Duck season is right around the corner and as I am truly honored to be a member of the highly exclusive FC Duck Club my excitement is building to a fever pitch. Hunting ducks is as much art as it is science and as is true with any artistic endeavor, it requires years of dedication, unrelenting focus and hard work in order to become proficient. Since I don’t even own a shotgun, I have none of these required personal traits and consequently can in no way claim even the most rudimentary level of proficiency in the art of hunting ducks. But this in no way dampens my enthusiasm; there is more to duck hunting than those brief and fleeting moments when ducks fall from the sky.
Sitting in the dark duck blind with a steaming hot cup of coffee, silently waiting for shooting time, watching the sun slowly rise above the still water, watching the smoky mist rise from the flooded field and finally hearing or seeing the ducks begin to move puts you in a living Norman Rockwell work. Being with men that can work a duck call like a maestro, guiding ducks, talking to them and convincing them that this is where they need be is to witness a connection with nature rarely seen in modern times. Being witness to a highly trained and disciplined dog retrieve ducks with the dignity and grace of a fine athlete is captivating and is truly awe-inspiring.
All of this comprises the process and the art of duck hunting and as beautiful as it is, it is not, I think, the thing that sparks such excitement as opening day approaches. What duck hunting is really about, is the time men are able to spend with one another other away from all the pressures and distractions that the modern American man lives with each day in his regular life.
It is about sipping a fine whiskey, smoking a fine cigar, sitting around the fire pit, telling lies and just enjoying each other’s company. Men from all walks of life coming together in common cause, indulging in good conversation, laughing with one another and for a few hours throwing off the shackles of those required social conventions that can weigh a man down if he doesn’t find a way to relieve the pressure.
Ultimately, this is the true purpose of clubs. Owning a true sense of belonging can be the highest form of social interaction; it enables a man to find profound happiness. It makes him a better citizen, husband and father. Searching or looking inward cannot enable a person to be happy. Happiness is not something you can impose upon yourself. True happiness can only be attained by your own joyful interaction with your fellow human beings.
Somehow we seem to have forgotten this and I believe that if more of us found people to interact with that we are not bound to by politics or religion we would expand our horizons and would be surprised how easy happiness is to find. Perhaps it is our resistance to be “joiners” that has contributed to our current tribal mentality.
This year we have seen an explosion in membership of a club that is both dishonorable and embarrassing. It is not a club that will promote happiness but is based on predation, moral bankruptcy, greed and grossly misplaced gratification.
Here are some men that have unwittingly become members this year:
Bill O’Reilly of Fox News, Roy Price of Amazon, Harvey Weinstein, producer, Mark Halperin of NBC & HBO, Kevin Spacey, actor, Michael Oreskes of PBS, David Corn of Mother Jones, Dustin Hoffman, actor, John Besh, chef, Louis C K, comedian, and just this week Roy Moore, senate candidate from Alabama.
I guess it is a safe assumption that sexual predation has existed since time immemorial, but since the revelation that Bill O’Reilly paid $32 million to former Fox News legal analyst Lis Wiehl this issue has taken center stage in the public consciousness. We have learned that this was not the first settlement reached by O’Reilly and that each time a settlement was reached, the women involved were required to sign confidentially agreements that prohibited them from speaking about the circumstances of their situation.
Perhaps, (but I don’t think so!) it is an innocent unintended consequence, but these confidentially agreements basically free up these men to continue to prey upon women with almost reckless abandon. It is not realistic to expect anyone to turn down such huge sums of money when presented with these confidentially agreements and no one can blame these women for doing so. But then came the revelations about the slug Harvey Weinstein.
When a handful of famous actresses came forward to tell their stories about Mr. Weinstein’s repulsive behavior, it opened a flood gate all across the country with the hash tag #MeToo. Brave women telling horrendous stories of sexual predation and victimization has been the primary cause of the surge in membership in this, the club of World’s Worst Men.
Two points I want to make here. The first is that it is not enough for brave women to come forward and speak out. Now it is time for good men to speak out as well. These sexual predators do not operate in a vacuum, I would guess that in most of these cases, other men know they are doing this and in many cases enable them to continue this behavior. After O’Reilly paid out that $32 million, Fox renewed his contract. The ultimate enabler.
Good men can and must send the message that this sort of behavior is unacceptable and if they do, this will have more impact on this degradation than anything women can say. A man feels no shame like that heaped on him by his peers.
I also want to take a look at this Roy Moore issue. To say he is a firebrand may be an understatement. He believes homosexual activity should be illegal, that 911 was a punishment inflicted by God and that Muslims should not be allowed to serve in the United States House of Representatives. He has now been accused of child molestation by sexually victimizing a 14-year-old girl.
I have no idea if these accusations are true or not. He has steadfastly denied them and there is no recording like we have with the most famous member of this club, 45. Moore maintains this a political attack perpetrated by the Godless left wing and the fake news, both of which only wish to extinguish the truth. What I have yet to see is any evidence that what these women say is not credible.
I saw one Alabama supporter of Mr. Moore’s defend him by saying that Joseph was an adult and Mary was a teenager and they became the parents of Jesus. What? Really? Where am I? How did I get here?
This implies not only did Mr. Moore indulge in child molestation, but there is nothing wrong with it if he did. It is very Biblical behavior. Am I going blind here? What was in that drink? Why is the room spinning? This is tribalism at the expense of all the values, principles and morals upon which civilized society is based. This disturbs me at my core. This challenges everything I thought I knew about being an American.
Now we just have to see what the people of Alabama do in response to this. If he wins and makes his way to the Senate, must we resign ourselves to the fact that nothing is more important than the political tribe? If it is true that people would rather vote for even a potential child molester than a member of the other tribe, we are in serious trouble.
There is old saying that I think is truer today than ever. It is credited to Edmund Burke, in a 1770 letter to Thomas Mercer he summarized as follows:
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
This is the full version and I include it here because it points directly to the inestimable value of the FC Duck Club and all societies that bring together men of diverse theologies, political views and creeds.
“Whilst men are linked together, they easily and speedily communicate the alarm of any evil design. They are enabled to fathom it with common counsel, and to oppose it with united strength. Whereas, when they lie dispersed, without concert, order, or discipline, communication is uncertain, counsel difficult, and resistance impracticable. Where men are not acquainted with each other’s principles, nor experienced in each other’s talents, nor at all practised in their mutual habitudes and dispositions by joint efforts in business; no personal confidence, no friendship, no common interest, subsisting among them; it is evidently impossible that they can act a public part with uniformity, perseverance, or efficacy. In a connection, the most inconsiderable man, by adding to the weight of the whole, has his value, and his use; out of it, the greatest talents are wholly unserviceable to the public. No man, who is not inflamed by vain-glory into enthusiasm, can flatter himself that his single, unsupported, desultory, unsystematic endeavours, are of power to defeat the subtle designs and united cabals of ambitious citizens. When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.”
–Edmund Burke, Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents 82-83 (1770) in: Select Works of Edmund Burke, vol. 1,
As good men, we all have mothers; most of us have wives, sisters, daughters, and grand daughters and it is our duty to see that they are treated with the dignity and respect that all people deserve. Good men must join together to clearly and forcefully send the message that this evil will no longer be tolerated. We cannot allow our country to get to a place where we overlook this sort of behavior in order to make sure the other side is defeated. As Shakespeare said in The Rape of Lucrece
“What win I, if I gain the thing I seek?
A dream, a breath, a froth of fleeting joy.
Who buys a minute’s mirth to wail a week?
Or sells eternity to get a toy?
For one sweet grape who will the vine destroy?
Good men of all religious and political persuasions must link together with common counsel and oppose this evil with common strength. A man knows true happiness when he learns to love another man with whom he disagrees. When bad men combine, the good must associate!
Love to All!