Thursday, December 07, 2006

Bueller... Bueller....?

I am actually posting a forwarded message. The devil must be throwing on a jacket and lobbing huge snowballs at Hitler.

If they know of him at all, many folks think Ben Stein is just a quirky actor/comedian who talks in a monotone. He's also a very intelligent attorney who knows how to put ideas and words together in such a way as to sway juries and make people think clearly.

The following was written by Ben Stein and recited by him on CBS Sunday Morning Commentary.

Herewith 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. If this is 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 thereare a lot of us who are wondering where Nick and Jessica came from and where the America we knew went to.


Ben Stein

Chinese Proverb:

"When someone shares something of value with you and you benefit from it, you have a moral obligation to share it with others."

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good words. Ben is one smart guy. You don't get to write speaches for the President otherwise.

Anonymous said...

Dang. That's pretty amazing.

Douglas said...

The cool thing is that Ben Stein actually wrote most of what was posted. He didn't write the last bit starting with the joke that isn't funny.
http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/benstein2.asp

Anonymous said...

Yeah, I was about to say that I'd read the last bit somewhere else. Good catch, Doug.

Seth Ward said...

Thanks for the catch, Deleting.