This was emailed to me and thought it was appropriate for this thread. Although I don't have proof if Ben Stein actually wrote this
The following was written by Ben Stein and recited by him on CBS Sunday Morning Commentary.
My 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.
In light of the many jokes we send to one another for a laugh, this is a little different: This is not intended to be a joke; it's not funny, it's intended to get you thinking.
Billy Graham's daughter was interviewed on the Early Show and Jane Clayson asked her 'How could God let something like this happen?' (regarding Katrina) Anne Graham gave an extremely profound and insightful response. She said, 'I believe God is deeply saddened by this, just as we are, but for years we've been telling God to get out of our schools, to get out of our government and to get out of our lives. And being the gentleman He is, I believe He has calmly backed out. How can we expect God to give us His blessing and His protection if we demand He leave us alone?'
In light of recent events...terrorists attack, school shootings, etc. I think it started when Madeleine Murray O'Hare (she was murdered, her body found recently) complained she didn't want prayer in our schools, and we said OK. Then someone said you better not read the Bible in school. The Bible says thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, and love your neighbor as yourself. And we said OK.
Then Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn't spank our children when they misbehave because their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem (Dr. Spock's son committed suicide). We said an expert should know what he's talking about. And we said OK.
Now we're asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don't know right from wrong, and why it doesn't bother them to kill strangers, their classmates, and themselves.
Probably, if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figure it out. I think it has a great deal to do with 'WE REAP WHAT WE SOW.'
Funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the world's going to hell. Funny how we believe what the newspapers say, but question what the Bible says. Funny how you can send 'jokes' through e-mail and they spread like wildfire but when you start sending messages regarding the Lord, people think twice about sharing. Funny how lewd, crude, vulgar and obscene articles pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion of God is suppressed in the school and workplace.
Are you laughing?
Funny how when you forward this message, you will not send it to many on your address list because you're not sure what they believe, or what they will think of you for sending it.
Funny how we can be more worried about what other people think of us than what God thinks of us.
Pass it on if you think it has merit. If not then just discard it... no one will know you did. But, if you discard this thought process, don't sit back and complain about what bad shape the world is in. My Best Regards.
It is amusing how historically Jews don't take offense to any of this BS. It just seems to be Christians, atheists and of course now the Muslims.
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
If Santa needs a new suit, he’ll point the sleigh to China BY ANN BELSER Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
It’s not just the toy-making elves who have seen their jobs offshored. Santa’s new tailors are in China, too. The last Santa suit manufacturer in the country was Halco, a Belle Vernon, Pa.-based company that specialized in Santa’s suits, dresses for Mrs. Claus and outfi ts for elves. This year, the last locally produced Santa suit was finished in May and the workers were laid off. Santa suits were one of the last sectors of the apparel industry to be left in the United States. Shoes that had been made in New England were made overseas decades ago, though there are a handful of manufacturers still left in the States. Textiles, which early in the last century were made in both New England and the South, are no longer made in this country. Glass and electronics are two other industries that have moved overseas, shifting jobs from the United States to India and Asia. Confronted with a global economy in which cheaper labor is always just a border or two away, companies throughout the United States have shifted much of their work to Mexico or overseas. Now it’s not just manufacturing that has moved. Calls from U.S. consumers are being handled overseas, including companies such as Intuit Inc., which has workers in India answering questions about the TurboTax software designed to pay U.S. taxes. Eric Dirnbach, a spokesman from Unite Here, which encompasses the unions that were formerly the International Ladies Garment Workers Union and the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers, said the story of the loss of Santa suit manufacturing is too familiar. “We’ve seen a dramatic decline in both the apparel and textile industries,” he said. BAH, HUMBUG For the Halco workers it was just a matter of time before they lost their jobs. “It’s awful. Our company’s been around for 62 years,” said Terri Greenberg, the president of Halco who took over the business her father, Allen Hoffman, bought in 1975. At one point, Halco has 70 people sewing the suits, not including all of the people who shipped the products, maintained the factory and worked in the office. Some of them, by the time they were laid off this year, had been making Santa suits in Belle Vernon for 50 years, she said. The company is well known — some of its suits have been featured in movies, on television programs and in commercials. The suits retail from between $100 and $800 depending on the materials and detail. The better suits are made with either velvet or a plush pile, lined with satin and come with a Naugahyde bound belt and have boot tops of Nauhahyde with white plush boot cuffs. Now, Greenberg said, the apparel for Santa and his associates is made in China, Hong Kong, Thailand and “all over.” FORCED TO GO OVERSEAS It’s the competition from other Santa suits manufacturers that caused Halco to use foreign labor. “It’s the Wal-Mart-ization of the world. It’s the best cost and the best price for everything. People don’t want to spend the money.” Greenberg said the company tried to keep production here. “2001 came along and we really pushed ‘made in the USA.’ . . . We were the last of the Mohicans.” In 1970, when the apparel industry was at its peak, there were 1.5 million jobs for garment workers. Now there are 200,000. In just the past decade the number of people making apparel in the United States dropped by 500,000. Dirnbach said he understands the reasons Halco has shipped its production overseas. In the United States, he said, workers make about $10 an hour; in Asia it is closer to 30 cents an hour. “The price differences are real.” The overall notion of globalization and free trade, he said, is good for investors, but bad for workers. “It drags down wages and working conditions both here and overseas,” he said. Though the prices of apparel might drop, he said, we ultimately end up paying some of the cost. Halco still sells 50,000 Santa suits a year, said Greenberg, who oversees the production by spending two months a year overseas and then six weeks at the end of the year shipping out costumes. Greenberg said she has given some suits to the Senator John Heinz Pittsburgh Regional History Center, where they can take their place alongside other things that aren’t made here any more.
Santa and the reality of himself gets kids in trouble every year when the kids are trying to spread the truth....I wonder if Santa has horns and a pitch-fork.....
...you are a product of your environment, your environment is a product of your priorities, your priorities are a product of you......
The replacement of morality and conscience with law produces a deadly paradox.
STOP BEING GOOD DEMOCRATS---STOP BEING GOOD REPUBLICANS--START BEING GOOD AMERICANS
Santa and the reality of himself gets kids in trouble every year when the kids are trying to spread the truth....I wonder if Santa has horns and a pitch-fork.....
Hardly senders! It is fun and imagination. For Christians, Santa Clause is not the 'true' meaning of Christmas. Christ's birth is. But Santa is fun. And there are plenty of non-christians out there who's meaning of Christmas IS Santa Clause. And that is their right.
When I was little I believed in Santa and yet I also knew it was Christ's birthday. Today as an adult, I don't believe in a real live santa and yet I still know it is Christ's b'day we celebrate.
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
'Merry Christmas' should be used as a greeting First published: Thursday, December 27, 2007
Enough of "Happy Holiday." The word holiday is derived from the words holy day. That is how Christmas began, as a celebration of the birth of Christ. Each culture has its own traditions and rituals. As a nation with our basic principles of equality, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, we have welcomed and assimilated many different cultures. Let us not allow our present-day concern with "political correctness" to rob us of our own traditions, customs and rituals.
Let us continue to say joyfully, "Merry Christmas." CAROLINE WALES Troy
Posted on Thu, Oct. 23, 2008 Town's parade draws fire for dropping 'Christmas' The Associated Press
A famed fireworks company is pulling out of a holiday boat parade because "Christmas" was dropped from the event's name.
Fireworks by Grucci won't lend its sparkle to Patchogue's Nov. 23 parade - decorated yachts on the Patchogue River - because the organizers have renamed it the Patchogue Holiday Boat Parade. It was the Patchogue Christmas Boat Parade last year, when the Grucci company donated $5,000 worth of fireworks.
The company's vice president, Philip Butler, who has criticized the secularization of Christmas in the past, said parade organizers were "using all the themes of Christmas and plagiarizing all those themes."
Organizers in the Long Island town said the parade has had several names over its roughly 15-year existence. The name was changed again this year after complaints that the use of "Christmas" seemed to make the parade less inclusive.
"When I think about fireworks, I don't think about Christmas anyway," Mayor Paul Pontieri said. "I think about the Fourth of July."
The venerable Grucci company is famous for providing spectacular fireworks displays at major national celebrations. It is based in Brookhaven, not far from Patchogue.
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