Big Boys Don't Cry and Neither Should Our Senators
Big boys shouldn't cry – with some exceptions:
- Cutting onions. It's not emotional, just biology.
- Death of the best dog/best friend.
- Acting like a total wuss. You should cry over that! Disgraceful. But crying about it makes you more of a wuss! It's a vicious circle, so stay off the wuss train altogether!
- During select manly movies. Like "The Champ" with Ricky Schroeder, "Old Yeller" and "The Patriot." All Hallmark movies. Wait, what? Delete! Delete!
- Totaling of a cherished car or truck.
- If you're God incarnate, completely infinite (John 11:35).
- And obviously, you get a free pass for all crying if you've been in military combat service. Because you're awesome, that's why!
Bottom line: Crying is what the guys in "Twilight" movies do, never what Rambo would do.
Someone: David, you sound like you're promoting toxic masculinity!
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Me: Sorry – no such thing. There is masculinity. And then there is a toxic male. One possesses God-given masculinity and does good things with it. The other is a meathead.
Crying is all the rage today. In fact, everywhere we turn we are told, in the words of George Will, "that it is healthy for us continuously to take our emotional temperature, inventory our feelings and vent them. Never mind research indicating that reticence and suppression of feelings can be healthy."
It can actually be good to suppress your feelings. Keep them stuffed deep – they're stuffed down there for a reason!
So, some of this (not all!) is tongue in cheek. But, there has been some recent male crying that is completely unacceptable and crushes all credibility the crybaby ever had. Here are two bad forms of crying:
1. Fake Tears: tears that flow, but aren't real.
In 2016, President Trump banned travel from seven Muslim countries that breed Islamic terrorists, immediately dubbed the "Muslim ban" – which must mean it barred all Muslim countries, right?
Wrong! There are 50 majority Muslim countries in the world; seven were banned. So only an uninformed or dishonest person would call it a "Muslim ban," right? Of course!
But that didn't stop Sen. Chuck Schumer. He went on national TV and cried over the travel ban. He said it was "mean-spirited."
But in 2015, Schumer backed an act of Congress that actually identified the seven countries in Trump's travel ban.
So Schumer was for a ban of folks from terrorist havens before the ban made him cry.
These are fake tears with no basis in reality and are used to manipulate. And the opposite of manliness and integrity.
2. Fictitious Tears: tears no one saw because they were made up.
Recently, it was reported by Sen. Dick Durbin that the president called some really bad countries a bad name (I don't like the language, but not sure I believe Durbin either – he's made things up before . Others in the meeting didn't hear what Durbin did.)
But apparently calling a bad country a bad country is racist. So racist, that Sen. Cory Booker, in a tirade against the DHS secretary, shouted that when Durbin told him what the president said, he had "tears of rage."
Really ponder that phrase. Tears. Of. Rage. Have you ever seen tears of rage? The only place I've seen them was on the face of a 5-year-old lying in the middle of aisle 5, screaming for Oreos!
No emotionally stable man has "tears of rage" over a comment like the one in question. I've never even met a man who has had "tears of rage."
I could only find one example of "tears of rage" in recent history. After the abduction and murder of 6 six-year-old son, John Walsh wrote a book called, "Tears of Rage." That crime is a reason for rage and tears. And he leveraged that rage to start a nationwide movement to track down over 1,000 fugitives through his TV show. Excellent man.
But Booker hears of someone else calling a bad place a bad name, and he beats up a woman with his raging tears.
I don't believe him (He makes up whole people). And I can't say enough bad about his fictitious tears. But you might think he's being truthful – and in that case, his reaction is emotionally unstable. So fabricated or real, it's a lose-lose for Booker.
We can't control what dishonest politicians do with their tears, but we can control ourselves. So, let's be men. Realize that after age 5, you should never use tears to get what you want. Instead use persuasion, logic and the truth. And when a politician deploys phony or fictitious tears to manipulate, just recognize the integrity deficiency.
The Apostle Paul was an epic man (and as a first-century Jew probably sported an epic beard). He took beating after beating and was still rugged to the core. And he writes in 1 Corinthians 16:13, "Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong." Excellent word.
Our world needs fewer crybabies and more men who will act like men and be strong: strong and noble, strong and kind, strong and loving, strong and gentle, strong and honest, strong and godly. If a man like that cries, no problem! You know it's the right time. You know it's for a good reason.
So man up. Be that kind of man. The world will be better for it. Amen, amen.
Originally posted at WND.com
David Ruzicka is a pastor of Fort Bend Fellowship in Katy, Texas. He holds a BBA, MBA and M.Div degree. He's a hunter, father to two daughters, married to his first wife and writes from an admittedly unique and off-center perspective. Ruzicka has written several columns for The Christian Post, and he blogs at ilikemycoffeeblack.com.
