Thomas Jefferson and Pimps and Spartans and other Filth

 Machiavellian 'virtu' and real virtue are a world apart.

Not to dunk upon Machiavelli, because the Prince was clearly a work of necessity and the disourses on Titus Livy are the real deal. But Real Politik and the desire of men to be hard rather than good christians is getting tired.

The history of the world is full of men who are powerful: excellent in their own regard. They have panache. They say things that sound right. They do things that look right. But they are ultimately evil, and behave in ways that are true to their internal evil, and the evil of the peoples that they stemmed from. They delight in the exercise of power, and the exercise of their power is not for righteousness. Leonidas and Trump (who I will likely wind up voting for) are poster children.

Molon Labe. Come and take, says the spartan king, who eats of the bread made by slaves, on grain grown by slaves, upholding his evil government that relies on the work of brutally surpressed slaves, their raped wives, and their hopeless children. That lives in secret, effete, fear of their slaves. Let us make these monsters into an effigy! They never ate bread by the sweat of their brows, but oh boy are they swell warriors! "They beat their young men to death to make them hard for war!" we say, so there must be something powerful there. The spartans are hard. Surely hardness is the ends of man.

Maybe, my doves, if you subscribe to an evolutionary theory and the progressive nature of man. If the ends of humanity is to be a self perpetuating organism, then maybe the spartans are the ultimate men and David Goggins is god. Maybe hardness is the ends of man?

Oh wait. 

No. We have Epaminondas and the Thebans and Leuctra to show us that even this millsian fiction is a lie. Lincoln, Grant, Sherman, and the Iron Brigade, too, in latter days. Utility is short lived, and even David Goggins body will die when his four score years are done. If not sooner. Even utilitarian men die on roughly the same timetable as everyone else. It turns our that the utility that we love is not eternal.

Our time is a time of false idols. Listen to the reputable men of our time gush over spartans, and navy seals, and other men whose lives consist in violence. Is is not powerful? Is it not sexy? Did not Stephan Segal and Jean Claude Van Damme portray this once in a film? Is this not more exciting than your lame John the Baptist who went meekly to die as a witness to the messiah? Are they not harder than we and less compromising? Do they not eat of the paleo diet, and do not their wives not stay home as wives of the 1950s did? (Sarcasm. This is sarcasm)

There is a latent part of my person that is routinely eating rage at people swallowing a-historical memes whole and being frustrated that we do not all follow suit and be super impressed with the damned spartans. I spend a lot of time trying to moderate myself and repent, but then someone says something ignorant...

The spartans were an evil empire. They murdered and ensalved for comfort and status. They did not understand mercy or justice or the gospel. The fact that they could stab more people per hour and feed more of their children to exsposure than we could in our present day does not make them laudable. It makes them monsters. They are kindred with the SS and the comanche, and the mongols, and all those who ate their daily bread out of the bloody hands of suffering innocents.

The spartans lack humility. Humility understands its place, and that sometimes the time to show strength is in patience and long suffering. The masculinity of Martin Luther, and Ambrose, and Polycarp. Stephen, Saint John the Baptist, and Our Lord, who does not worry about who is getting the best of him but who dies for the good of other--Of all. And screw it, Martin Luther King jr. He can get on the list, too, and I hope to drink the wine of heavan with him in paradise the blest.

If the spartans are your ideal of humanity, then you strive toward evil ideals. The greatest man who has ever lived is Jesus Christ, he said the greatest aside from him is John, and you can bet the rest are apostles and prophets. Not a one of them named Leonidas or Audie Murphy. Because you value the wrong things.

It is better to live and die for the truth, than to live and kill for the sake of custom, ambition, or of felt need.

Those who love the mantra of protect, provide, and procreate: I challenge you you suffer, submit, and be faithful. Be good subordinates and faithful friends. We are not always called to be the agents, and the agency we are called to is frequently in suffering.

Goodness is an attribute of the divine character; strong to save, sulf sufficient and self giving for the beloved. Sacrificial in its love for creation and the created. Jesus Christ is perfectly just in his mercy and judgement, covering the sins of repentant sinners.

Why do you whore after Leonidas? Is the suffering of the saints and holy martyrs and only of Son of God not hard enough for you?

Repent.

Our false idols are so crass, I do not understand how they are worshipped.

And do not get me started on that slandering, faithless, so-and-so, Thomas Jefferson.