DEC. 9, 2011
A school district in Stockton has outlawed Santa and the poinsettia plant. But snowmen and snowflakes are okay.
The latest assault on Christmas is so ridiculous, it’s barely worthy mentioning. However, it makes clear that what is happening in America is not just an assault on Christmas, it is an all-out attack on American traditions, and the erosion of the American way of life.
Santa and poinsettias are not religious, but they are part of the American Christmas tradition, as is Christianity, also under assault. Yet according to a 2007 survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, nearly 80 percent of Americans identify themselves as Christian. In 2009, a Gallup poll found that 78 percent of Americans identify as Christian.
A recent Rasmussen poll found that holiday shoppers, as they have for several years, would prefer to be greeted with signs reading “Merry Christmas” rather than “Happy Holidays” this season.
Americans’ time-honored expressions of Christmas tradition and Christian faith have become prime attack issues. It would not be Christmastime in America without some small group of crazies being offended by it, and demanding the removal of Christmas trees, wreathes, decorations, and now Santa.
But scores of people find the generic “Holiday Trees” even more offensive. What holiday is being celebrated?
Self-Appointed Ruling Elites
Popular American culture has been terrorized for years by a self-appointed elite ruling class. Ignoring the beliefs of most Americans, this small minority in government, academia and the mainstream media has dominated any rational discourse on American traditions, insisting that it possesses the conventional wisdom we all must follow.
Christmas As A Tradition
For most of America, Christmas is a tradition more than it is a strict religious holiday. The federal government recognizes Christmas as a federal holiday. But school districts across the county have taken it upon themselves to rid schools of Christmas, and all of the traditions that go along with the American holiday.
One teacher in California recently tried to change the words in “Deck The Halls,” replacing “gay apparel” with “bright apparel.” Fortunately, the school superintendant put an end to that absurdity.
The ACLU in Broward County, Florida told the community of Plantation that it could not put up its annual display of Christian and Jewish symbols, or the ACLU would sue, tying the community up in court for years. According to the ACLU, the display was “inappropriate.”
Political Correctness
Years ago, atheists demanded that public schools stop producing traditional Christmas pageants. Unfortunately, many Catholic schools followed suit. Instead of just answering children’s questions about the traditional holiday, teachers and school officials chose to ban all talk about Christmas.
While schools have been the hotbed of political correctness and the total destruction of Christmas, banks, and other public businesses have succumbed to the pressure of a tiny minority of radicals.
“Misinterpreting it as a freedom ‘from religion’ rather than the freedom ‘of religion’ it was intended to secure, our public squares have long since been stripped of nativity scenes, and the very word ‘Christmas’ is taboo in many of America’s school systems,” George Skaggs wrote recently in The American Thinker. “The federal government’s continual and insistent assault on the First Amendment’s establishment clause provides a perfect illustration of how the process works.”
However, America has always been an exceptional country, freer and more democratic than others, and where the individual is honored. But this is rapidly changing.
The erosion of rights and liberties in America is finally hitting home with many Americans. As children come home from school carrying official memos from district officials denying the practice of traditions, parents are outraged.
It’s not just an assault on Christmas; it’s an attack on the backbone of America.
Erosion Of Rights Through Government Expansion
The erosion of rights is exemplified by the increasing level of government spending, the bank bailouts, increasing state and federal regulations, Obama health care and cap-and-trade legislation. With every increase in spending by the government, working America must pay for it. But we are not just paying with increasing taxes; we are paying with our constitutional rights.
Americans cannot ignore that something fundamental is changing in this country. It’s not just excessive government spending, but also the attacks on American culture, the individual, and the core meaning of America.
Religious freedom and wealth creation opportunities in America inspired many immigrants to come here. People are free to worship as they choose in America. Our wealthy are wealthier than most of the rest of the world, and our poor have satellite television, cars, homes and cell phones.
But as long as the liberal elite continues to expand government entitlements, the political tension in America will only get worse. More handouts do not create more wealthy Americans. Handouts and entitlements only create a permanent class of Americans dependent on government, resentful of the private sector.
The Occupy protestors are evidence of the entitlement generation. Their demands of having a university education without having to pay for it, high-paying jobs, and higher taxes for the wealthy, are all unsustainable. We recognize their angst, but also see that it is not rooted in economic reason. They should be protesting the enlarging government, and excessive government intrusion in their lives. They are a conundrum wrapped in an oxymoron.
The assault on Christmas is just one of many assaults on the American people. Americans need to protect our foundational identity — the very identity which has allowed the America to be a magnanimous, progressive, and tolerant country.
Merry Christmas, to you and yours.
– Katy Grimes
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