When my daughter was four, she flat-out asked if Santa was made up. And of course, being me, I told her the truth.

We all know the basic arguments both for and against teaching your child to believe in a morbidly obese chimney burglar from the Arctic. Each boils down to whether or not you feel Belief itself is a good thing. And I’ve always tended to side with the rational over the irrational.

But then I ran into this piece of dialogue in a book by Terry Pratchett, that makes a solid case for teaching your child to believe in St. Nick, or in the world he was writing about, the “Hogfather”. The voice in all caps, belongs to Death himself:

All right,” said Susan. “I’m not stupid. You’re saying humans need… fantasies to make life bearable.”

REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.

“Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little—”

YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.

“So we can believe the big ones?”

YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.

“They’re not the same at all!”

YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET— Death waved a hand -AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME…SOME RIGHTNESS  IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.

“Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what’s the point—”

MY POINT EXACTLY

Draw your own conclusions, but either way, that’s a brilliant piece of writing.

Merry Christmas you guys; wherever you are, however you celebrate it.

Emotions are like bare asses: some people may appreciate seeing yours, everyone else is going to be uncomfortable.

That said, I’m genuinely happy right now.

Lots of calls for more gun control this week. I find it all bitterly hilarious given what’s behind it all.

The root of the argument against armed citizens is the cynical view that the balance of people are bad, untrustworthy with liberty, and that the good, trustworthy people are working for the government.

What is the magical force that turns a man unerringly good when he seeks to attain authority over his fellow citizens? Obviously no one has ever abused their power to steal from the public  or kill out of anger  or betray the Bill of Rights and use an  illegal spying apparatus for personal gratification.

Are these people outliers? I want to think so. But so are criminals. And I refuse to believe that everyone in my country is just a murderer waiting for a means and motive. That’s the argument against an armed citizenry, and it is, frankly, bullshit.

So if that’s not the case, if people aren’t just ticking time bombs teetering on the edge of homicide, then there’s no justification for this never-ending campaign that seeks to incrementally de-quill all the porcupines because they can’t tell the difference between them and wolves.