Sunday, June 15, 2008

What It Means To Be A Father


Part of being a father is making sure my kids have enough to eat, have a roof over their heads, are protected from harm in our neighborhood.

These are all fairly traditional notions of fatherhood.

But being a father means more than that . . .

Didn't See it Coming

Imagine that you're a father living in 13th century Mongolia. A farmer, you work hard, put plenty of food on the table, keep a waterproof roof over your kids' heads, and protect them from the local thugs.

Good enough?

Not if your village lay in the path of Genghis Khan 's invading army. Unless you get your family out of harm's way, or figure out a way to organize all of the villages together and train them up in warfare, your kids aren't going to have it very easy, and all of your fathering will be for nothing.

Okay, that was pretty obvious, right?

Let's talk about another hypothetical example. Let's say you're a father in Germany in 1930. A banker, you work hard, and give your kids the best of everything.

But you fail to see the gathering storm as Adolph Hitler consolidates more and more power, and even after fire is set to German's Reichstag building and the fascist Enabling Act passed, you still naively hope that things will turn out okay.

They don't, and unless you get your family out of Germany or figure out a way to successfully organize resistance against the Nazi regime, your family is going to suffer mightily.

Seeing the Big Picture

As the above examples show, being a good father doesn't just mean paying attention to things within your house or neighborhood. It also includes protecting your kids against enemies within the seat of power in your country as well as outside your borders.

So let's talk man-to-man. Be honest with yourself. Don't pretend that just because you go to your son's little league practices or whatever, you're a big family man.

If you really cared about your children, you would work to protect them from the real, big-picture threats. You would fight for a level economic playing field and a solvent economy, so that your kids can have a fair chance. You would fight to reveal the hidden history of false flags so that new, bigger ones aren't carried out. You would fight to restore the Constitution and the rule of law in our country, so that your children would live in a just and free society.

Do you really care about your kids? Well, the imperial warmakers in Washington, whose loyalty is not to the people of America, are the new invading hordes. We've had our own Reichstag fire, and the new Enabling Act has been passed.

Do we just sit passively by and obsess over trivialities, or do we fight to protect our families?

Will we be real men and true fathers? Or will we just accept the role that the new ruler from abroad or the new homegrown tyrant tells us we should play?

We are deciding our children's future with our choice.

This essay is dedicated to my father, a successful man, who put his backside on the line to help the oppressed, who was the most honest man I've ever met, and who treated even the least valued members of society with respect.

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