Thanksgiving Debate
Posted on November 27, 2009
Thanksgiving Debate
Thanksgiving, of course, is a time to give thanks to God for all of our blessings, individually and as a nation. It is a time for gorging ourselves with turkey and other fixings. It is a time to plot strategy for the holidays. It is a time to gather with family and friends, have some red wine, and to catch up with the latest family gossip. And of course, later in the night, it is a time for the menfolk to drink more wine, loudly debate what is wrong with the world, and keep the whole house up, eliciting first despair and then anger.
At least, that is what happened where we spent Thanksgiving last night. My brothers-in law and my father-in-law talked long and loud about the future of the country, pissing off the kids and the wives, who simply wanted to get some sleep.
I don’t know what they were angry about. We were doing the Lord’s work, solving the problems of the world, one issue at a time.
Was the free market ultimately good for America?
Can capitalism work in a secular world?
Do most women really want to work 80 hours a week and climb the corporate ladder? Or do they want balance in their lives?
Is Washington really lying to the American people? Or are the American people lying to themselves?
Is our current campaign finance system really organized corruption? Is local corruption inherently better than national corruption? Or is all corruption inherently bad?
Are Medicare and Social Security sacred trusts or are they Ponzi schemes that will ultimately bankrupt this nation?
Can the American people handle the truth?
What would we do without immigrant labor? What can we do about the steep unemployment in certain communities?
Are labor unions the death of our economy? Or are they the only protector of the working class?
I won’t give you the back and forth on these various questions, and I won’t tell you the answers we came up with (mostly because I can’t remember them).
But Thanksgiving is a great time to reflect on the blessings on this great nation, and come up with incoherent solutions to all of our problems.