The American Spectator : Are Men Who Don't Want to Be Men Really Necessary?

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Are Men Who Don’t Want to Be Men Really Necessary?

By William Tucker on 8.31.12 @ 6:08AM

On the progressive trend to declare women self-sufficient save for an occasional trip to the sperm bank.

I generally don’t like to get involved in these “which-sex-is-the-best” debates, but here’s a case where I’ll have to make an exception. Last week the New York Times ran an op-ed entitled, “Men: Who Needs Them?” It was written — wouldn’t you know? — by a man, a professor at Boise State. Since this article questions the very existence of people like myself and since it is filled with such misinformation and errors as might imperil the future of human society, I feel compelled to respond.

The author is one Greg Hampikian, professor of both biology and criminal justice in yet another cloistered academic community where anything can happen to a man’s brain. Hampikian puts forth the premise that since men play only a very brief role in the physical conception of a new individual, and since from there until birth the burden of reproduction is carried entirely by the mother, therefore men — or just about all men — could be eliminated from the earth with little or no consequence. Here is the way he puts it:

If a woman wants to have a baby without a man, she just needs to secure sperm (fresh or frozen) from a donor (living or dead). The only technology the self-impregnating woman needs is a straw and a turkey baster…. If all the men on earth died today, the species could continue on frozen sperm. If the women disappeared, it’s extinction.

Ultimately, the question is, does “mankind” really need men?

So intent is Professor Hampikian on this self-abnegation that he proclaims the term “Homo sapiens” represents only an “18th century masculine bias in science” and that “mankind” is a “gross misnomer.” He prefers “mammals,” since the term refers specifically to the mammary glands, possessed only by women.

Somehow Professor Hampikian’s lack of confidence in the male role is strangely reminiscent of those men in primitive tribes who are said to live in supernatural awe of women’s reproductive powers. It is often speculated that the Stone Age “Venuses,” those small female statues with prominently exaggerated hips and reproductive organs, were amulets whereby men sought to control women’s mysterious procreative abilities. I’ve always thought they might be just Stone Age pornography, but who knows? — maybe it amounts to the same thing.

In any case, since Professor Hampikian is a biologist and presumably believes in evolution, maybe we can use a little evolutionary biology to shore up his self-esteem.

Let’s start with a simple observation. Biologists have recently determined that when it comes to genetic structure, we differ from our chimpanzee cousins by only 3 percent of our genes. That means, if you believe in evolution, that there is very little distance between ourselves and the chimps. In the 5 million years or so since we branched off, only a few minor changes have occurred to separate the two species.

Now here’s the interesting part. Of that 3 percent of changes, 95 percent have taken place on the Y chromosome. That’s the chromosome carried only by men — the only thing in fact that differentiates men and women. In other words, pretty much all the things that have happened to separate us from our chimpanzee ancestors have been things that happened to men. Does that make the term “”mankind” sound a little more appropriate?

Actually, to anthropologists, this isn’t anything new. For decades, they have noted that, in terms of reproductive behavior, female chimpanzee and human females are not very different. Both become pregnant, nurture the fertilized egg in the womb, give birth, nurse their offspring, and then carry them around and protect them for about five years until the young are ready to venture out on their own. In behavioral terms, there’s not much any difference.

What is different about human beings is the behavior of men. Male chimps band together in “brotherhoods” that are often compared to tight-knit fraternal clans or street gangs. They mark out territory and defend it against other males. This creates a safety zone in which their females can raise their young without worrying about unprovoked attacks from unrelated males. (This is critical because if other males take over the troop they will immediately kill all the young in order to put the females to work raising their own offspring.)

What male chimps do not do is: a) pair off with individual females, or b) play any role in child-rearing. In fact, it is against the code of chimpanzee society for any male and female to take too much interest in each other or pair off. Instead, the strict rule is that every male gets to mate with every female. This maintains the brotherhood and allows male chimps to cooperate among themselves without being torn apart by sexual competition. The females enforce this code as well, making sure to mate with every male, no matter how low his status. This is called “confusing paternity.” The purpose is to make every adult male believe he might be the father. That prevents any of them from harming the offspring.

Now, somewhere in the mists of time, on the Savannas of East Africa, our ancestors abandoned this sexual communalism and adopted instead a system where couples paired off to form monogamous “pair bonds.” This is rare among mammals, although not entirely unknown. About 5 percent of mammals practice monogamy. Among them are our distant cousins, the gibbons of Southeast Asia. Gibbon couples pair off in the jungle and live in solitude, singing weird, haunting tenor-and-soprano duets to warn other males and females out of their territory. They reproduce successfully but do not engage in co-operative effort with any other gibbons.

What was completely unique about the proto-human society of our forebears is that they learned to practice monogamy within the larger group. This occurs among gregarious flocks of birds that spend weeks or months nurturing their young but is unknown among other mammalian species. What it accomplished was to maintain the male solidarity of the chimpanzee troop under much more trying circumstances, while still providing each individual with a reasonable chance to mate. The outcome paved the way for human evolution.

Our earliest ancestors were hardly formidable creatures. They stood three feet tall, had no sharp claws or ferocious teeth, could not outrun predators and had no trees in which to escape. Yet somehow they managed to hold their own in a sea of larger, swifter predators. By sticking together in troops of about 20-25, they were able to protect themselves while scavenging the prey of other animals and eventually becoming hunters themselves. Male chimps hunt for about 5 percent of their diet and do not share with females or offspring. Hunter-gatherer males provide about 35 percent of the diet and share their kill with both mates and children. That is the difference between us and the chimpanzees. It is a legacy of which any male can be proud.

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About the Author

William Tucker is news editor for RealClearEnergy.org.

Letter to the Editor View all comments (68) | Leave a comment Leave a comment

spike59| 8.31.12 @ 6:15AM

back in my misspent college years, i ran across more than a few 'alan aldas'; 'men' who declared themselves 'feminists', who despaired of how brutish and coarse and unfeeling our gender behaved, and how we needed to change and become more 'enlightened and empowered' by getting 'in touch' with our 'feminine side'...boy, did they become bitter and disillusioned when they found out that they WEREN'T going to get laid using that line unless they tried it on Hillary Clinton types...Bill Cosby, i believe, once said "I been liking girls ever since i found out they wasn't boys'...women prefer men who are men

Pauline| 8.31.12 @ 10:07AM

The return of the . . . the SCARF!

Mr. Tucker, the ladies at my bridge club have asked me to prevail on you to post a photo that we can click on to enlarge. We want to see more details of that fabulous scarf.

Will you please do us this favor?

Gina Bertolucci| 8.31.12 @ 10:14AM

It appears to me that Mr. Tucker is lost in the luxurious world of enchantment with the exciting elegance of an Alexander McQueen silk scarf wrapped artfully around his neck. There is an inexplicable awe and edgy intensity of an Alexander McQueen scarf that is mysteriously magical, and I am certain this is the genuine article.
Mr. Tucker, your fashion sense is so unusual in a man, but I commend you for your elegance . . . and bravery.

Katy L.| 8.31.12 @ 10:25AM

I beg to differ, Gina, but to my expert eye the scarf Mr. Tucker is sporting is Hermes.
Their scarves were made from raw Chinese silk spun into a tough fabric and individually screen-printed with designs that sometimes took years to compose, and as you probably know they are shockingly expensive and heirlooms in France, where they are passed down from generation to generation.

Betsy Davis| 8.31.12 @ 10:30AM

If a man wore a scarf like Tucker is wearing down here in Meridian, Mississippi, he would have his brains bashed in by a gang of rednecks.

But I was wondering myself about that scarf. Mr. Tucker, do you ever wear it over your head, say in the winter time, to keep your head warm?

Araviste Falla| 8.31.12 @ 10:38AM

Obviously, Tucker has a passion for flowing scarves. I wonder if he knows about the Isadora Duncan effect?

Duncan, a famous dancer--actually the creator of modern dance--had a fondness for flowing scarves. Like Mr. Tucker, she wore them constantly. But the scarves, tragically, were the cause of her death in an automobile accident in Nice, France when she was passenger in a convertable, and her silk scarf, draped around her neck, became entangled around the open-spoked wheels and rear axle, breaking her neck.

A warning, Mr. Tucker.

Jesus Gonzales| 8.31.12 @ 10:42AM

Way down here in Miami, Mr. Tucker would be known as a "fashionista supremanista."

We say to each other, "Here comes another fashionista supremanista--check out them rags!" followed by lots of guffaws.

Tommy Thompson| 8.31.12 @ 10:45AM

Guffaws!

Man, you should hear me everytime I look at that crazy picture of that stupid scarf. I have to holler. Tears running down my cheeks.

My wifes says, "What's so funny, Tommy"? And I says "Take a look." Then she hollering straight hollers.

Keisha| 8.31.12 @ 10:50AM

Well I like to see men dressed to thrill, and that fabulous scarf gives me a thrill everytime I see it. I sure would like to know where he bought it.

I like to show off with scarves myself. Sometimes I drape five or six around my neck for a fabulous effect. Them flowing behind me as I saunter down the street. Watch out!

Bob S| 8.31.12 @ 12:41PM

Wow, was there a roll call somewhere, or are you getting paid very well to create multiple accounts?

spike59| 8.31.12 @ 11:45AM

if a man wore a scarf like that anywhere but Metrosexualtopolis, he'd have gotten goin-kicked by a Girl Scout troop

JimH| 8.31.12 @ 3:05PM

As Mr. Tucker so often writes on science and tecnology, I've always thought the scarf to be in tribute to Tom Baker's Dr. Who.

Seek| 8.31.12 @ 5:04PM

That doesn't say too much for rednecks, does it? I consider most rednecks to be little more than a collection of brutal, murderous slobs at most two steps above blacks in everyday behavior.

Brian M| 8.31.12 @ 11:15AM

Well, personally, I rather like Mr. Tucker's scarf. I think that it looks good on him. But then again, I did live in France for three and a half years, so make what you will of my opinion.

Buddy| 8.31.12 @ 11:44AM

What a contrived getup! That scarf makes me puke.

Stan Redmond| 8.31.12 @ 2:02PM

Have you thought maybe it's cold when the picture was taken?

Bob S| 8.31.12 @ 12:39PM

Their only experience with males probably was the frat boys who wouldn't let them into their fraternity. They probably never had a father figure in their life to show them a male that wasn't brutish and coarse and unfeeling. They never had a papa to love them.

Alan Obama Fan Brooks | 8.31.12 @ 5:19PM

Though I disagree with Nietzsche that Christianity is used by the weak to drag down the strong (no longer the case) Christianity promotes the effeminacy you dislike. If one tries to be as consistently gentle as Christ, one is considered a girly man.
Unless you want to hide in a monastery.

c. j. acworth| 8.31.12 @ 7:10AM

An interesting essay. I wonder if the point Mr. Tucker makes in his final sentance gives reason to doubt the standard theory of neo-Darwinism. After all, the most ardent defenders of said theory will tell you that reproduction is indeed what "it is all about", and everything that makes us what we are is nothing more than the result of random mutation selected for it's survival (reproductive) value. That being the case, there is nothing more to any creature than reproduction. This is Richard Dawkins' point in his book "The Selfish Gene", where he portrays us as just a pile of meat containing genetic material looking to reproduce itself. So whence the differences that make us distinct from chimps, who were reproducing quite nicely before us, differences that seem to have no real value in hunting and gathering our way through life, like art or mathematics, science in general and the ability to understand our world?

Bob S| 8.31.12 @ 12:43PM

Who cares about understanding our world, when you can have free love with anyone without fear of those dirty little babies?

Appleby| 8.31.12 @ 7:11AM

Before I passed the age of 45 I was frequently asked by relatives (and my mother) "Why don't you get married?" I tried at first to give them a reasoned answer, but finally I started saying with a straight face, "I will get married when I meet a man that is more of a man than I am."

The men I have met who were manly men have been married to women who know exactly what they had. One gentleman in particular, married to his childhood sweetheart, used to accompany me as my photographer to Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course every year, and we camped together in separate tents for 3 days with the entire approval of his wife. She knew she could trust him and so did I. Men like that are awfully thin on the ground.

PolishKnight| 8.31.12 @ 10:03AM

Appleby, it's funny that while we're on opposite ends of the feminist/anti-feminist issue, we both post here. Of course it's hard for "masculine women" to find "manly men" precisely because they emasculate the men around them. I refer to this as feminism producing women who want to abort their babies and have them too. Women's equality, either deserved or via affirmative action, undermines the masculinity of men as much as men watching Alan Alda movies and carrying purses.

Despite being an anti-feminist, I'm not a manly man because I regard feminism as a product of chivalrous patronage so why make it worse? It's simply impossible for most mortal men to protect and pander to women including letting them pretend to be equals. Only super alpha males can afford to indulge such an illusion hence the modern feminist women's desire for Nietzsche-like supermen. A "real" man gives women what they NEED, not what they WANT and that is MORE than enough!!!

Occam's Tool| 8.31.12 @ 8:06PM

I guess I'm a Super alpha male, then.

Men are needed to socialize the little male apes. Women, alone, on average, don't do it well. The evidence is all over America's prison system, and is the result of Liberal ideology like the idiot Biology prof (note: not Psychiatry prof).

Appleby| 8.31.12 @ 10:02PM

PN, you have never read "The Taming of the Shrew", have you? If you have read it, perhaps you didn't understand it.

In Mensa where women are outnumbered 6:1 by men, the joke is, "Dumb men like dumb women. Smart men like dumb women." I met some really smart men in Mensa who liked me. They were generally 30 years younger than me. Go figure.

PolishKnight| 9.1.12 @ 3:00AM

Hmmm, Appleby, let's ask why there aren't more smart women in mensa. No doubt there are plenty of smart women out there, but they aren't as interested in joining mensa as men similar to, well, going to Star Trek conventions.

Buddy| 8.31.12 @ 1:10PM

I bet a photo of you would show clearly why you aren't married. You probably resemble Florence King, another unattractive AmSpec reporter, and old lesbian to boot.

Appleby| 8.31.12 @ 10:08PM

No, actually I am considered very good looking. I have naturally platinum hair -- had it since I was 25, it's a genetic marker from a small town in Scotland, I am told -- and perfect skin; I am in good physical shape and have many gifts and talents. But I also have a genius IQ and I won't bow down to anybody. That is the spirit I inherited from my Dad. And let me be perfectly clear: I am unmarried because I choose to be. I feel no need to lower my standards for what's out there these days. I have lots of men friends, many of whom drive racing cars professionally. They remain my friend because I don't want to marry them.

MelvinNC| 8.31.12 @ 7:42AM

Another Progressive Professor with way too much time and grants on his hands who is enamored with a woman's vagina.
Is there a subliminal message to the good professors notes. A subliminal message of, "Theres a war on women?"
For Christ's sakes these candy assed Progressive professorial pansies prance about trying to get the professorial feminists to notice them so they all can pop up microwave popcorn watch old Katherine Hepburn movies and then engage in a group hug, while on the group blankie in-front of the group TV.
Damn Collectivists everything in they're world revolves around squeezing each others ass, in one of they're insipid group circle jerks.

Brian M| 8.31.12 @ 9:39AM

Enamored with the vagina? I think not. The only mention that the vagina gets in the article is as a source of germs when the mother "swaths" the child "in billions of bacteria from her birth canal and groin." (Try not to think about that on your next date.)

He doesn't even use the word "vagina," preferring the more utilitarian "birth canal." I'd say that he's strangely enamored with the uterus.

MelvinNC| 8.31.12 @ 10:52AM

I contemplated on the Uterine connection. But wanted to brush the, "War on Women," that has been the plank of the Democrats for generations.
Hence Code Pink greeting Republican Convention attendees as Gian Walking Vagina's.

Brian M| 8.31.12 @ 11:12AM

Well, now we know who is obsessed with the vagina.

Me? I just like them for the usual reasons—and no women that I know have a problem with that. I would never consider, however, walking around as a giant caricature of one. That's just sick.

Bob S| 8.31.12 @ 12:45PM

You have a point there, he is much more enamored with the womb.

Pecos Pete| 8.31.12 @ 9:00AM

Where are The Village Idiots? They ought to be here praising Professor Hampikia.

MelvinNC| 8.31.12 @ 9:12AM

Oh I suppose they'll come around, after-all it's still only 9:00.

Grzmlyk| 8.31.12 @ 12:46PM

I think today is free castration day at Planned Parenthoods across the country.

They'll be here once they pay tribute to their own craven, egotistical desire to exhibit their egolessness, family jewels wrapped in a glorious pinata they will gladly offer feminists as tribute to their own Goodness. Why, they'll even provide the baseball bats.

Kidding, of course - they'll bring testicle pinatas, all right, but somehow they'll find it more progressive to spare their own onions for the good of mankind, and insist you hand over YOUR fair share, if you get my drift.

Actually, of course, this uber-feminism that most liberal men wear as gaudy plumage in order to get the babes is a smokescreen - they are in fact utterly Chauvinistic throw-backs. Just look at the hatred they heap on women in the GOP. No demeaning, filthy racial or sexual slur is beneath them THEN.

I'm willing to bet dollars to doughnuts this professor Handjob or whatever his name is commandeers the floor at every university cocktail party he attends and proceeds to bray incessantly about his own beatific self-abnegation. And, when his mousy wife dares to interrupt him to tell him that maybe he's had one too many feckless Chardonnays, he very quickly reveals his TRUE attitude about where women are in the pecking order.

As Bogie says in The Maltese Falcon, "The cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter." And I say, the more bigoted the academic, the more solicitous the jargon.

William L. Gensert| 8.31.12 @ 9:38AM

My wife left me when my son was a baby. I sold my businesses and let her go but kept the boy.

A man can be a mother to a child, I know because I was one. But...a woman can never be a father. As a fatherless child myself, I also know from experience the void that leaves in a child's life.

However, in reality, a child needs 2 parents -- it’s never better for one person to raise a child alone.

I'm not saying a woman alone cannot successfully raise a child, I just think it will always be harder than if there are two parents.

Denver Todd| 8.31.12 @ 10:35AM

Maybe you can tell us a little more about your experience and how it all turned out.

PolishKnight| 8.31.12 @ 10:11AM

Gentlemen, feminism and women's equality are one of the greatest myths of human history. Here's why: Feminism and women's equality is dependent upon white male western chivalrous patronage (whew! long term!) Consider the Obama commercials featuring scared, lifetime-network, women who are, again scared, that Romney might take away their rights. Of course. The second men decide, or are unable to, provide welfare, "child" support, preferential treatment and quotas, etc. then women's so-called equality will last about as long as your car in an inner-city matriarchal neighborhood.

Men not only form societies to protect women and their offspring from other men, as Mr. Tucker puts it, but also build civilizations to artificially allow more offspring to survive than would happen under Mother Nature. Agriculture allows more food to be grown per acre than otherwise would develop on it's own. Cattle is herded and bred for capacity. Our civilization respects the mighty beta male, in the nuclear family, as the primary protector of his wife and children similar to the ideological battle between giving that role to government via the substitute husband via welfare and capitalism. Look at how the former is working out.

Finally, Mr. Tucker is a real man's man for his compositions with that profile photo but then again, I don't look like the guy on the Brawny paper towels either.

Bob S| 8.31.12 @ 12:47PM

What's your opinion on the Jolly Green Giant?

PolishKnight| 9.1.12 @ 3:08AM

He's probably a vegetarian but then that would make him a cannibal, wouldn't it?

fmm| 8.31.12 @ 10:32AM

So the middle east sheiks had it right, where this one man services all the women in the harem? Think the feminazis would have a fit over this picture instead of embracing it.

eloris| 8.31.12 @ 10:48AM

I'll believe that men aren't necessary to maintain the culture of single motherhood when men are exempted from paying taxes for their welfare checks.

Rich D| 8.31.12 @ 11:17AM

"...father's 3.3 pictograms of DNA..."

Pictograms? You mean picograms!

MelvinNC| 8.31.12 @ 11:19AM

My wife asked me one day during our one of our coffee conversations. "Why do the kids listen to you when you say no."
I replied, "My word is law, and final, no negotiating." She mumbled a frustrated response into her coffee cup. As some have noted two parents (mother/father) are crucial.
I don't care what the smartest professors in the world say. A kid is like a walking thumb drive absorbing data day after day after day. As kids grow older they use mom and dad as comparisons to everything in life that effects them.
Think of it, how many times many of us still utter things about our parents. Parents balance each other, my wife was stronger in many areas of child rearing, than I was and vice a versa.
I have an explosive temper and my kids would test it, but I learned not to get to that point. When I made up my mind with something that was it, period, and my kids new that.
Damn, I tried to not get wordy. The big point I learned is that Mom's and Dad's are the balance of they're children's lives. Mom and dad make everything relevant to the surreal world that the family lives in.
In thirty years of marriage, our kids having their own families still come to us for their balance.
Besides who is going to teach the grandkids the, "Fart Game," Grandpa of course.

Albert Constantine Jr.| 8.31.12 @ 12:10PM

Pull my finger...

Frekki| 8.31.12 @ 10:23PM

Sigh, OK it's late but here we go...
When my children were little, I bought a set of little race cars, about an inch long, that would run for a minute before they would have to be recharged on the Race Pit power supply. My 8 year old son loved them. He loved then so much he kept steeling his sister's car and running them both. After several times of correcting him with genteel words and giving Gretchen's car back to her, I heard wailing from the basement. He had taken (talked her out of) her car again and was racing it. I lost my mind, ran downstairs and stomped his car to shreds. To this day I regret that. It is the one most awful events of my fatherhood. But, driving him home from the Indiana Academy (http://www.bsu.edu/academy/), we talked about it. It is not a bad memory for him, it was an epiphany. I still regret it, there are more efficacious ways of changing behavior than anger. But it worked. I am a dad, I do my best, I am not a mom. Kids need both.

TeaPartyNow| 8.31.12 @ 11:21AM

Sorry Bill, if it doesn't have to do with cold hard cash, the right doesn't want it. Take your opinions elsewhere. Romney/Ryan prevents the right from having issues that are socially driven. Perhaps after Romney loses you can pick it back up. No, you'd better wait till the right has a conservative voice in America. In 2015, commence please, thank you. Until then stick to "money stuffs" like the rest of the Romney/Ryan right.

spike59| 8.31.12 @ 11:48AM

a little early in the day to be chugging Nyquil, isn't it, Clint?-

Albert Constantine Jr.| 8.31.12 @ 12:12PM

I wasn't thinking TPN was Clint, primarily due to to reference a few days back when she claimed to be a former Santorum supporter (and we all know Clint could never bring himself to say that).

Grzmlyk| 8.31.12 @ 12:28PM

Is there a coherent thought in there anywhere, or are you actually positing that you can run for president without money?

Gary B| 8.31.12 @ 11:35AM

How 'bout if men go on strike for, say, a month? Are there that many big, strong dykes out there who will come change a tire?

This college "professor" is mostly being kept by a woman, who keeps him around as a novelty. The university certainly is.

Gary B| 8.31.12 @ 11:36AM

Correction: "...most likely being kept..."

Bob S| 8.31.12 @ 12:37PM

Liberal logic is so convoluted that, really, all you can do sometimes is just sit back and laugh. There's no rational basis from which you can begin to argue with them, especially when it's a man talking about why men are not needed. Seems to me that he started out with a premise, men are not needed, and started grasping at straws looking for reasons why. He says men only contribute one strand of DNA, but then manages to completely miss the fact that two-parent households are what made civilization possible. Even in tribal communities where "it takes a village to raise a child", there is a mother and a father taking responsibility for caring for their child.

William Tucker hit on the real purpose of this laughable piece. The liberal ideal is the single-parent home, with only a mother, where the State takes the place of the father and provides for the welfare of the child. Well, scratch that, the liberal ideal is no children at all, since they believe a woman should be able to kill off her baby at any time, some even believe they should be able to do it after birth. In both cases, liberals hate the role of a father in deciding what happens with a child. They hate the concept of fatherhood in itself, and want to force us to pay for contraceptives so fatherhood isn't even an issue.

For people who believe so strongly in evolution, they really wouldn't hesitate to bring us all back to the genetic dark ages.

PolishKnight| 8.31.12 @ 1:10PM

Bob, in Marxist ideology men are the ultimate bourgeois threat and the reason why the left has thrown working men under the bus moreso than rich cronies (whom they have cozy political relationships with.) Net producers are resources to be exploited, taxed, and despised and then later on, accused of being "deadbeats" after they're gone. Sound familiar? It's the structure of the family court system which punishes hard working men, takes away their children, and then presents them with a bill.

The same was the case in the USSR except they at least had the integrity to actually shoot their bourgeois and then, without net producers, created a slave state sending some to the gulags or roads to get work done. After that ran out, then the empire collapsed.

Which is now the case with the new Matriarchy. There are comfy ones such as Greece and obviously dysfunctional ones such as the American inner cities that the left can ignore via moving out of.

Seek| 8.31.12 @ 5:00PM

What idiocy. I know more liberals than I can count who have two or more children.

Alej| 8.31.12 @ 8:44PM

Yes... there are many code words to describe them.

PolishKnight| 9.1.12 @ 3:20AM

Let's look at this statistically: In order for Republicans to have a chance of winning the November election, they need half of people to be either conservatives or independents while "liberals" would rarely if ever vote Republican. That seems to be possible. Following so far?

Ok, nearly all the demographic growth in the left has been not from liberals, per se, but rather special interest groups just out for goodies or race based entitlements. Therefore, the number of actual liberals has shrunk, as a percentage, of the overall Democrat demographic.

The USA population has increased overall since the 1960's (more than doubled) but if we look at demographic trends, conservatives have far more babies than so-called liberals in order to keep up. Obama is the future of the Democrat party and clearly will have little to do with the culture of European marxists.

Tom Kyba| 8.31.12 @ 12:56PM

Greg Hampikian is SUCH a stud.

Petronius| 8.31.12 @ 1:09PM

Bob
Thanks for today's oxymoron; Liberal logic. And you stopped short of the ultimate liberal goal; perpetual childhood for all with government acting as Mommy. American Manhood of half a century ago is already a memory. Self confidence and competence are liabilities for any male who dares challenge Liberal authority.
Liberals will enjoy a short lived revelry in their weenie world until experiencing the force of encroaching Sharia. They may then long for the old Christian strictures that once kept us semi civilized as they get stoned and beheaded.

Mike G| 8.31.12 @ 1:37PM

"...band together in "brotherhoods" that are often compared to tight-knit fraternal clans or street gangs. They mark out territory and defend it against other males...."

Mr. Tucker, you just described an inner city neighborhood. After reading Quin Hillyer's "Racists of the World..." column, I can only come to the conclusion that you are a racist..

Seek| 8.31.12 @ 4:59PM

Yet another brilliant piece by William Tucker. Like Steve Sailer, Stanley Kurtz and John Derbyshire, he is one of the few people on the Right who understands evolutionary biology as a key basis for understanding variations in human institutions, whether political, economic or cultural. Anyone trying to grasp the savagery of black matriarchal-dominated urban culture in particular would do well to read Tucker's piece.

Cricket (the game)| 8.31.12 @ 6:24PM

According to my friend Ben Stein, who is also a friend of William Tucker, Tucker designs his own scarves.

Stein says that Tucker's designs are knitted into the fabric.

He writes and draws abstract designs, and sends the designs to a scarf factory in Portugal, where workers knit the design in the fabric (his designs are never embroidered).

Mr Tucker is very particular about colors, and he strives to be unique. According to Ben, Tucker told him that he likes to wear his ideas around his neck to frame his face and give his aging body a hint of youthful glamour.

He once gave Ben a scarf of his design for his birthday, but Ben doesn't wear it; his wife wears it when they're in their Utah residence.

WGMOW| 8.31.12 @ 6:27PM

I generally DO like to get involved in these "which-sex-is-the-best" debates, because I know the answer: MEN are the best! They are the inventors, explorers, builders, engineers, composers, artists, fighters, athletes, defenders, and humorists.

All women can do is breed, whine, and buy stuff. That's pretty pathetic for a species that has evolved for so many eons.

And just so you know - I'm not some misogynistic man, I am a woman, who is pretty damn disgusted with today's women.

Oofa| 8.31.12 @ 8:24PM

Are you by chance Florence King, AmSpec's resident lesbian journalist?

PolishKnight| 9.1.12 @ 3:15AM

Except that feminists and/or leftist women don't even breed very much nowadays. They need to import undocumented immigrants to look after their (few) children, clean their homes, etc. and even breed future Democrat voters. Kind of funny, isn't it? It reminds me of the shaker religion where they rejected sex, even for procreation reasons, but adopted children and raised them in the religion. Things didn't work out for them.

I'm also reminded of the B movie starring Sean Connery, Zardoz (love that title!) where the denizens of a dystopian post-apocalyptic society craved death and freedom from their meaningless existence delivered by barbarians. "Zardoz! Give me the gift of death!"

John2| 9.1.12 @ 12:50AM

Good grief, I smell the effluent from Greg Hampikian, professor of both biology and criminal justice. Mr. Tucker has done us the non-favor of bringing this little fellow to our attention. I suppose Mr. T. meant to give us a little sport; I’ll give it a go.
Biology is part science, part krappe – that’s the evolution make-it-all-up part. You need not know what you are talking about, and indeed knowledge will not be tolerated (I write as a pro in a hard science). Very good for subnormal lefties, and for pathetic metrosexuals (PMs) who think they might score by pretending they know how to navigate what is up a woman’s dress. My point is, metrosexuals do NOT know what a woman wants, that’s what makes them PMs. You can capitalize the “s” if you think it adds to the discussion.
The criminal justice part is impossible to square with “women have no need for men” and, beyond that, well, perhaps Professor “Man”nequin thinks women might perform well in the field of crime prevention? As is all subnormal liberal “theory” related to society, morals, law, ethics, economics, etc. , ‘tis a puzzlement.
So this Professor Sanitary Napkin informs us that men are not necessary.
Take a hike, Professor of BS.

John2| 9.1.12 @ 2:58PM

Ha, ha, women want free shoes, in French. Excellent!

I should have known.

Suzyqpie| 9.1.12 @ 8:52AM

This reminds me of an old joke.
Anything a man can do, a woman can do better.
OK, let me see you write your name in the snow.

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