The Two Christmases

 Posted by  Issues, Religion  8 Responses »
Nov 202006
 

I think it’s all time that we came to recognize a fundamental truth about the Holiday Season: there are two Christmases celebrated in December. And that’s ok.

One Christmas is the religious, Christian Christmas; a celebration of the birth of Christ, the messiah, the bringer of mankind’s salvation. We celebrate this Christmas by reading the Christmas story in either Luke (Shepherds) or Matthew (Wise Men). Catholics go to Mass and many Protestants go to Christmas or Christmas Eve services. Churches dress children up in halos and bathrobes and celebrate with pageants and bell choirs. We sing carols like “O Holy Night” and “O Come, O Come Emmanuel”. It’s a joyous celebration of God’s generosity and mercy.

The other Christmas is a secular celebration; a celebration of our generosity with respect to each other, and an opportunity to express appreciation and love for friends and family members. We celebrate this Christmas by telling our children stories about Santa Claus, elves, and reindeer. We drink Egg Nog and eat (or avoid) Fruit Cake. (Like them or not, and I’m a big fan, no one can doubt that Christmas decorations are gaudy.) We watch bad movies, listen to off-key music, and put up ugly decorations, because it helps put us in the “Christmas Spirit”. We sing carols like “We Wish You A Merry Christmas” and “Jingle Bells”. We put presents under a tree and give them to each other. It’s a joyous celebration of our own generosity and love.
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A Freedom Loving People?

 Posted by  Europe, Gender Roles, Issues, Racism  6 Responses »
Nov 172006
 

When it comes to freedom, Western Civilization thinks that we’ve cornered the market. Certainly, we’ve had our moments of “liberty, fraternity, and equality”. We like to think of ourselves as being democratic and open-minded. We claim to uphold lofty ideals, like freedom of expression, freedom of speech, and freedom of religion. We brag about the (relative) equality of our women.

And Americans are the worst. We claim to be a “melting pot”. We uphold the “American Dream”, or the idea that any person can make something of themselves with a hard-work and perseverance. Our movies rewrite every historical act as a battle between the forces of freedom and the forces of tyranny. We have holidays celebrating our relationship with Native Americans who look, act, and speak differently from us, and pretend that we hold true to those ideals.

So with that in mind, I present to you a smattering of headlines from the last few weeks:

- Dutch seek ban on burqas in public

- Nevada town to fine for foreign flags

- Blair Says Muslim Veil Is a ‘Mark of Separation’

- Farmers Branch, TX: English Only Please

How can we claim to be for freedom of expression, when we don’t allow people to choose how they dress themselves? How can we claim to be for freedom of speech, when we dictate what languages people have to use? How can we claim to be a “melting pot”, when we force immigrants to look, dress, sound, and act like us? How can we be proud of the symbols of our nation, when we refuse to let those symbols stand as equals with other nations? (As I’ve said before, you can’t be a winner if you don’t take the field.) How can we claim to support freedom of religion, when we don’t allow people to publicly express their religious differences?

We don’t love freedom. We’re a bunch of xenophobic, hypocritical, paranoid bigots. So God Bless America. We sure need it.

Al Qaeda In Iraq

 Posted by  Foreign Policy, Middle East, Terrorism, War in Iraq  No Responses »
Nov 162006
 

It seems that just about everyone lately agrees that some kind of change in Iraq policy is needed. The biggest thing we need to do in Iraq, however, is define our goals. The Bush Administration has continually redefined success over the years: first it was removing Saddam Hussein and getting rid of his WMDs, then it was the installation of a prosperous Iraqi democracy, and now it seems that we’d be happy with any modicum of stability. But even then, “stability” is a pretty fuzzy goal, and it may very well be impossible to reach.

So lately, the Bush Administration has taken to shooting down alternate ideas, rather than pushing any sort of agenda of their own. They hide behind a supposed “willingness to consider all viewpoints”, even as they refuse to consider any suggestion that they disagree with. To accomplish this task, they’ve returned to their most successful weapon of previous campaigns: the specter of al Qaeda takeover. We can’t pull out, or even establish a timetable, or else we will risk Iraq becoming exactly the kind of training and recruiting ground for al Qaeda that Afghanistan was before the war.
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Racial Insensitivity In The United States Senate

 Posted by  Issues, Racism, U.S. Politics  1 Response »
Nov 152006
 

Senator Trent Lott’s comeback has begun. The Senator, unsurprisingly, won reelection from Mississippi in a landslide. And now he has eked out a win as the new minority whip. His win prompts three basic questions: Did the GOP just elect a racist to a leadership position? What does it mean to be “racist”? and Does any of that matter?

First, let’s go over a brief history of Senator Trent Lott (R-MS). Senator Lott served as a Congressman from 1974-1988, and served as House Minority Whip during most of the 1980s. In 1988 he ran successfully for US Senate, and has been there ever since. In 1996, when Bob Dole quit the Senate to run for President, Lott was elected Senate Majority Leader. He held that position for the next six years, (with the exception of a brief time as Minority Leader when Jeffords (I-VT) left the GOP). His downfall, at least from Majority Leader, came in December 2002. Speaking at Strom Thurmond’s 100th Birthday Party, Senator Lott made the following statement:
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A Servant of Two Masters

 Posted by  U.S. Politics  3 Responses »
Nov 142006
 

“No one can serve two masters.” That’s the first thought I had when I heard that Florida Senator Mel Martinez will become the next chairman of the RNC, but will also retain his Senate seat.

The party chairman has many formal duties, including fund raising, money allocation, party building, etc. More importantly, the chairman serves as the official spokesman for the party. The duty of the party chairman is to give the official party line on an issue. Whenever Ken Mehlman or Howard Dean went on Meet The Press last year, you knew they were speaking for the party. They owed no responsibility to any electorate or constituency; they were only interested in the best interests of the party. Senator Martinez, however, does not have that luxury. He was hired by the people of Florida to represent them in the United States Senate. And while he is a Republican, and presumably that had a large effect on his election in the first place, as a Senator his primary loyalty is to the people of Florida, and not to the Republican Party. But now he’s just taken a job which flips that on its head. His new job requires that his primary loyalty be to the GOP. So, when the interests of the GOP conflict with the interests of the people of Florida, which is inevitable whenever you compare a national party organization to a regional geopolitical body, how will Senator Martinez react? Will he do his best for the people of Florida, at the expense of the GOP’s message? Or will he hold to the GOP party line, at the expense of his constituency? Or will he sit on the sidelines and do nothing, hurting both parties? Or will he use his influence within the GOP to make sure that they never do anything that would jeopardize his own position as Florida Senator?

I can’t imagine how this could possibly end well. Stay tuned.

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