I’ve written a lot of “doom and gloom” pieces here forecasting various cataclysms and so forth. However, with Christmas time approaching, I thought it would be a nice time to talk about good things that bring good will towards men, and peace on Earth.
1.) COFFEE: I wrote an article here about this life-giving elixir some time ago, back when Starbucks was trying to do a race-relations coffee klatch. I mean, seriously, what were we going to do—order coffee black and feel like a racist for doing so? Meanwhile, here in Arizona, there was an uproar when Starbucks had plain red coffee cups for Christmas that didn’t say Merry Christmas on them. That it was anti-Christian. Look, we don’t need cups to remind us that coffee is PROOF that God had the happiness of humanity always in mind during Creation. That truth is self-evident and that first sip of coffee is always followed with praises to God, no matter how strident an atheist be the coffee-sipper. God invented coffee, and let no one forget that. Coffee is one of the few drugs we have left that the government hasn’t stuck their fingers into and demanded a prescription for, or outlawed entirely. Don’t tell me that you didn’t know coffee was a psychoactive liquid. You haven’t been at my house before that first sip of java hit my palate. Remember that scene in “Braveheart” where Mel Gibson loudly asks the assembled Scots, “What will you do without freedom?!” Yeah, well, I hear that phrase as: “What will you do without coffee?!” This Christmas Season, let us all bow our heads and be thankful that the government has not gained the ability to regulate coffee in order to “protect” us from everything but them.
2.) CHOCOLATE: Once more, we should be thankful this Christmas Season that the government has not successfully banned chocolate Santas and bells. Hey, don’t take that for granted! Try stuffing a stocking with quinoa crunch or candied kale. Those are not “stocking stuffers”, those are “stocking thrower awayers”. Who thinks up these food fads? Landscapers looking for something to do with the trimmings besides hauling them off to the dump? Not that the government hasn’t thought about banning chocolate: “Chocolate makes people happy. Quick, rally the Mom Squads to protest in front of federal buildings to demand chocolate be banned!” Yes, if it saves ONE child from…from…uhhh… See what I mean? Indeed, and is there anything that holds the clarion call of decadence as does eating chocolate in the bathtub with a steaming hot cup of Ethiopian Harar coffee and a book by Kerouac? If the government ever found out about that, they’d ban all four things in one fell swoop of bureaucratic self-righteousness. Especially when it was discovered some people were in possession of “assault tubs” that could hold more than ten gallons of water. Where is the sustainability in that, I ask you?
3.) CHRISTMAS: This holiday has not yet been successfully legislated out of existence. At least not yet. While Nativity scenes have been told there is no room at the inn (pun intended) front of city hall, it has not yet become a crime to have one in your front yard. We should all be thankful for that because, hey, let’s remember that it was NOT the government that gave us this holiday, folks! I know they’d like us all to think that, but we are not celebrating the birth of the government here. Truly, an event to mark the birth of government would be a call to collective lamentation, not celebration. Instead of stockings and candy, we’d all be buying sackcloth and ashes. The government doesn’t like Nativities in front of their offices, not because of the protests of atheists, but because it reminds everyone that there is an Authority that vastly outranks that of the government. It also reminds the government that they might escape indictment in this life, but afterwards…
4.) HOT DOGS: Come on, don’t tell me you haven’t thought about it. Listen, this is one of those things the government wants to levy a “junk food tax” on. Every mobile hot dog stand you see is a bastion of liberty (not war memorials, which are bastions of waste) circumventing property tax. Now here in Arizona, we have what’s called a Sonoran hot dog. There’s Sonoran hot dog stands all over here, pulled behind pickups and parked in parking lots and vacant dirt lots. For the average price of two bucks—TWO BUCKS, I tell you—you can get a hot dog on a real (gluten-unfree) bun wrapped in bacon, with beans, grilled onions, fresh onions, tomatoes, mayonnaise, jalapenos, cheese, crema, and mustard slathered generously atop it like snow on the Mount Everest of finger foods. And a fire-roasted chile on the side—as if it could get any better, it does. Excuse me, but if I was going to re-write the national anthem, it would be a paean to this humble delight of true culinary wisdom. “Oh, say can you see…extra onions for me…” When was the last time you saw something like this for two bucks? And these dudes are just rolling around town, feeding the people for two bucks a pop. Since when has the government been able to pull off something like that, I ask you? If it was the government, they’d foist off on you a tofu dog on a gluten-free bun (also flavor-free, by the way) with quinoa and amaranth slathered on it, shredded kale, and a tiny dollop of artisanal mustard on it, call it an ObamaDog, and charge you twenty bucks for the horror. Plus a dollar carbon tax.
There. Things to feel good about this CHRISTMAS Season. Those are all things we can feel good about, even if we don’t have chestnuts roasting on an open fire. Hey, go down to the Sonoran hot dog stand and get one of those roasted on an open fire! Then wash it down with hot coffee strong enough to stop a government resolution, and finish with a nice bowl of chocolate bells in the assault tub. So let me sing to you, my dear readers: Although it’s been said (out loud, not under the breath), many times (by people who still remember what Christmas is), many ways (where it was still legal and not politically-incorrect) Merry Christmas (not Happy Holidays)…to you.
