Of Christmas, Happy Holidays, and a Fight to the Death

I am no longer willing to tolerate toleration. It’s war now, and I will expect no quarter, and give no quarter. It is time for one way of life or the other to be stomped out. And I am okay with that. Live free or die. And this life we have in contemporary America is not a life of freedom.

This takes a bit to get where it’s going. I hope you’ll stay with it.

America, the champion of freedom
For half a century if not more, the Little Hitlers on the Left, those who claim the mantle of inclusiveness, of fairness, of justice for the downtrodden, have been harassing the most gentle, fair, and decent Americans, in order to remove any reference or acknowledgement of Jesus or God from public view. Along with Christianity, the Professionally Offended have also done their best to dismantle the family, public decency, private morality, and the simple freedom of speech.

We inherited a nation that was founded on Christian principles and bought with the blood of righeous men. We prospered in freedom, and in the 20th century became the beacon of freedom and personal rights in a world littered and darkened by communism, fascism, and tin-pot dictatorships of every kind. We spilled the blood of over 600,000 people in a civil war to rid ourselves of the scourge of slavery. In two global wars we sacrificed a similar number of our young men in order to liberate a world from tyrants.

From the beginning and right up through World War 2, the Cold War, and even the Global War on Militant Islamism, America has spent her precious blood and treasure to serve in her role as the world’s symbol and greatest champion of the freedom and prosperity of all mankind.

National character, rights and duties
During this time, America has at times been led by champions, particularly in the darkest times. Abraham Lincoln comes to mind. But this notion of freedom is bred into the bone of America. It is America’s character, not just the wisdom of a few great men. What the Founding Fathers began, each generation has carried on. The rights enshrined in the Constitution has been held near to the heart.

In the main, the responsibilities, the duties, that go along with those rights has been equally embraced. The balance between competing freedoms is sometimes delicate. Maintaining civil order without trampling individual rights requires some responsibility and wisdom. For 150 years, we pulled it off admirably.

Protecting us from ourselves
But over time, while securing freedoms across the world in such actions as taking down Hitler and Hirohito, the Berlin Airlift, the Cold War, and the (probably temporary) liberation of 50 million people in the very heart of evil, we have allowed fat bureaucrats, a Leftist judiciary, and a class of self-righteous busybodies to steal our liberties away, one at a time.

For the most part, I don’t think we voted away our freedoms, not directly. But we voted for people who built bureaucracies. Bureaucracies have taken on a life of their own, and grown into giant behemoths that no longer serve the interest of the people, and now only serve themselves. We elected people who quit nominating and confirming judges based on their strict adherence to their Constituional duties. But regardless, our freedoms have indeed been lost.

Politically correct = freedom lost
Between government regulation, judicial fiat, a class of professionally offended zealots, and another class of idiots who believe that freedom from being offended is more important than freedom in general, our nation’s natural disposition toward good manners, accomodation, and toleration was exploited. It started slowly, but now it is full blown. Today I will skip lengthy discussions of smoking, lemonade stands run by 8-year olds, and regulatory strangleholds on 50 million things, from airlines and offshore oil production to hairspray, fat content in twinkies, and how many gallons of water can be in a commode.

All this excessive desire to protect us from [fill in the blanks: ourselves, evil corporate barons, smokers, Christians] boils down to a desire to control, and you can immediately see why the Left is so zealous to protect you from toilets that use more than 1.6 gallons per flush. That is both a moral disgrace and a betrayal of our founding principles. It is unacceptable.

Stealing Christmas by fiat
We have all seen the federal government ignore the First Amendment and take away the rights of Christians to publicly practice their religion, particularly through fiat by unelected, unaccountable, and evil judges. It has been interesting to see them protect and elevate the rights of atheists, Muslims, and Moon-goddess worshippers while savaging the rights of Christians. But that is really old news

The example set on a federal level has set the stage for local governments and school districts to run wild with overly zealous protection of those people who seem to be offended by the very mention. In numerous cities, displays of the Nativity scene in public areas is apparently deemed grossly offensive to the 5% of Americans who do not believe in Christ and are therefore banned. And if they do take a stand and do the right thing, there seems always to be a judge ready to accomodate the desires of one sorehead and shut down those evil Nativity scenes.

My favorite example remains the Plano school district in Texas in 2005. It wasn’t enough to call the Christmas Holiday Break the “Mid-winter Break”. It was still not enough to ban any mention whatsoever of Christ; they couldn’t even have a mention of Christmas. That was still not the end. In the elementary schools when they had their “Holiday Parties”in mid-December, they forbade even the use of green and red plates, cups, napkins, and food items.

That goes beyond stupid. That is evil. That is going out of their way to deny innocent children any joy, to punish them and their parents for their religious beliefs, beliefs shared by the huge majority of Americans.

Taking Christmas bucks without acknowledging
This is the thing that gets under my skin. The excessive commercialization of Christmas is what it is, but I don’t want to argue that today. The fact remains that retail stores make tons and tons of money in the Christmas shopping season due to ….wait for it….. people buying Christmas presents for their loved ones, in celebration of the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ, (who was actually born about 4 BC and probably in the spring, but hey, December 25 is when we mark it).

Yet, in the spirit of political correctness, they festoon their sales floors with “Seasons Greetings”, “Happy Holidays”, and of course holiday decorations, holiday trees with tensel and holiday lights. Santa and elves. And not a word about Christmas. No nativities, no crosses, no angels, no shepherds, no Wise Men.

Why? Because it is cool and sophisticated, and a sign of advanced modern sensibilities, to make sure they don’t offend anybody by pushing religious symbols on people. I suppose. I have a hard time figuring out how these people can breathe with their heads up their butts.

But I tell you what, It offends me greatly. And after years of putting up with this. I’m just not going to sit still about it.

The revolt is underway
The good news here is that I think Americans are fighting back. The people of Plano revolted, as they should have. Frankly they should have taken some school officials outside behind the schoolbus and “come to an understanding”. And all across America, people who have had enough engage in civil disobedience. They flout laws. They put Nativities and crosses in public places.

Somewhere the high watermark was reached, and it’s headed downward. Three years ago, there was almost no retail outlet using the word Christmas (other than overtly Christian stores, of course). Now you see it in some places, although it is far from prevalent.

But here’s what I am doing. If I see the word Christmas, I’ll do business there. Otherwise, not. And depending on my mood, I might or might not bring it up to management, because frankly if they are that stupid, then why should I care about educating them.

I want my country back. I want freedom of speech, and freedom of religion. And at this point it is way past just “wanting”. The ones who took away those freedoms are not going to give them back. Easily, I should say. So it’s a fight to the death. Nathan Hale understood it.

And I’m down with it.