Banned Birthday Cupcakes, Ukrainian Fistfights, and American Freedom

There was a bit of a tiff in the Ukrainian parliament the other day.  It caught the attention of this blogger's Ukrainian family.

It seems that some folks would like to make Russian one of the official languages of Ukraine.

It seems silly, I suppose, to some.  Grown men beating each other bloody over a language.  To us Americans, it may seem awfully...foreign.


But, here is the thing:
Between 1932 and 1933, somewhere in the range of 2.4 to 7.5 million Ukrainians were starved to death by their occupiers, Soviet Russia, because they didn't care to give up their private property rights to the Communist state. The state believed that the grain grown by the peasants was "Socialist Property" and forbid the peasants from eating the produce of their own farms. The government, instead, directed them to eat their "government issued" share from from special "collective farms".

The Ukrainian peasants believed that their grain was their own, just like it had been before the Russians showed up.  They had grown it on their own land; they would not turn it over to Stalin. So, Stalin killed them, by starvation, one by one.

It was called the Holomodor.  Some compare it to the Holocaust.

So, Ukrainians get a little prickly when you refer to them as Russians.

click for license

In my school district, it has been decreed that parents may not bring fast food lunches in to their own children, and that classrooms may have only two parties per year, with snacks that follow district guidelines.  There will be no birthday cupcakes because, apparently, the state knows what is best for us.

It's not that I'm a big fan of parents feeding their kids fast food.  That's not the point.  It's that I am an enormous fan of freedom, self-reliance, and self-determination.  We seem to have a generation coming up that thinks that government provided health care, birth control, abortion, housing, food, and spending money are more important than the right to choose one's own destiny.

The one who pays the bills runs the world.  Personally, I'd rather live in a cardboard box, on my own hard-earned dime,  than be told where, how, and when to live.  Apparently, though, those who share my views are becoming the minority camp.

I am, frankly, more than a little terrified.
Our only hope is that we might open our eyes to the lessons of history, before it becomes too late.

~~~~~

Don't miss a post!  Like us on Facebook:

Would you enjoy the convenience of Liturgical Time delivered directly to you email box?  Subscribe here:

Enter your email address:


Delivered by FeedBurner

Linked with:

EOA @ Deep Roots at Home, Women Living Well Wednesdays