Holiday Thoughts Worth Pondering

Some time ago, actor, writer, lawyer and commentator Ben Stein published some thoughts about the holiday season. I submit them for your consideration.*

Herewith at this happy time of year, a few confessions from my beating heart:

I have no freaking clue who Nick and Jessica are. I see them on the cover of People and Us constantly when I am buying my dog biscuits and kitty litter. I often ask the checkers at the grocery stores. They never know who Nick and Jessica are either. Who are they? Will it change my life if I know who they are and why they have broken up? Why are they so important? I don't know who Lindsay Lohan is, either, and I do not care at all about Tom Cruise's wife.

Am I going to be called before a Senate committee and asked if I am a subversive? Maybe, but I just have no clue who Nick and Jessica are. Is this what it means to be no longer young. It's not so bad.

Next confession: I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees Christmas trees. I don't feel threatened. I don't feel discriminated against. That's what they are: Christmas trees. It doesn't bother me a bit when people say, "Merry Christmas" to me. I don't think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it. It shows that we are all brothers and sisters celebrating this happy time of year. It doesn't bother me at all that there is a manger scene on display at a key intersection near my beach house in Malibu. If people want a creche, it's just as fine with me as is the Menorah a few hundred yards away.

I don't like getting pushed around for being a Jew and I don't think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. I have no idea where the concept came from that America is an explicitly atheist country. I can't find it in the Constitution and I don't like it being shoved down my throat.

Or maybe I can put it another way: where did the idea come from that we should worship Nick and Jessica and we aren't allowed to worship God as we understand Him?

I guess that's a sign that I'm getting old, too. But there are a lot of us who are wondering where Nick and Jessica came from and where the America we knew went to.

Wishing you a joyous holiday season and a healthy and prosperous New Year!

*Note:  I was informed by some of my readers that the version of Ben Stein's article that I originally posted had been modified and added to.  As my readers were correct, I replaced the original article with the actual article from Ben Stein's website.  I believe his thoughts are still worth pondering this holiday season.
--Ralph

[My thanks to Jennie Montoya for forwarding this]

Support Our Vets this Veterans Day

Veterans Day is upon us, once again.  This Sunday we remember and honor those who have served and those who still serve our country.  You've heard it before.  These men and women put themselves in harm's way and put their lives on the line to defend our country and keep us safe.  They have given up the comfort of a warm home to go to the ends of the earth.  Many of them suffered serious injury and death in the performance of their duties.

After ten years of war in the Middle East, hundreds of our servicemen and women have paid the ultimate price, and thousands have returned home with life changing injuries.  This year I would like to extend a challenge to all of my readers to make a donation to one of the many organizations that help our Veterans in need.  The Disabled American Veterans and Wounded Warrior Project are just two.  This year I donated funds to the Wounded Warrier Project and pledged a monthly contribution to help those veterans who need our help.  I hope you will do the same.

I have included below, for your entertainment, the video I posted last year honoring the men and women of our armed forces.  It has been viewed by nearly 16,000 people since last year and received rave reviews.  Turn up your volume, select full screen and take a few moments to enjoy it.

Election 2012 Final Thoughts

The election of 2012 is now history.  This election, I believe, was the most important election of our lifetime, and I can't help but believe that the outcome of this election is the death knell of our country as we know it.

By the end of Obama's next term, we will have DOUBLED OUR NATIONAL DEBT from 10 TRILLION DOLLARS when he was first elected to an unsustainable 20 TRILLION DOLLARS by 2016.  I don't see how our economy can survive.  We are certain to follow in the footsteps of Greece and the other European nations that were fiscally irresponsible.  We will see hyperinflation, where our dollar will be nearly worthless.  And, I fear, we may see TOTAL ECONOMIC COLLAPSE.

We built a great nation and became the envy of the world by harnessing the initiative and effort of the individual.  FREE ENTERPRISE encouraged entrepreneurship because any American could prosper from his own initiative and hard work.  President Obama continues to vilify the successful and create obstructions to entrepreneurship with excessive regulation and government interference.  He continues to enact his SOCIALIST AGENDA where the government controls everything.  He will continue to waste billions of our taxpayer dollars investing in private companies that will go bankrupt.  By vilifying free enterprise Obama is taking away the incentive of the populace to work.  And he is making scores of additional people dependent upon the government for their very survival.  We do not want, nor can we afford a welfare state.  With four more years of Obama, we will join Europe in fiscal collapse.  President Obama wants the government to control our healthcare and, even, tell us what we can and can't eat!  In his war on conventional energy, Obama continues to block the construction of the oil pipeline from Canada that would significantly aid our progress toward energy independence and, at the same time, create thousands of jobs.

Our borders will become unsafe.  They already have.  We don't protect our borders.  The attacks of 9/11 were the loudest possible wake-up call.  The Obama administration refused to call it what it is:  terrorism perpetrated by Extremist Islamic Fundamentalists around the world.  By doing so, and by pandering to all our enemies, we have shown weakness.  This will encourage further violence.  Even worse, we have turned our backs on our allies.  The Obama administration pulled its support from Israel, dissed the British, coddled Hugo Chavez, and the list goes on!  Most recently, we have shown that we will allow terrorists to kill Americans without even employing our military might to save them.  Afterward, we don't express outrage or attempt to bring the perpetrators to justice.  The Obama administration, then, lies to the people to hide its role in its failure to protect our citizens.  Our allies don't believe we will support them, and, so, they will no longer support us.  The tide is already turning in Iraq and Afghanistan.  They are abandoning us in favor of the Muslim extremists because they know we are pulling the rug out from under them, and they will be left to deal with the remaining Muslim extremists we promised to eradicate.  Four more years of this foreign policy will be disastrous!

The final nail in the coffin of our national defense is the Obama administration's emaciation of our military with devastating budget cuts, some of which it has already enacted.  If SEQUESTRATION goes through we will have no military left!  Since World War II we have kept our country safe through the use of DETERRANCE, which is the threat of overwhelming military action against adversaries who would do us harm.  The two required elements of deterrence are MILITARY MIGHT and THE WILL TO USE IT.  Thanks to four years of an Obama administration, we now have neither.  In the next four years of a second Obama administration, I believe increased and massive attacks on Americans around the world AND AT HOME are inevitable.

Lastly, I believe our nation has prospered for over 200 years because we were a nation of principle and moral fiber.  We have always stood for truth and justice.  Though politics has always been dirty, I believed, in the end, our government stood for integrity.  The last four years of the Obama administration have bombarded us with so many lies that we can't believe anything that comes from inside the beltway.  The partisan divide Obama has created has left the Congress impotent.  They haven't passed a budget during the four years Obama has been President!   The strength of our nation springs from its origin.  We are one nation created from many. The Seal of the United States contains the phrase, E PLURIBUS UNUM (Out of Many, One).  In his first four years, President Obama has divided this nation in a way we have not seen since the Civil War!   He has pitted rich against poor, man against woman, spiritual against secular, employer against employee, and he as reignited the division between black and white!  Unless we regain our integrity, principles and moral fiber, our friends and enemies will never know when to believe us and we will decay from within.

This article is an attempt at closure for me.  You see, I love this country.  I dedicated my life to protecting it, and I fear that four more years of Obama will destroy our country.

Regardless, I cannot and will not give up the hope that we, as Americans, can come back despite the results of yesterday's election.  The video, below, is the beginning scene of the new HBO series "The Newsroom".  It explains why AMERICA IS NO LONGER THE GREATEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD.  It is difficult for Americans to accept this truth.  But if we allow ourselves to recognize it, I believe we can fix it and, once again, become the greatest nation the world has ever known.

 [My thanks to Lois Garliech for forwarding this video]