Peace On Earth Goodwill Towards Men…If Only

“Peace of earth, goodwill towards men.” We hear this phrase every year during the holidays, albeit less and less thanks to the marketing-driven “reimagined” Christmas. But it wasn’t too long ago that people – if only for a month – put some worth into that statement.

Now, unless you’ve just awakened from a fifty-year coma, you understand that civility and goodwill have taken a backseat – for the most part – to self-importance, intolerance, and a mindset that entitlement and victimhood are things to aspire to, not to be ashamed of.

Gone are the days of greeting each other – and even strangers on the street and in the stores – with “Merry Christmas.” Gone are the days of hearing your doorbell ring in the evenings only to answer the call to see and hear Christmas carolers (perhaps an assembly of neighbors) singing the songs of the season. And today, trying to find any traditional Christmas shows – animated or otherwise – is becoming harder and harder.

Who Is To Blame In Our Blameless World

In no uncertain terms, we can pin the blame for the disappearance of traditional Christmas on the intolerant Left. Am I politicizing this malady? No. Am I a devout, church-going Roman Catholic? Catholic yes, church-going, not really, much to my Mother’s chagrin. Am I an emerging curmudgeon pining for the “old days”? No and perhaps, but with good reason. No matter how you choose to view my protestations, I am simply pointing out the facts of the matter. They are undeniable.

Because of the empowered “offended class” (and quite honestly there isn’t a lot of that mindset on the political Right or Middle), we are no longer able to say Merry Christmas to people without receiving a look of horror.

I was in a grocery store recently and as I finished checking out I looked at the bagger and said, “Merry Christmas.” You would have thought I cursed humanity on the whole with the looks I got from people around me. At least the bagger had the intestinal fortitude to respond, “Happy Holidays,” which I sincerely hope he didn’t receive a reprimand for saying.

By Historical Definition

But, what is wrong with saying “Merry Christmas”? Let’s dissect.

“Merry,” by definition, means “cheerful and lively” and “Christmas” denotes a holiday. So, saying “Merry Christmas” to someone means you are wishing them a cheerful and lively holiday, and who doesn’t want that wished for them? Not even the majority of the caustic Left has a problem with the Christmas holiday, most likely because they get a couple of days off from work and look forward to the materialism that the holiday now represents. Yes, there are those ridiculous woke bots – the extreme Left-of-the-Left – who have to sterilize everything to the greyest they can make things, but even they use a preferred seasonal greeting and, of course, look forward to receiving gifts and the time off.

But what was the genesis for the “expunge Christ from Christmas” movement and how has it come to this?

Leighton Grey, writing about a Canadian study on the subject for the Frontier Centre for Public Policy, writes:

“So why does the left look to destroy Christmas?

“The answer is because the Left opposes a celebration of the birth of Christ. The left hates Jesus. Leftists view Christians and Christianity as their enemy. They are correct in seeing Christianity as their primary ideological and political enemy. The only organized opposition to them has traditionally come from traditional Christian communities.

“Leftism is a secular religion believing that all other religions are immoral and false. From Marx to Lenin…the left has regarded religion, in general, and Christianity, in particular, as ‘the opiate of the masses’ – a drug that dulls us into accepting our oppressed condition that prevents the coming revolution. The Left understands that the more followers of Christianity, the less chance it has [of] gaining power. What it does not recognize is that Christianity gives hope to the hopeless. In this way, Christianity is powerful and can topple governments, even leftist governments.

“Strangely, the Left perceives Islam as an ally in the war against Western civilization. The Left knows that confronting zealous Muslims will be fatal while persecuting religious Christians who are bound by the Lord’s Second Great Commandment entails no such risks. Leftists do not want a fair fight; they want to bully those who have been called to live a life of peace.

“The [Left] regards Christianity as an intrinsic part of [our] national identity – one which it seeks to erode in favor of global citizenship…

“The Left especially hates Christmas because Left-leaning people are joyless. Whatever and whomever the Left influences have less joy in life. No one has ever met a happy Leftist. They are guided by the forces of darkness..Nothing stops them from the war on Christmas.”

And Then There’s This

The Left’s decision to use Jefferson’s letter to the Dansbury Baptist Association as a disingenuous wedge marks the launch of not only their war on Christmas but on religion as a whole. But nowhere in that letter is there a directive to expunge religion from the public square. Jefferson simply stated that there would be no establishment of a national religion as in England.

The letter reads in part:

“…Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church & State…”

So, as you see, there is more of a mandate to have religion in the public square than there is to expunge it from the public square. As usual, it is stunning how the political and ideological Left has raped history and words to serve its power-hungry agenda.

To add insult to injury, as of the 2020 Census, 7-in-10 Americans (approximately 70 percent) identify as Christian and nearly 1-in-4 Americans (approximately 23 percent) are religiously unaffiliated, meaning they have no preference between the religions but believe in a higher power. Just 4 percent of American adults identify as atheists and 5 percent as agnostics as of 2018-2019.

So, we are being denied the right to celebrate Christmas in a traditional manner – complete with the celebration of the Christ child – because of protests from just four percent of our population? If they don’t “believe” then why should it even matter to them?

Of course, this explains the increasing disappearance of Christmas nativity scenes, the aforementioned caroling (for fear of the celebration of Christ), and the throngs of lemming-like followers who cringe in fear at the salutation, “Merry Christmas.”

My Resolve

Not to make light of the subject, but rather in stated commitment to the defeat of Marxism and my dedication to the continuation of freedom, liberty, and individualism, I will continue to say Merry Christmas and look for opportunities to do so. There is no valid reason that a minuscule number of loud-mouthed, self-important malcontents should have the power to establish a national religion of anti-Christianity for the overwhelming majority of us.

As it was said in A Charlie Brown Christmas (almost impossible to find on network television anymore):

With that – even the ones that will cower in the corners at the sound of the words – I wish you all a very Merry Christmas!

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“And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men.” – Luke 2:11

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