Oh, I think you know where I'm going with this: the War on Christmas. It's the Sport of Idiots, by idiots and for idiots. It's cheap con men and their war on freedom and as the days grow shorter and darker the crawling Christmas warriors come out of the woodwork like roaches, using their Fox fed fraud to attack our constitutional right to a secular government. Want to know why I defend the second amendment so firmly? Read on.
Matt Barber, professional troll and anger monger on Christian Hate Radio says that people who don't want his cheap plastic sheep and donkeys in their face and on their public property, should be punched in the mouth. I'm sure the illuminated plastic idols people like him worship would agree because you know that Jesus loved idolatry. That's the reason he was so fond of the Roman occupation of Jerusalem, their pagan idols, their Son-o-God, virgin mothered emperors and the corruption of the Temple. He was also very fond of people who set themselves up as authorities to administer punishment on the basis of their own self-defined piety. Just ask Matt, he's a scholar, you know -- the right hand of the Son of Yahweh and the lord high executioner for the Holy Ghost. The Gospel according to Barber would have you punch infidels like me in the mouth if we don't want our tax money paying for his pagan rituals and plastic holy inaction figures Made in China and planted on the town square. And yes, it's a pagan celebration with no basis in either the Bible or history. Just ask the Pope.
Dare we ask Matt how he feels about how his tax money is used -- to teach geology or history or cosmology or physics or other things that reduce his dimwitted delusional dogmas and dreams of power to the level of idiocy? Let's not bother. You can't argue with drunks, madmen or idiots so where are we going to get with all three in one bloated, Bible babbling shitbag?
So here we are with the seasonal smokescreen, that sleazy haze, that slick, sick pretense that seeks to cover the war on freedom that has for centuries soaked the Earth with the blood of men who would be free and think free. My religious freedom is not subject to Christian approval or disapproval and that freedom does not include the right to abuse others - even for real Christians, so if I suggest, for the purposes of argument, that we erect a huge, brass Yamataka on the courthouse lawn, a neon Kali, an effigy of Cthulhu, rubber tentacles wiggling or a bright electric blue Krishna seducing the bare breasted milkmaids in the bushes, I'm subject to the same constitutional proscription as the practitioners and celebrants of any other nonsense no matter how much faith they have.
My right to defend myself from cowards and bullies and the peasant crusades they attempt to launch is real however, no matter how firmly some believe it isn't and I trust Messrs. Remington and Kalashnikov will represent me well and loudly should Mr. Barber or his rabid, unwashed, vermin hoard of zombies follow his bloody flag into battle.
Barber is a hothead and demagogue. He's out to draw attention to himself as a champion of poor, downtrodden people of faith. He talks about fighting a bully, then acts like one. I expect he's bucking for a lucrative Fox or Clear Channel gig. Given the millions Limbaugh and Beck have made with this kind of thing, it's no wonder.
ReplyDeleteThat said, IMO the Freedom From Religion Foundation lapsed into pettiness and foolish overreach going after some guy who just wanted to put a creche on a median. There's something seriously wrong with people who get exercised about something as innocuous as that. What's more, they feed the "War Against Christmas" trolls on Fox and elsewhere. This incident has got to be a godsend for Hannity and O'Reilly (pardon the pun).
There's another, better way to handle this kind of dispute. The authorities should tell the guy who wants to display a creche during the Christmas season to go ahead. But they should be just as willing to let Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, agnostics, atheists and those with other beliefs to display something meaningful to what they believe along that median or a similar one, if they wish.
In a free and democratic country, openness and inclusiveness are nearly always preferable to prohibition and exclusion. The issue should be basic fairness.
There no doubt are times and places where evangelistic and proselytizing types go too far. The Freedom From Religion people would do better to concentrate on those.
SW wrote: "But they should be just as willing to let Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, agnostics, atheists and those with other beliefs to display something meaningful to what they believe along that median or a similar one, if they wish."
ReplyDeleteI have to agree with you. The best way to protect my religious freedom is to allow everyone theirs. But religious freedom isn't served by forcing everyone to support, acknowledge, suffer and submit to the beliefs of a single group, majority or otherwise. This contrived fuss is made about some miserable median strip in full knowledge that we have countless acres of tax free real estate better used for the purpose of illustrating or celebrating myths, and in full knowledge that many Christians and certainly may millions of non-Christians have different ideas about Christmas. It's a fake argument designed to simulate real persecution so as to hide real aggression.
Is it ironic that the people taking all the fun and any real meaning out of the holiday are the ones pretending that it's me doing it? But isn't it these same people who screech like a melting witch about postage stamps marking Muslim holidays? As far as I'm concerned the ball and the guilt remains in their court.
I can also understand the touchiness of non-Christians of all sorts who are much more alert to and irritated by the constant US Government supported proselytizing in schools -- including our military academies -- and everywhere else including the halls of Congress. It's not ironic that the vast and powerful majority can get away with seeking sympathy for a program of keeping 'infidels' out of public life -- it's disgusting.
These incidents are so rare you'd never hear of them if the Trolls of the Lord weren't magnifying them. Really, in a country of 325 million people -- one guy in California? How many people are required -- sometimes by law -- every day of the year -- to acknowledge God and his primacy over our secular democracy? School children in Florida can be punished for not parroting a religious oath. Curches get a tax deduction for campaigning for candidates, for denouncing and traducing and misrepresenting the Constitution and American history. In some states one has to be 'a believer' to run for public office. A friend of mine once was found in contempt of court and had her passport confiscated for refusing to swear an oath on a bible. Where the hell is the outrage? A young man recently dropped out of West Point because he was assured he wasn't going anywhere unless he found Jesus, as I read today in the NYT. Who is persecuting whom? I think a fuss needs to be made.
Our military can be hard to distinguish from Christian crusaders and religious messages have appeared on our weapons courtesy of "Christian" arms manufacturers. Yes, Christian arms manufacturers for Christ's and irony's sake. Is there any sense of irony about Jesus' having made a fuss about money changers because the Roman money had pagan religious messages on each coin while "Christians" rage about coins without God on them?
All I'm asking is to put the MERRY back in Christmas -- for Christians to respect their own holiday, their own God, their own humble place in the world as well as mine.
Barber is a product of his education , expect nothing more.
ReplyDelete"Director for Cultural Issues with Concerned Women for America"
ReplyDeleteI wonder if CWA has any female members or is just a bunch of middle aged male perverts like Barber. What can I say, but to quote Bob Dylan: "Sometimes Satan comes as a man of peace."
I like the idea of an effigy of Cthulhu with rubber tentacles wiggling in the breeze. There should be one erected next to every creche in every town and city from coast to coast. Definitely something to ink about.
ReplyDeleteI confess I'm really not bothered by these extra-scriptural and highly derivative tableaux. I love Christmas lights. I have some on my house. In fact it's always been my favorite holiday and for most of my life I've had a distinctly pagan tree in my house. I like giving presents.
ReplyDeleteIt's the war on my freedom of belief, the attack on atheism, agnosticism or non-theism and 'heresy' that has me counting the ammunition and sharpening my machete collection.
It's all the same to me whether someone believes on the basis of tradition that Jesus was born on the same day as Apollo, Mithras and several other Pagan sons of pagan gods although along with most historians and scholars and at least one Pope, I doubt it. Christmas has been a problem child for Christians over the centuries, because there's almost no support for it in the canon and I think it's only now that ignorance prevails sufficiently to allow this kind of scapegoating and that's just what it is.
I don't care what anyone believes, just don't tax me or threaten me or make me obey the rules of your religion and yes, I'm happy to say Merry Christmas when it's Christmas, but I swear I'll do violence to the next chucklehead who tells me there's some PC rule against it.
One would think that these holy blowhards are afraid that without enraging the vulgus, they would lose their living and would have to find a job -- only if you're a cynic like me though.
Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.
S.W. Anderson:
ReplyDeleteIf this case about the creche:
http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/conlaw/2012/08/sixth-circuit-rules-on-median-creche.html
is the one you're talking about, the MFRF brought suit, received a favorable judgment and then had it overturned:
http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/conlaw/2012/08/sixth-circuit-rules-on-median-creche.html
Cases of this type ARE important as they reveal, among other things, the CORRECT way to go about denying permits to KKKristianist asshats or, conversely, informing the pastafarians, wiccans, satanist and pagans about the correct way to go about getting THEIR displays on public land.
This link:
http://ffrf.org/news/news-releases/item/2863-ffrf-sues-warren-mayor-over-creche-display-censorship
is about another incident of the type you mention, where the shoe is on the other foot. It will be interesting to see if it winds up in the same appeals court (it's in the same county as the other display).
These are important cases, they allow non-christian believers and atheists to learn how to correctly deal with state sponsored christianity.
Capt. Fogg:
I'm with you on everything but the guns. Guns create far more hazard than safety.
That's what you hear, but I think the evidence shows otherwise. Just as with this Xmas display thing, any one in 300 million episode has people all up in arms as though it were rampant. That's what our media does. Left or Right, it's all about fearmongering. As an individual, you and I have never been safer.
ReplyDeleteCapt. Fogg:
ReplyDeleteI have never been in danger because I don't own a gun.
I'm not anti-gun and I'm not even anti people having guns for all sorts of reasons I think are silly.
I AM against people having guns and killing other people with them because they feel "threatened". I'm against people being harmed by the guns of gunzloonz who exhibit sociopathic tendencies on a fairly routine basis. I'm against children being killed and maimed by guns (almost always handguns) that they find laying on coffee tables, bedroom dressers and the like.
If guns made us safer there would not have been approximately between 136.5 and 148.5 million (source: http://www.cissm.umd.edu/papers/files/deathswarsconflictsjune52006.pdf).
You are entitled to your guns and I think that you are not someone who makes me worry in that regard. If you'd like to think that they make you safer that is your prerogative. We will never agree on that item.
I've probably never had my life in danger by not having one either. Oh maybe once after Hurricane Frances. The only time I've ever been threatened with a firearm being by a Chicago policeman in 1967 who didn't seem to like long hair and stuck a gun in my face. Fortunately I'd recently visited the bathroom. Chicago in 1968 -- no fond memories there!
ReplyDeleteBut although I'm sometimes anchored (in my boat of course) in places known for piracy - no, I've never been attacked although I know half a dozen people who have and then of course many Americans live in bear country and won't go out without a rifle and need to hunt to provide the bulk of their dietary requirements.
We've had a number of armed home invasions thwarted in my semi-rural area in recent years and there have been close to a hundred armed burglaries so far in 2012 and of course that maligned and usually misstated Castle Doctrine would allow a 90 year old women to defend herself instead of being required to jump out a window and hobble away as prior law demanded or having to wait until the guy shot first and hope he misses!
It remains that it's hard to find a correlation between the most touted gun control laws and the prevalence of aggravated homicide, which continues to decline at similar rates nationwide despite the network hysteria and places with the most severe restrictions seem to remain the most dangerous.
With the lion's share of gun violence arising from the drug trade and gang activity, it seems to me drastic improvements in the already improving crime statistics could result from rethinking the "war on drugs."
For my part, I like antique weapons and have little affection for military firearms. Almost all of my firearms are muzzle loaders of Civil War and earlier vintage and all of my shooting is at rifle ranges -- and contrary to the stereotypes of country gentlemen, most people you'll find there are middle and upper middle class men and women and of course the group from my yacht club, who like to shoot trap and skeet.
Nearly half of the country's households have at least one firearm. I doubt you could apply the usual stereotypes to very many of them, but I agree that we have to do more to keep the deranged and the criminal away from such things. It's become much harder to lock up the madmen or prevent them from buying weapons until after they've done something that can't be undone.
Farmers here BTW, need to have a firearm of some sort. Not only for the ubiquitous Alligators but because of the wild hogs who threaten life and limb and crops.
When I used to own a large farm in Illinois, I used to carry my 1879 Remington single shot rifle or my 1861 Colt Army revolver because of all the weekend and half drunk hunters from Dubuque Iowa who weren't likely to take me seriously when I asked them to get out of my back yard -- but who knows, they might have felt threatened by my unarmed 5'6" self anyway -- but I've noticed that such people tend to find some respect for beneficiaries of Mr. Colt's equalization program where they might otherwise not. No, I've never pointed a gun at anyone and I don't like to hunt either. A squirrel I shot over 50 years ago still haunts me.
And then there were the three hurricanes of 04 and 05 when we were completely cut off without police, fire or Ambulance services and the community gates were stuck open and a number of local thugs decided to play at a Dark Ages re-enactment. A group of young'uns carrying bats actually threatened to kill me and my wife in front of my own house. Nice to have Dad's old shotgun there for a while. No phones - no 911 for weeks and weeks and besides I'm in an unincorporated area with no police department anyway.
Capt. Fogg:
ReplyDeleteThis:
"How do we keep the dangerously insane off the streets and how do we keep them from acquiring bombs, guns, crossbows, knives and yes, airplanes?"
from your later post on the school shootings is pretty much the crux of the matter.
Guns are, overwhelmingly, the weapon of choice for people who want to kill large numbers of other people.
I do not KNOW how to get to a place where both sides are satisfied. I do KNOW that as we dither, many people, young and old die for no good reason.