The following was written by Ben Stein and recited by him on CBS Sunday Morning Commentary, Sunday, 12/18/05.
After receiving a much lengthier email forward regard Ben Stein's commentary, I did a little Snoping and Urban Legending around and discovered that about half of the forward was correctly attributed. The rest was cobbled together from this and that and the other. Granted the non-Ben Stein words made important points but they weren't HIS words. I'll share those thoughts another day. Urban Legends led me to Ben's website. The following is the commentary as he wrote it.
In light of the upcoming holidays, I hope this serves as a reminder that we are all brothers and sisters. Whatever our differences may be, respecting each other despite our differences is one of the greatest ways to express Jesus' message to us to LOVE ONE ANOTHER.
God bless you all,
Annie
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Herewith at this happy time of year, 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. Is this 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 there are a lot of us who are wondering where Nick and Jessica came from and where the America we knew went to.
3 comments:
LOVE this!! The goodness of being a geezer! Now I like Ben Stein and his dry wit, maybe not quite so much his politics. And I think his comments are right on the mark. I knew he was Jewish, but thought he had become a Christian?
Well, it looks like I'm to be one of the first. Good morning, Anne: I have read this letter several times and wonder if given the chance, would Mr. Stein change it, because it is now five years later.
Your post comes on top of a Red-Letter day in TV broadcasting, and I'm not certain you are aware of it. Juan Williams, a Democrat, African-American announcer/journalist on NPR, was fired by them on Wednesday afternoon for making a comment on Fox about his feelings of nervousness when getting on a plane along with obviously other passengers dressed in what we term Arab garb. He prefaced that remark with the fact we are paralyzed into silence because speaking of these matters is considered politically incorrect. NpR's CEO, Mrs. Schiller, snidely suggested that he, Mr. Williams, has a mental problem and should take it up with his agent, or psychiatrist, or whomever, but not air his personal opinions on the air as a representative of NPR. I no longer fly because of the very feeling that Mr. Williams expressed. I avoid crowds and elevators in large buildings when I see others dressed in that particular garb wanting to share my space. Unfortunately, 9/11 has left an indelible mark.
Mr. Stein's letter has made me realize that even though I am unchurched, I have the right to believe in whatever I choose, and vote the way I see fit for me, and I, too, am so sick and tired of being ridiculed and denigrated for my "stupidity" because of it.
We feel how we feel.We choose what we choose because of our personal life experience. Since when has our Constitution forbidden us that right?
I think you just became my Soap-box Annie! :)
I like this a lot, Annie! Go, Ben!
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