Christmas Trees

What to do about Christmas trees?

The problem with lawsuits in America is that, for the defense, even when you win, you lose. The airport could have stood up for themselves and fought the rabbi in court to keep the Christmas trees, but this would have cost thousands of dollars in legal fees. The airport correctly diagnosed the situation before them: attempt to please all of the people all of the time, or please none of the people all the time. Since it has been rightly said that the former is impossible, the airport correctly chose the latter. The airport caved, as most private and public institutions do. The fear of lawsuits has totally changed our culture and continues to change our culture. Using fear to change a culture... what's that called?... I know there's a word for that... darn it, I just can't think of it right now.

Personally, I think that these matters should be settled at the grass roots, and judges should be delivering verdicts that support the freedom of the people to determine their own culture.

For example, should your local court house decorate it's foyer with a Christmas tree? The answer is simple: vote on it. You could vote on it directly by approving a decorating plan, or you could vote on it indirectly to approve a decorating committee. In this way every individual has equal access to the public process and equal influence on the result. If things don't go your way: so what? How is this different than any other matter that goes before a local government. Sometimes you don't get a stop sign where you want one. Sometimes the zoning revision doesn't go your way. That's the trouble with Democracy, not everything will go your way. I would like to take a moment to point out a critical difference between two camps in American culture: those that believe that equality means equal access, and the other that believes that equality means equal results.

This issue not complicated to me. If I visited Egypt, I would expect the architecture, the art, the decorations, and the celebrations to be in keeping with Islam. If I visited China I would expect these same things to be in keeping with Buddhism. When others come to America, they should expect to hear, "Merry Christmas," and see Christmas trees and nativity scenes. This is a part of our culture. The difference should be that these things should not be predetermined by law, as they are in many countries, but they should be chosen by the free people that live there.

I recognize that I am a bit of an idealogue, so I realize that this is the pot calling the kettle black, but ultimately we cannot make idelogically predetermined decisions that will apply to all people in all times and all places. Eventually, you have to say, "You know what, let's let the people decide." And this is one of those issues where I say, "You know what, rules and laws are not going to work here, we need to let the people figure it out for themselves." We need to act like adults and make our own decisions. Unfortunately, the more power we give to the government to make our decisions for us, the harder it will be to get the power back.