We live in a microwave burrito culture. Just about
everything we touch is engineered to be disposable.
I want my son to know a
different culture. I want him to know that things last.
Yesterday I refinished a half century old single shot 20 gauge that I have already given to my son.
He is 11 days old.
So if it’ll be years till he can shoot it… what’s the point?
Fair question.
The point is that from the day he is born he is treated as a
man. I will try my best to not coddle him when he ought to endure. At the same
time I will try my best to demonstrate that real strength comes from being able
to admit where you are weak.
A man can do anything if that man can admit when he knows nothing about
it.
Some people would take this from us. Our own president has
said "I don't believe people should be able to own guns," Obama told
John Lott one day at the University of Chicago Law School. Some people would
have yo believe that I am a horrible parent for giving my kid a shotgun and a
fixed blade knife (family heirlooms from my youth).
I would contend that those people miss the point.
He will be given is razor sharp blade and weapon strong
enough to take down a deer knowing that they are as dangerous as they sound.
Why? Because I want him to understand that freedom is like a very strong very
powerful sword which must be held on to with both hands, not for the sake of
being free itself, but for the sake of being responsible with that freedom.
See, that is something I think is lost on our culture. We
want freedom but often times we don't want to pay the bill when that freedom
results in paying a price. Well, there is a price and it will be paid. Either
you can teach it to your children when they are young so that they are equipped
to make small installments on that freedom or you can neglect them (and their
welfare) only to have them pay the debt with interest decades down the line.
It’s your choice and in the words of the great theologians
Rush
"If you choose not to decide you still have made a choice".
Congrats on the baby! Your post on his name was very heartfelt and well-written. And beautiful vintage piece there. That said, why do you think a gun is necessary to start out life as a man? In our family, we give books because we believe knowledge is what makes a person a powerful and responsible adult (male or female).
ReplyDeleteBTW that exact sentence about Obama and Lott appears, verbatim, in zillions of google search results for the quote. Interestingly, it has never been corroborated in any way. One of those strange memes that propagates because people can believe that it's true despite the fact that it's blatant hearsay.
A gun isn't necessary to start out life as a man. Knowing how to protect and provide, though, are most certainly essential.
ReplyDeleteI've given him books, too.
Oh and I'm quoting Lott himself. That's not hearsay, that's eyewitness testimony.
And I mentioned people missing the point in the post.
ReplyDeleteThat would be you.
Its not about a gun. Its about responsibility.
Dude, there's no need to be a dick about it. Why are you so defensive all the time? Even the way you write: you're arguing with no one at all. You're combative with a borderline-nonexistent audience. I don't understand it. What do you feel you have to prove, exactly? If a gun means "responsibility" to you, that's all you had to say.
ReplyDeleteBTW, the people you "contend" will "miss the point" are the people who you're claiming will think you're a "horrible parent" for giving the kid a gun. I didn't say that, did I.
Re: Lott: Lott said Obama said something. No one else heard it, there was no record of the conversation. There's no indication that he ever said it again. There's no evidence that it was ever said at all. I was once in an elevator with Obama and heard him say he thinks we should kill all the old people because they cost us too much money. You can quote me on that.
Enjoy your kid. When I work on teaching mine to be a man, I start with humility, integrity, and consistency. Because being a person is more important than being a "man".
ReplyDeleteI think you may be confusing my the reciprocation of your direct approach with defensiveness. I'm not trying to be a jerk to you so please don't take it personally, you just seemed to have missed the point. I guess maybe yo think this post is about making my boy as tough as he can be or some other macho caricature of a man.
ReplyDeleteThat's just not the case. Real men grow in humility, integrity, are consistent, provide for, and protect the ones they love.
We have enough emphasis on person-hood in our culture with very little emphasis on manhood, specifically what it means to be a godly man.
And about the Lott thing, his story checks out and is consistent with everything we know about Obama's actions historically.
There is no reason to doubt it unless you just have an irrational bias in favor of the president.
Have a good night.
I have a trust-but-verify approach to most things. When it comes to clear partisan agendas and politically expedient 'recollections' on either side, I assume they're liars or telling half-truths at best. That goes for Lott in this case, and Obama (among others) in other cases. It's not an irrational bias in favor of the president, it's a skepticism rooted in personal experience working in politics.
ReplyDeleteMy apologies if I misinterpreted your tone earlier. But no, I didn't think the macho bit at all; I was genuinely curious about why a gun as a first gift. What books did you pair it with?
I don't think you're as skeptical as you claim because the claim Lott makes is perfectly reasonable given Obama's voting record and overall policy stance. Look at Chicago and tell me Obama doesn't really think that.
ReplyDeleteIt has also never been refuted in the slightest by the Obama administration and has had plenty of visibility to be brought to his attention.
His book collection so far is I love you mommy, I love you daddy, God gave us you, and the rhyming bible.
You're using an n of 1 to make a broader statement about my overall degree of skepticism; bad math.
ReplyDeleteBut here, I'll walk you through the thought process. Lott, a gun-rights activist with an equally clear overall policy stance, suddenly recalled a two-minute hallway conversation he had with Obama in 1996 (the first time they met). Conveniently, just in time to write a book. And after the 2008 debates, when Obama released a number of statements clarifying his position on gun ownership. Which hasn't changed since he became a public servant: regulation, anti-assault weapon, keep them out of the inner cities, etc etc. No big surprises there (and already irritating enough that gun-rights activists wouldn't vote for him).
To give you the benefit of the doubt, i just searched for the quote on Google in the 2006-2008 time frame. Two results, both from web forums. If Lott was sitting on this gem, why not put it out there during the campaign?
So: miraculous recall of a highly specific and politically-expedient sentence from a brief and casual exchange over 15 years ago. Just in time to profit off of a controversial pull-quote. Hmmm….sets off the bullshit meter. Also, you can go 4 pages into current Google search results for the quote and it always appears in exactly the same way, and suspiciously on no mainstream news sites that actually fact-check. You'd think Fox, at a minimum, would have been all over this. Could that be a vast MSM conspiracy to keep the American people in the dark about the ulterior motives of a gun-grabber? Well…Occam's razor, etc etc. The reality is that the MSM is also click-driven, and that quote is linkbait gold.
There's a great collection of actual verbatim and verified quotes by Obama on gun ownership here, collected by a gun owners mag, and going as far back as 2008. http://www.gunblast.com/ObamaQuotes.htm They of course include the Lott quote as well, which is unfortunate, but the rest are quite accurate.
As to why there's been no official response, he hasn't responded to my statement about what I overheard him say in an elevator either. Why waste time issuing denials for every ridiculous claim out there? It just gives credence to nonsense. Remember: "Do you still beat your wife?"
Why did lott not bring this up until th8e last few years? Uhm, maybe cause it wasn't relevant? Obama was a total nobody until he swooped in and got a paid for ride to the presidency.
ReplyDeleteThe gaping hole in your argument is this: you weren't on an elevator with Obama so there isn't any evidence to suggest that you haven't just made it up. conversely Lott was in the place at the time when he says he had that short conversation and the reason it stood out to him was that unlike most liberals Obama didn't want to talk about it, he apparently just kind of looked down his nose at Lott.
That would stand out in my mind, too. It's an indicator of what kind of person you are when you think its ridiculous to even entertain ideas that are contrary to your own.
Oh and Occam's razor would suggest that Lott, a guy who isn't a professional liar (I mean politician) is telling the truth.
ReplyDeleteThe simplest explanation is usually the best one. Maybe a guy who supports any legislation to infringe on the 2nd amendment doesn't believe that people should have guns and maybe (just maybe) the lip service that doesn't match his voting record is just that; lip service for gullible wishful thinkers.
Despite all evidence to the contrary - the political expediency, suspicious lack of prior mention of this in the campaign, lack of major news network coverage, etc etc etc - you think the *simplest* explanation is that Lott is telling the truth? Sorry, that isn't Occam at all, that's personal bias. Lott may not be a politician,
ReplyDeletebut he is most definitely a political animal with an agenda - and a book to sell, co-authored by Norquist.
What evidence to the contrary? I only see evidence corroborating his testimony.
ReplyDeleteI see Lott first mentioning this to the media around the time where it became relevant, before obama was president he was a nobody politician that didn't do much (except vote for anti-freedom legislation in the form of gun control).
So your use of "despite all evidence to the contrary" really appears to be completely hollow and baseless.
So what evidence?
Source in which he mentions this to the media prior to Obama's election? Because, see, a gem quote like that would have most definitely been relevant during a heated campaign with John McCain, but maybe that's just me.
ReplyDeleteAnd also, Lott was most definitely talking about Obama in 2006...
http://johnrlott.blogspot.com/2006/07/gun-store-owners-thankless-job.html
Or here, where that quote most definitely would have appeared: http://johnrlott.tripod.com/op-eds/FoxNewsEvalNRAAds092408.html
The Internet has an exceptional memory.
So in summary your "evidence" that Obama their conversation never took place is A. john lott not mentioning to this to the press until a few years ago and B. the fact that obama is the most anti-firearm president in the history of the united states?
ReplyDeleteSo you've got something that isn't actually evidence next to a voting record that indicates the man says he's all for 2nd amendment rights as long as he can infringe on them.
If you put down the shovel the hole will stop getting deeper... You've got no case here. The only thing you can say is "I don't think he would say that" but trying to argue that he in fact didn't say that... is ridiculous.