I'm tired of right-wingers complaining.

The BBQ Pit
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It seems that many people who call themselves Christians are so upset about clerks at stores not being able to say “Merry Christmas.” They are upset (as they have been for as long as I can remember) when they can’t put their manger scene at city hall.

I say, if your faith depends on the city putting up the manger scene, what kind of faith is that? Put the manger scene in your front yard, on your mantle, or better yet, put it in your heart and stop complaining. There are a lot of horrible things going on in the world, in your town, in your neighborhood. Get out and do something to help somebody and quit complaining about the ten commandments not being allowed at the courthouse.

If my mother-in-law starts complaining about stuff like “candy canes can’t be used in schools anymore because they are a Christian symbol,” I’m going to walk right into the family room and turn off the television. Because I think that having football games on Christmas Day is sacrilege. If Christmas is so important to her, let’s all get into the kitchen and help chop stuff up. Let’s get some board games out and play them. Let’s stand around the piano and sing some songs. Let’s put together a jigsaw puzzle. Let’s talk instead of watching a bunch of really big guys with lots of padding on ram into each other and pretend like we’ve really accomplished something when our team wins.

To hell with it!

The Republicans won. They have control of the Presidency, the House, the Senate, and arguably the Supreme Court. And the ones I know just can’t shut up about the USA going to hell in a handbasket. That darned Hollywood controlling America!

If you don’t like the TV show, DON’T WATCH IT. If the sales clerk doesn’t say Merry Christmas, why don’t you ask her how her day has been? Is your day ruined because she didn’t say Merry Christmas to you? Maybe her day was ruined by the nasty rude customers all day who have to have everything their way every minute of the day.

The zinger for me was at a luncheon where I was the youngest person there by, I don’t know, 30-40 years. Well, one other person was probably 10 years older than me. I’m 46. Almost all of them were complainig about all this terrible stuff in our country (not the deficit, not the poor, not Social Security, but candy canes not being allowed in school). Then one lady said, “And, you know, on the east and west coasts they are having less babies than we are having in the rest of America.”

That one is still ringing in my head. What did that mean exactly? That the conservatives are having tons of babies and will therefore continue to take over the world someday? Who knows?

I got out of there as quickly as possible. Next year, I’m busy.

:smack:

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Nothing short of a theocracy is going to make these people happy. They’ve gotten everything they could reasonably ask for and more, and they’re still complaining. Fucking babies. :mad:

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I disagree.

Nothing, not even a theocracy, would make them happy. They’d just find something else to bitch about.

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Are you serious?

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Little known fact: Candy Canes date to the late 14th century, when European confectioners began selling cross-shaped hard candies with swirling red patterns designed to represent Christ’s blood.

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Not quite, although many Christians have come to view them as religious symobols.

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I am a Christian and I never thought that the candy cane was a Christian symbol. This is a new one on me.

As far as the OP, I don’t see any reason to get all worked up about people saying “Happy Holidays” at stores, but on the other hand, I don’t know why it’s such a big deal either way. Christmas is a big part of what’s going on in December. That’s what it’s called. Christmas. It’s not everything that goes on during December, but it’s a huge chunk of it. It seems a little silly for stores and clerks to try to avoid uttering the word, especially if they are selling a customer candy canes and Santa decorations. I think it’s funny, actually.

I used to work at at store which sold all sorts of Christmasy decorations during the Christmas season, and our manager tried to get me to say “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas.” I think I sometimes managed to remember, but a lot of the time, it seemed utterly stupid—I refer you to the candy canes and Santa decorations again. If someone is obviously celebrating Christmas (or enabling someone else to do so) then they probably aren’t going to be offended at hearing the word.

Now that I’m just a customer, I wish store clerks a Merry Christmas. If that makes me an evil politically incorrect boor, so be it. I just think that whole thing is a little amusing. But am I deeply offended? No.

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Believe me toots, we right-wingers are not exactly bubbling over with joy at the sheer volume of bitching you guys do, but such is life.

P.S. What a utterly unique theme for a thread, complaining about all those churlish right-wing Christians. Never been done before, I bet.

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You could always, oh, I dunno…avoid it by not reading it?

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Liberals whine out of frustration over being out of power and, thus, unable to do much of anything to block Bush’s agenda. You people, on the other hand, have the upper hand politically but continue to bitch and moan.

Oh yeah, I forget. The right-wing runs on perpetual anger.

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“This ‘fear of Christmas’ is a phantom menace conjured every year so that certain crybaby Christians can adopt victim status and model a pained expression over the sad fact that not everyone around them isn’t carrying on like the Cratchits. … To read conservative pundits, you’d think everybody was wishing each other Happy Kwanzaa! and averting their eyes from oh so gauche Nativity scenes.”
–James Wolcott

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Just to re-emphasize a part of the OP, my first reaction to hearing this story over the weekend was to laugh about the target of this particular right-wing whine: shopping malls and stores. I thought the problem was that Christmas was too commercial, rather than remembering that “Jesus is the reason for the season.” Now you’re pissed because stores aren’t selling Jesus?

To the idea that you must have your own religion referenced in each interpersonal exchange you have with a stranger during this time of year, I suggest that you get back in the chapel, because your faith is obviously way too easily challenged. If Jesus saves, he better save himself, because those people working for him around here right now are big-ass pussies.

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I read it, because presumeably this was about ALL right-wingers, not the Christians who bitch all they can about Christmas and how it’s being ruined, etc.

In the future, please pit the SPECIFIC group that you’re targeted, not just all members of a larger, more convenient group. I am a right-winger, but I too would be extremely annoyed if I saw around here what I have heard being described on the boards.

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How 'bout this: we let you folks sing Christmas carols and put up Christmas trees and say “Merry Christmas!” and keep God on our money and even in our Pledge of Allegiance . . . and you let us have gay marriage and leave abortion alone?

Deal?

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Absolutely not, I demand the right to worship my tree according to pagan tradition, without organized religion mucking it up.

Next you’ll be giving away the franchise to paint ourselves blue and run nekkid through the snow in honor of the solstice.

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You had me until you got to this part. What does this have to do with the rest of your rant?

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Lillith, it has nothing to do with conservatives and everything to do with religious fools.

Anytime religion enters the picture, common sense and intelligence depart. What saddens me is that the religious whackos are hijacking conservatism the same way they hijacked morality.

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I guess it’s kind of like farts. Everybody else’s stink but your own aren’t bad. Well, with whining, apparently you can only hear it when the other side does it.

Or as they say, you’re always partial to your own brand.

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Oh, mea culpa for not being specific enough in the title. And mea culpa for probably using the term “mea culpa” wrong because I don’t really know what it means.

I was at this luncheon with all these old ladies and at the end of it, during the announcements and stuff, people just kept going and going about this candy cane stuff. Apparently somewhere a school can’t use candy canes. And something about a manger scene taken straight from Playboy or something. The person upset about it was so mad she changed the channel so she couldn’t say what it was exactly (just like I’m doing now!). Then it went into, “We showed them in the election that we don’t like that kind of stuff they do in New York!” and “If I lived in New York I wouldn’t shop at Macy’s because they won’t say Merry Christmas!” Then the statement about the liberals not having as many babies on the east and west coasts. I really didn’t get that one. Also, one lady said that people voted the way they did because of choosing Laura over Teresa. Well, that shows some deep thought before making a decision!

Haven’t you been hearing, every winter since you were born, that they shouldn’t put up the decorations until after Thanksgiving and how dare they play Christmas music so early and why is Christmas so commercialized. That has been going on for a very long time. So just decorate when YOU want to and celebrate the way YOU want to and ignore the rest of it. If you want to give handmade gifts, go ahead and do it. If you want to send a Christmas letter even though some people think they are gauche, send it anyway. If you want to skip sending cards this year, skip it. It’s your Christmas celebration.

In Cleveland you had better put up your outdoor decorations before Thanksgiving if you want them to be up in time for the snow to hit. No one wants to put up decorations in the howling wind and driving snow.

So this is the BBQ Pit. I’m not all that familiar with it. But I thought I could just say stuff. Well, I guess people might say something unkind back to me. Oh well, maybe I deserve it.

I work at a church, and the hard thing is that you have to try to meet everyone’s needs, which are, of course, varied. Unfortunately, people are dropping dead right and left. We’ve already had two services (one died from old age and one was diagnosed with lung cancer and was gone in three weeks). There are two this week (the lady had a massive stroke and died the next day; the man dropped dead in a restaurant) and we are waiting for a lady to die who hasn’t eaten in five days. We have been waiting for her to die since August when she wasn’t going to make it through the week. So it’s hard to keep the spirits up around here, planning funerals plus the three Christmas Eve services and don’t forget there is still church on Sunday, even though most people won’t show up because Protestants don’t bother to go to church when it is near Christmas Day. And when Christmas Day falls on a Sunday–man that is a bad day. Something like three people come to church.

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Possibly: