Why "300" Is So Popular

My blog is devoted to the challenges we face today as a people under the control of a government run amok, but surprisingly enough, discussing a pop-culture phenomenon such as "300" helps throw our predicament into even sharper relief. I saw this film just last night, and I have read several reviews today that attempt to puzzle out its explosive popularity, but none of them hit the mark.

The reason for this film's broad appeal is, in a word, manhood. That which scorns weakness and esteems strength. That which refuses to compromise. That which prizes honor over pleasure, riches, or even life. That which defies tyrants, both foreign AND domestic. And that which continues fighting despite no hope of victory. King Leonidas and his Spartans appeal to us because they carry the banner for these virtues, which have gone virtually extinct in a world dominated by the spiritual descendants of Xerxes and Ephialtes. We cheer the Spartans because deep down we recognize the grotesquery of modern existence, an existence where the virtues of manhood endure slander every single day. Try to think of any "leader" in modern life, whether it be in politics, business or otherwise, who would reject Xerxes' offer of earthly preeminence as did Leonidas. The only people today who have anything approaching such grit are outsiders and dissenters, not the ones occupying the heights of responsibility.

Blaming Bush Is A Copout

The paleoconservative Paul Craig Roberts has published an opinion piece titled "Americans Have Lost Their Country." Although the column is correct in its dire prognosis for America, it resorts to a copout all too prevalent lately: blaming George W. Bush. This showcases a recurring theme in life and in literature of displacing one's own sins onto the shoulders of a single evil-doer, conveniently avoiding looking in the mirror at the true culprit (think of Milton's portrayal of Satan; Shakespeare's portrayal of Macbeth; or John Gardner's portrayal of Grendel). Roberts, as well as others on the opposite side of the political spectrum (e.g., Michael Moore), ignore that Bush's transgressions were made possible only because Americans had already allowed the federal government to seize far more power than the Constitution permits. What everyone forgot is the inescapable truth that the more you empower government to do FOR you, the more you empower government to do TO you. After countenancing the illegal centralization of political authority under the guises of "civil rights," "equality," and similar transparent slogans, many Americans cannot honestly claim to have "lost" anything. They voluntarily pissed it away.

People who blame Bush resemble the apologists for the Soviet Union, who blamed Stalin for spoiling a wonderful experiment in human governance. Sorry, but any government that allows for the possibility of such abuse is already rotten. Bush assumed office in just such a rotten political body, so his abuses should come as no surprise to anyone whose knowledge of history transcends his own lifespan.