Happy Thanksgiving(?)

If you're feeling kind of Monday-ish, consider this. This and every second Monday of October, an entire First World nation takes the day off to cherish all that is best. Today is Thanksgiving Day. In Canada.

On this Monday on which I choose to join my Canadian friends in calling it a Day of Thanksgiving, I am immeasurably thankful that the people of the United States have chosen an able political leader to show us the way toward being a lot better than we've been in the past decades. A Nobel PEACE Prize. SPLENDID!

America is the net result of generation on generation of people dissatisfied with something or other, some just plain greedy, others desperate, probably lots trailing behind someone else's peripatetic urges. A few -- and a lot fewer than the educational establishment would have you believe -- in search of the right to practice their religious beliefs or lack thereof without persecution.

I am particularly struck by this latter as I consider the tsunami of hate and fear and a whole range of fundamentalisms we've experienced. Individuals and groups seem intent on chocking their venomous points of view down the throats of an entire nation established in direct defiance of religion. Historically, America is emphatically NOT a Christian nation. The core inspiration for its governmental form, for its reliance on the will and wisdom of its people, comes directly from the Enlightenment.

Never forget that "God" is NOWHERE to be found in the Constitution, and that the one truly "revolutionary" element in the American Revolution is placing the sovereignty of the state in the hands of its citizens.

When you hear an Antonin Scalia say this nation is founded on "God" or is "Christian" or that we must "return" to some kind of religiosity, call them on it. Not only is it NOT true. It is destructive to all that is worthy of a sovereign people, whom our Founders hoped were adequately mature to have weaned ourselves from outside authority of ANY kind, seizing the responsibilities of governing ourselves.

For all that it has proved, at best, an aspirational goal -- I can be thankful every day of the year for their vision. And I am.

Now I find myself wondering what it will take for us all to act on my firm belief that EVERY day can -- and ought to -- be Thanksgiving Day. Thank you, Canada, for reminding me. And -- Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Columbus Day, too, though that raises the need for another tour through our history ... later.

Comments

[bronceye]

Do the Canadians who watch fox news now expect to be told "Merry Christmas" as fox viewers in America expect immediately post our Thanksgiving Day?

[skeck]

This may come as a big shock to the author but Thanksgiving was a day set aside to thank
(horror of all horrors ) God.

[Neal Jansons]

Which one? Under what definition?

[Squeezer55]

" Man will not be free until the last King is strangled with the guts of the last priest. "

Voltaire

He was talking about the separation of Church and State.

[Neal Jansons]

Seems to me he was talking about destroying the empowered classes of his era, which he found repugnant and illegitimate. He was saying get rid of the church and the state, not separate them. Hence the whole "last" king and priest and the death imagery.

[cathybee]

I will agree that Canada and the US had a judeo christian base when they were both founded. However, in Canada, much more than the US we have kept the church and the state separate. Canadians do not want their politicians to talk about their religion nor wear it on their sleeve. Ask Steven Harper..because he came out saying he was a born-again it scared alot of voters away from him. They think he has a secret agenda to make the country right wing and intolerant. We do not want our politicians to do what their religion says but to do what the citizens want. You want to be religious; go for it. But I don't want to hear it and don't shove it down my throat. Jesus was according to Christianity, Judism and Islam a great man of peace and tolerance. This is what we should all strive to be. Jesus is not hate. If that makes me godless...so be it.

[Parducci]

It is quite natural that someone who loathes the United States as you apparently do would not want to celebrate a day of thanksgiving with the rest of us, but would instead try to find a people more in line with your own way of thinking. Turning from God as they have, the Canadians look like they fit the bill.

That the Founders of our nation were a product of their times and, therefore, deeply influenced by Christian beliefs is quite frankly beyond debate. They were influenced by other factors, of course, but the fundamental underpinnings of their value system are quite Western and quite Judeo Christian in nature.

Whether in the next several hundred years the US returns to that it origins or continues down your path of Godlessness remains to be seen. I am hopeful that we will come to our senses and not follow you in your attempts to deify our political leader.

Americans are quite sensible people and for that I am thankful.

[Outwestern]

"Turning from God as they have, the Canadians look like they fit the bill."

Since when have Canadians turned from God?

They have managed to maintain the separation of Church and State, so in your mind, they are Godless. Not like in the Theocratic States of America.

Interesting how people who insist America was established on Christian principles are willing to go to war to prevent other nations from forming on any other religious principle.

Hypocrisy reigns in the religious mind

[canuck59]

Godless!, hardly..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_canada