drunken sailors protest government spending

a memo regarding the christmas crèche

A satire by John Mark Reynolds, from The Scriptorium Daily

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Office of the White House
Czar for Celebration and Jollification
Alcibiades Antinous, Director

RE: The White House Christmas Crèche

Someone must tell the President that his display of the Christmas crèche is inconsistent with our recent policies regarding holiday celebrations in the United States.

The display of the crèche will self-evidently lead to an Iranian style theocracy. If the President chooses to place a crèche in his house many of us in the community of no-faith will feel pressured to put a crèche in our house.

Just yesterday I was hosting a party in my own fashionable Georgetown duplex and someone commented that my replica of the Oval Office and White House decorations was incomplete because I lacked a crèche! Now I can take this kind of heat, but should this kind of bigotry exist in this free nation?

Despite the fact that use of Christian symbols has been a consistent practice of every administration since the founding of the United States, it is never too late to worry about this problem.

Just because it has always been done harmlessly, does not mean it isn’t just about to be harmful. We have been warning about the danger of singing songs like The Battle Hymn of the Republic and playing the “I Have a Dream Speech” by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. for decades, but perhaps the President is willing to listen to us now.

There is a clear and present danger in this crèche to our liberties.

The entire Christmas story as pictured in the crèche is inconsistent with our policy to commercialize holidays and so stimulate the economy. Since acquiring so much of the private sector in the government bailout, our office has made a concerted policy to commercialize the holidays. The man attending church or praying is not in the mall buying.

Isn’t this obvious?

It treats a particular religion as different from other religions and so undercuts our policy to confuse differences. Our present mantra is that all religions are the same, so that people will not look into the tedious details. Pointing out that the founder of one religion is called “the Prince of Peace” through carols and crèches marginalizes other religions whose founders killed people.

Finally, the Christmas story itself, as demonstrated by the figures in the crèche, is inconsistent with the policies of this office. We used several million dollars in a stimulus grant to study the crèche problem and were easily able to come up with ten ways this crèche is inconsistent with present administrative policies. We have put together a policy briefing book outlining the problems in three hundred pages, but here is an executive summary of What Must Go in the Christmas Story.

First, the so-called wise men set a bad example. They are not accredited, so far as we can discover, by any government approved credentialing agency. Who says they are “wise?”

We also discovered that several people in the office were made to feel “other than” by the use of the term “wise man” on both gender and educational grounds.

The situation is worse if they are called “kings.” The notion that a government official should bow the knee to any authority outside government, as in the Baby Jesus, would set a bad precedent. It is in that direction one finds the tea party people.

The gifts given will not stimulate the economy. None of them are from government owned TARP businesses. Couldn’t they have brought Joseph and Mary a GM car? That would improve the crèche considerably. In fact, the use of gold as a gift implies a “hard money” view of currency inconsistent with present administration policies.

Second, the shepherds represent a view of work and economics inconsistent with our present policies. These shepherds lacked a union and were “keeping watch over their flocks by night.” Angels appeared and ordered them to Bethlehem, but failed to find adequate means of transportation. The implication is that these exploited workers walked or ran.

Third, the use of animals in the crèche does not meet modern standards for the housing of livestock. Many of them are pictured in quarters that are cramped and filled with filthy straw. One of our more sensitive commission members could not stop weeping when she saw the crèche ox kneeling in what she described as “an unnatural position.”

Fourth, the “virgin” Mary is a terrible role model for our women. Where to begin with the problems? She was forced by her culture to keep an inconvenient baby. Her very title glorifies an unhealthy abstinence. She is well known for her humility and not her self-esteem, undermining decades of educational effort. She has become associated with Catholics and other retrograde groups.

Fifth, Joseph is an even worse role model for our men. He is upset when he discovers his fiancée might be pregnant by another man indicating a moral judgment about such behavior. When Joseph finds out Mary is “good,” he “takes care” of his pregnant wife without any government assistance. This is both demeaning to Mary and to the government.

Sixth, the “angels” appearing in the scene are flying without FAA clearance. When contacted, Gabriel refused to acknowledge the authority of this office if he needed to make an announcement over American airspace. We have ordered a Homeland Security investigation.

Seventh, government officials such as Herod are routinely shown in a negative light. This is, perhaps, the most serious problem. It is hard to serve the public, but when government officials are shown as “monsters” it gets harder to attract the right kind of forceful person to the civil service. At the very least, if the crèche must be shown, shouldn’t Herod be able to give his side of the story?

We need a Crèche Fairness Doctrine!

Eighth, the use of a “manger” to house the infant Jesus and “swaddling clothes” both fail any reasonable test for good parenting. The cost to the economy alone of such cut-rate child rearing is staggering.

Ninth, both Mary and Joseph home-schooled the infant Jesus, and the boy Jesus ended up embarrassing many well-known teachers. It’s just one step from a make-do-manger to do-it-yourself-schooling, and the President cannot afford to lose the teacher’s union.

Tenth, the delivery of the Baby Jesus without government run health care sets a bad example. Need I say more about this? How can we convince people that everyone will die without government run health care when this crèche is sitting in the White House?

The President should realize that he has already let down the progressive community through his bellicose “Peace Prize Speech” and angered the no-faith community through his use of Christian “just war” rhetoric. The faithless are growing restive and placing a crèche in his own home is beginning to make many of us think or believe that his public protestations of Christian belief are genuine.

Can he afford to offend a key three percent of the voting public to cater to the whims of three-quarters of the nation at Christmas?

The good news is that the President is left with an important part of the Holiday story that he can use to illuminate the real importance of the season.

Please let the President know that the only part of the Christmas story acceptable to this office is Luke 2:1: “And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed.”

peacemakers?

"Especially among Christians in positions of great wealth and power, the idea of reading the Gospels and keeping Jesus’s commandments as stated therein has been replaced by a curious process of logic. According to this process, people first declare themselves to be followers of Christ, and then they assume that whatever they say or do merits the adjective 'Christian.'

"This process appears to have been dominant among Christian heads of state ever since Christianity became politically respectable. From this accommodation has proceeded a monstrous history of Christian violence. War after war has been prosecuted by bloodthirsty Christians, and to the profit of greedy Christians, as if Christ had never been born and the Gospels never written. I may have missed something, but I know of no Christian nation and no Christian leader from whose conduct the teachings of Christ could be inferred.

"One cannot be aware both of the history of Christian war and of the contents of the Gospels without feeling that something is amiss. One may feel that, in the name of honesty, Christians ought either to quit fighting or quit calling themselves Christians."

— Wendell Berry, Blessed are the Peacemakers: Christ's Teachings about Love, Compassion & Forgiveness

hail to the ch- ch- ch- chief!

This is for real!

considering...

This week marked the anniversary of Roe v. Wade. Its a touchy issue to say the least. I came across these "truths" for consideration. They seem compelling. What do you think?

1. Existing fetal homicide laws make a man guilty of manslaughter if he kills the baby in a mother's womb (except in the case of abortion).

2. Fetal surgery is performed on babies in the womb to save them while another child the same age is being legally destroyed.

3. Babies can sometimes survive on their own at 23 or 24 weeks, but abortion is legal beyond this limit.

4. Living on its own is not the criterion of human personhood, as we know from the use of respirators and dialysis.

5. Size is irrelevant to human personhood, as we know from the difference between a one-week-old and a six-year-old.

6. Developed reasoning powers are not the criterion of personhood, as we know from the capacities of three-month-old babies.

7. Infants in the womb are human beings scientifically by virtue of their genetic make up.

8. Ultrasound has given a stunning window on the womb that shows the unborn at eight weeks sucking his thumb, recoiling from pricking, responding to sound. All the organs are present, the brain is functioning, the heart is pumping, the liver is making blood cells, the kidneys are cleaning fluids, and there is a fingerprint. Virtually all abortions happen later than this date.

9. Justice dictates that when two legitimate rights conflict, the limitation of rights that does the least harm is the most just. Bearing a child for adoption does less harm than killing him.

10. Justice dictates that when either of two people must be inconvenienced or hurt to alleviate their united predicament, the one who bore the greater responsibility for the predicament should bear more of the inconvenience or hurt to alleviate it.

11. Justice dictates that a person may not coerce harm on another person by threatening voluntary harm on themselves.

12. The outcast and the disadvantaged and exploited are to be cared for in a special way, especially those with no voice of their own.

13. What is happening in the womb is the unique person-nurturing work of God, who alone has the right to give and take life.

14. There are countless clinics that offer life and hope to both mother and child (and father and parents), with care of every kind lovingly provided by people who will meet every need they can.

15. Jesus Christ can forgive all sins, and will give all who trusts him the help they need to do everything that life requires.

toph economics

Thanks to Toph for a great link to reading on the Bailout.

While it is quite in depth I found these articles especially interesting on Mr. Bailout (Alan Greenspan), Avoiding Another Depression, Austrian Theory on Depressions, and these on Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. The fact that these articles date back at least to 2002 lends some credibility to their assertions about the fact we would come to the current crisis, be tempted by Federal involvement and the nationalization of finance, as well as real ideas for not making things worse (i.e. no bailout).

No matter where you stand, some serious thought about our current financial crisis is in order. This is a good place to start. Anybody else have other resources?

bailout response

Consider contacting your Congressperson and Senators regarding a responsible, accountable, and long term decision to the financial crisis. Here is a link with a suggested letter by Sojourners (but you can edit it, the main thing is it will automatically email your representatives for you).

bono on bailout

It's extraordinary to me that the United States can find $700 billion to save Wall Street and the entire G8 can't find $25 billion dollars to save 25,000 children who die every day from preventable diseases. - Bono (source)

bailout or bribe?

The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers it can bribe the public with the public's money. - Alexis de Tocqueville