Posted by
ICONIC FREEDOM on Sunday, November 22, 2009 12:05:05 PM
There is no war on Christmas.
It’s a media ploy to garner ratings from riling people up and making them think their rights are being infringed upon. Schools, Business, Government Entities, name it and someone thinks there is a war on Christmas.
It’s theater of the absurd.
If you’re having issue with a pluralistic society and getting religion out of government, you need to look seriously at your motives and agenda.
Each must decide within his own conscious mind how to live this life, even our founders understood that.
No one religion, religious view or ideology owns this nation. We are a nation of pluralism, where we acknowledge all and favor none – the one thing we all favor: freedom.
If you think you own this nation, you have more serious issues than someone not saying Merry Christmas. The nation doesn’t exist for you.
Public schools are funded with tax dollars from everyone: Hindus, Muslims, Jews, Janists, Buddhists, Christians, Catholics, Lutherans and the list goes on for some 2000+ religions & beliefs in this nation. Has this fact been lost on Americans? How do you think public schools get funded? From the PUBLIC!
A better reason couldn’t be offered for getting government out of schools so that parents can put their dollars where they desire into private schools which espouse their belief systems and values.
Asking your neighbors to fund your child’s education is like asking you to fund a woman’s abortion.
Somehow certain people of faith think that their religion should dominate all others to the extent that the Hindu, Jew and Muslim down the street should be paying for their child to go to public school and be forced into a specific prayer, or forced to accept a particular view of religion.
We’ve forgotten what objective freedom means vs. subjective ideology.
It’s a CHOICE to send your child to public school.
If parents make a choice to not fund their child’s education into a private school and instead use the entitlement of education, then sending their kid through the public school system funded with tax dollars of ALL AMERICANS with ALL BELIEFS, compels neutrality in order to serve such systems to educate all and not indoctrinate none - that's what home is for - teaching the values & beliefs you desire.
“Why should my child, who is Jewish, be forced to say a Christian prayer in public school? My taxes pay for that school just as the Christian parents.”
Thomas Jefferson once said, “Democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine”. We are a Republic, guided by a charter, not a democracy where “majority rules” takes away the freedom of others.
Do some organizations get crazy about Christmas? Sure. Not allowing green and red paper? Really? I digress.
If Wal-Mart, a privately owned company enjoying the benefits of free market supply/demand economics doesn’t want to say “Merry Christmas”, that’s their prerogative. If consumers want to send a message, not of threats, but of supply/demand economics by simply stating, “We disagree with your policy and will shop elsewhere”, it is likely that Wal-Mart will shift its policy if it matters to them.
Just because our nation has done something for years doesn’t mean the action taken has upheld freedom.
We enslaved people for decades, then self-evaluated and self-corrected.
We held women in suffrage for decades, then self-evaluated and self-corrected.
We continue to grow as a nation and find where we are not upholding freedom of the individual, we self-evaluate and self-correct.
We acknowledge all and favor none.
If you hold to the idea that you have a particular belief system and rituals must be favored by “government funding or endorsement” then you are asking for an entitlement along with bullying others into subjugation – it's what Muslims do to their women and would do to all of us, given the opportunity.
It’s not a war on Christmas; it is self-evaluation and self-correction.
The Christmas Tree, as an example, has come to symbolize a time of giving in our society which has nothing to do with religion of any kind. The tree was a pagan tradition to start with and wasn't endorsed by religious people. What difference does it make where it came from unless you're trying to take ownership by which to control others.
Not sure who put it into your head that your particular beliefs in life about ANYTHING are given credential toward entitlement, limiting the freedom of another American.
On your home, at your private business, on your shirt, in your car put up all the stickers, nativity scenes, and crosses you desire. In and on government funded entities which represent ALL THE PEOPLE (remember that phrase,WE THE PEOPLE, meaning everyone?) then we seek neutrality to acknowledge all but favor none.
Shout out Merry Christmas! Sing out Happy Holidays! Celebrate any or all of the holidays you desire! Get government out of such things and no one cares who celebrates what holiday and “goes around making merry”!
If you want to create drama in your life, then see through the filter of victimization that there’s a war on Christmas thus a war on your religion.
Or see life through the filter of freedom. How do we create more freedom for self and other Americans by self-evaluation, self-correction and developing our understanding of expanding freedom, not limiting it?
“Why should religion be removed from the public square!” Because society doesn’t exist for you and your personal beliefs, that’s why!
If you’re having issue with religion being out of the government funded public square, you need to ask yourself some serious questions about wanting to control others.
Republicans don’t want to be controlled regarding health care, education, abortion, marriage and the like, yet find no hypocrisy in wanting to control others by demanding their religious views be favored on government property or government funded schools.
You think winning elections is by manipulating voters to your side? By playing to the sleight of hand touting freedom all the while in subtle form attempting to maneuver to get your way?
We will continue to lose elections if we don't start cleaning up where we've not upheld individual freedom and start speaking to a pluralistic society that can make decisions for themselves within their own conscious minds of how to live this life.
You can't fake freedom, either you assimilate freedom to your core and can speak to it, or you cannot. People and voters, know the difference - we can spot it a mile away when people start injecting their own subjective ideology instead of objective freedom in their actions, their words and their deeds.