A Lump of Nothingness in my Stocking >>

Whenever Christmas rolls around, the same argument about freedom of expression, and the separation of church and state (actually a letter between Thomas J. and Danbury Baptists, not part of the Constitution and not bannishing faith) inevitably ensues. Next to the Crèche, the Menorah, and other Kwanzaa symbols is a small plot of earth reserved for the Atheist. On it, there is nothing.  Nothing covers it, nothing is built on it, from nothing it began, and after the holiday is over, nothing will be remembered of it. Perhaps a sundial to commemorate the Winter Solstice would suffice, but every garden holds this unremarkable timepiece.

To all the children of Atheist households, your parents have a message for you; on the night of Winter Solstice, the universal abstract of Chance will fly in its invisible cloud over your rooftop, descend down your chimney (assuming motion exists) and deposit a special gift of nothingness for you to receive in the morning as you race downstairs with giddy. Remember, your faith does not punish or reward deed or creed—it dispenses justice as equally and randomly as death and taxes. You cannot get a candy cane, as no material in existence can explain its origins, and you cannot receive a lump of coal as your new Pilate has vowed to bankrupt the coal industry. Take your nothingness, as a promise to you, your reward when this life is over. Rejoice and be glad!

For all the materialists out there, no lump of coal, just presents for everyone! Santa’s little helper, Treasury Secretary Paulson, is giving gifts to all this year, regardless of who is being naughty or nice. This is yet another alternative to the belabored god-talk of superstitious Bedouins. Material will make you happy!

Listen folks, we have every right for diversity and dissent, but this is Christmas! Bells are tolling and the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future are all in celebration at the New Born King! Peace on Earth and goodwill to men! Yeee Haw!!! Aside from being declared a national holiday, complaining about it makes you a wet blanket. I’m not going to move to Jordan and complain about the Hajj to Arabs. It’s what they do. Every law ever written is based firmly in some sort of morality and sense of right and wrong, and all of these things pull from Mankind’s sense of the Divine.

So, in the words of the UK Transit Advertisements, forget God and be good for Goodness’ sake. Whatever Good is defined as…anyway…

Yuletide news from 2007:

“The House voted Oct. 2 on a resolution that "recognizes the Islamic faith as one of the great religions of the world" and "acknowledges the onset of Ramadan, the Islamic holy month of fasting and spiritual renewal, and conveys its respect to Muslims," as well as commending those who reject hatred.”

“And on Oct. 29, the House voted to recognize the Indian celebration of Diwali, in which members of the Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist and Jain religions participate. The resolution said the House, "in order to demonstrate support for Indian Americans and the Indian Diaspora throughout the world, recognizes Diwali as an important festival.”

Now when Christians ask for the same recognition, people scream “American Fascism” and assume naively that Chris Hedges is correct in assessing that fascist movements are the product of zealotry for religion, not the cult of state that they have traditionally been. To these folks, the carpenter who forgave Mary Magdalene and spoke to the dignity of the sexes is more of a threat to civil liberties compared to the more austere Mahommedan empires. Building special footwashing restrooms on college campuses to accommodate Muslim students on public property…oh no…that’s just tolerant.

But the politics of Christmas are much deeper. I sometimes wonder if Christians ever became a statistical minority, if then Liberals would then extend such efforts of minority protectionism to folks like me. I doubt it. Most social engineering mechanisms remain in place, even after it has become obvious that their goal is achieved (case in point: more women graduate college and are still provided more gender-based scholarships). Their ulterior motive of course being to diminish the Christian Community, deliberately construct a hodgepodge nation, then divide it along ethnic, gender, and racial lines, and to confer a different set of free entitlements to each group, based simply on the accidents of birth and the assumption that each is congenitally disparate. They want to be the single unifier. A staggering majority of Christians presents a roadblock to this. Before the Civil Rights push of the 60s, Progressives loved segregation and hated personal hyphens with a rabid jingoism, but after Lyndon Johnson’s sudden twist, they operate under the persistent belief in “separate but equal.” Between the races, they desire integration on a civic and nominal level, redistribution on an economic level, and separation on a cultural level (liberals want statism to be the culture we share, not rugged patriotism, holidays, or a shared faith of a majority). They look to the craters of the past, and then look to the future for the stuffing to fill them. On all levels, the retribution cycle must continue. Conservatives, on the other hand, embrace Christmas and Christian tradition not to impose upon those who aren’t, but out of simple pragmatism towards what is an overwhelming, collective festivity in America. It’s something that almost all Americans can share, (and here is the clincher) and it does not belong to the state. Liberals hate shared consensus and values that exist outside of their planning, preferring to play God with the lives of millions.

-- “A man has as many social selves as there are individuals who recognize him.” - William James

Hence, Liberals are the most ethnically-divisive party, and thrive off of continuous tension. Note that they never attribute 95% of blacks behind Obama as black bigotry directed at whites. Ethnic division is how they get elected, thus I would go so far as to say that most Liberals would rather blacks celebrate Kwanzaa over Christmas for that very reason. Institutional and cultural nodes of unity outside the state are a threat, and so liberals pin most of what they deem our shared values as general, yet irrefutable abstracts like “a desire for justice,” “sense of fairness,” or Joe Biden’s “the dignity of work” (like working a 1/3 of the year for the feds). And I love this one: “the tradition of self-reliance and local planning” (which is actually the law if you believe in Constitutional Federalism... and should not be demoted to hokey superstition of the plebs). These broad notions cannot be denied by any rational person polled on Main Street, yet in the minds of those who utter them on a dais, they extend from no institution beyond their intended cynosure; Washington, not the folks.

So far be it from me or anyone to force a faith on the public. Just leave the land open to anyone who wants to post something on it, as long it isn’t obscene. Loyalty oaths directed at secular regimes with standing armies and programs, such as under Wilson and FDR, are more a threat to liberty than a faith in something distant, abstract, and from a sweet "by and by." For those who point back to the Spanish Inquisition, remember that the general public was incapable of even reading the Sermon on the Mount, let alone applying it. Mr. Torquemada did not have a literate public opinion with which to contend. More literate Christian nations, such as England after the Napoleonic Wars, abolished slavery and put stock in a queen, not a king. Traditionally, fascists try to hijack the zeal of faith for government, but today's Liberals would contend that the church is requesting the powers of the governemnt for itself. So folks like yours truly assert that in asking for equal time on public land, the Christian Community is asking for no such power but a place in the cultural sphere that the government should not occupy (but often attempts to for mainstream impetus in its programs and mobilizations).

Liberals must, if they claim to cry off public zealotry, stop deifying their own institutions. You guys are making Constantine blush. The government cannot love you.

-- “And one of the things that I strongly believe is that, you know, we are not going to, as individuals, be able to erase evil from the world; that is God’s task. But we can be soldiers in that process, and we can confront it when we see it.” -President Elect Barack Obama

-- “The god whom science recognizes must be a God of universal laws exclusively, a God who does a wholesale, not a retail business. He cannot accommodate his processes to the convenience of individuals”. - William James

In any case, Progressives who run on platforms of folksiness and tradition and then legislate like secular technocrats represent the greatest threat to the Freedom of Religious Expression yet known to America. And it is their exhortation of the virtue of state over the nation and the singular man that threatens to adulterate the purity of faith. In the Nativity Story, they would be cast as Augustus Caesar, conferring King Herod his right to Pro-Choice policy, hiking taxes for federal programs, and doing so claiming it all as a "moral crusade," which treats the trancendental brokenness of humanity with logistical solutions. I denounce it as much as I denounce Prosperity Doctrine.

To the Liberal, man can live on bread alone, and that is the highest yearning towards God. Christmas is just an appendage to that.