On March 17th, every American who can claim even the most tenuous link to Ireland celebrates St. Patrick's day. This is fine with me, for St. Patrick was not even born in Eire, he was born in Wales, which is certainly wonderful evidence of the redemptive powers of our Lord. What bothers me is that way Americans celebrate St. Patrick's Day. They take is as a license to exploit the worst stereotypes of the Irish people along with carte blanche for drunken bacchanalia. They consider St. Patrick's Day a failure unless they spend the evening leaving green makeup smears on their toilet as they vomit up Guinness, corned beef and cabbage.

Could you consider an automobile dealer advertising Juneteenth sales with copy like "Break the chains of high rate auto loan slavery!" Can you imagine animated black children smashing leg irons and getting into a new Chevy, grinning ear to ear and eyes popping like Stepin Fetchit? No, of course not, well at least after you've gone to google and look up Juneteenth and Stepin Fetchit (you can't help being racist, you're a white American).

Can you imagine a furniture store advertising a Bastille Day sale with copy like "Drop the rifle and head to Raymours! Run like a Panzer is chasing you, you don't want to miss this sale!" Can you imagine an appliance store having a Cinco de Mayo sale with swarthy mustachioed Sombrero-clad Hispanics, saying, "Dese prices are so loow, it's even easier than shopleefting." No, of course not, there's no place for such ethnic stereotypes anymore.

But for the Irish, it's fair game, and they even encourage it. In the weeks leading up to St. Patrick's day they will gather together to complain about "No Irish Need Apply" signs; when white English speaking job seekers haven't been discriminated against in one hundred years. They'll complain bitterly of English policies that forced them to leave a tiny potato farm for America's green shores over a hundred years ago. They'll dress in ridiculous green outfits, get drunk on green beer, and eat barely edible concoctions in the name of some mythic Irish heritage that they would recoil in horror from if they were forced to live in. Then, feeling guilty about living in the history's greatest country while their forefathers starved in county Cork, they will fill a hat with dollars to perpetuate the cycle of violence in Northern Ireland.

Even worse are those white Americans who have little or no Irish in them. Being convinced by the fuzzy minded liberal media that having forefathers who emigrated from England, Scandinavia or Germany is akin to being a slave-owning, minority-oppressing child-molesting power-elite, they are desperate for any kind of earthy, soul-filled, oppressed heritage, and eagerly buy into the Irish for a day myth, dress themselves in green, affect an Irish brogue, and act like drunken louts. Well this is one German-American whose ancestors worked died in the coal mines and carbon plants of western Pennsylvania and feels no shame for his current middle class position, and thus feels no need to pretend to be an oppressed soul brother while living in the suburbs and driving a minivan.

But I digress. Let's think about the real St. Patrick. Born in Wales, sold in slavery to Ireland, educated in France, he went back to Ireland to convert that nation to the True Church, and succeeded wildly. We know the story of the snakes is a myth, but it's also a metaphor, for the snakes are pagans and heretics, and he did indeed rid Eire of them, clearing the way for Ireland to be the repository of our Western Heritage during the Medieval Ages. He would not approve of drunken, mindless revelry.

Yet, there are a few snakes left in Ireland. Yes, the ulcer that is Ulster, for Northern Ireland is separated from it's southern kin, and controlled and inhabited by foreign, heretical overlords. But it's clear that violence will not free Northern Ireland. Instead, let us pray.

Pray that a just solution to Northern Ireland is found. Pray for divine intervention in Northern Ireland. Perhaps those evil men who enjoy throwing stones at 6-year-old Catholic schoolgirls will be blinded and struck down, as Saul was on the road to Damascus. Perhaps a manifestation of our Lord can move through Belfast, killing all first-born Protestant males (you have to admit there is precedence). Looking into the Bible, there are hundreds of solutions in the Old Testament, perhaps one can happen miraculously, if we pray enough.

But if you do go out and tie one on, please ask that any money you donate to the Northern Ireland cause not be used for weapons or violence.