Don’t Tread On Me

“I done wrestled with an alligator, I done tussled with a whale,

Handcuffed lightning, thrown thunder in jail;

Only last week, I murdered a rock,

Injured a stone, hospitalized a brick;

I’m so mean I make medicine sick.”

Mohammad Ali

Few men are able to so use poetry as a vehicle for posturing their threatening bravado as did Muhammad Ali. I remember his not so veiled threats against Howard Cosell, and how they always left you uncertain as to whether he was joking around, or if Howard was in actual danger of being beaten to a pulp. In a boxing ring, it’s good to have that kind of mystique around you. You want to be unpredictable, fear inspiring, maybe a little bit crazy. The same is true in the mean streets of our cities, which no doubt explains the “Ali style” use of taunting, posturing poetry by so many of today’s rappers.

Truth is that despite the fact that few of us men use poetry to act tough (most of us would get beat up if we did), posturing is a trait common to the males of many species, and humans are included in that grouping. Biologically, it’s survival of the fittest. The biggest, toughest male gets the best of the food, gets the girls… king of the hill. But nature does not generally leave this to some March Madness style tournament whereby the only measure of strength is not dying in your latest battle. If such were the case, life would be a constant bloodbath of endless fights to the death, and even the strongest would eventually succumb to their wounds and be worn down by the long line of challengers. Instead, the actual fighting is usually kept to a reasonable minimum, with most of the battle implied by the mere threat of violence, and the projection (or sometimes the illusion) of strength.

Women are often amused, and occasionally disgusted by these male displays of testosterone driven machismo; but any man who has suffered through high school will tell you, posturing can be a survival tool, and while taming your testosterone might seem like the civilized thing to do, civilization seldom fares well against barbarians. And while women can laugh or roll their eyes at tough talking males, they seem to be subject to their own biology as well, attracted to the bad boys, sometimes really bad boys, and often the most gullible to male strutting and crowing. Believe me, if being predictably docile would get you girls, more men would be gentle lambs. Of course, there’s a balance. Adolescent display of tough guy machismo becomes tedious in a setting where it is uncalled for; and posturing at work, strutting in a nice restaurant, or chest thumping at the library just makes you look like an ass. On the other hand, acting soft and vulnerable in the wrong place at the wrong time might leave you without your wallet, and taking your meals from a straw.

Most men who do not have mental problems aren’t really looking for a fight. Exchanging blows is painful, even when you win the fight. And while excessive bravado can lead to confrontations, ironically the best way to avoid a fight in some places is to appear to be fully prepared for one. It doesn’t require a lot of noise, just a certain look, appearing possibly dangerous and maybe even a little bit crazy, or at least unpredictable. It doesn’t even need to be totally convincing, just enough to create doubt; even tough talking guys are usually cowards, and are unwilling to chance a beatdown. Of course, the best way to appear dangerous is to actually be dangerous, and there may come a day where you need to back up your act.

Well, that was a long set-up for where I’m going with all this, but the same dynamic is true of civilizations and nations. Of late we have done a lot of flag waving and back slapping. There’s a difference in those who raise a flag in battle as opposed to those who raise it in conquest. The same administration who cowardly misrepresented their position regarding same sex marriage during the election jumped to light up the Whitehouse in rainbow colors when the Supreme Court settled the battle for them. It’s easy enough to fly a Gadsden flag or put a rainbow filter on your Facebook page once you’ve won an election or a court decision, but it requires courage to run toward the battle with the flag like Benjamin Martin in “The Patriot”, and it is courage that frightens the enemy. We have as a nation traded courage and resolve for what we like to think of as reason and diplomacy. The barbarians are unimpressed by our civility and have taken notice. We are war weary, but we have always been war weary, the difference is that now we telegraph that fact to our enemies. We have become predictable, and in our predictability non-threatening. Our president reserves his wrath for conservatives and reporters who ask impertinent questions, while showing the patience of Job while losing a battle of negotiation with Iran or responding to a terrorist killing our Marines in Tennessee.

Likewise, the conservative opposition to the progressive agenda has become predictably cowardly. Shortcuts to winning elections by diluting positions have replaced strongly held convictions and prevailing in the debate. We have refined caving in to an art form; and like a bad movie, there might be a lot of fire and noise, but the plot is predictable and you know exactly how it’s going to end. No longer the rattler from our Gadsden flags, our leaders have become toothless garden snakes who slither under a rock at the slightest noise of opposition. No one respects them, no one fears them, they could hardly be seen as dangerous; and the opposition treats them more as nuisances and welcome foils than serious threats.

IMHO: There was a time when the slogan “Don’t tread on me” meant something. It was an implied threat that we eventually proved to be an apt warning; we were indeed dangerous. From nostalgia we still fly the tattered flag, but the slogan has become a case of wishful thinking. Our progressive antagonists respond to the empty warning “Don’t tread on me” with a sneer… “Why not?” they respond, and our leaders slither away. On the world stage, our enemies have learned that America’s only value has become winning elections, and that as such we are predictably safe. We do the political thing, not the sensible thing; to the point that we take guns away from our defenders and leave them as defenseless targets in gun free zones.

Talking tough is not enough once you’ve demonstrated you are a pushover. That doesn’t mean becoming Vladimir Putin (though it seems to work for him!), and that is the false dichotomy that is President Obama’s standard tactic in any debate. Now he tells us that the only alternative to his horrible bargain with Iran is war, and since war is not something we want then we must choose his horrible bargain… “Peace in our time!”. Circular logic based on a false premise, that war is our only alternative; and by so strongly advertising that war is unacceptable, he takes that threat off the table removing any doubt the Iranians might have had that we might use military force, or even that we might have any other tricks up our sleeve.

The world is a rough neighborhood and appearing weak and vulnerable when you’re a superpower invites aggression, and limits our influence for good. Likewise, being a slave to polling data gives your foes a cudgel with which to beat you into submission. There comes a time to drive the polls by winning the debate and educating people. There comes a time to say “enough”, patch your flag, take courage and run toward the battle. There comes a time to let our enemies see our venom, hear our rattle, understand that we are dangerous and not entirely predictable; that when we say “Don’t tread on me” it is not an empty threat.