Column by Dr. Ann Hollingsworth
Did you know that robots don’t have sentiments? They just react to stimuli as programmed. It seems that more and more big brother US government and mainstream media are trying their best to turn future generations into mere robots. Holidays have long been revered traditions in this country to honor heroes and heroic factors about our country and the beliefs that it was founded on.
Army posts were named for war heroes from different wars – many of these for Confederate generals. One such is Fort Benning in Georgia. I understand that it and others are now going to be renamed to avoid some kind of offense per a name. I imagine there are a lot of Army Rangers who have died who will turn over in their graves on this one. Camp Shelby in Mississippi was named for a Revolutionary War general, Isaac Shelby, who was a frontiersman and the first governor of Kentucky – I wonder what offense he gave that might get that place renamed.
Columbus Day was this past Monday on October 11. It has had some controversy since the 1800s when some anti-immigrant groups protested the association of it with Catholicism – imagine that in this time of pro-immigration. Then it has been protested because Native Americans did not like the colonization of the country and because some viewed it as the foundation for slave trading. A few places have replaced the name as “Indigenous People’s Day.” According to the Internet, indigenous peoples means “inheritors and practitioners of unique cultures and ways of relating to people and the environment. They have retained social, cultural, economic and political characteristics that are distinct from those of the dominant societies in which they live.”
I think that Christians in the U.S. might now qualify as indigenous people because we are fast becoming unique and distinct from the dominant society in which we live. We also see potential threat of some our holidays erased from the national mind because they are founded on Christian and patriotic themes, such as Christmas, Easter, Independence Day, Veterans Day, and Memorial Day – and of course the Confederate Memorial Day.
But you know what – just because you take the picture down, doesn’t mean the event didn’t still happen. For those of us who think it matters, cherished traditions will still matter in our hearts and we will continue to honor these even if we have to do so in a closet somewhere.
