As the Christmas season comes to and end and the final days of the 2023 calendar year are now in session, Americans and people across the world at large are readying for the welcoming of a new year. While the holiday historically celebrating the birth of Christ has lost much of its religious significance in the United States over the last several decades as a major cultural and demographic shift has occurred in the nation since 1965 and the Hart Cellar immigration act. This year alone, it is estimated that over $12 billion dollars was spent in online purchases associated with the Christmas holiday. In truth, the celebration has shifted significantly away from holding religious meanings to vast swaths of people in the nation and taken on an exceedingly materialistic and consumer based identity.
Unfortunately, while this season is often quipped as being “the most wonderful time of the year”, things in the world and the United States as a whole are far from peaceable. Two major wars are ongoing in Eastern Europe (Ukraine) and the Middle East (Israel and Gaza). Thousands of lives have been lost, and the world as a whole appears to be closer to world war three than at any other time in recent history. The American president Joe Biden has appeared to be an incompetent leader, and citizens of the union have suffered as a consequence.
The social state of America continues to deteriorate, and drug usage and abuse appears to remain rampant. In Orange County, Florida, a dozen and a half people were arrested in association with a bar known as the “P.R. House”. The 18 people are alleged to have operated a drug distribution business out of the bar, selling cocaine to an estimated 60 or more people a day. Law enforcement officials allege that the bar did not generate enough revenue in food and alcohol sales alone to be a functional business.
