Here it is almost Halloween. It must be time to focus on Christmas.
I posted yesterday about WorldNetDaily turning the persecution complex of some Christians into a marketing opportunity (they won't be the last, trust me), and regular reader/nutty aunt in the attic Squidly came back with all the predictable arguments:
Regardless of your protestations otherwise, Christianity is very much under attack in the US. Nativity scenes, school Christmas pageants, and even Christmas trees--long a part of our American culture and heritage--are either banned or Orwellianly renamed (just what other holidays in December have "holiday trees"?). Stores instruct their clerks not to wish customers "Merry Christmas," even though Christmas is a legal holiday in the US.
And so on and so forth.
So just to get the holiday season off to an efficient start -- this being October, and my having heard an actual woman yesterday complaining of being "already behind" in her Christmas shopping -- I thought I'd come up out of the comments section for a moment to publicly state what I believe about the annual Christmas culture wars:
- The efforts to prevent government from sponsoring or endorsing Christmas displays are not anti-religious. They're anti-government-meddling-in-religion and do not constitute an attack on religious freedom. I am unaware of any ACLU or other lawsuits to keep people from erecting religious displays on private property, so long as those displays don't conflict with laws governing public hazards and tacky lawn art.
- The effort to put ostentatious Christmas displays on public property have nothing to do with faith and everything to do with the anger some conservatives have because they can't control what other people do and think. For them, erecting a Nativity Scene on the public green is the equivalent of spray-painting an obscenity on an enemy's garage door. It is a perversion of religion based on arguments that are intellectually dishonest and without spiritual meaning. They're self-pitying bullies who are insecure in their faith -- if they have any faith at all.
- Or, if they're not that, they're people who are entirely comfortable with the concept of an American Theocracy.
- The fact that government can't support something doesn't mean that something is oppressed.
- The instruction of store clerks to say "Happy Holidays" is a marketing decision designed to keep people who aren't Christians shopping. Jews, for example. It is not part of a liberal conspiracy, because most top-level marketing executives aren't liberal. And the True Meaning of Christmas has nothing whatsoever to do with any retail function.
- "Happy Holidays" is not an anti-Christian greeting. It is a friendly, inclusive greeting that takes into account the fact that several major religious and secular holidays take place in the same two week period.
- Christians who spend their time bitching about "anti-Christian" liberals on the verge of ruining the holiday are insane. The True Meaning of Christmas disappeared from the public sphere a long time ago in a frenzy of retailing. The True Meaning of Christmas continues to exist in hundreds of thousands of church pageants where children sing "Silent Night" and around the dinner tables of millions of families who gather to express their gratitude for the coming of Christ. It is quiet and private, in keeping with Christ's admonition to not be like the hypocrites.
- Christians who believe that Christianity is a put-upon religion in the United States are nuts on a par with people who claim that the CIA controls their brainwaves through implants in their teeth. Their belief is so far from any verifiable reality that you can't rationally argue with them.
And, while we're at it:
- The people who whine most about Christmas are people who get paid to complain. Everyone who whines along with them is a sucker.
You may talk amongst yourselves.
OK, Tom, go ahead and close your eyes to the obvious transformation going on right in front of your face. Liberalism is all about ignoring and denying reality anyway, so what's one more item on the agenda?
Posted by: Squidley | 10/19/2007 at 08:23 PM
I would normally reply with some sort of venomous retort, the type on which my formidable reputation has been built, but truth be told, I am enjoying my last bottle of 1996 Cain Five and frankly am overwhelmed with the melancholy satisfaction one feels with the passing of a wonderful era.
So, you know, carry on my good man.
Posted by: Pursuit | 10/19/2007 at 09:16 PM
BTW, I like the "nutty aunt in the attic" swipe.
Posted by: Squidley | 10/20/2007 at 04:32 PM