Author Archives: Curtiswselby

They say not to write a blog from a tired space, but I suffer from chronic fatigue syndrome, so frankly, everything I do is from a tired space. Likely I'm not doing the greatest job of search engine optimization. But I know there are others like me. Passionate about life.

Three Reasons Why the Personal is Political, But Not For the Reasons We Are Told Part I

Imagine there’s no hatred/I wonder if you can/No need to bash your partner/A family of humans/Imagine all the people partnering in peace/You may say I’m a dreamer/Likely I am the only one/I hope some day she will join us/And our world will be more fun. With apologies to John Lennon, may he rest in peace.

In my last post I explicated my thoughts on the gender wars of recent decades, but when I was pushing 3000 words I decided I’d make it at least a two part series. Here is the link if you haven’t read it or want a refresher:

https://wordpress.com/post/tiredmidnightblogger.com/2408

At the end of that post, I attempt to explain how the modern Radical Feminist Movement, like so many political plays, is little more than another tool in the hands of Hegemony, tightening the shackles of the very people who are struggling so hard for freedom. I’m not going to debate Feminism vs Men’s Rights (who really cares about Men’s Rights anyway? The only ones who really have any are the very wealthiest white men), nor will I do more than touch on the differences between “Radical” and “Liberal” Feminism. And I mean to explain the differences only to point out that there is a difference between a political stance, (I am a Republican) and the ideology (I don’t drink the Trumpster cool aid).

This image frankly explains it best.

Honestly, I don’t feel the need to waste any more time on that subject, I think the image spells it out plain. A Liberal Feminist wants to be free of the chains society has burdened her with. The Radical Feminist in their desire to uproot the Patriarchy can often be guilty of just oppressing men. And frankly other women. So lets dive in.

There are three ways the personal is political. They are:

  • 1) The forces of Power do indeed seep in at all levels. It is not only possible, it is quite likely the people who oppress you the most are in your own family, church, or business. But this is true irrespective of sex.
  • 2)The forces of Power desire nothing more than for us to lose our identities and become mindless automatons obeying their decrees. The message of Liberal Feminism has nearly succeeded in forcing men (except for the Hegemons) into the state of passive obedience, effectively slashing possible opposition by nearly 50%.
  • 3) The forces of Power not only don’t care about women, they actually hate women more profoundly than the men who have been silenced. And since the Hegemons wield more and more power, but face less and less opposition, the terrible suffering women have just begun to reduce, will instead intensify as the Hegemons use their power to break the spirit of women in general.

There are several mantras to Radical Feminism. It was difficult to narrow it down to one. But the one I’m focusing on is “The personal is political.” It is one of their slogans that resonates with me as an avid reader of 1984. Those who have read it remember that when Winston and Julia had sex it was in part an act of personal rebellion against The Party and Big Brother. Likely I am just a dumb man misunderstanding women, but that is what I think of when I read the slogan and some of the commentary about it. These people are saying that the politics of gender permeate our most intimate affiliations, and it is likely not merely the government or the wealthy oppressing you, it is likely your father, your brother, your son, the men in your family, church, or business. And even an act as deeply personal as sex ends up being a political action either for or against this oppressive Patriarchy.

With this, I neither totally agree with nor do I totally disagree. There are dysfunctional families. There are oppressive fathers. And mothers. And Husbands. And wives. And sons. And daughters. To me, sex is only a part (albeit a very important and powerful part) of the picture.

I’m sharing this image here to make the point. Honestly, it may be men doing the shaming, it’s just as oppressive no matter who wags the finger. But the more intelligent Liberal Feminists will be the first to admit that women have allowed themselves to be the shaming grace of Western society. That has been a tool of the Patriarchy (“a good mother will make her son ashamed to date someone from the wrong side of the tracks”), the Hegemons will exploit this more ruthlessly. For more on this topic: https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/talking-back-to-patriarchy-feminist-history-tone-exuberance

While the Hegemon shames women in different ways than how they shame men, make no mistake, men are shamed as much, if not more, than women. Which leads to my next point.

The Hegemony wants us all to be mind numbed sheep. They want compliance. They want obedience. Obedience is greater than sacrifice.

Radical Feminists have been criticized for being too puritanical. This plays into the Hegemony’s schemes. Some people are over hedonized, they pour out pornography and pressure us and our kids to have lots of sex. Not…um….saying I’m totally against that, but I don’t want the Hegemons dictating how and to whom and when and why. My balls are mine damn it. And…maybe my significant other. Everyone else can mind their own genitals. The other front is to delegitimize sex. Make sure it never happens. Make sure we control what babies are born. How many, and to whom.

Fortunately I caught myself before I got too deep down the rabbit hole. I started going off on the tangent of NWO population control schemes, and then realized I was getting too far off topic. To stay on point…I agree with Radical Feminism that the oppression you are dealing with is often most personal, but make no mistake, the same can be said of men.

Let’s start with the insidious “Men’s Rights Movement.” What is their number one complaint? Well, I can’t get on their website currently, but the leading website for the movement according to the research I’m conducting is “A Voice For Men.” Since I can’t get on there, I’ll paraphrase from other sources. Here are three websites I’m looking at to learn about them:

https://ifstudies.org/blog/saving-men-from-the-mens-rights-movement

https://time.com/2949435/what-i-learned-as-a-woman-at-a-mens-rights-conference/

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/314158167_Antifeminism_Online_MGTOW_Men_Going_Their_Own_Way_Ethnographic_Perspectives_Across_Global_Online_and_Offline_Spaces/link/58b820f0a6fdcc2d14d977d7/download

For those of you who don’t wish to do all the reading, however, I’ll sum it up: divorce.

The hardest part of my divorce has been my son’s heart failure. I had to fight painfully hard for the right to see him. When the hospital took out his breathing tube he couldn’t talk, so he was given this paper so that he could communicate. He kept pointing to “don’t leave” when I arrived. Can anyone tell me what is missing from this picture? That’s right. “Dad.”

The main gripes of the “Men’s Rights” movements are: the unequal settlements of divorce courts, the higher rates of suicide of men, the higher rates of conviction and incarceration for men, the higher rates of job injuries and death on the job for men, the fact that when prison rapes are included in statistics there are actually higher numbers of men raped than women, men have a significantly lower life expectancy, men are significantly less likely to get a collage degree, and there is no recourse for the average man if he is being abused by his wife.

On top of all of this, if you complain about any of these things, the response is likely not going to be very supportive (remember, I was laughed at when I sought shelter from my abusive wife. And just so you know, it was a kind woman who recommended I even try). In response to the Washington Post article “Why The Patriarchy Is Killing Men” feminist leader Chidera Eggerue tweeted “If men are committing suicide because they can’t cry, how’s it my concern?” Imagine if a man said “If women are dying from coat hanger abortions, how is that my concern?” Actually, you don’t have to. I’ll post an article where a man let slip something similar, and you be the judge:

https://www.mic.com/articles/139419/donald-trump-says-men-aren-t-responsible-for-abortions-here-s-why-these-men-disagree

I’m not stating these as facts, these are all things you would need to look up and do your own research to decide if the movement has any legs to stand on. There are issues they take that I agree with and others I don’t. Just like most women will agree with some points of Radical Feminism but will disagree with others.

This is my point: looking at the list of gripes the Men’s Libbers have….don’t they look awfully personal? No woman is mandated to divorce a man. She chooses that. And don’t get me wrong, I don’t doubt a huge percentage of the men left have it coming. But we all have excuses for what we do. Some are legitimate, some are less so. My point is there are examples of men abused through divorce (the same is true of women), and that is family. Suicide is personal. Job injuries and deaths are businesses. Rape…do I even need to say it? It’s not the government raping these men, it’s fellow prison inmates. Life expectancy, collage degrees, spousal abuse. Other than incarceration, all of the Men’s Rights issues are personal. If it is true for the Radical Feminists that the personal is political, it is equally true for the men’s rights movement. Let me know in the comments if you think I am wrong.

I will continue in the next post to explain how the American Man is the Invisible Man. Stay tuned for more Tired Blogging.

Surely this was personal. From the perspective of Radical Feminism, Amber Heard taking a crap in his bed was political. Whoever you think is right, at the end of the day, whoever was oppressed was oppressed by their partner. This is the world we have built.
Men and women are both shamed by our society, deliberately made to feel worthless so we won’t demand much. “In response to the well-established pattern of male self-harm, one Washington Post op-ed argued “Why The Patriarchy Is Killing Men.” The prominent British feminist, Chidera Eggerue, poked at the same topic. “If men are committing suicide because they can’t cry, how’s it my concern?” Eggerue tweeted. When others criticized her flippancy, Eggerue spun it towards nuance. “My points run deeper and I’m requesting that we create a dialogue about the bigger issue of patriarchy.” Sure, she was.”

Modern Romance

I have no heart to write about leadership this time.

I’m afraid this one is going to be a bit personal. Whether it is a good analysis or just a bitter man railing…you be the judge.

I have a good friend who is one of the most all-time patient persons you will ever meet. Super intelligent. He and his wife seemed a match made in Heaven. The two were obviously so in love. Then when Covid let society get out a little, I stayed the night at his house, maybe twice. His wife was out of town both times, and the second time my spidey sense tingled. I said nothing, I tried to be a good guest. We watched each other’s tv shows (he has amazing taste in movies). He has been a comfort to me in some very dark times.

The other day he announced on Facebook he and his wife are getting a divorce.

Marriage rates, at least in the United States, is at an all-time low. Various sites state that without immigration, the US population will be stagnant.

Another friend of mine, one of my best, is having difficulties in his marriage, and I feel helpless to assist. They are both some of the best people I know, yet they find it difficult to maintain happiness together.

My own experience with marriage notwithstanding, it seems marriage is less viable all the time. The divorce rate itself has been a wondrous (from Screwtape’s perspective) 50% of US marriages since 1975. Essentially, through all of my half-century of life. It only recently declined a pip, but some argue it has declined only because the marriage rate is so low.

Pauline Harmange, the French feminist author of Moi les hommes, je les déteste. I came across her work researching the declining rates of marriage. I haven’t read her work (and to be super fair to the reader, I don’t intend to). Her book has been banned, and as you know, I am vehemently for free speech. She has the right to hate men and to say so. Having said that, I have the right to the visceral reaction of my own heart…..

While in this post I make no claims to being logical, I am going to say three things about the current state of romance between the sexes (I don’t know enough about homosexual romance to speak in an informed fashion. I leave them out, not out of homophobia, just from ignorance).

  • 1) The relationship between the sexes has been adversarial since Adam and Eve. For good or ill, we have had thousands of years of trying to bridge a chasm between us when we have tried to come together.
  • 2) The Feminist movement began as a positive movement to bring Freedom to the 50 percent of the world that had rarely known it.
  • 3) The Feminist movement has been co-opted by the very “patriarchy” they hate. The current contempt for the common man serves the Hegemony perfectly, as the divide weakens both sexes.
The poet William Blake was also an artist of no mean ability. Here he portrays his vision of Adam and Eve before the Fall, enjoying each other without sin, while an envious Satan watches, plotting their demise.

The poetic creation story in Genesis tells us that Adam and Eve were created without sin, but after eating the forbidden fruit, they failed to take responsibility for their actions. Eve blamed the serpent, and Adam blamed Eve. From that point on God decreed “I will greatly multiply/ Your pain in childbirth, /In pain you will bring forth children; /Yet your desire will be for your husband, /And he will rule over you.”

I don’t mean to get into theology or debate here, but suffice it to say that some of the most ancient stories contain elements of contention between the sexes. We are different, we see things differently, and for whatever reason, the Patriarchy that has evolved feels they have a right to dominate women. And I can’t help but feel that were I a woman, I’d resent that. I’m not saying there haven’t been innumerable couples throughout the ages that were epic love stories. What I’m saying is we are often drawn to each other, but we are also very much afraid of each other. Nothing can hurt you like a member of the opposite sex.

And don’t think that the abusive members of each sex are unaware of this.

One of the early great feminists, Mary Wollstonecraft. She wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Woman in 1792. She died giving birth to the celebrated Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, who wrote Frankenstein: a Modern Prometheus. Mary Shelley was never forgiven by her father for “killing” the love of his life, and this helped inspire the anguish of the monster in the novel.

Western civilization was not very kind to women. When I read the Old Testament women seem to be only slightly higher than property. When I read the Iliad it is even worse. The whole point of the book is that Agamemnon has to give up a slave woman or Apollo will kill the Greeks with a plague, and Agamemnon throws a tantrum at the loss so he takes the slave woman of Achilles. There is a great deal of literature assuring us that there used to be matriarchal societies that lived in peace for millennium. And the Native American tribes had a great number of matriarchal communities. But Western civilization, built off of Judeo Christian theologies and Greco Roman culture, was often little better than misogyny. Paradoxically, the best treatment women had in the pre Christian west was in the testosterone laden state of Sparta. Women were allowed to own property there, and at one time as much as 60 % of all property was owned by women. Not bad Leonidas.

https://griekse-les.nl/women-and-their-role-in-ancient-greece-and-rome/#:~:text=In%20ancient%20Rome%2C%20only%20free,did%20women%20in%20ancient%20Greece.

We let women do what? Turns out the manliest of men allowed the most freedom for women.

Skip on forward (we’ll just hope you know about the burning of witches and the whole Spanish Inquisition) and you come to the American and French revolutions. Women were intensely influential on these movements. John Adam’s correspondence with Abigail Adams is a national treasure. And what would the French revolution be without the carmagnole? I’m being unfair to the French. They were so enlightened, they decided that breasts should bar you from being a citizen. I can think of several Senators that would disbar….Sorry Ted Cruz, you’re out. But this foolishness did inspire Mary Wollstonecraft to write the pivotal Vindication of the Rights of Women.

Liberty Leading the People. 1830. Oil on canvas, 260 x 325 cm. Sorry Liberty, you can’t vote.

The Feminist movement of the nineteenth and early twentieth century was a movement for justice. Just like any other downtrodden group, the woman simply wanted what was good for the goose to be good for the gander. She wanted the right to vote, to say what she believed, to own property independent of a husband. She wanted her body to belong to her and not to arbitrary men. She wanted men to respect her the same way she was required to respect men.

While men were painfully slow to hear (I know, I can hear the throng of women now, “You are always slow to listen”), eventually women got the right to vote. August 18, 1920, the Nineteenth Amendment was passed.

One last thing that I have to make clear. The feminist literature I have read makes it seem that the early movement was peaceful and largely respectful. I think in the main this is true, but it is not the whole truth. Neither sex looks better when we analyze things more closely.

https://www.bl.uk/votes-for-women/articles/suffragettes-violence-and-militancy

One of the images we imagine of the early feminist movement. The woman at the desk with all the books and papers (looks like my desk when I was not dating) is Christabel Pankhurst. While she looks wearily determined, I don’t look at her and fear for my safety. In this assumption I would be wrong. The issue of the Suffragette news letter hanging so precariously from her tasteful yet inadequate desk is illustrated with “the burning of Nottingham castle during the franchise agitation of 1832.” Arson, theft, and vandalism are all detailed as methods of protest. Image and information from the above mentioned website.

Before I found this site, I was going to write that the early Feminist movement was the only time I can recall in history when a privileged class relinquished power without violence. I was wrong. Does this mean the Feminist champions I’d been taught to admire are less worthy of the esteem I give them? It certainly erodes my admiration of the men of the time, who I had thought had given up their unrighteous power because of reason and and the natural love we bear for the female sex.

Of coarse the Tired Blogger is wrong again. No surprise there. But I will move to the last point. Whatever the early Feminists may have accomplished has been largely undermined by the virulent modern Feminist movement. They have devolved from a group of freedom fighters to another tool of the Hegemony to keep us all oppressed.

Alas, all too true. I wonder if this is why God has not given me more power. Would I become like the bullies I despise? I can see myself avenging myself on certain people, but would I become a tyrant?

I’ve already touched on this topic at some length. I’ll leave links to the two posts that I think are most salient to this point.

https://wordpress.com/post/tiredmidnightblogger.com/1778

https://wordpress.com/post/tiredmidnightblogger.com/1937

https://wordpress.com/post/tiredmidnightblogger.com/2025

Glancing back over the post about the shadow side of women, I feel like I didn’t do a very good job explaining it, I mainly just described my own reaction to it. So let’s see if I can do a better job here of explaining how the Hegemony uses the Feminist movement. Hopefully this won’t require a post of its own.

Here we see what is going on in the world of women while the Tired Midnight Blogger strikes out on another attempt at dating….or maybe this is “Members of W.I.T.C.H. (Women’s International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell) stage an action, c. 1968–70.” From the site I’m about to quote.

I think I struck gold on my first search. I googled “how the feminists fall prey to the patriachy.” I notice I misspelled “patriarchy.” This may have been serendipitous, as this article was at the top of the search:

https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/talking-back-to-patriarchy-feminist-history-tone-exuberance

I’m going to quote Ann Snitow here, I think she puts it pretty succinctly. She expresses how she is happy about the progress women have made, that she is so glad women are being taken seriously when they make harassment charges. But she expresses her concerns, and they are the same concerns any thoughtful man or woman would have:

“The worries many have expressed are also pressing in: fear of backlash (the richly recurring hatred of women who speak); fear of a loss of due process and proportionality in punishment; fear of a misdirection of the eye toward individual “monsters” and away from the need for systemic change. For me, too, a dislike of some women’s current delight in the shaming of men, which puts women in their traditional role as moral arbiters and, sometimes, scourges. Making men ashamed, from cradle to grave, is a constitutive part of how men—excuse the generic—spend their lives trying to establish a masculinity to cancel all doubts. Shaming men is simply joining the system, a return to the idea of women as sexual gatekeepers. (Women are constantly shamed, too, in quite a different way. They should be experts in the failure of this emotion as a goad towards positive change.)”

And there lies part of the crux of the problem. Going all the way back to the original sin: Adam responding to God with “I heard your voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.” But what was at the heart of that fear?

Shame.

One of my favorite moment from the silent adaptation of one of my favorite books, The Hunchback of Notre Dame. The Hunchback is being publicly shamed for his crime of…well, read the book. In his mind it can only have been because he was ugly. I know a lot of women are body shamed for a few pounds or for not looking like a supermodel, but believe me, a woman can make you feel as loathsome as a toad. The beauty of Esmerelda is that she took pity on the hated hunchback, and offered him a drink. I just realized, this is the very thing Mother Theresa talked about when she quotes Jesus on the Cross: “I thirst.”

We have been shaming each other for thousands of years. And I don’t want to go too far here. Like fear, shame has likely got its place. If we do something wrong, then we should feel shame. Trouble is…

Who decides what is wrong?

On the men’s side of the argument I’m going to share this website:

https://medium.com/@sooth.b.sayer/a-mans-response-to-i-hate-men-21c4ffffa4a6

I have mixed feelings about sharing this site. I don’t want it to be believed that everything the man says is the Gospel Truth. Having said that….

“

“Dislike for men is a fact, especially if you are a white man. White men grow up in America with a lot of undeserved hate and dislike. We are supposed to feel guilty for a lot of things we did not do. I am against slavery. I never owned slaves, but the fact that I am white educated man and earn a lot of money makes me a target for hate. I am in the privileged group. Should anyone accuse me of anything, or should I do anything wrong, I can expect zero sympathy and the maximum punishment.

“Men in general are under attack, not just white men. Take a good look at the number of rape allegations and sexual harassment lawsuits. We hear about them in the news and most of them are serious and have merit. But what we don’t her about are the ones that have no merit. I know of a lot of men that lost everything just because they were accused. In the end they were cleared, but some of them lost their jobs and families just because of the accusation.

“It makes you think twice before you ask a woman out. I never ask out a woman I work with. I never hit on women I work with or work for my customers. It would be suicide. The best place for you to meet men has traditionally been work. Not anymore. We are terrified to ask you out. Good luck with that.

The deck is stacked against us from start to finish. We can’t ask you out, and we lose everything if we get married. If you are lonely and can’t figure out why try looking at it from a man’s perspective. It sucks to be a man right now in the United States.

The feminist movement is great, power to women. The anti-men movement is horrible. There is a serious backlash against men of all colors in this country. Try to ask a woman out and you could be facing a sexual harassment lawsuit. There is a backlash from all of this man hating.”

The man in the article is exactly what most women are looking for if you can believe him (and we all know a man would never lie). But let’s take him at his word.

 “I am tall, attractive, funny, well educated, I earn more than 95% of Americans, I own my own home and I have over a million in savings. I work in sales and I am great at reading facial expressions. I can almost read people’s minds. It’s a sales thing, you have to be able to read people to be successful.”

This guy talks about how he has had only roughly 20 percent of women respond to his conversations with the statement, “What is your favorite….” In other words, the caring sex, the empathetic sex, when approached by a man who has almost everything a reasonable woman could ask for in a man….only 20 percent of them care enough to ask him anything about himself. Wisely, he says only that 20 percent get asked out on dates. And if I had the wealth and charisma he seems to have, I’d be exactly the same way. Honestly, I was the same way. Every woman I’ve taken on a second date showed interest in me as a person. I actually enjoyed being around them.

Looks like they need a third-party candidate to me…..

I’m afraid I am getting long-winded here, and I want to do this topic justice. So the next topic will be a continuation of this topic, how Feminism no longer serves women, it serves the thousand or two thousand white men who run the world….stay tuned to see if I can back up this claim.

“Men can be abused too. And they deserve care and compassion.” When I was married I called an abuse shelter, and told them I and my son were being abused and I needed assistance to escape from her. They laughed at me. Twice. Hung up on me. Twice. Please don’t think we want women oppressed. That is the aim of men far more powerful than I will ever be. When you disrespect a man, when you abuse a man, you are not empowering women. All you are doing is serving the worst men. Is that really what you want? Is there justice for the man? Sure, if he has enough money…..

If We Win, We’ll Have What None of Us Has Ever Had Before: a Country of Our Own

Welcome home George Taylor. “Oh my God. I’m back. I’m home. All the time it was…We finally really did it. YOU MANIACS! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!” Don’t blame me, you voted for the idiots.

While I know where I want this post to end up, I don’t know exactly how I want to get there yet. Like George Taylor, I have felt for a long time that I was vastly out of my element. Not that I see those around me as apes. But I have felt all my life (well, since I was nine or ten, so eighty percent of my life) like everyone around me were either truly better than me (but that didn’t seem true) or at least they felt for some reason like they were better, and I needed to be put in my place. All my life I’ve wanted to cry out “Get your hands off me, you damned, dirty ape!” But the fetters society shackles me with are manacles of the mind.

We may have beaten everyone to the moon, but China beat us to the Monkey. According to various news sites, the Chinese have successfully genetically engineered a human/monkey hybrid. Surely such a backward nation could never have genetically altered anything else. Like…you know….maybe a virus….image and info from bbc.com, the speculation is from shear craziness.

I can hear my audience now. “Enough monkey shines! Get on with it!”

This will be my last post about William Wallace. I’m going to write about how he fulfilled the last of the five habits of leadership from The Leadership Challenge. William Wallace enabled others to act. There are three examples from the film.

  • 1) William Wallace doesn’t micromanage. If you want to claim to be an Irish king, so long as you kill English, you can be his guest.
  • 2) William Wallace is humble enough to listen. When the Princess Isabella warns him of an assassination attempt, rather than scorning “a woman’s testimony.”
  • 3) At the risk of sounding like a broken record: he taught Robert the Bruce how to be a king.

One of the big banes of modern management is micromanagement. We want every single painful step documented. We want to be sure that not only are you aiming for the same goal we are, we will brook no difference in method. “Smile while you are on the phone call. Don’t mention that the systems are running slow. There is only one right way to do things: our way. We want you scanning in and out of the stores, logging onto the computer exactly at the time we say. We want hourly updates. Make that updates every twenty minutes.” You end up spending more time on the paperwork than you do on the job.

William Wallace did none of these things. He didn’t ask for more flair. Didn’t complain if you lifted your kilt at the wrong time, didn’t argue about your choice of weapons or disqualify you because you were insane. “It’s my island.” All he asked was for you to fight at his side and believe in the possibility that Scotland would one day be free.

The iconic photo of a homeless WW I veteran, literally begging for money as he runs by the royal carriage in 1920. Inside the carriage, King George V looks on, and his son Prince Henry simply smiles sheepishly. I’ve always felt this photo was a perfect image of the world. The rich ride in state while the poor run hard beside, begging for a few crumbs. The medals on the veteran’s chest reminds us that this man risked his life for the Empire King George rules.

Unlike George V, William Wallace listened to his people. He might not do exactly as they advised, but he truly listened to what they had to say. Longshanks felt Princess Isabella was a foolish young girl with no brains, but Wallace felt she was intelligent, strong, brave and kind. He listened to her when she warned him about the assassins sent to kill him. He listened when they warned him he was going to be betrayed, but he still met with Robert the Bruce. While his men were right about what was about to happen, Wallace was actually right about the strength and nobility abiding in the Bruce. Robert the Bruce father would not listen, but William would. They debated, but it was the debate of brothers. Of two men intent on a righteous cause. William Wallace gave respect, and received it in return.

The only painting of the scene of Lincoln’s assassination from an actual eyewitness. The artist, Carl Bersch, had intended to make a painting of a victory parade commemorating the North’s victory in the Civil War. As he was working on the painting, there was a disturbance, and looking out the window, Bersch observed a crowd of worried people streaming from the Ford’s Theater across the street, and men carrying the bandaged, fatally wounded President Lincoln after he had been shot. Bersch changed the theme to reflect this haunting scene, and titled it Lincoln Borne by Loving Hands. All too often, we are the beneficiaries of those who struggle, and never live to see the victory. Often I wonder if we are worthy of the sacrifices…

The proof, they say, is in the pudding. Even if you doubt my reasoning, it is historical fact that it was Robert the Bruce, and not William Wallace, who won the Scots their liberty. But it was Wallace who bore the greatest pain between the two. This is often the case. At least in this story, the one who took up the mantel was worthy of it. All too often Lincoln’s and Kennedy’s are replaced by a Johnson. I’ll never forget, at the end of The Lord of the Rings, Frodo speaking to Sam:

But I have been too deeply hurt, Sam. I tried to save the Shire, and it has been saved, but not for me. It must often be so, Sam, when things are in danger: someone has to give them up, lose them, so that others may keep them.

I thought about ending with a photo of William Wallace dying, but for some reason, this image conveys it best to me. As the film Braveheart says, everyone dies, but not everyone truly lives. These two friends truly lived. It was in pain they lived, but they faced death with a friend they loved and respected more than anyone else in the world. How many of us get to say that?
While this is only a cartoon, it is one of the best scenes in cinema demonstrating what I am trying to say. The true hero pours himself into the next generation, not throwing themselves foolishly away, but showing the next generation the example of how one should live and die. Domo arigato William Wallace.