is not Christian, but in such a way that you would think that Donald Trump was Satan himself. Everything French says follows from this belief. Oh, yes, he is still a conservative and still supports conservative positions, but until the purification is completed all conservatives should repent, surrender, and suffer for their sins.
If you think that makes him sound like a pompous self-righteous jackass, you would not be the first to make this observation, and was almost certainly the reason the New York Times hired him in the first place.
It is not everyday that you get to see proof of a man's mental breakdown on the pages of the New York Times, but there you have it.
Having grown up in a military family (Dad is USMC), I find it odd that French always wants everyone to know he served in Iraq. He insists on everyone knowing and kowtowing to him about this. He craves "thank you for your service."
On the contrary, those military men (and women) who served with great distinction never talk about it. It's taken me over 40 years to get the smallest bits from my Dad, but when I talk with the men who served with him, he's larger than life.
I recall this was the story of Navy corpsman John Bradley, who lifted the flag at Iwo Jima as told in Flags of Our Fathers (2000) is a book by James Bradley. I find it very odd that David French is so demanding of respect.
Walsh posted that comment and Twitter went nuts, because all the Twits assumed things that Walsh did not say. He didn't for one minute say that he enjoyed forcing his wife to stay home, or that he didn't care if she was happy doing so. He just enjoyed the fact that she was there and his kids were happy to see him - all fairly normal things. But 99% of Twitter assumed that he meant all women should stay home no matter what they want to do, or men should demand their wives do so, etc. Apparently French has fallen for the same thing?
Walsh also said after that tweet that this was his desire, and he thought everyone was supposed to have desires that were valid. If he'd said he loved coming home to an empty house night after night because his #girlboss law firm partner wife was always working late and didn't have time to have children, people would have praised him for wanting the right thing. But because he wanted the "wrong" thing, he was roasted for it. We really are a stupid society.
As a corollary to Walsh, there is the sage wisdom of Jimmy Soul:
… If you want to be happy for the rest of your life
Never make a pretty woman your wife
So for my personal point of view
Get an ugly girl to marry you…
"Why isn't creating and keeping a stable, loving home with children and a wife all the virtuous purpose a man needs? There's plenty of "service and sacrifice" there."
Exactly.
"only glad — glad to see him."
Which is powerful. And unlikely without love reciprocated.
"He generalizes the simplicity: "We are simple.""
As simplifications go, this is one's pretty good.
"The simple counter-example of mentally troubled veterans powered French's essay. We are not that simple."
Is it a counterexample? They are "troubled," after all. Walsh could say: lost sight of what ultimately matters most.
"And yet French ended up on his own generalization: virtuous purpose. Isn't that also a "hallmark of much right-wing discourse"?"
If by right-wing discourse is meant: what most civilizations throughout human history tried to tell men they ought to do. Live for a higher purpose! Sacrifice themselves for the greater good! Die for a worthy cause! Which is sometimes true and necessary, but at the cost of sacrificing the simple thing and incurring "trouble."
When it comes to respect, French burned his own crops and salted his fields. Now starving, he has turned to cannibalism.
And to be clear, I agree with this:
When a man demands respect without being respectable, that often looks like domination and subordination. To elevate himself, he must belittle others.
David French should look in the mirror.
This brought to mind a quote from Montaigne:
"Man is indeed an object miraculously vain, various and wavering. It is difficult to found a judgement on him that is steady and uniform." (so not simple)
I'd say people need faith, family, and vocation, in varying ways.
French is a neocon never-Trumper.
Walsh is trolling with that post.
But on the plus side, Walsh has shone a very big light on the whole 'trans' medical racket.
Point to Walsh...
Women get restless in marriage. 70% of divorces are initiated by the wife. They get bored. They become ungrateful that the husband ONLY makes $X/yr and that she still has to do housework. I blame feminism. Feminists are much more unhappy than conservative (defined as church-attending) women.
The worst "combat" experience David French had in Iraq was going to the PX and finding out they were out of pringles.
Very good. Now make me a sammich.
William James' 1910 essay "The Moral Equivalent of War" was taken up by American liberals as the way to unite America in support of various liberal projects of the 20th century. FDR himself recalled the pleasures of working for the government during World War I and viewed that sense of purpose as a model for what the New Deal could accomplish. "Virtuous purpose" may sound rightwing nowadays, but that wasn't always the case, even when it was being likened to war.
"Roosevelt's statement upon signing the NRA's enabling legislation (the National Industrial Recovery Act) on June 16, 1933, clearly invoked the holy grail of sacrificial solidarity: 'The challenge of this law is whether we can sink selfish interest and present a solid front against a common peril,' the president explained. Roosevelt specifically called upon the memory of the First World War: 'I had part in the great cooperation of 1917 and 1918,' he said, 'and it is my faith that we can count on our industry once more to join in our general purpose to lift this new threat and to do it without taking any advantage of the public trust which has this day been reposed without stint in the good faith and high purpose of American business.' F.D.R. was hardly modest in his claims for the act: "It is the most important attempt of this kind in history. As in the great crisis of the World War, it puts a whole people to the simple but vital test: — ‘Must we go on in many groping, disorganized, separate units to defeat or shall we move as one great team to victory?'"
https://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/the-moral-equivalent-of-war
I like to say that a human being is a rational mammal which emphasizes the two body plans in our species. One body plan sets before you a chance to support an unborn child as it builds its body and to nourish it when its born. The other body plan has a more obscure meaning. Is it just needed for forty minutes two or three times in its life? Is Hunter Biden fulfilling the role indicated by the male body plan?
Just last night I was thinking about the guys on the 900 mile frontline of the Ukraine these days. It's trench war in the snow and cold. The Russians are conducting repeated human wave attacks in many places so the Ukrainians are shooting down men by the hundreds who are swarming forward like ants. The Russians are using thermobaric weapons which create a football size fireball over the trenches. And they're using a kind of incendiary shell in which fiery streamers rain down burning phosphorus over a wide area of trenches. Meanwhile in Europe and America we all go home at night, safe behind these men. Their unsafe space gives others room to whimper about feeling unsafe at a university due to a misplaced word or a reading list with almost anyone on it. I'm sure that what these guys want is to go home at night to a loving family and a hot meal. But men have it in them to fight for what they want, not whimper, when that's needed. There's a little more to them than just wanting meaning and love, there's doing it.
Define "man"
Although I think French is an utter putz otherwise, I do agree with that last quoted paragraph. At least for me. I never wanted kids or a stay-at-home-wife. It took me most of my 60+ years to figure out that It's Not About Me and that self-sacrifice and what I do for others is what brings me satisfaction in life. It always has, but I never figured that out until recently.
I thought the Walsh tweet was kind of stupid, but it's Twitter and was there for clickbait. No, dude, not every man is happy with a Ward Cleaver life.
How can we know whether "right-wing" or "masculinity" is the greater for trigger for NYT bubble people? Why would we care?
As for "respect", my father was a good provider and a decent man. My mother was in poor health and stayed home. Was some other purpose necessary for him to have our respect?
We do know that among lefties providing for and raising a family is unlikely to be counted as "virtuous purpose", but to some others it is held in high esteem.
Fatherhood has become much more difficult, and I'd imagine this makes it difficult on women and children, since Homer Simpson and Peter Griffin became the poster boys for American fathers. Out of touch. Selfish. Stupid. Aloof. Dumb. Idiots. This bled into all sit-coms and commercials. Fathers, especially white ones are portrayed the same way.
99% of it is a bullshit joke. But it satisfies the the anti-patriarchy stereotype. So be it.
Father says, "why don't you run these boys around the block every day at school". Female administrator and teacher says, "nope...you need to put him on Ritalin." Father says, "is it really a good idea to bring juice boxes and gummy bears to every soccer practice?" Suburban moms say, "you just don't want to be involved."
We are seeing the price being paid by Generation Z. I'm certainly not a perfect Dad, but in retrospect there are many things I wish would have been done differently. Things my gut told me didn't make sense at the time, and still don't.
Sh*t's broke, yo...
The current status of the inherent contract between men and women isn't working, and has been broken since about the time Ignace Semmelweis started pointing out the unfortunate truths about hygiene in the birthing process.
What it lacks is the forthright recognition that there is a contract, entered into at birth, and it ain't one you can get out of. Both sides of the arrangement are guilty of not upholding the terms, and of not even clearly delineating those terms to each other.
Creatures like this asshole French, who think they're "men" because they did a deployment to a war zone and shuffled paper? Product, victim, and perpetrator, all in one sorry sad-sack individual. You want to claim your manhood based off of military service, then you better have actually, y'know... Done some. You serve as an infantryman? You serve as an NCO or officer, with at true "servant's heart"? Then, maybe you can claim some virtue from the experience; the issue is, whether you did what you did with the attitude of selfless service and looking out for others. Guy who puts himself last, his troops first, and sacrifices to make sure they come home again? That guy can use his service as a claim to status as a man; something like French? Not so much.
The real deal with what's going on with men isn't that they're unappreciated by society, but that society is actively engaged in rendering them irrelevant. Women will go through something similar when artificial wombs come in, and anyone can pay their money to have a kid created out of a zygote. That's about the time women will begin to feel a pinch like the one they've laid on their male counterparts. I rather doubt they'll like it, and I'll lay you long odds that they're going to figure out some means of making all that artificial womb deal illegal, once they see the effects on their own lives.
The problem with irrelevant men is that it leaves a significant swath of society without real purpose or necessity, which then leads to the usual problems when you have an excess of males and fewer opportunities for them. The current path of femininity in society is taking us right back to the bad old days where most men didn't have any stake in society, and thus no real interest in keeping it going. This is a tenable place to be, but it's also a very dangerous one. There's a term for what is going on, hypergamy, wherein most women are seeking the top 20% or so of the male population, leaving the rest by the wayside. This isn't a recipe for social stability; look at the inner city for examples of why this is a stupid path to follow.
Successful societies figure out a means to ensure that every young male gets domesticated and kept productively engaged. You screw that up, and "incels" are the least of your worries as a woman; what becomes far more worrisome is that the 20% of men your hypergamous peers are going after begin to devalue women, period. After all, once you're used up, they can just pull in another, right? This has broad effects across all of society, which are observable in Islamic cultures that allow for multiple wives and keep most young men from forming nuclear families on their own. Recipe for unrest and chaos; see other examples, differently expressed, in India. The high rate of rape, there? Result of effective irrelevance of the male perpetrators, who can't form family groups.
The family isn't just an economic unit; it's a key mechanism used to keep men in line after domesticating what are effectively feral animals. When women give up on that, in general terms, to go after their latest heartthrob? Chaos results.
Will B @ 6:48: What you said.
Ann: “… Why isn't creating and keeping a stable, loving home with children and a wife all the virtuous purpose a man needs? There's plenty of ‘service and sacrifice’ there.” Word.
The debate about “respect” reminds me of the definition of “character”: “what you do when nobody is looking.” IMHO you can’t demand respect —if you do, you probably don’t deserve it!— but you earn it. And it is measured by your adherence to an objective standard of merit; you can point to that standard and demand that your audience acknowledge that it is the proper and desirable measure. You don’t want to make it personal; as if you are doing things merely to collect points and gratitude. That is, to say the least, tacky.
You’re doing things because they’re the right things to do and, done right, they make you happy.
I'm puzzled--Walsh mentions neither "demand" nor "respect" in his tweet
He does mention something he "wants": gratitude. What's wrong with wanting that? Both spouses in a marriage need to feel that their spouses are grateful to have them in their lives. The little things and the big things that spouses do for each other: There's nothing like saying "Thanks." And giving a kiss and a hug. As for children, what's wrong with a father coming home from fighting traffic after a wretched day at the office and hoping his kids will be "glad to see" him?
Finally, as a wife of nearly 35 years, I can assure anyone who asks that men are indeed simple. Give them some love and food, plus a comfortable home for relaxing, and they're happy. They never worry about what it meant that so-and-so didn't smile at me today or whether the teacher really likes little Johnny.
David French--the only real Christian and the only real conservative in America, as he'll be happy to tell you over and over--is insufferable. He's gotta parade around his "veteran" service in Iraq--as though he'd gotten a Purple Heart instead of hanging around the base in the JAG Corps--in every column he writes. Why is it Matt Walsh's fault that when French got back to the States, he realized that he'd preferred the company of his fellow officers to that of "my wife Nancy," another annoying perennial column reference of French's?
French just wants to pick another fight with another conservative. They love that at the New York Times.
That French seemingly can't to find the distinction between respect and appreciation tells one a lot about David French. That he felt it necessary to attack Walsh over this tells one even more about the man. David French is the Chuck....excuse me....Cuck of The New York Times. In short, French, at this point, has earned no respect.
I didn't realize until now that French was a JAG lawyer in Iraq. The fact that he came home "bereft and angry" tells me a lot about him. I was 7 when WWII ended and a cousin who had flown 50 missions in a B 17 came back but did not want to go home to his father's house. He moved into our basement. I idolized him and insisted that my father get me an army cot so I could sleep in the basement next to him. He was my favorite and probably had some level of PTSD but I never saw him "angry or bereft." The contrast with French is stark.
David French is another in the fairly long line of “conservative” pundits/politicians who gained prominence by being against Trump. They really owe everything to Trump. I personally would never want my position, my wealth, my social cache to be based on being against my own tribe. Disloyalty is certainly not high on the virtue list French pretends to trumpet.
There's a classic "Dear Abby".
A woman writes to Abby complaining "All men want is sex!".
Abby replies. "No, men want a great many things. One of the things they want is sex".
Family, respect, money, security, status, a Corvette C8, and sex.
Men do want a lot of things.
I'm just happy not to need advice from either Walsh or French, nor to seek advice from Twitter or NYT. I'm simple that way.
The wife, our Posterity, a happy meal, and a dog that is playful and continent.
People are being too Kind to David French. He is a fraud. He was caught taking undisclosed money from lefwing Google, while writing columns making the "Conservative case for Google". He was booted out of National Review.
If you analyze his tweets and columns you'll see that his attacks on the Right outnumber his attacks on the Left by about 5-1. He's the Christian who always attacks other Christians and supports Drag Queen story hour. He's the Rightwinger who always attacks those to his Right. He's the Republican who's always attacking Trump and MAGA/Conservative republicans. He's the "Free Speech Advocate" who's always screeching about "racism" and "Antisemitism" and is completely silent on ADL/Big Tech censorship.
Oh, and David French never lets you forget he's a War Veteran (he still has the scars, man) or that he has a black adopted son.
That he would attack Matt walsh, doesn't surprise me. that's why he's the fake "reasonable" conservative at the NYT's.
Of course Fathers want respect from their children. But most of us will settle for some time alone in the "man cave" or the golf course and a gift on Father's day.
As insufferable as I find both of these men, Matt Walsh is on to something. I recently got fed this youtube short of a, I believe Rabbi, speaking to a young man and woman (link below). He observes if a man sees a woman and thinks "I'd like to take care of her for the rest of her life, that is real love". "If a woman sees a man and decides she trusts him deeply, that is love" and the reverse causes problems. See the video.
Walsh's observation is the continuation of this. A man wants to come home and feel those who are his "purpose" for going to work everyday, have some appreciation for at least that, he will remain content in his desire to care for them and that will make him happy. Even if the house is a hovel, the finances are tight, if his efforts are appreciated by those he does it for, a man will work himself to death.
My grandfather, whom I never knew, apparently drank on the weekends to excess, but he brought his paycheck, meager as it was to my grandmother before going out. He provided first and took steps not to let his weakness destroy his first duty. Would it have been better if he hadn't drank? Would it have been better if he's been literate and made a big salary? But appreciation and respect are owed for seeing to providing first.
"A man only begins to be valued when he is no longer there" --Erich Remarque
https://youtu.be/UhKVhXawIug
It's taken me over 40 years to get the smallest bits from my Dad, but when I talk with the men who served with him, he's larger than life.
My father passed years ago, and the only stories I ever got from him were humorous stories about his troops. One example: one of his men went AWOL for a couple days in North Africa. When he returned to Dad’s company (Dad was a company commander) my father asked him where he’d gone, the private said “Cap’n, if you don’t know, how do you expect me to know?” Or the time he found a member of his company looking over a battlefield filled with wrecked vehicles and bawling like his heart was broken. Concerned, my Dad asked him what was wrong. It turned out that the man’s family owned a junk yard in Illinois, “And there’s no way to get this back to Waukegon!”
But when I asked him how he had earned his Silver Star, he just shrugged it off. After he passed my sisters and I found the citation for his medal. HOLY SHIT! I am the son of a very brave man.
Mr. French is an arrogant beta-cuck.
We decided that with both working we sorta hated our kids. Pick the up from wherever, rush home, make dinner, put them in bed so we could have a moments peace. Forget about staying late at the office for the all important chat sessions that more often than not drive strategy.
She decided to stay home, thank god she did. We began to love our children again and it was great that I came home to happy people. I thank her every day for doing it.
French himself served in the military — in Iraq — and he recalls coming home to his wife and children and still feeling "bereft" and "empty." He missed his military comrades and the "very clear, decisive and delineated mission" of the military. And: "Nothing at home was comparable to the sheer intensity of my deployment abroad."
Well, not very introspective. That is common, and now just for warzone deployments. Military training can cause that as well as sea deployments. Those who winter over at the South Pole have a bad habit of marrying shortly after returning, often to poor outcomes.
John Wayne's retiring Captain Brittles sums up the soldier's lot when, as they must, they leave the regimental life
Captain Nathan Brittles: [to Olivia] "Old soldiers...", Miss Dandridge... hah! Someday you'll learn how they hate to give up. Captain of the troop one day: every man's face turned towards you; lieutenants jump when I growl! Now, tomorrow, I'll be glad if a blacksmith asks me to shoe a horse.
[he leaves]
Last, don't forget this:
In Home and Away, a book written by David and Nancy French, the couple talks about their experience staying together while David was deployed in Iraq. They revealed that they set up rules for what Nancy was not allowed to do while David was gone.
These rules included the fact that Nancy was not allowed to drink, she could not use Facebook, and she could not “have phone conversations with men, or meaningful e-mail exchanges about politics or any other subject.” At one point, Nancy began an email exchange with a man to talk about faith, but David insisted she end the conversation.
https://heavy.com/news/2016/05/david-french-wife-nancy-who-is-family-children-kids-adoption-naomi-2016-election-independent-candidate/
To be happy one must feel good about who they are as a person, warts and all. When one feels they are not enough, they start demanding respect from external sources. Feeling good about yourself is hard work, especially if one is unlucky with the selection of parents. People resort to the hatred and/or victimhood. For many men and women it works as a bandaid for a short time but fails to make them feel they are enough in the long term.
I knew many Korea and Vietnam veterans. In my experience they never used their military service to advance an argument.
I looked up French's bio. He is mentioned as having received a Bronze star. I looked for his award citation at the Military Times website. Nothing relevant shows up under "David French" ( I assume he's not the Silver star recipient from 67. )
Curious. Did he go by a different name in Iraq?
Ugh, just more "I'm so conservative that I can see through the conservative position and understand its truly terrifying implications" claptrap from French. Yawn.
I realized a while back that more than half of my Twitter posts were discussing this or that ridiculous thing French said--I've made a conscious effort to pay less attention to him so I appreciate Prof. Althouse dealing with this one.
French wants to attack what he's decided as a bad right-wing position (what masculinity means or should be) but Walsh's tweet doesn't actually make that argument and isn't a good fit with it: French, naturally, plows straight through that and addresses himself (condescendingly, of course) to an argument he imagines Walsh *might* make. Along the way he not-so-slyly praises himself. Punching Right, slaying strawmen, spewing sanctimony--it's the French style.
David French is the worst; it's no surprise he's a good fit for the NYTimes editorial page now.
Stick Chuck Norris in an F-22 and send'em up. He knows how to handle the Octagon.
Listen to the Dr Laura show on Sirius sat radio for awhile (don't know if she can be heard elsewhere) and you get insight into the weird state of marriage in this country. Her no nonsense advice is eye opening. Matt is hitting a sore spot with this simple truth.
I looked up French's bio. He is mentioned as having received a Bronze star. I looked for his award citation at the Military Times website. Nothing relevant shows up under "David French" ( I assume he's not the Silver star recipient from 67. )
Curious. Did he go by a different name in Iraq?
Maybe he is another John Kerry, writing his own award citations. Not all Bronze Stars have a "V" for valor on them.
Makes sense. Interesting also is that God the Father who created the universe and keeps it all in place only wants us to respond to him with respect and thanksgiving when he walks into our lives.
That response requires faith that he loves us. As a human father that is also all I want. Investing in the education of two children returns you six perfect grandchildren. Good work if you can get it. But find a Christian private school. That is the best money a father ever spends.
Read the tweet and the article and the post and many of the comments. Wow.
Can somebody point to the last thing David French wrote that could plausibly be described as right wing? He's been monetizing spiritual sustenance for the left from a supposedly right-wing point of view for years.
Hmm. I went back to look again. The ONLY Bronze Star citation I found to anyone named "French" was to one Chad French in 1962.
Hmm.
“Honor thy father and thy mother.”
This bit of wisdom has been around for thousands of years.
And, yet, it has to be relearned by every generation.
As my late wife, Myrna, used to remark: “It doesn’t say ‘If you like what they do.’”
Big Mike, my favorite service story is from my father and uncle in trainng. In short, it turns out that responding to an MP who has demanded to know "what are you doing there?" by saying " Everybody's got to be *somewhere* "
Is suboptimal.
I'm happy with loose shoes and a warm place to shit . . . now that I've had the rewarding family and career I was entitled to. (Even if I lose points for being the penultimate of my line unless Sonnyboy gets cracking.)
Walsh is known to me only from his appearances on TCT or the like; everything I know about French I've learned from Althousers. I call this one for Walsh.
"As kids we granted automatic respect to adults. That's really simple.
Also, special deference, (honor?) to some in our life.
Pastor (pedophile)
Teacher (groomer)
Police (mercenaries)
Military (political pawns)
ALL Seniors (maybe some of these people are good)"
Well, that now seems like a mistake.
Just to be clear. When David French talks about the "intensity" of his "Deployment" he is NOT talking about Combat. He was a Military Lawyer. He really gins up the amount of danger he was in. See his November 11, 2022 Atlantic Magazine article "my decision to serve in the miltary".
Money quote:
Why was I there? The short answer is that Army lawyers were constantly present during the Iraq War. We were fighting a complicated counterinsurgency, and complex rules of engagement governed our uses of force. For better and for worse, commanders often consulted their JAG officers—the military’s lawyers—before ordering responsive fires.
French makes it sound like he was in combat. But he wasn't. He was on an Army base, giving the regimental commander LEGAL advice, on whether firing on unseen "insurgents" was legal under the "rules". He worked in an OFFICE.
And then we get this piece of over-the-top nonsense:
On other occasions, I’d helped make tough, terrifying decisions, but this time there was nothing for me to do. We never saw the enemy. We never even had the chance to make a choice about whether to respond. Instead, I watched and waited until more terrible news arrived.
Because French is a lawyer, he's able to give you the IMPRESSION he's making combat decisions but when you read more closely, you'll see he's just giving the Regimental Commander legal advice - WHEN ASKED. And French is NOT making "tough, terrifying decisions" the Commander is doing that. French is just giving him his opinion. And French skips over the fact, that most of time he was on an Army base in Baghdad or Kuwait, doing legal paperwork.
Will B already said it with “insufferable;” I would add “jackass” to complete the picture.
Curious. Did he go by a different name in Iraq?
Did you remember to put in his middle name? It's Danger.
"a grateful wife and children who are glad to see him...."
Once the Left decided that the "authoritarian personality" was the reason the inevitable Marxist revolution wasn't happening on schedule, they set about destroying it via their high ground in media and the universities. Thus "Father Knows Best" and Ward Cleaver became Archie Bunker and Al Bundy in a few short years. Wise-cracking kids knew better than their elders about everything, and the father figure in particular became a source of open mockery. In Hollywood and TV, in popular fiction, fatherhood was portrayed as suckers game, at best the loser (at worst the source of every trauma) in every family.
Strangely enough, women and children don't seem all that happy with either the absentee or cool dads.
AA:
Your 8:00am comment is a bit enigmatic. Is "Whatever, Will B." a reference to a song that was everywhere when you and I were young (I think I'm a year or two younger than you)? The song that goes "Whatever, Will B., Will B., Che Sera Sera"?
I just looked it up: Doris Day sang it in the Hitchcock movie The Man Who Knew Too Much in 1956 (I was 3), and it hit #2 in the charts.
Second Shouting Thomas.
@BigMike, I have Dad's Good Conduct Medal. He always said his smart-ass mouth prevented him from getting promoted in WWII. So he came out a Corporal. I think at one point he was a Sgt, but then the smart mouth showed up. Again.
"Traditional family is the enemy of marxists.
Not a typo. I no longer capitalize marxist or democrat."
Fight the Good Fight, BRAH!
Talking with friends, I've heard the saying "Happy wife, happy life" more times than I remember. If there's something similar that women say to each other about the happiness of their husbands, I've never heard it.
I came back to see if anyone responded to my comment (they hadn't, as usual) and read a few more and just wanted to add this:
David French, with all due respect, is complete fraud and absolute asshole. He's more fraudulent than that Santos guy (who I'm starting to take a shining to). His assholean level is a perfect 100, maybe even 110. He's actually a literal asshole. I'm serious.
I didn't stress that in my first comment. It needs to be stressed. It's an important lens through which to view him.
Several people mentioned the Military Times searchable database. I wouldn't put too much faith in the search. My dad earned the Bronze Star in Vietnam and the Legion of Merit upon retirement. Neither showed up in my search.
Althouse--Thank you for bringing this to our attention. I had forgotten how utterly useless David French is.
As to Matt Walsh, his idea is so simple that it misfires. Life--married life, family life--is complicated, and every individual is unique. There is no one thing that would make every person fulfilled. A person (male or female) could start with doing unto others as you would have them do unto you.
According to Louis Armstrong, they’re both right:
A man wants to work for his pay
A man wants a place in the sun
A man wants a gal proud to say
That she'll become his lovin' wife
He wants a chance to give his kids a better life
Well hello, hello, hello brother
That is, assuming that the ideas of wanting to work for pay and giving kids a better life encompasses the idea of virtuous purpose.
These two ideas are two parts of a whole and not in tension with one another. We all need the self respect that comes from fulfilling a purpose and the respect of others that comes from building an intimate relationship with someone who will reflect respect back to us while we do the same for the other person. This, in my view, was what was lacking in the days of the patriarchal dominant culture because too many men took women for granted. The correct remedy would have been for women to demand respect for their feminine genius, but the feminist movement went the other way and decided they should show men what it felt like to not have respect.
2/13/23, 6:30 AM
Who knew Satchmo was a racist white supremacist.
So jumping in on this, each military service is different with different stressors on relationships. As are jobs. M-F 9-5 jobs are far different than 24/7/365 jobs.
On the military side- my mother had lunch with my then girlfriend and warned her about marrying a sailor. Her father, 3 uncles, and brother were all merchant sailors. The 3 uncles and father drafted and commissioned during WWI. Without having graduated HS. Things were different then… She married me anyway. I had found an apartment, she drove out to Sandy Eggo, got married, got her her ID and base access, and next morning left and told her I’d see in 2 weeks. About 2 months later we were doing weekly ops for training- both for us and the skimmers trying to find us. Out on M, back on F. Left one M morning saying “See you F.” and two Fridays later called her from Pearl Harbor. No one else was around to chase the noise in the ocean we were following until we got near Hawaii and were relieved.
It can get a little stressful but she handled it, and couldn’t say she hadn’t been warned. Our rules were a lot simpler than David French’s. We were married, behave like it.
Since getting out I’ve talked to a few younger women about staying happily married. One big item- the answer to the question “Sex?” should always be yes barring actual physical illness. One of the younger ladies was having problems in her relationship because her partner just wasn’t interested in engaging in it.
I’ve seen “Happy wife, happy life “ mentioned. For the male, remember, don’t argue about anything unimportant, just give in. In the long run, there really isn’t all that much that’s important.
We have 5 successful adult children. 19 years from first to fifth. I worked, she was a full time housewife and mother. It’s amazing how these traditional relationships work when it comes to having good life outcomes.
And as I’ve mentioned in other comments here before, since moving to Ruralville over 25 years ago, every valedictorian and salutatorian from the local HS has had a working father and full time mother. Pure coincidence, right?
Forgot to mention that on a submarine one of the stresses she faced was she didn’t know where I was, except somewhere out there, and didn’t know where I was going, until I got there and called her, and when I didn’t show back home as expected, she wouldn’t know why until I came back or a government car pulled up and an officer she didn’t know knocked on the door. The latter, obviously, never happened. The former more than once.
@1:02
Well, that now seems like a mistake.
This was back in 50's and 60's
A bygone era of fathers addressing such individuals
Pedophiles and groomers would have welcomed death, in place of drawing the attention of 6 fathers.
35 years ago a convicted pedophile was released from prison. In the small rural town, everyone knew him. He as spotted a block away from the school in his car watching the kids walk home. Our kids were in 1st and 3rd grade and walking home together. 6 blocks maybe.
4 of us dads got together and started a rumor, that a group of Dads were going to pay him a visit at home during the evening, not to far in the future. We talked about at the gas station, cafe, Elevator, feed mill, ball games, etc. Took a day to get it spread across the community. Never saw him again, and heard he had moved out of the midwest.
This is the proper response. Yes I would have made that visit, with several other fathers, if he persisted.
I love Rep. Santos, because his name comes up so often. And I have a canned three word response: Senator Robert Byrd.
If I'm in a garrulous mood, I add "call me when Santos has served half as long as Byrd."
M Jordan said...
David French, with all due respect, is complete fraud and absolute asshole.
Or, to borrow a phrase from genius physicist Fritz Zwicky, from Cal Tech, French is a spherical asshole. Because no matter what perspective you view him from, he is the same asshole.
For the male, remember, don’t argue about anything unimportant,
It took me until late in life to learn to delay correcting my wife until tomorrow. I always forget to follow through. Obviously nothing is that important.
Mongo, what public db would be more complete?
I too checked out the Military Times website.
I looked up my college roomate, who was in Vietnam---Dragooned into Special Forces by Creighton Abrams.
I KNOW he got a Bronze Star.
He's not listed.
"I love Rep. Santos, because his name comes up so often. And I have a canned three word response: Senator Robert Byrd."
My response is "President Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., fantasist, fool, and racist."
Someone above said “respect is earned”.
I say both yes and no to that statement.
Some people get my respect from the get go.
Nurses, doctors for two.
It used to be teachers and police officers but no more.
Now-those people need to earn my respect.
You can lose my respect as some mealy-mouthed doctors have who are afraid to speak the truth about Covid.
So…different standards for different people.
French steals valor? Not literally, like ADM Mike Boorda, but in that cagey REMF way.
I didn't follow the threads a while back about DeSantis as a Navy JAG, and wonder if all the commenters--pro and con--are consistent.
I'm not a big fan of lawyers to begin with, and the modern US military seems infested with them, like politruks in the Red Army.
I absolutely expect my husband to be happy to see me. I don't see why he shouldn't expect the same.
Narr: "I didn't follow the threads a while back about DeSantis as a Navy JAG, and wonder if all the commenters--pro and con--are consistent."
I would criticize DeSantis had DeSantis ever belabored his service experience as some sort of traumatic event...but I have never seen DeSantis do that.
"I would criticize DeSantis had DeSantis ever belabored his service experience as some sort of traumatic event . . ."
Fair point, Drago.
It's not men. It's people.
Women don't like their work being discounted, either. That's what I hear.
Kurt Schlicter describes his own Iraq service as having commanded a heavily armed car wash. Kurt has zero respect for French. Early in 2016 he had a gig as the go-to conservative MSNBC used to critique Trump. And the one day the host detailed Trump's latest Twitter outrage, and threw it to Schlicter for the expected condemnation. And Schlicter said, you know I don't care. He says he wants the things I want. I don't care about his tweets. That was his last appearance.
"[A] demand for respect or honor should be conditioned on being respectable or honorable."
Just as you had the right to demand your father love you because you were his daughter, he had the right to demand your respect because he was your father.
Same goes for wives and husbands, these expectations are built into the relationship.
There are exceptions but these are the rules. This is Judeo Christian theology though, so people without that philosophy have no rationale for it.
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