Monday, November 9, 2015

The Pretend-War on Christmas…The Return!



Well it looks like Halloween is over and the pretend-war on Christmas season is upon us.

Some of the old incendiary memes are starting to appear. “Post this if you will say merry Christmas instead of happy holidays this year.” Sigh. Then the old bogus stories from five years ago appear and are refreshed. My husband’s friend told me that he knows someone’s aunt’s, cousin’s, bestfriend’s, mother’s, father-in-law who was fired from their job at the K-tel patty stacker factory for uttering the word Christmas. But, before they let him go everyone on the assembly line had to take a turn squishing his ass between plastic disks.

People—this did not happen. It does not happen! These stories are fake. Only people who are desperate to be persecuted make this shit up (and Fox news). Unfortunately there are still a few gullible people who share this crap without realizing that it’s just some turd trying to stir the pot.    

There are no government laws, rules, policies, or any other nefarious organizations out there who want to limit what people say to each other over the holidays. If you want to say merry Christmas, go for it. I’m 99.99% certain that there won’t be a mandatory jail sentence handed down if you do.  Unless of course, if you happen to be naked and flashing your raincoat while you are saying it, then all bets are off.  

The latest target in the pretend-war on Christmas is Starbucks. Apparently if you want to buy a seven dollar chai, mocha, low fat, latte decaf, with a candy cane stir-stick, you now get it in a holiday cup. These cups are the same as their regular ones except they are red. Yes, you read that correctly. Those bastards! How dare they? Instead of putting pictures of snowmen or reindeer onto their cups like they usually do they decided to go with a red cup and a white lid. I don’t know about you, but that’s enough to make me wonder why someone hasn’t reported them to the Human’s Rights Commission.

I understand how we can be sucked into bullshit agendas. I try really, really hard not to fall for this kind of stuff, but I can still get swept up in crap. For example, during the election someone started a movement to get niqabs banned from the swearing in ceremonies for Canadian citizenship, and I fell for it.  Not because I give two shits about what someone wears during the ceremony, but because I do care about women being forced to do things that they don’t want to do. In my mind, when I see a woman walking around wearing a sack over her head I immediately think that she is doing it because she has been brainwashed to do it since infancy. Or, some asshole is forcing her to look like a complete dweeb to make himself feel manly. So when I saw that meme I thought, “Dam right they shouldn’t wear one. It’s unsafe. What about security?” Ho-boy. Thanks Harper government, the pinnacle for promoting women’s rights in this country, for making me feel like an idiot.

I think it’s important to remember that when we begin to get offended after reading something on line, we need to start asking ourselves a few questions. Is this true? Do I really care? Could there possibly be a hidden agenda? What does Snopes have to say about it? Do I need to expend my time and energy with it? Would I look good wearing a Zorro mask?