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Just Leave Christmas Alone (Krauthammer)
The Washington Post ^ | 12/17/2004 | Charles Krauthammer

Posted on 12/18/2004 4:14:44 PM PST by Keyes2000mt

It is Christmastime, and what would Christmas be without the usual platoon of annoying pettifoggers rising annually to strip Christmas of any Christian content?

-snip-

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: bahhumbug; christmas; jews; judeochristian; krauthammer
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1 posted on 12/18/2004 4:14:44 PM PST by Keyes2000mt
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To: Keyes2000mt

Nah, let the anti-Christian thugs out themselves for what they are. It's nice to watch them self-destruct.


2 posted on 12/18/2004 4:22:21 PM PST by DoughtyOne (US socialist liberalism would be dead without the help of politicians who claim to be conservat)
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To: Keyes2000mt

for later reading.


3 posted on 12/18/2004 4:37:53 PM PST by Republicanprofessor
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To: DoughtyOne

I disagree....the courts are too often agreeing with the "anti-Christian thugs". I think we need more articles like this.


4 posted on 12/18/2004 4:47:13 PM PST by mtnwmn
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To: Republicanprofessor

Good article by Krauthammer. These people who feel set upon by the expression of religion really do need to grow up.

Let's recognize that the sun rises in the east, that the moon has phases, that tides exist, and that America has different religions and some have no religion.

It doesn't hurt me one whit to recognize and learn about Judaism or atheism (or any other religion.) Either of those religions -- or any other -- is an opportunity for me to learn how others think and view the world.


5 posted on 12/18/2004 4:48:05 PM PST by xzins (The Party Spirit -- the major issue that keeps me from taking them seriously.)
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To: Keyes2000mt

From Town Hall dot com (no registration required):

"Holiday celebrations where Christmas music is being sung make people feel different, and because it is such a majority, it makes the minority feel uncomfortable.''
-- Mark Brownstein, parent, Maplewood, N.J., supporting the school board's banning of religious music from holiday concerts.

"You want my advice? Go back to Bulgaria.''
-- Humphrey Bogart, in "Casablanca.''

WASHINGTON -- It is Christmas time, and what would Christmas be without the usual platoon of annoying pettifoggers rising annually to strip Christmas of any Christian content. With some success:

School districts in New Jersey and Florida ban Christmas carols. The mayor of Somerville, Mass., apologizes for ``mistakenly'' referring to the town's ``holiday party'' as a ``Christmas party.'' The Broward and Fashion malls in South Florida put up a Hanukkah menorah but no nativity scene. The manager of one of the malls explains: Hanukkah commemorates a battle and not a religious event, although he hastens to add ``I really don't know a lot about it.'' He does not. Hanukkah commemorates a miracle, and there is no event more ``religious'' than a miracle.

The attempts to de-Christianize Christmas are as absurd as they are relentless. The United States today is the most tolerant and diverse society in history. It celebrates all faiths with an open heart and open-mindedness that, compared to even the most advanced countries in Europe, are unique.

Yet more than 80 percent of Americans are Christian and probably 95 percent of Americans celebrate Christmas. Christmas Day is an official federal holiday, the only day of the entire year when, for example, the Smithsonian museums are closed. Are we to pretend that Christmas is nothing but an orgy of commerce in celebration of ... what? The winter solstice?

I personally like Christmas because, as a day that for me is otherwise ordinary, I get to do nice things, such as covering for as many gentile colleagues as I could when I was a doctor at Massachusetts General Hospital. I will admit that my generosity had its rewards: I collected enough chits on Christmas Day to get reciprocal coverage not just for Yom Kippur, but for both days of Rosh Hashana and my other major holiday, Opening Day at Fenway.

Mind you, I've got nothing against Hanukkah, although I am constantly amused -- and gratified -- by how American culture has gone out of its way to inflate the importance of Hanukkah, easily the least important of Judaism's seven holidays, into a giant event replete with cards, presents and public commemorations as a creative way to give Jews their Christmas equivalent.

Some Americans get angry at parents who want to ban carols because they tremble that their kids might feel ``different'' and ``uncomfortable'' should they, God forbid, hear Christian music sung at their school. I feel pity. What kind of fragile religious identity have they bequeathed their children that it should be threatened by exposure to carols?

I'm struck by the fact that you almost never find Orthodox Jews complaining about a Christmas creche in the public square. That is because their children, steeped in the richness of their own religious tradition, know who they are and are not threatened by Christians celebrating their religion in public. They are enlarged by it.

It is the more deracinated members of religious minorities, brought up largely ignorant of their own traditions, whose religious identity is so tenuous that they feel the need to be constantly on guard against displays of other religions -- and who think the solution to their predicament is to prevent the other guy from displaying his religion, rather than learning a bit about their own.

To insist that the overwhelming majority of this country stifle its religious impulses in public so that minorities can feel ``comfortable'' not only understandably enrages the majority, but commits two sins. The first is profound ungenerosity toward a majority of fellow citizens who have shown such generosity of spirit toward minority religions.

The second is the sin of incomprehension -- a failure to appreciate the uniqueness of the communal American religious experience. Unlike, for example, the famously tolerant Ottoman Empire or the generally tolerant Europe of today, America does not merely allow minority religions to exist at its sufferance. It celebrates and welcomes and honors them.

America transcended the idea of mere toleration in 1790 in Washington's letter to the Newport synagogue, one of the lesser known glories of the Founding: ``It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights.''

More than two centuries later, it is time that members of religious (and anti-religious) minorities, as full citizens of this miraculous republic, transcend something too: petty defensiveness.

Merry Christmas. To all.

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/charleskrauthammer/ck20041217.shtml


6 posted on 12/18/2004 4:49:25 PM PST by Rummyfan
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To: Keyes2000mt
"It is the more deracinated members of religious minorities, brought up largely ignorant of their own traditions, whose religious identity is so tenuous that they feel the need to be constantly on guard against displays of other religions -- and who think the solution to their predicament is to prevent the other guy from displaying his religion, rather than learning a bit about their own."

CK tells it how it is. Three cheers for the good doctor.

Merry Christmas to all

7 posted on 12/18/2004 4:59:34 PM PST by bubman
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To: mtnwmn

I agree with the idea of more articles like this. I also think it's time for right thinking individuals to start barking orders at the idiots among us. Until they've had their belly full of the idiots, people won't do that. So the idiots do serve a purpose by exposing themselves. That's all.


8 posted on 12/18/2004 5:01:13 PM PST by DoughtyOne (US socialist liberalism would be dead without the help of politicians who claim to be conservat)
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To: DoughtyOne

A recent Newsweek-conducted poll that found that 84 percent of American adults consider themselves Christians, and 82 percent see Jesus as God or the son of God. Seventy-nine percent say they believe in the virgin birth, and 67 percent say they think the Christmas story — from the angels' appearance to the star of Bethlehem — is historically accurate.

November 11, 2004
www.newsweek.com


9 posted on 12/18/2004 5:11:54 PM PST by soccer_linux_mozilla (I believe in the potential of Open Source software: Linux, Mozilla, Firefox, OpenOffice,etc)
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To: Keyes2000mt
Charles Krauthammer bump
10 posted on 12/18/2004 5:13:08 PM PST by af_vet_1981
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To: bubman

HAPPY BIRTDAY JESUS AND THANK YOU FOR CHARLES K.


11 posted on 12/18/2004 5:43:48 PM PST by debboo (Stop socialism, vote conservative)
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To: soccer_linux_mozilla

Thanks for the post. Yes, and that's why I believe the left and the anti-Christian bigots are barking up the wrong tree. This dog won't hunt.


12 posted on 12/18/2004 5:49:10 PM PST by DoughtyOne (US socialist liberalism would be dead without the help of politicians who claim to be conservat)
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To: bubman
Charles simply thinks on a deeper level than I. Genious.

I've been more militant with my "Merry Christmas" greetings this year and I encourage more of the same. No one should be offended, unless they're an A$$hole.

I've been politically correct for too many years because I was unsure and uncomfortable with the reaction from a non-Christian. No more. Time to reclaim Christmas.

13 posted on 12/18/2004 5:49:46 PM PST by chiller (1 down (Jf'nK) and 1 to go (old media))
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To: Rummyfan

God bless you, Dr. Krauthammer.


14 posted on 12/18/2004 5:59:45 PM PST by Tribune7
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To: chiller

Absolutely Chiller. Christmas is for all who want to participate in it. Those that try to turn it into some kind of crazed consumerist exercise without any reference to it's most deeper meaning will find that there are millions who will defend their god given right to celebrate this most important of holidays in the Christian calendar. Liberalism is on the defensive. Never feel that you have to do something for PC reasons. Never apologize!

To hell with them.

Merry CHRISTmas!

cheers


15 posted on 12/18/2004 6:05:06 PM PST by bubman
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To: All
First lets get rid of the UN and then the ACLU, I reallly don't care which comes first.
16 posted on 12/18/2004 6:27:58 PM PST by rodguy911 (rodguy911:First let's get rid of the UN and then the ACLU, or vice versa..)
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To: Keyes2000mt

I didn't know Krauthammer used to be a doctor. And until John Edwards said he and John Kerry would cure paralysis if elected (how selfish can you get), I didn't know Krauthammer was paralyzed. Does anyone know what happened to him?


17 posted on 12/18/2004 6:32:01 PM PST by Texas Eagle (If it wasn't for double-standards, Liberals would have no standards at all)
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To: Keyes2000mt
I'm struck by the fact that you almost never find Orthodox Jews complaining about a Christmas creche in the public square. That is because their children, steeped in the richness of their own religious tradition, know who they are and are not threatened by Christians celebrating their religion in public.

Good one!

18 posted on 12/18/2004 6:39:48 PM PST by Alouette (9 kids, 0 abortions, no kidding)
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To: Keyes2000mt

Rotten Holidays

alberilsm.jpgAl Beril, Liberal Times - Greenwich Village

Many celebrate the year end with festive lights, garlands or other wintry effects.  Some with religious decorations such as Menorahs or Nativity scenes.  Not the Melnicks.  You won't even find a trace of red or green on or in their home, or a single extra light.  And don't mention Christmas unless you are looking for a fight.  When asked why they've decidedly abstained from the holiday season they answered simply, "Honesty".

"We just decided this year we were going to be honest.  We are unhappy people who essentially don't like anyone else and we're not going to pretend otherwise.  In fact, we're still considering putting out our Halloween decorations just to make sure our point is made."

upset02.jpgThe Melnicks have been present at all Christmas protest meetings in the local schools.  "We're just being honest with the community as well.  We don't want anyone else to be happy either.  To see other people reveling for some religious event further offends us, and we certainly aren't paying taxes for that!  These people should get familiar with the specific part of the Constitution calling for the complete separation of church and state -- and let's be honest, we need an amendment for the elimination of church, period."

Since the holidays provide time off from work for most people, we asked the Melnicks what they planned on doing during that time:  "We're going to try out our new Ouija Board.  Then we're going to sit in the dark for a few hours and then go to bed.  We can't watch TV, and all the stores are closed.  It really is just a miserable time for us.  But then again, it's not all that different than usual.  Are we done yet?"
Qui Mundus Journal

19 posted on 12/18/2004 6:41:08 PM PST by QuiMundus (Learn, Act, Educate, Repeat)
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To: Texas Eagle
, I didn't know Krauthammer was paralyzed. Does anyone know what happened to him?

Krauthammer had a diving accident while in med school at Harvard that left him paralyzed. The med school arranged for him to do his specialty in psychiatry.

20 posted on 12/18/2004 7:22:37 PM PST by Tarheel (It is time for basketball on Tobacco Road.)
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