Agree with your last 2 statements. They are using our legal systems against us. Let's change the system then. Again, I say we need to pass an amendment, or whatever legal instrument will best suit, to allow people of all faiths to exist and practice their faiths in freedom. Right now I feel everyone is protected pretty much except Christians.
I also feel that we should expect people who come here to learn our language and history, and to respect our flags and traditions. I don't see that happening anymore than I see an amendment in the wings.
Joanne, My mother speaks well in her Native American tongue, but she can equally speak in English which other cultures have not been willing to do.
You can look at my family and we do not look or sound Native American, but it is because we have adapted to society and because we respect our country .
We were brought up by my mother to respect authority, respect elders, and live with the law of the land.
Your mother is one of a shrinking group. I hope she has passed the language on to you. I, too, have Native American heritage on both my mother's and father's sides. I made the comment on speaking Native American because I have a hard time asking someone to do what we refused to do. I think we should all remember that we, too, once were immigrants who came to a strange country seeking a better way of life. We treated the native peoples badly and forced them to adapt to our ways. I wonder how much stronger and better our country would be if we were more tolerant of those who are different.
Wow! This thread really took off while I was at a luncheon.
You make a good point Joannie. However, I don't quite agree with you. This country was once many, many nations. They had many, many languages. How would you make everyone speak every language? (and many of the Native Americans can't speak it themselves.) Unfortunately, the natives lost out when the Europeans first came here (in more ways than one). I have some, though not a lot, American Indian blood (Sioux). I feel for the Native American. They were treated poorly. Some are still treated poorly. Most of that was done by greedy people in the past. I can't say the debt has been paid. How can it be? Nor can the debt owed to African Americans be paid for their forced slavery. We can't go back and undo the damage. There really is no way to make it even. All we can do is try to move forward.
The constitution of the United States is the governing law now. Not any other nation's laws. At one time there was a vote to make the German language our official language. It missed out by one vote. Those who wrote and defended our consititution wrote it in English. We are considered an English speaking nation. That is why I say people who come here should speak the language. I have nothing against anyone communicating in other languages as well, but organizations shouldn't have to make sure there is a button to speak Spanish when people call in either.
I apologize about hijacking the thread to a different issue. Just wanted to respond to Joannie.
This has been an interesting thread. Lots of views and excellent points made. I think it is time to lay it to rest.
We should not back down. We should demand that English be the official language of the U.S. and we should keep our holidays and we should fight, but do we have that many fighter's left in the U.S.?
My Irish father taught me to fight for what I believed in and never stop. I learned from two cultures..my mother and my father. Both grew up in different worlds and if that is not diverse I don't know what is.
Anyone in our family would fight for America, two of my brother's , my son and my daughter has all fought overseas for America. Ask them if they want to change Veteran's Day to something else.
All of the Indian Schools in the U.S. teach English language to all students. It is required. It should be required of all immigrants. We did not have Irish speaking tutors for my father or Italian tutors for the Italians that came over up through the years the immigrants have adapted to our language and our customs until now!
Why Now!
Because we are allowing it to happen.
Stand up for America. Our language stays...our holiday stays if not we will not be America any longer.
If you do not agree with the holiday...take the day off, enjoy...you don't have to celebrate Christmas. We have one person in the company that does not celebrate for religious reasons. She simply says I do not celebrate and no more is said. We respect her opinion and do not give her ours.
I do a separate letter for her for the Christmas Bonus which I call an annual gift for her letter. I do not change the holiday for her, I do accomodate her feelings. She does not however refuse the bonus which she knows is really still a Christmas Bonus. I let her work 4 ten hour days so she can be off one day for religious reasons to do her visiting.
We are in tune with those that believe differently and yes they have a right to do so, however, they do not have a right to tell us how we should run our business or call our holidays.
My objections are less nationalistic than they are for the sake of accuracy and some measure of self-determination.
My opposition to renaming "Christmas" has nothing to do with protecting a specific set of religious values, for example. It has to do with - (1) If it's Christmas, it's Christmas. If I worked for a company that was purchased by a Jewish owner and he wanted to give Yom Kippur as a holiday, I'm not going to demand that he rename it to suit my Christian sensibilities. If it's Yom Kippur, it's Yom Kippur. (2) Being overly-PC generally has to do with imagining that one group will be offended when they probably will not, or kow-towing to one or two loud rabble-rousers, or (even worse) seeing that one or two loud rabble-rousers complained about a similiar situation a thousand miles away from you and being afraid the same thing might happen to you.
If Americans keep on trying to be sensitive to beliefs and needs of "others", they will eventually obliterate their OWN beliefs and needs. We the people, including the HR vast group, should start making "draconian" decisions to prevent that from happening. Even if the government might decide to make certain changes in the law, as Nae writes, there should be enough of us to be able to stop it! As I said on my previous note, everyone should live by the customs of the country they are living in. Period. If someone dislikes it so much perhaps he/she should just leave and go where they would feel more comfortable!! I can guarantee that they'll be back in no time! For our facility I am the HR specialist and I am also part of the management team. I say "Mery Christmas", Happy Thanksgiving , and Happy Easter to the staff. There is no offense taken if someone does not reciprocate. I seriously doubt that I would go to the extent of renaming holidays: there would be still hard feelings and discussions to face. So can we leave things as they have always been and just forget about it? And these are my 2 cents
Let me comment on Nae's post above. You talk about a new law. Why do we need a new law? The problem is Separation of Church and State has been twisted to mean something completely different than it originally meant. We have laws that protect religious freedom, the problem is some have taken that to mean all religious references should be banished from society. Actually, there was no official doctrine of separation until recently. It began with Thomas Jefferson taken from a personal letter he had written explaining his political views. It was not a term used in his day, the letter was discovered in the late 1800s and was used by the nascent liberal movement that has developed into what we see today.
The problem we face today is how to interpret the constitution and laws. Do we see our constitution as a static document to be interpreted the same in every age, or do we see it as a living document to be interpreted differently based on our current cultural mores? Conservatives tend to be strict constructionists and liberals take a more Postmodernist view where documents can mean whatever we want them to.
This discussion has been a microcosm of the clash of worldviews or philosophies. And broken down it is whether or not there is such a thing as ultimate truth and what is the source of truth.
Okay, I am bowing out. I have some questions to answer on other forums and I think the conversation is way off the mark.
Sorry Boullion for our wayward conversations we all have differences of opinions and some of us especially me got our dander up. Please accept my apologies.
I will be going back to my job and working on something constructive now. My soapbox is now retired.
No Shirley, we are getting down to the fundamentals of why we even consider renaming holidays and why we have to even consider making English the official language. These things don't just happen. There is a cause and what we see here is the effect.
If you are private sector, why not just say that your company observes the following "federal holidays": 3rd Thursday in November; December 25, January 1, July 4, etc.? To those you could add a handful of "personal days" to be taken at an employee's discretion, allowing for those who observe holidays or religious days not recognized as US national holidays.
It also depends on whether your business completely shuts down on federal holidays, or continues to operate. If the former, everyone gets off regardless of what they do or don't celebrate. If the latter, the employees who would rather work those holidays (regardless of their religious or other persuasion) can do so and take off other days.
I'd say stick to what the feds (or your state) recognizes. In Texas, we have some strange ones, including Confederate Heroes Day, LBJ's Birthday, San Jacinto Day, Emancipation Day (Juneteenth).
I wasn't going to add to this discussion but being a simple person I had a simple idea. All of the holidays, and the holydays observed as holidays, are MY days, not your days. I have my birthday, and if our policy is employees receive a paid day off on their birthday, then you should not be offended if I take off on my birthday. And you won't be offended because you also receive the same benefit. It is MY Christmas, and if our policy is that Christmas Day is a paid day off, then you should not be offended if I take off for MY Christmas. If you don't observe Christmas but wish to observe Yom Kippur or Cinco De Mayo, then you have those days to look forward to that I do not celebrate. And I wish you well for that, I'm not offended. This is especially true for religious observations for other faiths, be they Jewish or Muslim or Islam, or Hindu, etc. Those are sensitive days for those belief groups and need to be treated with respect. That does not detract from MY Christmas. Those other religious holidays also don't detract from the standard acceptable holidays observed by American companies and governments. So if you respect what is important to me then I will respect what is important to you. We really can "all just get along", if we start with respect.
Comments
I also feel that we should expect people who come here to learn our language and history, and to respect our flags and traditions. I don't see that happening anymore than I see an amendment in the wings.
Nae
My mother speaks well in her Native American tongue, but she can equally speak in English which other cultures have not been willing to do.
You can look at my family and we do not look or sound Native American, but it is because we have adapted to society and because we respect our country .
We were brought up by my mother to respect authority, respect elders, and live with the law of the land.
Shirley
Your mother is one of a shrinking group. I hope she has passed the language on to you. I, too, have Native American heritage on both my mother's and father's sides. I made the comment on speaking Native American because I have a hard time asking someone to do what we refused to do. I think we should all remember that we, too, once were immigrants who came to a strange country seeking a better way of life. We treated the native peoples badly and forced them to adapt to our ways. I wonder how much stronger and better our country would be if we were more tolerant of those who are different.
joannie
You make a good point Joannie. However, I don't quite agree with you. This country was once many, many nations. They had many, many languages. How would you make everyone speak every language? (and many of the Native Americans can't speak it themselves.) Unfortunately, the natives lost out when the Europeans first came here (in more ways than one). I have some, though not a lot, American Indian blood (Sioux). I feel for the Native American. They were treated poorly. Some are still treated poorly. Most of that was done by greedy people in the past. I can't say the debt has been paid. How can it be? Nor can the debt owed to African Americans be paid for their forced slavery. We can't go back and undo the damage. There really is no way to make it even. All we can do is try to move forward.
The constitution of the United States is the governing law now. Not any other nation's laws. At one time there was a vote to make the German language our official language. It missed out by one vote. Those who wrote and defended our consititution wrote it in English. We are considered an English speaking nation. That is why I say people who come here should speak the language. I have nothing against anyone communicating in other languages as well, but organizations shouldn't have to make sure there is a button to speak Spanish when people call in either.
I apologize about hijacking the thread to a different issue. Just wanted to respond to Joannie.
This has been an interesting thread. Lots of views and excellent points made. I think it is time to lay it to rest.
Nae
My Irish father taught me to fight for what I believed in and never stop. I learned from two cultures..my mother and my father. Both grew up in different worlds and if that is not diverse I don't know what is.
Anyone in our family would fight for America, two of my brother's , my son and my daughter has all fought overseas for America. Ask them if they want to change Veteran's Day to something else.
All of the Indian Schools in the U.S. teach English language to all students. It is required. It should be required of all immigrants. We did not have Irish speaking tutors for my father or Italian tutors for the Italians that came over up through the years the immigrants have adapted to our language and our customs until now!
Why Now!
Because we are allowing it to happen.
Stand up for America. Our language stays...our holiday stays if not we will not be America any longer.
Shirley
If you do not agree with the holiday...take the day off, enjoy...you don't have to celebrate Christmas. We have one person in the company that does not celebrate for religious reasons. She simply says I do not celebrate and no more is said. We respect her opinion and do not give her ours.
I do a separate letter for her for the Christmas Bonus which I call an annual gift for her letter. I do not change the holiday for her, I do accomodate her feelings. She does not however refuse the bonus which she knows is really still a Christmas Bonus. I let her work 4 ten hour days so she can be off one day for religious reasons to do her visiting.
We are in tune with those that believe differently and yes they have a right to do so, however, they do not have a right to tell us how we should run our business or call our holidays.
Shirley
My opposition to renaming "Christmas" has nothing to do with protecting a specific set of religious values, for example. It has to do with - (1) If it's Christmas, it's Christmas. If I worked for a company that was purchased by a Jewish owner and he wanted to give Yom Kippur as a holiday, I'm not going to demand that he rename it to suit my Christian sensibilities. If it's Yom Kippur, it's Yom Kippur. (2) Being overly-PC generally has to do with imagining that one group will be offended when they probably will not, or kow-towing to one or two loud rabble-rousers, or (even worse) seeing that one or two loud rabble-rousers complained about a similiar situation a thousand miles away from you and being afraid the same thing might happen to you.
Happy Leap Day Eve!
We the people, including the HR vast group, should start making "draconian" decisions to prevent that from happening.
Even if the government might decide to make certain changes in the law, as Nae writes, there should be enough of us to be able to stop it!
As I said on my previous note, everyone should live by the customs of the country they are living in. Period. If someone dislikes it so much perhaps he/she should just leave and go where they would feel more comfortable!! I can guarantee that they'll be back in no time!
For our facility I am the HR specialist and I am also part of the management team. I say "Mery Christmas", Happy Thanksgiving , and Happy Easter to the staff. There is no offense taken if someone does not reciprocate. I seriously doubt that I would go to the extent of renaming holidays: there would be still hard feelings and discussions to face.
So can we leave things as they have always been and just forget about it?
And these are my 2 cents
The problem we face today is how to interpret the constitution and laws. Do we see our constitution as a static document to be interpreted the same in every age, or do we see it as a living document to be interpreted differently based on our current cultural mores? Conservatives tend to be strict constructionists and liberals take a more Postmodernist view where documents can mean whatever we want them to.
This discussion has been a microcosm of the clash of worldviews or philosophies. And broken down it is whether or not there is such a thing as ultimate truth and what is the source of truth.
Sorry Boullion for our wayward conversations we all have differences of opinions and some of us especially me got our dander up. Please accept my apologies.
I will be going back to my job and working on something constructive now. My soapbox is now retired.
Shirley
It also depends on whether your business completely shuts down on federal holidays, or continues to operate. If the former, everyone gets off regardless of what they do or don't celebrate. If the latter, the employees who would rather work those holidays (regardless of their religious or other persuasion) can do so and take off other days.
I'd say stick to what the feds (or your state) recognizes. In Texas, we have some strange ones, including Confederate Heroes Day, LBJ's Birthday, San Jacinto Day, Emancipation Day (Juneteenth).