In 1830, German settlers in Pennsylvania are
credited with the United States’ first indoor,
Christmas tree.
Most Americans initially rejected the
tradition as pagan, but over time they adopted the
custom with one obviously, all-American
modification.
Europeans typically limited themselves to
four-footers, while Americans proudly wedged their
trees floor-to-ceiling; information which explains
my Christmas tree.
When I built the log trusses for our house, I
bolted a ring to the ridgepole to hook a
block-and-tackle so as to stand a 300 pound tree in
the south end of our living room.
After all,
four-footers are for Europeans and sissies such as
Mizzou hunger-strikers.
We typically cut our tree the Sunday after
Thanksgiving hoping we can solicit a little
sweat-equity from any loitering, holiday guests.
Hunting, harvesting, hauling and then
hoisting a full, 15-footer requires more strength
than the trophy wife can muster even with my loving
words encouraging her to man-up.
She cries a lot over the holidays.
To prepare
for Sunday’s Christmas tree outing, I zipped to the
Custer National Forest office to purchase a
five-dollar tree permit; a step which needles me
thinking how their forest mismanagement has led to
catastrophic fires.
Taxpayers ultimately bought thousands of
charred trees for prices well north of a five-spot.
The Custer National Forest office
relocates more frequently than a displaced Bakken
oil worker and I remember visiting them in the old
downtown Billings post office before they moved to
the heights for a couple years.
Recently, they joined forces with the BLM in
a brand new, massive, federal office building south
of Billings.
It is nice to build things when cost is no
object.
I stepped into the lobby and a nice lady behind the
desk asked if she could help me.
“I’m here for a Christmas tree permit,” I
said.
“Fine,” she answered.
“I will need to see a photo ID and you will
have to sign in.”
I tried to flash her my “you’ve-got-to-be-kidding”
face, but she smiled, so apparently my expression
came across more like “Merry Christmas.”
We Christian conservatives are so happy,
happy, happy, we have a hard time mimicking
perpetually, pissed, progressives.
I showed her my driver’s license, signed the
book, and she handed me a hall pass before sending
me to the proper office.
I purchased three permits, returned the pass
and pondered photo ID thing as I drove home.
Witnessing the ruling class insulate
themselves from the unwashed is America’s new
normal.
Granted, the receptionist wasn’t as intimidating as
a blue-gloved TSA agent performing a pat-down, but
her purpose was to regulate public access to the
bureaucracy.
This should bother you and it brings me to my
point.
Our nation has been purposely split into the ruling
class and the unwashed with the former reserved for
progressive politicians and unelected bureaucrats.
Your life is more controlled by whims of the
king’s appointees than by your personal decisions.
Remember, a photo ID is not needed to vote,
but it is required to purchase a Christmas tree
permit in our brave new world.
A recent study revealed 40 percent of
millennials support government regulation of speech,
so America’s freshly indoctrinated will soon
aggressively embrace a new agency regulating
“government-speak.”
Aldous Huxley warned us of this in his 1932
utopia novel,
Brave New World, and here we are.
This
Christmas, ask Santa to empty your stocking of all
the Marxist policies imposed on us by progressives
and instead fill it with the limited government
principles gifted us by our founders.
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