And now, a few things not to be thankful for
Another Thanksgiving means another list of things for which not to be thankful. Certainly, there is much to appreciate, but we’ll leave that commentary to the flowery romantics.
So let’s not be grateful for:
1) Blatant partisanship. Can we stop the insane calls to impeach President Trump? Please? It’s growing old, it’s not going to happen, and there is zero merit for impeachment – not that any of those things stopped a cadre of Democratic congressman from introducing articles of impeachment recently.
Some people really don’t like the president. Great. We get that. But no matter how much one despises him personally or politically, neither remotely justifies impeachment. And no, allegations of Russian collusion don’t measure up either. That’s why God made investigations. Let them play out (fairly), and the chips will fall where they may.
And for the record, there’s already a mechanism in place to replace unpopular leaders. It’s called elections. Mess with that time-honored concept by impeaching presidents on a whim, and you might as well call it a day, because America will cease to be a democratic Republic and instead devolve into rule-bymob mentality.
But it’s not all bad for anti-Trumpers. Given the recent carnage that the GOP suffered on election day, Democrats can be thankful that, above everything else, they’re not Republicans.
2) Arrogance. It’s bad enough that three UCLA basketball players were caught shoplifting in China – a crime carrying a stiff prison sentence. But having the headline-seeking, ultra-egotistical father of one (LaVar Ball, whose other son plays for the Lakers), refuse to thank President Trump for freeing them, shows that he’s nothing more than a secondstringer who’ll never be ready for prime time.
The problem exists on several levels. First, this wasn’t a case of young kids being silly. They were elite athletes attending an elite university, and clearly knew right from wrong. They issue is that they didn’t care about stealing, nor did they care about consequences. And why should they? America coddles its athletes from a young age, giving them a free pass on virtually everything, from bad grades to inappropriate (and often illegal) conduct. That in turn leads to massive entitlement. So when they visit a foreign land, for example, they think they can act like jackasses and break the law at will, laughing the whole time and reinforcing the stereotype of “ignorant Americans abroad.”
Except in this case, they did get caught, and China was not amused.
So when the president leveraged his position to free them (giving up God knows what), a “thank you” was in order. But LaVar Ball chose ignorance instead, acting like a tough guy once his son was safely back in the U.S. – proving that class isn’t something you can buy.
3) Paranoia. Yes, there have been a spate of mass shootings recently. And yes, sometimes it seems like the world is collapsing around us. But if people would break their addiction to 24/7 headlines and just put down their damn phones for a minute, they would realize that we are living in, by far, the safest period in human history. There are fewer deaths from wars, disease, starvation and crime than ever before – especially in America, where crime rates are near alltime lows. Bad things will always happen, of course, and we must do our best to mitigate them, but there is a huge difference between being prepared, and being paranoid.
That message was lost on administrators of a Miami private school, as they are offering parents $120 bulletproof plates to place in their children’s schoolbags. That is so wrong, on so many levels, and serves only to make our scared-out-oftheir wits children that much more afraid. With that kind of “guidance,” it’s no wonder so many of our kids can’t function.
Instilling fear is bad enough, but doing so with such a foolhardy “solution” is ludicrous. First, it was announced that the plates won’t stop rifle bullets. Brilliant. Nothing like issuing a challenge to the lunatic just dying – literally – to show the world he can beat the new challenge. Second, most school shootings occur in school – not outside, where backpacks are most often worn. Therefore, a bulletproof plate in a schoolbag does a child no good if it’s hanging in the closet or on the floor. What’s next – mandating students wear body armor? Third, and most important, the odds of a being involved in a school shooting are beyond low, and the odds of one’s own child being shot are even lower. Just as there were more than a billion people who walked The Strip in Las Vegas without incident before the Mandalay Bay shooting, the likelihood of an attack on YOUR child’s school is virtually nil.
Fostering paranoia: Bad. Instituting a program that won’t work: Worse. Teaching children to fear their own shadow more than ever: Unforgiveable. That school gets an “F.”
4) Glorifying rudeness. A photo of a woman giving President Trump the middle finger as his motorcade passed by went viral – and she was promptly fired for violating her company’s code of conduct policy.
Juli Briskman’s story should have ended there. But no! This is the America, where glorifying and promoting disrespect trumps condemning it. So a GoFundMe page, created to support Briskman, raised $114,000 on her behalf, with the description: “Juli Briskman is an inspiration to us all … we learned that she was fired from her employer for exercising her First Amendment rights.”
And asked in an interview if she regretted her action, Briskman replied “No,” stating: “I think we have a big problem in this country.”
Juli is right about one thing. We do have a big problem. It’s called entitlement – where people think they can do whatever they want, whenever they want, consequences be damned.
Let’s get this straight: We’re making an “inspirational” role model out of someone whose preferred method of communication with those she disagrees with is giving an obscene gesture. What a great lesson for our kids. One wonders if Briskman also flipped off her bosses when she disagreed with them. If not, why? After all, isn’t that a protected expression under the First Amendment, as we’re told?
Uhhh, no. It’s not. Just as clueless NFL players are wrong to think that protesting the National Anthem is their “right,” so too is it incorrect to believe that flipping off the president – and posting it on social media – is a “right” when you happen to work for a government contractor that deems such conduct detrimental to the company.
By not just excusing but glorifying such rude behavior, the message to our children is that obscenity is an acceptable response to anything that we don’t like in our all-about-me society. Now, courtesy is all but dead, nothing is sacred anymore (such as the office of the president, regardless of the occupant), and there is no value in seeking something greater than ourselves.
H.U. Westermayer stated, “The Pilgrims made seven times more graves than huts. No Americans have been more impoverished than these who, nevertheless, set aside a day of thanksgiving.”
This Thanksgiving, let’s commemorate the sacrifices of those who gave us the world’s greatest nation by prayer, reflection, and eating birds – rather than flipping them.