Nope, not answered above, until you can supply a definition of “guerilla warfare” that 1)distinguishes it from simple armed criminality and 2)does not include some form of centralized direction.
Interesting leap there, counselor.
Please note that the part about red and green being banned because they are Christmas colors is not in quotes and thus probably doesn’t actually appear in the letter itself. In fact, very little of the letter is quoted. I would say that the school limited items to the approved list, left red & green napkins off of the approved list, and the lawyer for the plaintiffs is alleging some anti-Christmas bias. Until you produce a copy of the letter, we have no way of knowing, do we?
No it’s not. It’s a Just Defense of SOCAS. Due to Christmas’ high profile (and the rabid reactionary tactics of a group of self-professed “Christians”), you tend to hear about it a lot more during the winter season. That doesn’t make it a War on Christmas any more than the conflict in Iraq was a War on March.
Thank you.
Given your definitions, then, there is no “War on Christmas.”
I reject your assertion that attempts to make the government religiously neutral, on their own, constitute an attack against Christmas.
Every example that’s been provided so far involves government endorsement of Christianity in some way or another, so it falls within the scope of the Christian Crusade Against the First Amendment.
You have been unable to provide any evidence that anyone in a non-government capacity has been prevented from celebrating Christmas.
Ergo, you’re wrong.
If somebody wants to start a thread asking about the Republican War Against Homosexuals, they’d have a better shot at making their point.
I see the distinction, and I think there’s a difference between “offense” and “defense” here. But your specific example is “defense” - if a store forbids “Merry Christmas,” then THAT is the attack, and the effort to replace “Happy Holidays” is the defensive move.
Yes, precisely, with the caveat that even counting the independent warlords as leaders of a separate guerilla war presumes that each is in command of more than the bunch of guys with guns who are within earshot at the moment.
How does this follow? The Japanese lost World War II. They did not succeed in their goals. Nonetheless, World War II was clearly a war.
How does the fact that no one has been prevented from celebrating Christmas mean that there is no war on Christmas? All it means is that, thus far, the war has not been successful.
In the Plano case, the restrictions imposed were NOT required by the Constitution. After the lawsuit was filed, the school reversed its policy. That’s a battle, with a win for the good guys. In the war.
Are you serious?
Do you actually believe this?
Consider just a few points:
- The movement to use Happy Holidays originated well over 30 years ago among retailers (and local TV stations) as an effort to be more inclusive of the patrons and viewers as they recognized that the country was becoming more diverse and they wanted to refrain from excluding non-Christians in their effort to sell merchandise in December. (Since I was actually working the floor of retailers specializing in Christmas sales from 1975 through 1978, I will note that I did not once see an inter-office instruction to avoid Christmas, although I saw several memoes indicating that the use of Happy Holidays would be more likely to avoid alientating Jewish and Muslim customers.)
- The orders to use Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas generally originated in those bastions of Left-wing Hippie Liberalism, the Marketing and Sales departments.
- The offending merchants have included such notable entities as Wal*Mart (headquartered in the midst of the Bible Belt and notorious for such Liberal attacks on America as the refusal to sell music that had not been censored for language and content as well as its deliberate projection into the Christian merchandise market).
So to discover this great war, we have to posit a grand conspiracy of Liberal secular lawyers and Conservative Christian merchants, all working in concert over the preceding 30 to 40 years, operating in such secrecy that not one person on the inside has had the courage to expose them with a memo of the deliberations of their cabal.
Sorry. I’m not buying it. You are putting together disparate actions of diverse groups to claim a phenomenon that is simply not there.
…But when Bill O’Reilly claims to be offended by hearing store clerks say “Happy Holidays” without a showing that it’s store policy to say Happy Holidays rather than Merry Christmas, that isn’t “defense,” it’s “offense.” Correct?
This is still a gross mistatement of the issue. This is not a conflict about Christmas per se but about what sort of religious expression is permissable in public schools. The specific holiday of Christmas is both incidental and immaterial to what the conflict is really about.
I would also point out that the “attackers” in this case are the Christians. The school is only defending itself.
Have you been able to think of any examples of privately owned businesses being pressured not to celebrate Christmas?
Well, I also have the interview conducted by Gibson of the plaintiffs. In that interview - which appears in his book, and thus I can’t give you a clickable cite - the specific allegation is made.
Surely that is enough to create a prima facie case for the truth of the matter. You can find a cite for the school officials changing their policy; I’m not aware of anyone specifically denying this allegation.
Absolutely.
Bricker:
I thought you said that the school officials denied that their policy was as described in the complaint.
OK. To demonstrate that what is going on is not what Zakalwe describes above, but rather is an insidious “war on Christmas”, calls for a half-dozen cites of lawsuits not directed at a government entity.
The goalpost is ready for your kick, Bricker…
I’m amazed that we’re four pages into the thread, and people are still spending energy trying to defeat my argument that the war on Christmas is a coordinated, concerted effort.
When I never once made such an argument.
Corporations may well decide to say “Happy Holidays” in an effort to appease the vocal minority of people that complain about “Merry Christmas”. If they do, that’s part of the war on Christmas. Or they may decide to use “Happy Holidays” as a result of their own marketing decision that the latter is more effective. If they reach the decision that way, they are not part of the phenomenon I’m describing.
Can you point to any instances of the former? If not, then there is no war on Christmas - at least not on this front.
Damn.
Pedantic, but true.
Change my statement to:
You have been unable to provide any evidence that anybody is attempting to prevent anyone from celebrating Christmas in a non-government capacity.
The matter still centered on interpretation of the Establishment Clause, and the school’s concerns, albeit unfounded, about violating it. It’s a battle in a war that only exists in the fevered imaginings of uninformed and ignorant.
You’re still wrong.
Oh, please. People are not letting you get away with smuggling that assertion in through your choice of words (“war”) and then refusing to stand behind its implications.
Do you think the best way to discuss this issue is to slap labels on both sides that are as divisive and inaccurate as the ones we’ve been saddled with in the abortion debate? If not, do you object to having yourself termed a participant in the War on the First Ammendment?
By that logic, the Oklahoma City bombing was evidence that the US was in the grips of a second civil war in 1995.
Indeed. And I’m amazed that you still haven’t bounded the playing field, of which the above is a direct consequence. At any rate, I’m unsubscribing from this thread, as it’s wasted enough of my time already.