Manly Virtue the Long Version

 ... the leaven raises the whole loaf.

There was once a land of Manly Virtues. It was populated by Free Men, who worked their free holdings with good cheer. They were a proud, martial and noble people. Each keenly aware of his place in the community of the whole. Each respected in proportion to his fulfillment of those duties he found himself owing to the whole.

This was a just, chaste and honest people. Justice and not legality was the letter put upon their hearts and actions. Lawyers and their way of lying at the bar was utterly unknown among them and would not have been allowed. First lying for a living to protect the guilty from their punishment would not be acceptable and second no person was allowed to take payment to help another plead at law.

They held their word to be a bond and held their head upright and said the truth with words. This people held that keeping to your Father's Father's Fathers way was the tried and true way to ensure order, stability and justice to the whole of the Land.

Thus they kept dishonesty and the corruptible power of money out of their legal system. And they saved themselves the expense of a kvetching class of malcontents constantly plotting to use the law against them as a weapon. As well as having few professional 'judges' to maintain at public expense and few public prosecutors or other judicial functionaries. * 

Their law was ONE unitary law, that was simply, accessible to all and based upon a written code only with court and administrative rulings having no precedent value. Any breach of this simple law code was dealt with normally at the local village level.  

Their village 'courts' were simple and resembled our 'manorial courts' of old. The older men of station acted as judges, the other adult male citizens the jury and each man presented his case. A law was either broken or not, and if so then the penalty was paid in either kind or labor, or if it was a capital offense either a hanging or a burning depending upon the crime – against persons and property it was hanging, against the state and common good burning was used. Flight from judgment was met with hanging for none capital offenses, and burning for capital offenses. One appeal to the next higher level of government – the district Magistrate – who held the appellate for no more than 30 days while determining his fate. The appellate worked from prison, and was not housed at public expense. No nonsense. These courts dealt with 99% of all criminal law and most local civil disputes. Very simple and direct system. *

The next layers of courts at the district and regional levels were mainly to adjudicate civil disputes between villages, and districts receptively and also as occasion required ruled upon the 'constitutionality' of the acts of their subordinate political units.

The national courts were mainly concerned with being a court of final appeal for matters Civil and Constitutional and could over turn any act by a lower power except a plebiscite which was binding upon it. *

Again very direct, very conducive to honest justice sans legalism, and was very hard to abuse by the deceptive, as the matters at hand were generally known to all involved. That is unlike our 'progressive' system theirs was almost impossible to use to foul means.

They were on the average not rich, even their 'upper class' (to use our 'barbarous terms') were not opulent but lived a life tempered by frugality. A life honestly toiling at their labors, be those mental, physical or spiritual. A life differing in status but not kind from the rest. They were in effect an example to their kind.* Leading means being out front was a popular saying among them. To this people a good father, and a good ruler were only differences of degrees not kind. 'Good' meaning 'acts in a just manner such that well being results for his wards, and such that no other member of society is wronged'. * see appendix A at bottom.

Display and pomp was alien to their way and mores. It caused them to feel disgust rather than awe for those that engaged in such empty mockery of authority and power – both being based upon respect for duty well done, in these peoples' estimation. Good again being understood by these people to mean doing well for those under your charge IE discharging your duties well towards others. Happiness was duty well done, and service rightly performed. Life was understood to depend upon the Father performing his duty to his family, kin, and nation and the mother doing hers to the home, hearth, and heritage. Liberty was known to depend upon each being loyal to his duties to the whole, and each performing those services required of him to ensure that each of his kind had the means to live like a man rather than scrape by like a serf. Duty to the people was the highest good, the source of life, the very foundation of happiness.

Dignity and honor were earned by good work in the common cause. Their leaders were promoted based upon their potential merit at bring about good results for the Folk and demoted for failure or malfeasance of duty to do the same. The minimum duties for all Male heads of Households were paying a tax and serving as part of the call up force, and to point a fine point on it producing more citizens to carry on the kind. These Men found from among themselves those fit for leadership.

From there natural patriarchal hierarchy was established with minimal legalistic fuss.  They followed more or less the Old Germanic custom of electing the best men from among themselves and meeting as needed to discuss matters of impart. Far more volunteerist, depending upon personal loyal, zeal, and duty being honored. **

These duties increased as one's social status, power and wealth increased and they were not free choices. More wealth and more power meant more obligation as well as more social status for service well done.

They struggled mightily for high regard from their kin and kind, attempting to outdo each other in deeds of all sorts that were of use to their families, clans, and eventually to the nation as a whole. In this struggle, they were wise enough to keep sight of the fact that many men together can do what no one man alone can. From war to work: Many hands can do what one cannot.

These People resided mainly upon freeholder households, more or less generally held by all adult male citizens, who were more or less universally married and had several children to carry on their patrimony. They varied in size from here to there by where generally large enough that a family of 5-10 and sometimes more, could accommodate itself by its own labors, and have extra to trade and to pay tax. Even in their 'urban' areas ownership of homestead was almost universal. Thus each full citizen has a sense of belonging to some part of the National Homeland.

On these homesteads, those veritable mini-monarchies, most everything needed for life was made by the freeholders and their families.

What could not be made was traded for at local and regional Fairs which were strikingly similar to our ''farmer's markets''. And hence most production and trade was locally conducted for local ends to local profits. It should be pointed out that since they made their own food, clothes and had an unabridged right to housing (eviction did not exist among them) they were in even in monetary poverty quite rich in all the things needed to live and produce more of themselves. This is no small feat, my dear readers, as it ensured the each mated pair of citizens could and would produce more future citizens to keep the Manly People Strong.

As you can see the way of these people was to organize around Patriarchal families that organized into 'clans' that were organized into villages, that further organized into regions, and then the whole nation. The Father was the head of household, provider, and in effect was a mini-monarch in his own personal realm. The mother, the keeper of the hearth, and therefore of the folk's greater tomorrow, and the children the growing potential of that future.

Speaking of the Children:

The children were numerous and it seems that they were accustomed to send their children to what are almost equal to our old 'Dame Schools' were the few older 'spinsters' and widows taught the children more advanced subjects and the other mothers and older children who were more 'bright' acted as teacher aids. So that rather than divided age groups the children were more placed by ability. They seem to have had a more or less universal curriculum and since there was almost no bureaucracy or administrative costs, it can be said that they were rather well educated at very little public expense for this almost universal basic education. Group sport and dance were encouraged as means of both gaining health and learning about traditions.

They were also instructed in what we might call 'civics' where in they learned their duties, rights, the law, and generally what was expected of them in society as free adults of what ever gender they had been born. Boys were taught to be Fathers. Girls Mothers. No other options were permitted.

It should be noted that rather than break up the family and community as regimented systems do, theirs tended to reinforce said bonds of affection among the community members. Also since the customs, mores and ways were taught systemically to the youth their identity was securely passed on from one generation to the next; whole and complete; a chain unbroken of life leading to life. This more than any other thing gave them as sense of themselves and a feeling of pride even in conditions that to an outsider would be miserable.

The secret was that these people found their joy in the music, literature, poetry and other simple beauties of life. They sought to outdo each the other in these life affirming arts, and found greater joy in a lovely song, or in building a structure well, than many a rich man in his rich and lavish hall cold and somber.

They differed from ours and most other societies in that they strove to ensure that ALL that put in an honest day's labor were compensated with an honest living beholden to only their duties and the law. They choose to make economics secondary to the People that engage in the activities that give an economy life. They choose their kind over 'progress', 'growth' or any of the other benefits of dependence upon an internationalist system of 'free trade'.

Early they learned to make money and exchanges done between them, as well as technological advances made by them the servant of the Folk rather than let it master them as others have to their doom. 'Trade' was not allowed by them to change their ways but only allowed in so much as it helped strengthen their ways and mores.

The 'Market' they made secondary to the men that give that market substance following something very similar to our ancient and nearly forgotten 'Just Price' theory IE that there is a just price for all goods and services such that both parties live a decent life and both are fairly remunerated in the exchange.

Among them nothing like speculation was known. Items are bought for use or stored until needed, or even perhaps traded for other goods or services. They are not bought with the idea of hording them until they are 'worth more later' as they were to these people worth the same eternally. Any attempts to change the customary prices resulted at best prosecutions, at worst in riots and the death of the 'thief' and 'jabber'. All of this was very similar to our now almost forgotten 'Guilds'.

They mastered money by outlawing, under penalty of burning, private lending, and all usury. By this seemingly draconian means they gained and kept public control of both the volume and worth of the money supply in a scheme rather similar to the idea called 'social credit' the idea being to line up the purchasing power of the citizens with the value of the goods they have to offer.

'Division of labor'*@* seems to have been minimal among them, being limited to the very least amount needed to keep them apace of new technology such that it could ensure they were able to feed, clothe, house and defend themselves well enough to live but did not do so such that any invasion of their lands would be worth fighting the entire male population house to house to house, street to street, village to village. These people had the inner strength, as well as the technological ability to destroy their own goods rather than see them stolen, and their motto once fighting started was 'no treaty or truce with any occupier of our lands; nothing for the invader.'

Consequently they almost never suffered invasion. And when they did they always were victorious and left to rebuild. Thus we have some idea of the glory that was the Land of Manly Virtue.

At the top a Golden Calf was indicated. The Land of the Golden Calf was separated by a sea, really more like a veil of reality, from the Land of Golden Virtue. It was an almost opposite land in every possible way. In the this land, Gold, and not the Folk was paramount. Loyalty was thought far less valuable compared to license and libation. What ever kept the 'happiness' flowing in every increasing amounts was 'good' anything that got in the way of selling, buying or otherwise lusting after 'happiness' at the Big Sale Market was 'evil' and would not be tolerated.

There was a trio of 'gods' among them. These resided in the sacred precinct of Gold and Exchange known as Divider Avenue. They remained spiritually prostrate at all times before Mammon who is also known as greed, was their moral sign post. Anything that brings me money brings no shame: This was the mantra imprinted upon their psyche! They flocked and pushed and bustled to get to the feet of Moloch, who personifies is selfishness to the point of being willing to sacrifice the youth to the wants and comforts of the old. To this idol they brought their sterile women and murdered babies, they rejoiced in their lack of children seeing them as a cost and material burden!

And finally the Great Golden Calf or as it was known among the vulgar 'The Market', The Market controlled all prices, production, commercial transactions and had a monopoly upon the issuance of credit. If any in the land would buy or sell, or live they had to come and pay tribute IE tax to the great Calf, Lord and Master of Golden Calf land and to bow to his two great chamberlains: Greed and Selfishness.

But to truly proper in this land they had to live and exemplify the 'morals' of their idols. They had to plot daily on how to get what was not earned by themselves. How to gain without any work at all. How to plunder without war. How to take without guilt or shame. How to lie with the ease of breath. And how to call of all the above morally good and just! * Truly an inverted world. *

There were really 'two' people in this land. One, who are numerically very insignificant, that is favored by the Calf. This elite has all the money, wealth, controls the political offices, courts, police and prisons. And the other that works to pay the tribute to the Calf and who labor away and are given the crumbs of the system.

The One use the Calf the power it gives them to ensure the Other is kept low and servile. The One is not the Other and the Other is excluded from the One. Wealth however gotten will gain you the favor the Calf and gain an Other entry into the One, wealth lost equate a One to the Other. However the One is always trying to ensure that NONE of the Other join the One by taxing them and putting them to fighting each other for crumbs like dogs.

Thus in this land we find slavery, debt-bondage, nepotism, favoritism and that would be expected of a social order that encouraged men to act like robbers, bandits and thieves in all but name under the guise of Freedom, Liberty, and Happiness. The few have all the freedom, liberty and happiness they could seek, they use it in to bask in the light of the Golden Calf and force the others to work under threat of police and prisons to pay the price tag, since to not have wealth was to not matter by Holy Edict of the Market. Those that cannot pay are put into slavery until they were of NO use and then they were exiled to parts unknown or just cast into the sea as the Market dictated.

There are debt-bondage emporium in each town where such wretches were sold like so much cattle and with just as much fuss. Men are merely commodities and 'society' is but a short hand for 'human resource pool', thus they do not find it odd, nor immoral that people should be used, tossed out and then disposed off, just as the Calf, Mammon and Moloch demand of them.

These people were always unhappy with what they had and 'needed' more and more and more infinitely. Their entire economy and way of life depended upon always having more – for some, for a lot of other it meant always having either the same or less.

These people in their restless greed found the land of Manly Virtue and proceeded to attempt an invasion. As their army was made of servile and weak manlings they were crushed at each attempt, and though they breed like rats they were put to great task by this set back in the growth of their domain.

And they set upon a design. A nefarious plot. An inversion of common sense so bold it might just succeed where force had failed. They saw that the Manly people must see them as and inverted that to their advantage. They called together all the youth of their nation that could pass for fair, and that could lie best and with most convincing demeanor. These they sent as 'refugees' from the Market and they were to say that they came in peace and only desired to live freely in a small parcel of land. It was believed that the Manly people would believe this as who among them would not try to escape such a land as ours? And this lie was believed, and the fifth column taken in and allowed to slowly do its work.

First the natural attractions between sexes wrought unions among them of man and wife, and this allowed for some of the Citizens of Manly virtue to be raised by Golden Calfers and thus to slowly over time morph the one society into the other like a pathogen replicating itself by mutating its host, until out of what was once fair there was came forth only foul – for any good that occurred among any in the Land of the Golden Calf was more than offset by a degradation and marginalization of manners among the formerly Virtuous People. This continued until one was the other and the other was the one. And there was only the Market left feasting freely upon the ruins of this once great folk, and people!

And thus the Leaven: by this means the Manly Folk were subjected to those that never in a million eons would have been able to subdue them by force. Thus was destroyed their way of life. And thus was an end put to their being as they were mixed away before the gleeful gaze of the Golden Calf, Mammon and Moloch. *^^*

Be Warned all you that have read this. Head the warning in this tale and turn from your ways before Moloch and Mammon take your manliness and sell your future before the gaze of the Golden Calf.

The end.
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Appendixes: * Appendix A: { Extrapolated from the remains of the Manly People's History found buried in their old capital; obviously meant to be a time capsule, but badly faded in places ...}

The rulers among the Manly were in all ways an Aristocracy of Merit. The best based upon external application of internally held principles. They were chosen for various tasks at the several levels of the Manly State based upon Merit and upon Loyalty, Duty and Service to the People, by the voting portion of the People.

But before we get to who voted for what how, and the 'checks and balances' of the system, it is most important to understand the mentality of the Manly People themselves. For it is from the mind that action comes forth!

First each citizen male and female was taught after a certain age to be a Father or a Mother, as part of their school curriculum. The Duties of the Father involved Politics, Economics outside the home, and generally dealing with the world at large. The Duties of the Mother revolved around the Hearth, Home and Heritage, which are the heart of all living peoples history. Each learned skills (some over lapped) that were useful to getting their portion of the duties done as best as possible and there was no completing about the matter between the Father and Mother – they were not equals to compete but unequal meant to compliment was the official line taught to each from a very young age. Each was taught the value of the different and unequal duties assigned to them by nature. It was not viewed as a matter of advantage, choice or preference but only as one of fate, fact, and fealty. Each was taught that the Family unit of Man – Women – Child is the natural quantum in which all living human's come from and ideally will enter into in their turn – and that the state exists to preserve that quantum so that thereby the kind might be kept strong and well kept against nature's vicissitudes. They were taught the self evident truth that this dual set of duties and the willing acceptance of roles impressed upon them by nature expressed as gender are the means to ensuring good life personally and collectively, just social interaction and right conduct family to family and Man to Man. Further they were taught that to abandon ones family was exactly equal to desertion of ones post in the face of the enemy, and thus they disallowed divorce and wisely made all matters purely internal to the family purely under the control of the Father for the purposes of responsibility to the law … and left it for the families themselves to sort the rest within the framework of properly divided gender roles. As a body can only have one head, the family can only have one ruler. That ruler they taught was the Father, who had a duty to his family to rule in their interest but who was not legally constrained to obey their will in any way.

The Father was unabridged head of his household, but he too owed duties to the greater political social grouping. He first had to do 3 years of service from 18-21. This was a combination of military induction and nation labor front. At the end of this, his wealth was assessed and he was put into one of 5 tax census brackets varying from 10-30%, which tax was Nationally assessed and locally collected and then serving as a general fund for government operations. The tax was paid at the village treasury and proof of payment as well as proof of service, as well as of household, and proof of lawful children were required to the voting booth in order to vote.

To recap: Only the adult male citizen that had fulfilled his service time, done his regular call up, paid his tax, was head of a household in which at least a Wife and one Child resided, was entitled to be a voting citizen with full legal rights. (One Vote base, with an extra 1 for each children above three, and 1 vote for each male adult Half Citizen in the household that has under 3 children, up to 5 votes.) His wife and children were citizens sans suffrage. Any sons of his that were adults who had done service but who did not have a separate household for what ever reason were Half Citizens who could speak at the assembly but not vote or act as jurors or officials of any kind, however those of the Half Citizens that had 3 lawful legal children could henceforth vote (1 Vote base, 1 extra vote for every 2 extra children, 2 votes maximum.) The Half Citizens paid 30% tax compared to a full citizen, and could not bring any suit at law against anyone without their Full Citizen's consent. However they did all the call up time and were expected to become heads of households in their own right at some point in their lives, except for one who would was designated as Heir to the Household and who was treated after 3 children as a full citizen except for paying only 75% tax.

As a normal matter of course these families formed into what we shall called 'villages'. Villages were areas of about 1000-10000 families, with at least one town and with one specially choose as the location for the 'town hall' or assembly of the village Fathers. Districts were groups of villages varying again in size but hovering in the range of 10-100 villages per district (they tended to be balanced such that those with larger numbers of families per village had less villages per district, and those with smaller villages more districts with less villages per district. This ensured that smaller villages, who were almost entirely small farmers and other folk with great attachment to the land, had more say at all levels per capita.) Regions were groups of Districts, again with a built in balance towards small rural areas over urban mercantile areas to ensure the mind of the nation remained upon its core needs of food, clothing, housing and most important a sense of Land and History. And the Nation was the regions taken as a whole. If you view it from the bottom up.

In the local village they were directly elected and directly recalled, and there were assemblies often that resemble the 'town hall' model where all the voting tax paying citizens gathered to discus local events and concerns. The Adult Male Tax Paying Full Citizens having one vote and an extra one vote for every two minor children over the three required for population replacement up to three extra votes; Every Adult Male Half Citizen (Son of a Full Citizen that though an adult lives at his fathers and does not have his own holding and thus only pays ½ tax.) has no vote but the right to be heard, excepting those with more than 3 children in their own right who then have one vote each. Majorities and super majorities decide depending upon the seriousness of the issue being discussed. No one else has any voting rights at all and anyone else attempting to have a meeting outside this system and effect political resolutions was labeled a subversive and put to the stake. (Private a political clubs were allowed and encouraged.) These 'town halls' acted as the local government, electing from the full citizens over 30 the Sargent-Detective, Sargent-at-Arms Village Clerk, Mayor, and Village Treasurer, who again sat until either recalled or until a new election was called by the voting public.

The Detective had the function of looking for subversive behavior and investigating homicide, rapes, and abductions within the village's confines. The Clerk kept record of court rulings, civil proceedings, marriages, births, and deaths. The Treasurer kept the tax census and allotted the voting receipts. The Sargent-at-Arms was responsible for call up force's training, equipment and leadership locally of any defense action taken to preserve public order. The Mayor was the chairman of the town hall and acted as executive with rank over the other elected officials who reported to both him and the village as a whole through the town-hall system of question and answer and open debate. The Mayor, Detective and Treasurer were all allowed to call upon the Sargent-at-arms if necessary to assist in their pubic duties, the Clerk being required to record this and forward it to their district and regional clerks who present this to the congress and court of those higher jurisdictions for inspection.

The Districts were groupings of villages which varied in size. In each district there was elected by direct election a Lieutenant-Detective, District-Clerk, District-executive, and District-Treasurer from those citizens over 40.

There also being a 'court' of 30 'Magistrates' elected from those over 35 in the district which acted as a court of review as to the acts of the several courts in its district. These were (re)elected every 10 years and sat as ten, three judge panels for civil cases, or as a randomly chosen 9 man panel for criminal cases. This court could order the Lieutenant-detective(s) to assist them as needed. Also they called citizen jurors from the district who were over 30 were called when needed to judge criminal cases that involved capital punishment.

The District-Congresses voted by village, with the concept of majority rule being in effect. The Courts saw civil cases between villages, and criminal cases committed in the District upon either a citizen not resident in the district or foreigners. They also had primary jurisdiction over all cases of crimes committed by the District-congress and Officers.

The representatives were elected at the village level from those men over 40 that wished to be District Representative, with each having at least 1 for each 100 families and no more than 5. They served until recalled or until there was a motion for a new election. Their main function was to act as an arbitrator between villages and members of different villages in disputes about matters criminal and civil. They also acted as a means by which the will of the several villages could be gauged by the regional and Polity authorities. The Regional Congresses were indirectly elected by plurality votes of the District Representatives from among themselves with each District Congress electing at least 1 and no more than 3 Regional representatives. Who again sat until recalled by the District Congress. These had to be over 45 and be residents of the region which they represented and to have sat as both a village official and a district official or representative.

{Text is lost.. but it seems this worked all the way up with the Nation having a congress elected by the Regions in one house, and another house elected by people in the regions, as well as executives that matched up with those found in the villages, districts and regions} … They seem to have had a very effective government because only those both inclined and effective at governing were kept in positions of authority.

Thus they were from the Homestead, to the Village, to the District, to the Region to the Polity ruled by the best men who had demonstrated ability and who were chosen by popular assent and given the power to act upon this popular acclimation. Demotion was based upon disloyalty, and use of power, position and station to do harm, effect selfish ends, or take advantage otherwise of another citizen. There was no legalistic nonsense about it This was as close to the ideal of a noble ruling class as can be affected this side of Heaven.

** Appendix B: patriarchal hierarchy will naturally establish itself in the absence of legal restraints imposed by women using beta males as their proxies. If those beta males are kept from imposing themselves upon the normal men; then Patriarchy is the default setting for all human groupings. This default setting is the only setting that allows for anything like long term stability and that to normal folks is more important to the continuance of the kind than any other factor. Patriarchy for Posterity! Folk need Fathers!

*@* Appendix C: They had enough to keep themselves fed, clothed, housed, and armed … that much division of labor they had, but they did not allow it to go so far that each person was clueless as to how whole processes like making clothes or bread was done. They did not each necessarily DO each little thing but they at least had an idea HOW it was done, just in case they did need to do those things for themselves. Since as they repeated in their texts over and over -- “Unless you know how to provide for you, you can be controlled by those that know how to produce the needs you need provided to you.”

*^^* Appendix D: Or so it was believed … however new research into the archives of Mammon revealed this interesting report by the Internal Security Agencies: …... There must be rural communities which still embrace the values of the so called Manly People. We have intercepted a courier who was carrying a note: We are almost ready to act to restore Home, Hearth and Heritage! He died talking about “Loyalty – Duty – Service | Home – Hearth – Heritage” and we gained no information about their operations, numbers, location, or intentions. Only the diagrams below:

And a short enigmatic note on the back of this picture: 

“The Calf will flow like a river to its votives, it shall wash its own stables clean. ” Assume reference to melting of Calf in books of Moses coupled with the classical myth of Hercules cleaning the dirty stables. Common People is short hand for 'believers in manliness'. Empire is short hand for the Calf and the world wide acts, we are sure of this. And dollar is an archaic word for currency or legal tender. Therefore we are forced to assume the Calf is in danger from subversives forces that wish to be free of its grasp, and destroy its money power at one blow. Repeat: Assume the Calf is in danger. The Calf is in danger. Repeat: The Calf is in danger.

<<** To the reader: Take from it what you will. If you mind has been forced to think, then I have been useful here. **>>