Might Is Right

by Ragnar Redbeard

  Herod’s wife and daughter, and their secret alliance for getting John the Baptizer’s head chopped off, must not be overlooked; nor the calculated ‘brutality’ with which Jael drove that tent-peg into General Sisera’s cranium, when he slept. The folk-fable of Delilah and Samson is also to the point. In many respects women have proved themselves more cruel, avaricious, bloodthirsty and revengeful than men.

  Women are also remarkably good liars. Deception is an essential and necessary part of their mental equipment. They are inherently deceitful. Men however reckon upon that and discount it well in advance. Without deception of some sort, a woman would have no defense whatever, against rivals, lovers, or husbands. We must not forget that women really hate each other — intensely.

  It is as natural for women to prevaricate, as it is for man to resent a blow on the face. It is their weapon. Hence they take up with false religions, priestcrafts, superstitions, much more readily than men. They like to play the hypocrite, and pretend to be “O so holy,” when their secret thoughts are carnal, self-centered and materialistic. When women think, they think falsely — when they follow their instinct, they do exactly what nature intended them to do — limited of course by the inevitable ‘man’ — ‘the brute that he is.’

  Women are beautiful animals, delightful companions, affectionate mothers, sisters, and wives, kind-hearted friends; but they are — born dissimulators.

  A woman is primarily a reproductive cell-organism, a womb structurally embastioned by a protective, defensive, osseous network; and surrounded with the antenæ, and blood vessels, necessary for supplying nutriment to the growing ovum or embryo. Sexualism and maternity dominate the lives of all true women. To such an extent is this so, that they have little time left (or the inclination) to “think” and therefore they’ve never fitted out ab-initio with reasoning organs. Probably this is what Mahomet alluded to, when he sententiously affirmed that “women have no soul.” (Even in man, the soul is probably a fiction, but in women its absence is an absolute certainty). Women are made sexually attractive to equilibrate their lesser masculinity. It is man — the warrior’s — business to supply their wants; and select the best of them, for his own enjoyment and the propagation of his seed. They will not object — except in a giggling, semi-sentimental sort of a way, because they comprehend their own incapacity for self-mastership, and logical business methods. They are never touched with any sense of personal responsibility; are mere babies in worldly concerns — hysterical, well supplied with tear glands, verbal mechanism — but lovable always. Slaves and women are notoriously incompetent of self-control — of holding their own in ‘business’ — when not inspired and assisted by male friends. They are intended by nature to be loved and defended but not to be “equalized.”

  5

  When their passions are stirred, women have performed deeds of heroism (and of terror), that even a man with nerves of steel, would hesitate at. They have fought on sea and land, the bravest of the brave. They have led armies and ruled empires, and been criminals of the darkest dye. Messalina, Aggrepina, Amestes, Charlotte Corday, Elizabeth of Russia, Jael, Fulvia, Theroigne de Mericourt, Jezebel — the Borgias; have all made themselves more or less infamous. ‘Terrible is the rage of the billows — terrorizing is the fear of poverty, but more terrorizing than all things is the hate of a woman.’ (Euripides). Pseudo scientists have lately investigated “The Female Offender” with anthropometric accuracy, but their methods are puerile and unsatisfactory. Their very ‘first principle’ is false. They begin by assuming that the “criminal type” is to be found in gaols — a most superficial and unscientific assumption. Only criminals who fail are found there; and by far the largest proportion of them do not fail. Naturally enough, successful criminals have not been “investigated” by Messrs Ferreri, Lombroso, Havelock, Ellis, et. al. That being so, their sagest conclusions are vitiated. Indeed it is an accepted truism among criminals and police, that ‘only the fools are caught.’ Many of our most eminent men in law, medicine, science, religion and statesmanship, are criminals — criminals of the most atrocious description. The difference between the man who rules in the Castle, and the other man who is chained in the castle-dungeon, is the difference between success and failure. There is a strong affinity between the criminal and the conqueror. If Washington for example, had failed, he would (most probably) have been hunted-down, and hung as an outlaw and traitor. However he ‘won’ by Force, and consequently became a mighty potentate. King David was a sheep-stealer and blackmailer, until he triumphed. Then he became “a man after God’s own heart.” William the Norman was also a criminal, and fifty per cent of his invading army were exiled outlaws; but by conquest he became king of England, and his followers blossomed into nobles.

  Hence the Spencerian dictum: — “the sole truth that transcends experience, by underlying it, is the Persistence of Force. This being the basis of experience, must be the basis of any scientific organization of experiences. To this an ultimate analysis brings us down; and on this a rational synthesis must be built up.” (First Principles, page 62). Criminals and statesmen are visible embodiments of the Persistence of Force? Now that being so; scientists should define, unmistakably, what they mean by “crime,” before commencing to elaborately tabulate ‘the criminal type.’

  But whether a criminal is successful or not, he seems to have a peculiar fascination for women. He who “risks his life to advance his fortunes” may reckon beforehand upon unlimited feminine approval. If he succeeds and becomes a millionaire, a chancellor, a president, or a king; he has only to ‘hold up his hand’ to be literally ‘rushed’ by the handsomest feminines in the land: and even if he fails bravely, women will gather in shoals to visit him in gaol, besieging him with bouquets and proposals of marriage, even at the gallows. In Michigan a law has lately been enacted, to prohibit female adorers, from sending flowers to condemned murderers, burglars, and bank wreckers. Lombroso says somewhere that “good and passionate women have a fatal propensity to love bad men;” but with characteristic want of the logical faculty, he abstains enthusiastically, from defining ‘good’ and ‘bad.’

  Belle Starre, the border bandit (who died in a fight with State troops) was the daughter of a guerilla chief. She selected her numerous husbands from the bravest dare-devils in her band, and on the slightest sign of cowardice, they were discarded. “I do love a fellow who shows grit,” was a common expression of hers.

  A printed catalogue of the sanguinary duels, that have been fought through jealousy, would not be less than fifty miles thick. (The mythical Cain and Abel are supposed to have quarreled over some ante-diluvian young woman’s charms; and she must have married Cain.) If the duels between the animals, plants, birds, fishes, germs, and infusorians, for possession of the female, were also added thereto; this planet would not contain the first chapter of the first volume. Women like to be able to say that two men have fought over them. All female animals display a similar peculiarity.

  Bushrangers, freebooters, rebels, pirates, have never lacked for love romances. Plays and novels by the thousand have been written upon their escapades, and are always perennially popular. From the Arabian Nights down to Marie Correli and Ouida, it is one long rhythmic lilt of ‘Love and Women and War.’ Women authors are specially prone to glorify in their heroes, beauty-of-form, daring, hardihood, and resolution.

  Jesse James and his reckless band of outlaws, also had their famous love adventures. The mother of the James boys had her arm torn off by the explosion of a detective’s bomb, thrown through her bedroom window, in the darkness of the night.

  The memory of “Brennan on the Moor,” (and his dashing inamorata, who “handed him a blunderbuss from underneath her cloak”) is still as green as the hillsides of Innisfail. Like Mahomet, Tell, William Wallace, Cæsar, and Napoleon, this famous outlaw’s popularity rested on — a suggestive economic fact: —

  “He never robbed a poor man,

  Upon the king’s highway;

  But what he�
�d taken from the rich,

  He gave unto the poor;

  So bold and undaunted,

  Was Brennan on the moor.”

  Though not cast in the American mould, Mr. Brennan was somewhat of a “practical statesman.” Decidedly!

  According to Inspector Shaak’s very cleverly written pamphlet; each of the Chicago bomb-throwers had his own romance. An heiress supplied money for the defence of one, whom she proposed to marry: but the most daring and logical of them all (when defeated) “fell upon his sword,” like unto Brutus and Cato and Saul. That is to say, he blew his own head off with explosives brought to him by his lady-love. It is also noteworthy that he was the son of a Crown Prince. Heredity therefore may have had much to do with the magnitude of his concept. In se magna ruunt.

  Another of these slave-betrayed, mob-abandoned enthusiasts was the brother of an American General, and seems to have led a wandering adventurous life; finally falling ‘head-over-heals’ in love with a Southern quadroon; who still zealously fans the embers of her dead husband’s agitation (limited of course by police censorship.) Whenever she rises to speak in this city, she is surrounded by stenographic-mouchards and by armed officers of the “Law” in picturesque uniforms.

  By direct command of the People, two of those men were choked to death and two others had their necks neatly broken; amid reverberating shouts of worldwide approbation. Their ‘Power’ was not equal to their ‘Logic,’ and consequently they were snuffed-out in strict accordance with the Law of the survival-of-the-fittest. ‘They who make half-revolutions dig their own graves’ is an old Cromwellian proverb, that they had evidently failed to properly consider.

  Thus the vibrations of Matter and Motion are to be seen in all social phenomena; and Regal Authority is upheld by the combined strength of arm and brain, that gave it birth. “Man, like every other animal must remain subject to a severe struggle.” (Darwin.)

  Love in sexual relationship, Power in social adjustments, Polarity and Magnetism in physics, Gravitation in astronomy, and Might in ethics, are exact synonyms; — correlated phases of one primary Assertive — “the Persistence of Force.” Se nu san — so na si. The Sultan of Turkey has been melodramatically described by W. E. Gladstone, that “Grand Old Spider” as — “the Assassin of the Century,” and yet the women of the East (even those of Armenia) would claw each others eyes out, for half a chance to enter his harem.

  Dr. Jamieson, the South African freebooter, and his chief, Cecil Rhodes, though unmercifully abused and denounced as wicked criminals, are continuously being deluged with written proposals of marriage, from heiresses on both sides of the Atlantic. These two men, by Force and Diplomacy, “stole” two million acres of the finest agricultural and pastoral land in Africa: together with gold mines, silver mines, copper mines, diamond mines; also vast herds of sheep and cattle.

  They carried fire and sword into the strongholds of their enemies — shot “gods” with rifle-bullets — cut the throats of priestly sorcerers in scores — shed the blood of “adversaries” like water; and reduced the defeated Kaffirs to a respectful condition of “constitutional freedom.” There is no cant and hypocrisy about Cecil Rhodes! — None! He is a man made whole — blunt as Napoleon or Bismarck. He is (in his own sphere) of the Cæsar, Cromwell, Darwinian stock. Believing implicitly in the survival of the fittest, he is the despair of the priestling and the terror of the politician. He laughs at their parchment Laws and shrieking Editorials — he rides rough-shod over their Golden Rules — he scorns their Sermons on the Mount — he spits upon their Tabulated ‘Commandments.’ He takes what he wants, if he has the Power — not otherwise. He does not beg — he does not pray — he does not “steal.” No! — he goes direct for what he wants and “annexes” it, if he can. Nor does he weep crocodile tears, over the ‘enslavement’ of races that Nature manifestly stamped with inferiority. In days long gone by, such men were the norms of Anglo-Saxondom. Now! Alas! they are astounding exceptions.

  If this Republic had produced one Cecil Rhodes forty years ago, the Civil War (provoked by idiotic emotionalism) would never have been fought. (Civil wars are necessary then a country is overstocked, but these States were not over populated in 1862.) Instead of ‘Sounding the Jubilee’ for plantation ‘niggers,’ he would have Sounded it for his own Race; by sending Grants and Shermans, not to plunder and devastate the Shenandoah valley and the home of Washington, but to seize, conquer, and re-colonize, South and Central America, from El Paso to Cape Horn.

  6

  Among the Norse and Germanic forefathers, it was considered the saddest disgrace that could befall any matron; to be the mother of a weakling, or a laggard in war. Only for the debasing influence of priestcraft that would be felt by modern women — of all grades. Roman matrons have died of broken hearts and even drowned themselves in shame, at the poltroonery displayed by a son. If past generations had to depend on the sweet girly-girly fragile young thing of to-day — or the lean “lady graduate” for its reproductive Ova, we would long ago have became a swarm of ring-tailed baboons. Poor things, they also feel their artificiality — feel it in their hearts; when they look upon the spindle-shanked, mutilated males (scarecrows of men) that they are expected to “love, honor, and obey.”

  Over intellectualism (bad enough in man) transfigures women into freaks. The more Animal Nature a maiden possesses; the more of a true woman she is — the better wife and mother she will make. Culture and refinement are horrible substitutes, for the grand old matronly virtues — beauty, naturalness, purity, maidenly hypnotism. Intellectualism renders more sensitive. Sensitive persons are very excitable, timid, and liable to disease. Over cultivation of the brain cells undoubtedly produces (in both sexes) physical decay and leads on towards insanity.

  Women’s noblest occupation is not merely to read erotic novels, pound the fiddle, waltz divinely, or fry steak and onions, but to breed men, to raise up a race of unsubdueable fighters — fighters for their own hand. Her vilest occupation is to duplicate anæmic poltroons, creeping Judas’s, laborious jackasses. Therefore if she desires her sons to be brave, bold and successful in the battle of life, she should see to it that her husband is not a coward or a slave: and men ought also ’ware of marrying slave-minded women. This point is simply set forth in the Saga of Olaf Trygwason. Earl Rognwald had a degenerate son, who returned from a Viking-cruise without bringing any plunder. This was considered a shameful disgrace by the family. Earl Rognwald remarked: ‘My son is not like my forefathers.’ So he fitted the young man out afresh, saying to him: — ‘I shall be pleased if you come not again; but I have little hope that you will ever be an honor to your kinsmen, for your mother’s family are all thrall born.’ Have moderns ever improved on that thought?

  There is nothing particularly inviting about barren, dyspeptic, blue-stocking ‘New Women,’ in pants and spectacles; talking idiotic snuffle through their noses; with busts made of adjustable india-rubber; with narrow or padded hips, and “wheels between their legs,” scorching across the curbstones like mad. When such women are ‘captured’ what good are they? They won’t even breed; or if they do so (by accident) their puny embryos, have to be delicately nurtured into life with steam-heated incubator-mechanism and afterwards fed and weaned on ‘the bottle.’ The sons of such women — bottle fed abortions — of what good are they?

  It is women of this kind (unnatural monsters they are) that cause so much domestic unhappiness. They have been “educated” along false lines, filled with bookish artificialism, and thereafter when called upon to take up their maternal duty, they are organic incapables. Hence the divorce court scandals — the fruit of wholesale degeneracy — encouraged by State interference with domestic affairs.

  “Our times, in sin prolific, first

  The marriage bed with taint have cursed,

  And family and home —

  This is the fountain head of all,

  The sorrows and the ills that fall —

  On Romans and on Rome.”

  H
orace

  Gradually the curse of ‘Law’ invades the privacy of every home. It encourages emotional feminines to defy husbands, and Deify an irresponsible Authority. In other words it deliberately promotes unfaithfulness and unlimited free-love. It undermines the husband’s Control, but at what a dreadful cost? With the “equalization” of women comes wholesale panmixia — scientific concubinage, State-regulated polyandry, and the poisoning of all inter-family intercourse. When average women find in Statute Law a “deliverer” and a “champion” more powerful than their husbands and brothers, they become both unfaithful and profligate — especially if “well educated.” Then it cometh to pass (as in all ages of connubial decadence) “no man knoweth his own father.” Is not that the practical tendency of the times? Again, is that ‘tendency’ itself not the horrible result of State-Paternalism — of majority-box dictation — of Statecraft and Priestcraft? The Church lives by the functional emotionalism of women. Thus the Individual wanes and the State grows more and more. In natural society, every woman’s husband is to her, both priest and king. When the baleful shadow of politics and preacherisms, looms over the marriage bed, dreadful days are at hand.

  Purity of blood has played (and is yet to play) a leading role in the drama of racial evolution. Races held in bondage are necessarily mongrelized, degraded, ‘equalized.’ Homeliness is one result of bad breeding.

  When a higher type allies itself by marriage with a lower, it paves the way for its own ultimate degeneracy. When Spartans and Athenians mixed themselves with imported Asiatic and Egyptian slaves, their downfall was foretold; and when “Equality” became the motto of Christian Italy; Latins, Asiatics, and Negroes miscegenated, evolving the modern ‘Dago’ — who slaves for the descendents of the men his ancestors conquered. What a fall? Modern Greeks and Italians, with their dark complexions, curly hair and sensual lips, show distinct traces of the Negro and Asiatic blood, that (with the emancipation of the Servi) was poured into their forefathers’ veins. Hence their failure in the struggle for mastery. Hence their conquest by Goth, Mongol, Teuton, Turk and Slav. A friend of Winwoode Reade’s, tells a tale full of meaning. As an African explorer, he once came across a native tribe (the Joloffs) remarkable for their comparative fine appearance. He asked one of them, “how is it that everyone whom I meet here is good looking, not only your men but your women?” “That is easily explained, (was the reply) it has always been our custom to pick out our worst looking ones, and sell them for slaves.”