One down, hundreds up

The town was pressured into taking down their community's nativity scene, so hundreds of residents put up their own.

In Minnesota, the Wadena City Council took down a nativity scene they've traditionally displayed in the city park every year at Christmas time. They were forced into the decision by the Freedom from Religion Foundation which argued that it’s unlawful for a city to display a religious scene, “thus singling out, showing preference for, and endorsing one religion.” They threatened to sue the town.

That's just angry folks being grumpy, I suppose, but such politically correct thinking plagues our nation in so many ways.  Those cannot be happy people.

Anyway, now there are more than a thousand nativity scenes across the town, all on private property.

The community's response caught the attention of local and national news media, so the story has made the rounds.  Local resident Dani Sworski may have started it all.  She says she “wanted to make sure that we stood together, we came together for our faith, as friends as family, and we all kind of grew from this.” Good for them.

It's worth noting, we needn't succumb to the watered down and lifeless norms offered by either the media or the politically correct.  Merry Christmas.

What I think you think

We can best understand the furies of politics by remembering that almost the whole of each party believes absolutely in its picture of the opposition; that it takes as fact, not what is, but what it supposes to be the fact.  ~ The New Republic, Walter Lippman (March, 1922)

As we face the problem of violent extremists, it would be easy to attribute their behavior to the simplistic explanation of religious mandate.  Doing so allows us to categorize and quantify the problem, and to form a response.  It's probably a mistake to do so.

The tendency in us all is to decide before we discern.  We are likely to interpret what we see and hear in terms of our expectations.  If I don't like Democrats (or Republicans), everything they say and do will seem (to me) to justify my disapproval. 

Attributing simplistic motive - it's what pre-reasoning children do when they're in conflict with parents.  "You won't let me go out because you just don't want me to have any fun!" Or, because you just want to be in control, or because you don't want me to have any friends, or because ....  The list is long, and in every case it's inaccurate.  If we attribute motive to another and make decisions on that specious information, we're always wrong.

Always.  There's no progress possible in such a context, only conflict.

Motivation is complex.  If you were to try to explain your own motives in the moment, your explanation would be partial at best.  Why you chose your partner, your career path, your faith, your lifestyle ... all would need a collection of books to cover the actual path to decision. Every action in the moment has a traceable history that is rich with influences.

Similarly, the motives of political opponents or, perhaps more importantly, of violent extremists which we easily ascribe to single-sentence descriptions are in actuality quite complex.  If we're to pursue progress rather than continued conflict, it takes more understanding.  Much more.

As a beginning point for understanding religious extremists in the middle-East, it's worth noting that the current struggle began more than a century ago and is rooted in oppression, persecution, and human rights abuse.  Simply returning fire validates the current uprising.

What kind of response might begin to defuse the situation and address the cause? 

       (The challenge is to have uncomfortable conversations.  Because there are really only two choices: conversation or violence.  If there's a third way, human beings haven't discovered it.  ~ Sam Harris)

Merry Christmas, Ben Stein

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, bejewelled 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 nativity scene, 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 celebrities and we aren't allowed to worship God? I guess that's a sign that I'm getting old, too. But there are a lot of us who are wondering where these celebrities 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 Hurricane 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... terrorist attacks, school shootings, etc. I think it started when Madeleine Murray O'Hare (she was murdered, her body found a few years ago) 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 okay.

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 yet?

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 a bad shape the world is in.

My best regards, honestly and respectfully,

Ben Stein
More from Ben Stein, Christmas '11

What is a nation?

Largest ethnic group or race as percentage of total population:
Dark yellow: 85% or more are from majority ethnicity
Yellow: 65%-84% are from majority ethnicity
Light yellow: 64% or fewer are from majority ethnicity
Dark blue: 85% or more are from majority race
Blue: 65%-84% are from majority race
Light blue: 64% or fewer are from majority race
Source: The World Factbook, with data as of 2000–2008.

Nation, sovereign state,
   city-state, nation-state ...
      multination state, empire ...

We identify ourselves by origin.
We're from the U.S., the E.U., or from
Australia or Africa ...

Where did that come from,
and what does it mean?

Despite our belief that national identity
has always been with us, it's actually
rather new.  Perhaps around the mid-
18th century, people began to identify
themselves with the country at large, rather
than the smaller units of family, town, or province.

Nation (Latin: natio "people, tribe, kin") is a social concept with no agreed definition. In common use, it is a place with population that shares common culture, tradition, values, and perhaps language.  Nations are formed over time, generation after generation, merged together into a common identity with agreed values. If you add 'state' (as in nation-state), that's the political legitimacy part where governance and sovereignty enter the picture. There's much more, but what difference does it make to the individual?
  
So, nation, state, and our identity, or our concept of ourselves in relation to geography...

Past:  'Nations' perhaps began to emerge in common understanding along with advances in cartography and map publication, mercantilism and regional economies, and politics, around the 15th century.  The 'state' (or formalization of national sovereignty with constitution, law, and borders) came later.  Most historians see the nation-state as a 19th century European phenomenon.  In any case, it's recent in human history.  

Before there were nations, one's place-identity was simply cultural and ethnic affiliations with some small geographic context, however imprecise.  There were large and small places with lords, vassals, and fiefs (or their local equivalent).  A fiefdom might be a valley and its occupants, just few hundred folks.  Sometimes marriage between noble houses would merge one area with another.  An empire might swallow you and your community for a few centuries as part of their domain, their realm of rule.  Boundaries were rivers and the sea, mountains and the horizon ...

Present:  Boundaries today are political and precise.  One problematic reality - cultures and ethnicities may not fit inside those boundaries.  

In some cases, ethnic geography and the political state largely coincide; Japan, Egypt, and Albania are examples.  There is little immigration or emigration, and little diversity of the sort we might see in the Americas.

More often, political boundaries intrude into cultural life.  Innumerable conflicts have arisen and continue to spring up where political boundaries do not correspond to ethnic or cultural boundaries.  After the breakup of the Soviet Union, ancient conflicts between the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes resurfaced, and 'ethnic cleansing' became part of modern vocabulary.  Civil wars in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the 90's displaced large segments of the populations and segregated societies whom the CCCP had attempted to assimilate and rule.  Virtually all colonial efforts have had similar results.  There are few boundaries in Africa that were not drawn through the middle of ethnic groups, even through villages and towns.

Left to itself, Africa would be

perhaps a dozen countries.

Left to itself, speculation suggests, Africa would be perhaps a dozen countries.  The 50+ we see are just lines drawn by outsiders for various advantages, and the turmoil continues today.

Multifaceted nations may or may not merge into a single culture.  Success varies, perhaps unifying, perhaps polarizing, often determined by ideology and values, and by the performance of leadership.  Cultures may divide over values.

National loyalties wax and wane, similarly dependent on how well the leadership serves and how clearly values are preserved.  

Most violent conflicts today are cultural/ethnic vs. political.  The imposition of governance and boundaries, particularly in the modern form, can be as much divisive as it is unifying, as much provoking as pacifying.  

Yesterday's conflict examples?  The American Revolution, the French Revolution, the abolition of slavery and the U.S. Civil War, and the world wars.  The underlying question in the minds of the populous, "Can I approve and acquiesce to that which is being imposed on me and my children by those who rule?"

Today's conflict examples?  The Arab Spring, the Syrian Civil War, ISIL/ISIS, Russia and the Ukraine.  Internal conflicts over ideology, national values, discrimination, inequality.

What happens when things change?  What happens when the values we cherish disappear from the nation we've claimed as our own?  Does it make a difference when the traditions we hold dear are no longer reflected in national policy?  If our family roots are tied to ethical standards which no longer permeate the national culture, are we still tied to the nation?

If you're an American with traditional inclinations, you probably have more in common with a Muslim cab driver in Mombasa than you do with decision makers on Wall Street or Pennsylvania Avenue.  From the top of the list: healthy community and family, fair business, freedom and equality, a reasonable world with education and opportunity for your children; you could talk comfortably for hours if the cab ride lasted that long.  Try that with JPMorgan.

America's reputation has declined internationally.  American patriotism is on the decline among the younger members, and we generally disapprove of our national governance.  What's next?  What are the issues of conscience and conviction that citizens need to tackle?  Are they issues of law or liberty?  Of cultural unity and common values?  Of justice?

Future:  Globalization is changing the nation-states.  The global marketplace (especially finance), communications, multinational corporations (many larger than countries), cross-boundary connectedness and political awareness, all are moving faster than governments can regulate and leverage.  Political scientists speculate that the nation-state is outdated and may become obsolete; we are offered either a one world government or a zero world government (communal anarchy) as the expected replacement.  Humorous extremes, perhaps, but we're reminded that things do change.

As long as we're being humorous, this one showed up in my email from a tongue-in-cheek conservative yesterday ... 

The Rebirth of America

1.  President Marco Rubio and Vice President Carly Fiorina are sworn into office.

2.  In a rare event on inauguration day, Congress convenes for an emergency meeting to repeal the illegal and unconstitutional Socialist healthcare farce known as Obamacare.  The new Director of Health and Social Services Dr. Ben Carson announces that an independent group of healthcare management professionals is hired to handle healthcare services for poor and low income people.  They are also assigned the duty of eliminating Medicare and Medicaid fraud.  Government’s costs for public healthcare are reduced by 90%.  Healthcare insurance premiums for working Americans are reduced by 50%.  The move saves billions of taxpayer paid dollars.  Healthcare service in the U.S improves 100%.

3.  Newly appointed department of Homeland Security Chief Donald Trump announces the immediate deployment of Troops to the U.S. Mexico border to control illegal immigration and the immediate deportation of illegals with criminal records or links to terrorist groups.  New bio-encrypted Social Security ID’s are required by every American citizen.  Birthright is abolished. All immigration from countries that represent a threat to the safety of American citizens is terminated indefinitely. The move saves American taxpayers billions of dollars.  Several prisons are closed.

4.  Newly appointed Secretary of Business and Economic Development Ted Cruz eliminates more than half of the Government agencies operating under the Obama administration saving taxpayers billions of dollars.  Stocks rise 100%. 

 5.  Newly appointed Director of Government Finance Rand Paul announces the abolition of the IRS and displays a copy of the new Federal Tax Return form.  It consists of one page.  The instructions consist of two pages. The Federal Reserve is audited. The move saves American Taxpayers billions of dollars and increases tax revenue.

6.  Hillary Clinton is in jail, where she belongs.  Her cell is directly across from Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton who are serving time for ‘Hate Crimes”.  She bitches at them constantly from behind the bars of her cell in what some might call cruel and unusual punishment.

7.  Bernie Sanders is in the nuthouse, where he belongs.  His room is directly across from Nancy Pelosi, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Chris Matthews and Al Franken.  They meet for tea every day at ten and discuss the success and benefits of Communism and Socialism throughout the world.  They also wonder when the “Mothership” is going to pick them up and return them to their home planets.

8.  Windows 12 is released.  It is designed for humans, doesn’t try to satisfy the needs of every person on the planet, doesn’t require a degree in nuclear physics to operate and looks just like Windows 7 except it is easier to use.

9. Oscar Meyer announces the introduction of a new cholesterol and fat free pepperoni that tastes just like regular pepperoni.

10.  Dead people are no longer allowed to vote in Chicago, a blow for the Democrat Party in the State of Illinois.

And this constitutes THE REBIRTH OF AMERICA!!!!!!
(a little humor can soften the reality, perhaps)

Decades of lies, and history repeats itself

E.g.; Tobacco companies lied for decades about health issues. 

• In 2006 a U.S. district judge ruled that U.S. cigarette makers had knowingly lied about the dangers of smoking for decades.
• The tobacco companies were forced to publish statements saying that they had deceived the American public about the dangers of smoking and disclosing that smoking “kills more people than murder, AIDS, suicide, drugs, car crashes, and alcohol combined, and that ‘secondhand smoke kills over 38,000 Americans a year.’”
• By the time they were forced to come forward with the truth, we all knew they were liars anyway, and it was too late for the millions killed, sickened, or deformed by tobacco smoke.
• Their policy of lies is indescribably wicked, forfeiting lives in favor of profits.

E.g.; Similarly, Wall Street's 'too big to fail' behemoths lied and manipulated governments for regulatory change which they exploited for trillions at the expense of everyone else in the world, literally.

• They have provided no benefit and brought both risk and harm to the world, as was pointed out by the UK finance minister.  More than a million died as a result of the Great Recession alone.  Compensation for players was magnificent, billions extracted from the marketplace where trillions were lost by everyone else.  
• Their policy of lies is indescribably wicked, deliberately extracting wealth from individuals and nations for the financial benefit of a few.  

E.g.; In similar fashion, the fossil fuel industry has been concealing information about their products since the 1970s.

• Exxon has recently acknowledged that climate change has begun, due in large part to the burning of fossil fuels.  They attempted to hide that truth for decades, a deliberate misrepresentation detailed in a Harvard study of internal corporate correspondence.  Inside Climate News explains further how Exxon’s own research confirmed the role of fossil fuel in climate change decades ago (1977). 

They saw clearly and chose unethically.

• Exxon (and others) conducted cutting-edge climate research and then, without revealing what it had learned, worked at the forefront of climate denial, manufacturing doubt about the scientific consensus that its own scientists had confirmed more than thirty years earlier.  Documents from company archives and interviews with research participants have unveiled the corporate decision to misrepresent the facts.   (All the companies knew.  Members of an American Petroleum Institute task force on CO2 included scientists from nearly every major oil company, including Exxon, Texaco and Shell.)
• By the time we discovered their scheme, we all knew they had been obscuring the truth anyway, and much damage was done. It is too late to fully stem the environmental and ecological damage.  The result, it will detrimentally affect every future generation.
• For the companies, their policy of lies is indescribably wicked, forfeiting future quality of life in favor of current profits.

It's interesting to note that the supreme court has given such corporations the right to campaign, to influence policy, and to change the course of the nation.  The most unethical entities among us wield the most power.  Is that troublesome?

What if R.J. Reynolds had told the truth?
What if Wall Street and the Federal Reserve had told the truth?

What if Exxon and Texaco and Shell had told the truth?

As a nation and a people, we will indeed fight our way through.  It's perhaps worth identifying our proven adversaries along the way (the murderous ones like these).   

A government of, by, and actually for the people will be a bit of a change. 
(Understatement of the year!)

Civilization's Reasonable Rise

Today's Masai of Kenya and Tanzania were

preceded by the Khoikhoi, peaceful
pastoralists in southern Africa
for thousands of years.

We rise up.  But is it a competition?

• from simple existence ... with food and water, and maybe shelter 
• we rise up to living as families and extended families 
• and raising children.

We learn.  The good of one is the good of all.

• then up to living as community groups ... working, sharing the load
• and to complex relationships ... labor and service for mutual benefit, for good life.

From perhaps a few nomadic families, we grow into a community, into many communities spreading across the plains, along the rivers, and down to the sea.

Food and shelter, and skills for survival; unlike some in the animal realm, none of us survive without the help of others.  The years reveal our common values; there are just a few - a good and just life, healthy relationships, and a place.  These values are still cherished today.  We may not actually need emperors though.

Many nomadic groups today have no

collective name for themselves

beyond just family.  They
live the simplest of
lives in peace.

Centuries pass on the banks of the Niger river.  Cities appear, and the best archaeological evidence suggests there was not one monarch among them all.  There's a loose caste system that forms along with innovations like rice domestication and mud brick architectures.  There's work; some are fishermen, some farmers, some herders. There are artisan settlements for pottery, leather. and iron works. There's trade, buying and selling, but they share the burden of having enough among the communities; enough to eat, mostly.   Concessions are negotiated from year to year depending on varying productivity and need.  No emperors, no armies, no slave trade ...   The region was populated and well established for centuries before the Arab trans-African gold and slave trade arrived, and the culture survived beyond the fall of Axum and Meroë and the empire of Rome.

It was no pleasant Eden, perhaps, but the region was generally free from war, from serfdom, from deadly competition, for more than a thousand years.  A soft-edged capitalism of sorts.

The unique feature of the Niger Valley 'civilization' was that it had no state structure; instead of having a government, the people of these cities more or less governed themselves, almost a 'golden rule' sort of society. This led to a debate among historians as to whether or not it was a civilization at all.  You won't find the cities like Djenné-Djenno listed among the kingdoms and city-states of African history. No king, no kingdom ... at least not until traders from the north and east began contributing to their history.  

Restored buildings in Djenné-Djenno

"Remarkably similar settlement processes appear to have characterized the urbanization process at sites of similar age in China, suggesting that this alternative to the hierarchical social system and coercive centralized control strategy ... may have occurred worldwide." ~John Reader, Africa: A Biography of the Continent

Elsewhere in Africa and the near East, communities become towns and trade venues, and competition begins to stratify the population.  A few rise to positions of greater influence over others. Wealth and rule run hand in hand through vast regions, and our common values are left behind.  'We' and 'they' are separated.  We rule, they obey, or we annihilate them.  It seemed reasonable, somehow, that we should take everything from them, their land and possessions, even their lives.

Thirty-nine men,
fifteen boys,
twenty-four women,
and sixteen girls.
They were sold.        
We don't know their names
or the families from which
they came or their stories
or the suffering they
experienced from
our selfish
acts.

Competition for wealth and rule brings trouble to tribes, to states, giving rise to kings and their warriors.  And to serfdom and slaves.  Death by conflict plagues the world, and civilizations are erased by conquerors.  Empires across the centuries, each is a competitive play for wealth and rule.  It seemed reasonable, somehow, that one should indeed rise above another and take their place in the world.

In the 20th century, it seemed reasonable to the cousin-kings of Europe to compete for empire as millions die and millions more flee their homelands.  The conflict spreads into the first world war.  A quick shuffle of the players, then repeat for the second world war; now tens of millions more die, and hundreds of millions have their lives and lands unrecoverably shattered by the conflict.  The world is arbitrarily reshaped by the winners.

The root of it all, starkly visible when compared to any alternative, is the willingness to have for ourselves by taking from others.  After years of propagandized justification, such competition may seem reasonable, but in reality it is perhaps only one step removed from being a murderer and thief or slave trader.  It is neither Christian nor of any other religion.

One among hundreds of such observations.
Humorous perhaps, but not inaccurate.

This so-called reasonable stance persists today in large-scale business and international relations.  And what of those values we all recognized as necessary?  Of a good and just life, healthy relationships, and a place for all?  They're often reduced to 'when convenient' by-products and are not broadly visible in larger business or trans-national contexts.


It's difficult finding an ethical balance between business with innovation and entrepreneurship on one side and social good on the other.  Good business has been redefined; now it's just profitability that matters.  Such thinking is perhaps most visible among multinational corporations; most, at least, but perhaps not all.  The decline seems to be occasioned by values and principles now absent from the boardroom.

There's nothing wrong with work and trade and profit, of course; only with the extremes.

Accurate and not at all humorous.

The multinational corporations now openly operate
for their own benefit, their own competitive edge
in the world marketplace rather than for the
good of humanity.  It's just business,
competition to win over others,
and bottom-line only.

The cousin-king mentality is deeply embedded in modern finance and the marketplace, in NAFTA, in the TPP, and TTIP.   Today's rapacious competition isn't related to reasonable human or Christian values. It makes you wonder if there is a path of good conscience that you might walk as an individual.  Or as a family.

The good news; there is such a path, but it is perhaps somewhat narrow and difficult to find, at least at first.  And, it is unlikely to be an easy path, but rather one full of difficulties.


So, there is this narrow gate.

“Always do for other people everything you want them to do for you. That's the heart of Moses’ teachings and all that the prophets have said."

“Make your way through that narrow gate because the road that leads to destruction is wide, and many go that way. But remember, the narrow gate and the road that leads to life is full of trouble. Only a few people find that narrow gate."

“Watch out for wicked leaders. They come to you disguised as pleasant and harmless, but in their hearts they are vicious wolves. You will know them by what they do and by the product of their work."

“You can't pick grapes from thorn bushes or figs from thistles, can you?  Good trees produce good fruit, but a rotten tree produces bad fruit. A good tree can't produce bad fruit, and a rotten tree can't produce good fruit. Trees that fail to produce good fruit are cut down and thrown into a fire. So you will see the difference in what they produce."

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord!’ will enter the kingdom, just the ones who do what my Father in heaven wants. Many will say, ‘Lord, Lord, didn’t we lead in your name? Didn’t we force out demons and do many miracles by the power and authority of your name?’ I will tell them publicly, ‘I’ve never known you. Get away from me.’"

“So, everyone who hears what I say and does it will be like a wise person who built a house on rock. Rain poured, and floods came. Winds blew and beat against that house, but it didn't fall, because its foundation was on rock."

“Everyone who hears what I say but doesn’t do it will be like a foolish person who built a house on sand. Rain poured, and floods came. Winds blew and struck that house. It fell, and the result was disaster.”

What we do matters.  What we do as a nation matters.  What we and our family do does not need to conform to the wider norm, and in fact, it probably shouldn't.