Posted on 10/22/2001 10:17:40 AM PDT by tdadams
Where we live, hunting is common. When our two school-age children are invited to a friend's home, we tell those parents that because a relative of ours was injured in a gun accident, we do not allow our children to be in homes where guns are kept and then ask if they keep guns. We are polite, but play on their sympathy. Our problem: the story is a lie -- no such relative, no such accident. But asking straight out is not as likely to net us the truth. Are we justified in lying? Anonymous, Ohio
A lie may be justified when it is the only way to acquire vital information and when the civic good it achieves outweighs the social damage it inflicts -- undercover reporters come to mind, as do wartime spies -- but yours is not such a case. For starters, you have not yet exhausted honesty. Where hunting is popular, its practitioners are unembarrassed by their zooicidal urges and so have no reason to be coy about gun ownership. It is only your conjecture that direct questioning (of those parents or their savvy kids) would be ineffectual. And even if it were, you could still go the indirect but honest route of asking friends and neighbors, who often know a lot about the rec room or gun rack next door.
What's more, your small falsehood undermines the legitimacy of ordinary parental concern by implying that only families that have suffered personally from gun violence -- an aunt harmed in a bazooka mishap, a cousin injured while being shot out of a cannon -- have the right to worry about such things. That is, you make gun safety either a quirk or the compulsion of one ill-fated family rather than the obligation of every gun owner (and every citizen, in fact).
There are times when ethical action requires deceit, but not often. Prevarication erodes the trust essential for the functioning of society, much as counterfeit $20's undermine a nation's currency. Samuel Johnson, the great 18th-century moralist, took a hard line on such behavior: ''There is no crime more infamous than the violation of truth. It is apparent that men can be social beings no longer than they believe each other. When speech is employed only as the vehicle of falsehood, every man must disunite himself from others, inhabit his own cave and seek prey only for himself.''
Prey he presumably seeks with gun in hand. That's one cave you would not want your kids to visit.
My answer: I'm having squirrel and dumplings for supper tonight. I hope your child is not one of those picky eaters.
Think the parents would let them stay?
Motor Vehicle - 3,059
Drowning - 1,060
Fires, burns - 833
Mechanical Suffocation - 459
Ingestion of Food or Object - 213
Firearms - 181
Figures are for 1995. National Safety Council, Accident
Facts: 1998 Edition, at 10, 11, 18.
Of course and right next to my Sloman's Security sign near the doors is another little sign. It says "Backup security provided by Smith & Wesson." I had to put S&W since most of the criminals are too stupid to recognize Sig Saur.
I have only been asked once when a guest commented on the sign. They didn't think it was a good idea. I asked if they would put a sign up by their house saying that there were no guns inside. They answered, "no." I replied that they made my point for me. No criminal would want to find out if I was lieing or not but would probably think that anyone that put up a "no gun" sign would be telling the truth. The person said that they still didn't like guns but that I had a point.
Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LoanPalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)
On second thought just tell them their child and your child shouldn't be spending time with each other.
I was born in Oklahoma, and returned to it after wandering far and wide.
It's not the most scenic spot on earth, and the weather can try your patience, but I never found anyplace that I preferred to it.
JWinNC
Well, I commend you for the motivation to 'help the least of us' that you're expressing by working on them, but I'd suggest that, in most cases, this effort is an utter waste of your time.
Liberalism is like late stage inhalational anthrax (to use a timely metaphor)... It's a disease that's rarely curable.
Years ago, I used to be more tolerant of political wrong-headedness in the people I associated with, but I reached a point where I decided that it was preferable to 'clean house' and end any personal relationships with people whose political beliefs were, to put it simply, 'evil'.
Of course, the vast majority of us are obligated by circumstances to do business with at least some liberals, but I keep both the number, and the depth, of these relationships to the bare minimum possible. A good way to express my policy toward those in this arena would be to say, "I'll take a liberal's money, but that doesn't mean that I'm going to waste perfectly good pee on them if I happen to see them on fire."
And I have very strong reservations regarding your comment that your liberal friends 'know you have guns'...
I would caution you that this degree of openness with people who are, at the end of the day, mortal enemies of our way of life is perilous, and a mistake. If push ever comes to shove on this issue, they will betray you.
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