Daniel Penny, the young Marine who was just exonerated of killing serial criminal Jordan Neely while restraining him, has stated that despite all the agony of the incident’s aftermath, he wouldn’t change his actions. It was more important to protect his fellow subway passengers. That is the attitude all men should have.
From the first settlers in North America to the Founding Fathers to all the soldiers and heroes in America since then, this country was founded and built by men who faced danger fearlessly, took obstacles head-on, and were willing to die to defend the rights and lives of others. Penny has followed in that honorable tradition. Rep. Eli Crane (R-Ariz.) was right to nominate Penny for the Congressional Gold Medal, and I hope we see Penny receive that award in the future.
Penny said on Fox News, “I’ll take a million court appearances and people calling me names and people hating me, just to keep one of those people from getting hurt or killed.”
While describing himself as “not a confrontational person,” Penny explained that he couldn’t have lived with “the guilt I would have felt if someone did get hurt, if [Neely] did do what he was threatening to do,” and Penny hadn’t stopped him. Witnesses testified that Neely went so far as to threaten even to kill someone.
Daniel Penny is a hero. pic.twitter.com/hUHj2wvAQE
— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) December 10, 2024
The term “toxic masculinity” is thrown around and misdefined so much that it's risky to use it; everyone has preconceptions about it. But if I were to give a real-life example of toxic masculinity, serial criminal Neely fits the bill. He was always taking, never giving; he was violent and irrational; he repeatedly broke both the laws of the government and the moral law; he was totally selfish, undisciplined, and filled with a sense of entitlement. He assaulted women, he threatened strangers, he was a drug addict, and he was not in any way a contributing member of society. He was a user and an abuser.
Related: St. Nicholas, Daniel Penny, and Justified Violence
Contrast that with Penny, who, at least as seen in the context of his interaction with Neely and his subsequent trial, behaved with all the resourcefulness, courage, rationality, and responsibility that one would hope to see from a grown man. Placed in a risky situation, he dealt with the problem as quickly and safely as he could; he protected others, but without any extremes of panic or passion.
He was truly a U.S. Marine in that moment, acting as a guardian and a warrior. He did not kill Neely, as the trial and the jury decision have since proven, but he did possibly save lives. Neely had been arrested multiple times before for assault, and he was high on drugs — who knows what he would have done had Penny not been there?
This is not to canonize Penny but to recognize that he is a man of a type that is increasingly rare in modern America: the sort of man who built this nation, the kind of man we desperately need today, a man of action. These men were not perfect, but they were great. May God bless Daniel Penny and give our nation more young men like him.
