Thursday, August 24, 2017

More Gratitude - Less Complaining !

Jack Engelhard [from Arutz Sheva] 

Taking a knee instead of standing for our National Anthem, well I guess that’s a protest, but rather lame if you’re really serious about being unpatriotic.

The trend began with some second-rate quarterback, Colin Kaepernick, and so far as I know, he’s still in the country. Why – if it’s so bad?

Now it’s moved on to the rest of the National Football League, and a few days ago nearly a dozen players from the Cleveland Browns staged a knee-in.

There is bound to be more of that once the season gets going – and once kids learn from their heroes the lessons of disrespect.

I get it – America is not perfect. I hate to break it like this, but America never will be perfect…and you can’t blame Donald Trump for this one.

We are a nation inhabited by people, not angels. What more can I say?

But compared to the rest of the world, we are a nation of saints. Try being disrespectful in any country in the Middle East outside of Israel and let me know how it goes. Try it in Saudi Arabia…Iran…Turkey…China… Sudan…North Korea…Russia…Cuba…Ethiopia…

Wait. There was one country that was near perfect and that was Switzerland.

But all they ever made over there was the cuckoo clock, if you remember that Orson Welles movie.

Most countries around the world are oppressive. That is not a guess. That is a fact.

In other words, it’s not the country that’s bothering you, it’s something you ate, or maybe a fight with your girlfriend keeps setting you off. We know that the NFL has a particular ISSUE, and I hate to bring it up at such a sensitive time, but it’s about players from various teams who are known wife-beaters. Quite a few, in fact. The sports pages sometimes read like police blotters.

The biggest question of all is this – are you allowed to speak your mind? If yes, you are in a wonderful country. That’s the whole story. You can’t ask for anything more.

Obviously, you ARE speaking your mind, so what is the complaint? Oh that's right…it is not perfect, this country.

My family – (and millions more like mine) came here never asking for perfection; only “to sit under the shade of a vine and fig tree and no one shall make us afraid.”

That’s a prophet who wrote that. I am no prophet. But here’s what I know. The first time I saw New York, Wow, I thought, PEOPLE DON’T HAVE TO WHISPER.

That is no small thing.

That was such a big thing (going back years) that is stays with me every day. I still keep teaching it to my kids, to teach it to their kids, the wonder of it all. I even wrote a book about that, “Escape From Mount Moriah.” In it I celebrate America (and Canada) but I also mention some of the drawbacks.

But that’s not America that lets me down. I chalk it up to life. That’s life. Sometimes when things go wrong, hey, it’s my own fault. Can’t blame the country.

So if you are making $20 million a year and still feeling deprived, maybe asking for some patriotism is asking too much. But how about some gratitude.