We take pleasure in answering thus prominently the communication below, expressing at the same time our great gratification that its faithful author is numbered among the friends of FreeRepublic:
"Dear Editor--I am 8 years old.
"Montgomery County community of Kensington and two families that live within the community say there wil be no Santa Claus.
"Papa says, 'If you see it in FreeRepublic, it's so.'
"Please tell me the truth, will there be a Santa Claus?
Virginia O'Hanlon
115 West Ninety-fifth Street
Virginia, Montgomery County community of Kensington is wrong. They have been affected by the fascism of a politically correct age. They do not feel comfortable except they offend. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All liberal minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or children's are little. In this great universe of ours liberals is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.
Yes, Virginia, there will be a Santa Claus. He will exist as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the state of Maryland if there were no Santa Claus! It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no child-like faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in state and commuinity standards of politially correct offenses. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.
Not have a Santa Claus! They might as well not have wedding ceremonies! They might get government agents to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did arrest Santa Claus, what would that acomplish? A community board bans Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there will be no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men, nor town boards can ban. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? In Maryland, of course you did, but that's no reason to arrest them. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.
You tear apart the voting machine and see what makes the chads inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the politically correct liberal democrats that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.
No Santa Claus in Maryland! Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever in FreeRepublic and Maryland. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.
...and here I am trapped in the heart of the blue zone. Go Freepers, Go!