Yes, Virginia, It Used To Be True | By Louie Overstreet
December 12, 2021 by agutting@reviewjournal.com
Filed under Community
BY LOUIE OVERSTREET
Please allow me to guess what Francis Church’s advice would be today, compared to that he gave to 8-year-old Virginia O’Hanlon back in 1897.
For much of the third millennium, Santa has been the victim of physical abuse. The police arrested him, because they thought he was a pimp dressed in a red suit, with shiny leather boots, and wearing a long do-rag; Blacks and Hispanics robbed and mugged him because we believed he had something of value in his sack; White supremacists kicked his butt because they thought he was a gay liberal. This is why Santa may not be able to make his appointed rounds this year.
Suffering this type of abuse, can there be any wonder why he is bed-ridden? He likely will not be strong enough to carry all the coal that Senator Joe Manchin sold him, to put in the stockings of naughty people, who hung them with care by the fireplace. No need for Santa to check his list twice as to who has been naughty or nice.
Francis stated, “He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give your life its highest beauty and joy … The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor man can see.”
Francis’ naiveté aside, his message of generosity, hope, and faith in America has today given way to greed, skepticism, and fatalism.
To not understand what exists in our society today would clearly suggest you have spent most of your life on a pickle boat or the back of a turnip truck.
I am at a point in my life that I could care less whether you believe me or not. But be advised: America is only a couple of low turnout elections and a few bad Supreme Court decisions away from becoming a fascist state.
Sadly, too many of us have forgotten a simple truth about the endurance of our freedoms: “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.”