Family Values: Behold a Pale Horse pp. 69-70

Last week the primary enemy of the Cooper was revealed: the draft. Cooper, by his own account, was never drafted into the Vietnam War but it's entirely likely that he fought alongside people that were so we cannot fault him for the ire he bears for mandatory military service. In fact, one not ever need to serve in the military to dislike the draft; though to support it, you probably need some military service in order to not sound like a hypocrite. 

The draft puts the right-wing conspiracy theorists in a weird place. On the one hand, they are against mandatory anything from the government, but on the other, they tend to espouse ultra-nationalist principles. Resisting the draft is what "dirty hippies" and "socialists" do, but they can't square that circle with their reluctance to submit to authority for the exact same reasons that the socialists resisted (the dirty hippies were a different story). 

Cooper has spent a bit of time arguing against the elites and how they use the government to create the draft. That, however, isn't enough there needs to be more than the force of law for the draft there needs to be social pressure as well. Enforcing the draft isn't as easy as just a prison penalty, because given the two choices jail has less of the risk of getting shot. 

Cooper believes the problem with the draft is the social support for it. That support he claims starts in the family, "To secure the draft, individual brainwashing/programming and both the family unit and the peer group must be engaged and brought under control."

The previous sentence is evidence that Cooper has remembered that he's pretending this is a document that someone found and gave to him. It's too bad that he doesn't remember that this is the case throughout the chapter. Yet, even in this context, the phrasing of the sentence doesn't make sense given that it is for new recruits in the silent war. 

The first target is under the heading "Factor II--Father." Factor I was the introductory paragraph, which makes little sense considering that saying there needs to be social control for the enforcement of the draft is not a factor in doing so. It's the set of sets containing itself problem--can the factors of control be, itself, a factor? No. That is silly. 

The content for Factor I is confusing. Part of it echoes the "loss of manhood" think pieces I've read for the last thirty years, "The advertising media, etc., are engaged to see to it that the father-to-be is pussy-whipped before or by the time he is married. He is taught that he either conforms to the social notch cut out for him or his sex life will be hobbled and his tender companionship will be zero. He is made to see that women demand security more than logical, principled, or honorable behavior."

I'm confused by this part here as the old-time misogyny seems to contradict Cooper's point. For the father to be a man he should want to fight, but modern media saps his will on this, so instead, he acquiesces and sends his kid to war without a blink. He does this to save face because either Junior goes to war or "father will be embarrassed." I think Cooper would have a hard time selling this line on anyone. Resistance to the draft will be seen as cowardice, I agree with him, but getting other people to believe that it's the strong thing to do--especially in the crowd he's writing for is going to be difficult. 

Further, Cooper doesn't give any indication of how the father is "pussy-whipped." I'm assuming that he means the father is brainwashed by the media into no longer being "a man" but he'd have to realize that that role itself was created to sell trucks, beer, and jeans. I hate his use of the word "honorable" here because whenever I hear that word I just know that there is going to be no definition of it. If he's made to see that women demand security, part of that security would be wrapped up in the idea that a person is at least true to their word. So the father is going to be a spineless coward, what of the mother? Strap in folks:

"The female element of society is ruled by emotion first and logic second. In the battle between logic and imagination, imagination always wins, fantasy prevails, maternal instinct dominates so that the child comes first and the future comes second. A woman with a newborn baby is too starry-eyed to see a wealthy man's cannon fodder or a cheap source of slave labor. A woman must, however, be conditioned to accept the transition to "reality" when it comes, or sooner." 

Women drive like this, and men drive like this--am I right? 

Cooper is one of those men that think he's on the right track with how he portrays women. He doesn't think he's being insulting; he thinks he's got it right. Women are emotional and not logical--those are just facts to people like him writing a four-hundred-page conspiracy theory book that lacks any kind of logic (so far). His comment about the baby being a future sacrifice for a rich man's war or a source of slave labor, reads like more socialism. I can't argue against this point because Cooper has not introduced proof that war is the expression of a rich man's will. 

The anti-war sentiment as an expression of patriotism is a difficult concept to reconcile with the right wing conspiracy crowd's sentiments now. These are the people that were hoping that the "storm Area 51" people would get obliterated by attack helicopters. It's the type of person that wears a shirt with the slogan "I will not submit" on their tee shirt while their hat has a blue lives matter flag. Then again, I'm stereotyping the kind of person that Cooper is based on the militia followers that he had. 

He concludes the section on the mother with this, "CAUTION: A woman's impulsive anger can override her fear. An irate woman's power must never be underestimated, and her power over a pussy-whipped husband must likewise never be underestimated. It got women the vote in 1920." --I cannot tell if Cooper thinks this is a good thing or a bad thing.

For the next two factors: Junior and Sister; there is not much to say. Cooper is falling into the Cleaver family model here; Junior goes to war while the best sister can hope for is to marry. 

The final factor are the cattle. This is an extraneous factor because it concerns anyone unwilling to stand up to the system. He's just described those people in details based on the family unity, I don't know what this section accomplishes here. 

So there we have it, the Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars document of which none of what he says is either of those things. Cooper has more for this first chapter but this is where the document he claims to have found ends. Next week we will consider his closing thoughts on the chapter and discuss what it said versus what he thinks it says.