Is There Really A War On Christmas?

Is there really a war on Christmas? The simple answer to this question is “it depends on who you ask”. But what is most startling to me is that in the name of fighting a perceived “War On Christmas”, people on both sides of this issue have forgotten what the Christmas spirit is all about. In my view, that was the intension from day one for all those over at Faux News, because the Christmas spirit of giving to others for no reason other than just to do it, is in fact a notion embodied by liberal philosophy. Indeed, the Christmas spirit is one in the same with the liberal spirit.

But what isn’t well noticed, although it has been noted from time to time in the past, is that our entire society does not embrace the Christmas spirit, and not just during Christmas, but all year long. If the Christmas spirit of giving to others, and caring for others was indeed held as an ideal for our nation to endear ourselves to, the question would soon arise that a middle class that is worker harder for less and less while another class is protected in it’s wealth concentration is indeed the epitome of the Christmas Grinch.

Rather, a nation that really has embodied the Christmas spirit would operate and function quite differently on several levels. For instance, in the state of Georgia a new law on the books permits gun carriers to be legally able to use deadly force against anyone they “think is a threat” to them. While I can somewhat understand if this was the case if this law applied to your homestead, in the state of Georgia it applies anywhere including public streets. This gives “road rage” a whole new meaning. And yet, in the very same state, in Atlanta, Georgia, as Nitwit Planet noted some time ago, panhandling is illegal. If the Christmas spirit were applied to the state of Georgia, then perhaps the myriad of the homeless in Atlanta, many of whom are veterans and indeed victims of America’s past ill-begotten wars, would instead have a roof over their head, and the residents of Georgia would feel safe enough not to need to carry a handgun to ward off the occasional hungry homeless man.

Not to pick on Georgia. It’s only one example from parts all over the country. One does not need to look far from the Mississippi and Louisiana Gulf Coast to see that no one in this nation of plenty is in more need of the Christmas spirit then those who are still left in Katrina’s wake. An untold number of Americans are still there living in nothing more than over-priced poorly built FEMA trailers; trailers that have left our American brothers and sisters sickened from formaldehyde residue and are insufficient even to keep out the cold in the winter. Sarge, who writes over at Unreported News, speaks frequently on the subject, and from first-hand experience often must tell stories of horror that are still going on today 16 months after the storm made landfall. And yet our nation seems to have forgotten our own countrymen in the plague of horrors that is the Gulf Coast. Instead we focus ourselves on the health of a Democratic Senator from South Dakota, not because we are concerned for his health, but because if his health falters the new found Democratic majority in the Senate could come into question. Ledgering against a man’s life does not embody the Christmas spirit, rather it is a key indication of a nation gone mad, if not wholely sadistic.

But it isn’t just what you see in the national news. It is the small, not-so-well noticed things. I was reading my local paper and came across this story of a bust at a brothel in my hometown. What struck me about it was that this took place a scant 2 miles from my home. It is quite puzzling that we live in a nation that awards men with metals and places adjectives of heroism and honor upon their heads for turning Iraqi children into splatters of blood and bone thousands of miles away, and yet just 2 miles from my front door people are put under arrest for giving someone an orgasm in exchange for money.

We live in a sick, sick world in perhaps the sickest nation in that world. And until we as a people address that fact, we have no business celebrating the Christmas spirit, much less to malign those who put up a “Happy Holidays” banner in front of their business.