The war on 'Happy Holidays' isn't about Christmas

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

I’m not waging a war on Christmas. I like Christmas. But I am declaring my allegiance to one idea of America that opposes another: inclusive vs. exclusive.

In one recent skirmish, residents of exclusive America crowded a Tuscumbia, Ala., City Council meeting to protest a forthcoming Festival of Yule, which its organizer designed, she said, “for everyone to enjoy this time of year that is winter’s solstice and also an awareness of the origins of this holiday season.”

Opponents declared it, rather, “a sort of twisted anti-Christmas celebration” that threatened the city and the children. Speaker after speaker denounced the festival as a perversion of a holiday that was supposed to honor Jesus Christ, not the devilish Krampus.

Toward the end of the public comment period, a lone voice politely ventured, “I’m not sure that it’s the City Council’s job to enforce Christianity,” and offered advice for citizens offended by the Festival of Yule: “If you don’t agree with it, you don’t have to show up.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/19/happy-holidays-christmas-inclusion-exclusion/

[Journeyman]

1. Why is that advice so often ignored in these such hissy fits? "If you don't agree with it . . .

don't participate."

Wisdom of the ages, handed down from Tom Jefferson and affirmed by most every rational thinker in the centuries since.

[Duppers]

2. +100 ...& a TJ quote

"In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own."

—Thomas Jefferson

[Igel]

10. Sounds more like the mob.

Also the enemy of liberty.

James Madison: “Had every Athenian citizen been a Socrates, every Athenian assembly would still have been a mob.”

We need the concept of negative rights to preserve liberty against the majority.

[chriscan64]

14. Like gay marriage, you don't have to be in one.

But these objectors are not among the rational thinkers. To them, freedom of religion is not enough, they have to live in a world free from other religions, as if they will go to Hell if other people sin.

[NJCher]

3. I chuckled over the

Observation regarding whether it’s the town’s job to uphold Christianity.

The Yule celebration, however, is right up my alley.

[SleeplessinSoCal]

4. The very unChrist-like Christians have a Martyr Complex.

They love playing the victim. And they know full well they are not victims.

Pagans are victims. They were basically robbed of their many traditions and vilified. Not unlike the Native Americans.

I pray Karma is real and bites hard.

[2naSalit]

7. +1!!!

[TlalocW]

5. I don't normally toot my own horn

But I once wrote an essay about this, and I was always proud of my last paragraph. The title of the essay was, "Merry Christmas, You Douche."

Basically, what you douches are doing is worse than what the imagined, underground movement to take away Christmas is doing: You're taking the joy out of the season. You've taken the phrase, "Merry Christmas," which was not in danger of dying out, and instead of a "season's greeting," and a genuine heartfelt wish for joy you've turned it into a challenge, a dare, a chip on the collective shoulder of douches nationwide, and by doing so, you do the same thing to all the other greetings. Phrases that should be genuine wishes of happiness - and thus, the time of year they're said - are now being ruined faster by you douches than a Best Buy telling their employees to say, "Happy Holidays," to shoppers.

Good job... douche.

[modrepub]

6. To Be Honest

the celebration of Christ's birth isn't the most important part of the story (the 3 wise men were Pagans for crying out loud). The death and resurrection is the highest holiday and has the most meaning to Christians.

IMO we've allowed a lot of folks to turn Christmas into one big commercial sell out devoid of any real religious meaning.

[2naSalit]

8. +1

[FakeNoose]

16. They've turned our Christmas holidays into "those days after Black Friday"

The point being that US retailers and entertainment vendors are only interested in whatever it takes to sell more stuff and increase profits.

[Ray Bruns]

9. Let us all reflect on the casualties of the war on Christmas.

https://images.app.goo.gl/E56AZnz9KAkgCcPq5

[spike jones]

11. "Happy Holiday" is more inclusive of all the religions that celebrate at this time of year. n/t

[Martin68]

12. Republicans can't win on the basis of better ideas or policies, so they invent wedge issues

such as abortion, gay marriage, American History, racism, and affirmative action to deflect from the real issues we face and suggest that Democrats are depraved authoritarian communists. Thus the silly "War on Christmas," which capitalizes on the liberal belief that every religion (and no religion) deserves equal treatment in the public sphere. Sure, many of us started to say "Happy Holiday Season" or whatever, to be all-inclusive rather than Christian-centric. So they jump on that to suggest we are waging a war on Christmas.

It would be stupid, except that it actually gains traction among the Fox News-indoctrinated Republican faithful. I watched it happen with my own parents, who raised us as liberals. They'd suddenly ask me out of the blue about "humanism" because it had been turned into code-word for atheism or communism by the propagandists of the right. Again, it would be amusing if it weren't so effective in creating an "us vs them" situation of hard-working god-fearing Americans against lazy, America-hating, atheistic victims of Russian propaganda.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

13. Whenever I get any kind of expression of good will,

I mostly respond with the same.

Personally, I cringe a bit at "Have a blessed day" but I keep in mind the person saying that is expressing their own particular belief. I generally just say "Thank you" to that wish.

I have my own very strong personal religious/spiritual beliefs, and I'm somewhat amazed that not everyone believes the same way. However, I don't find it important or necessary to tell others about those beliefs.

[MissMillie]

15. found a link w/ no paywall

https://archive.ph/iWkfc