In two high-profile criminal trials taking place on opposite ends of the eastern seaboard, two men stand accused of killing a stranger. One is a good man, who restrained an unhinged madman threatening to harm innocent bystanders. The other is an evil man, who murdered and attempted to rape a young woman on her morning jog.
What happened to Laken Riley, the 22-year-old nursing student who was murdered by an illegal alien on a college campus in Athens, Georgia, is what every woman fears most: finding herself defenseless in the face of an attack. What happened to Daniel Penny, the then-24-year-old former Marine who found himself prosecuted after stepping in to protect fellow passengers, is what every man fears most (or should): being told he must stand by and do nothing to protect innocent people from bad men.
Men like Penny create societies in which women can jog in their backyards without fear of being raped and murdered. They are the fathers, brothers, neighbors, and strangers whose presence silently enforces the understanding that evil will be punished and women and children will be protected.
They are the Todd Beamers of the world who step up to fight bad men when you’re stuck on a plane with suicide bombers and the cops can’t help you. Women silently scan for such men when they step onto planes and subway cars or walk down dark sidewalks, because they know those men are the ones to turn to if things go south.
In places like Western North Carolina, you’ll find these men taking hurricane rescue efforts into their own hands, sick of watching a bumbling federal response leave their neighbors to drown and starve. Around the country, you’ll find them neutralizing shooters with personal handguns, not content to wait precious minutes for the police to arrive. You’ll find them changing the tires of stranded old ladies on the side of the road and escorting dates to their front doors.
Such men do not view themselves as helpless bystanders dependent on the government’s police power for safety and order. They will respectfully cooperate when the police do arrive. Just watch the video of Penny’s interrogation, in which he thinks he’s just there to provide helpful information, unaware he is the one in the detectives’ crosshairs. But they won’t stand by and watch injustice being done until the cops show up.
Men are physically, mentally, and spiritually designed to be protectors. They are created with an impulse to defend the innocent and the physical prowess to do so. Men will either nurture this tendency with notions of duty and chivalry, or suppress it by using those strengths to take advantage of their weaker counterparts.
Depending on the men who run them, societies will gravitate toward one or the other, too. It’s one of the reasons women in America have long felt comfortable showing their faces and ankles on Main Street and women in places like Iran do not.
Riley grew up in a society built by the former kind of men. It’s why she probably didn’t give a second thought to going for a daytime jog on a popular trail in a traditionally safe town.
But her murderer was the latter kind of man. He abused physical strengths designed for protection to overpower and kill a defenseless woman, and on Wednesday, he was sentenced to life in prison for it. If there had been a man like Penny out for a run near the University of Georgia intramural fields on the morning of Feb. 22, Riley might be alive.
Unfortunately, Penny is in the fight of his life as punishment for being that kind of man. Men like him are a threat to people who stand to profit off of chaos, who would like to be able to take advantage of the defenseless without being challenged, or who want the helpless to be dependent on them. Penny’s real crime was self-governance.
The circumstances of which Riley and Penny are victims have been ushered in by a political ideology that rewards crime and punishes the people who stand up to it. The people who welcomed Riley’s murderer into the country and gave him a free flight to her community, and the petty tyrants who decided to prosecute Penny for daring to do something, would definitely let this happen to your kids.
If you don’t want your daughters to meet Laken Riley’s fate, raise your sons to be men like Daniel Penny. She needed one.
Elle Purnell is the elections editor at The Federalist. Her work has been featured by Fox Business, RealClearPolitics, the Tampa Bay Times, and the Independent Women’s Forum. She received her B.A. in government from Patrick Henry College with a minor in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @_etreynolds.
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