Interesting article

I know the Washington Times has kind of a funny reputation, and they're supposed to be a front for this guy, but it's an interesting look at the disparity between Bush and Kerry supporters among men with kids (77% for W vs. 18% Kerry on the question of the "cultural direction of the country" for those with no time to read the article.)

I think there's something pretty straightforward behind this, personally. There's a responsibility that comes with fatherhood, and I sometimes think a type of manliness expected of a father. The conversation that a father will often have with a child when a bully beats up their kid will go something like this "Son (I imagine sometimes, "Daughter") - you go back there and stand up for yourself. You can't let people like that do this to you, or you'll be walked on for the rest of your life. Go out there and show them what you're made of."

The father understands something here (sometimes the mother too - I heard an actor or sports figure once who said his mom had this same conversation with him). You might get your fundament kicked by the bully. You'll get laughed at, and you'll hurt, but you will stick up for yourself. The next time something like that happens, you'll beat the crap out of the person trying to knock you down.

Look, I'm not advocating simple macho violence for its own sake. If you go to a bar and get in a shouting match and end up unconscious and bloody, I don't consider that manly. But I think it's important to stand up for yourself when it counts. One sea change among certain Jews following WWII and the Holocaust was a determination not to go like lambs to the slaughter the next time a Nazi showed up with a machine gun. The Israelis are the best example of this change in historic Jewish attitudes, and I subscribe to it - "Never Again" means (among other things) that some Jews will fight back when attacked, and they intend to win.

The point of this, and what I think the article illustrates, is that America's fathers overwhelmingly understand the fight we're in. They believe the bullies are trying to shove us around, at the cost of our lives. They believe this is a fight we need to win, and we need to not only stand up to the bullies, but beat them so hard they'll slink back in their holes like the cowards they are. America's fathers also believe that George Bush has shown he wants to beat the bullies, and they believe he will continue to do so.

John Kerry, on the other hand, represents (no slight intended to women here) the "run home to mommy" philosophy. Mommy in this case is the UN, or perhaps France. Run to mom crying, and wait for her to call the bully's parents and complain that your kid got beat up. You meet on neutral ground, bully's mom shoves him forward, and he mumbles an apology. Guess what happens the next time? Bully finds you after school, kicks the crap out of you again, and says "if you ever do that to me again, I'm gonna knock every last tooth out of your head." And when mommy is, as in the UN's case, a drunken, profligate, absentee whore (and yes, I mean every word of that), she's certainly no help.

America's dads voted for America to stand up and act like a man, in the best sense of that phrase. Take responsibility, stand up for yourself and others weaker than you, and make the bad guys pay.