The Multicultural Departure Lounge

I've been critical of Newt Gingrich in recent days, so let me say that one thing I agree with him on is that, ultimately, culture trumps economics. That's why these "war on Christmas" stories aren't small things. When you decide you need to give equal space to a cruicified skeleton Santa (as in this weekend's Christmas column) you're calling the cops to bust up a performance of "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen" (as in my 2006 column below), you're on a slippery slope from societal decadence to dementia:

I passed through Shannon Airport in Ireland the other day. They've got a "holiday" display in the terminal, but guess what? It says "Merry Christmas." The Emerald Isle has a few Jews, and these days rather a lot of Muslims, and presumably even a militant atheist or two, but they don't seem inclined to sue the bejasus out of every event in the Yuletide season. By contrast, the Associated Press reports the following from Riverside, Calif.:

A high school choir was asked to stop singing Christmas carols during an ice skating show featuring Olympic medalist Sasha Cohen out of concern the skater would be offended...

“...Nobody should be obliged to believe Jesus is the son of God, but likewise nobody should take such umbrage at trees and tinsel and instrumental versions of ‘Silent Night’ that he would deny the reality of the land he lives in to the vast majority of his fellow citizens. Because the logic of that leads not to a diverse secular society but to an atomized ersatz non-society.”

A non-society won't bother to defend itself - no wonder the Progs are all for it.

The great Mark Steyn! bttt

“......you’re on a slippery slope from societal decadence to dementia......once you put reality up for grabs, all kinds of pathologies suddenly become viable.”

Mark Steyn: Even Christians taking Christ out of Christmas
Published: Dec. 16, 2011 Updated: Dec. 17, 2011 7:57 a.m.
http://www.ocregister.com/opinion/catholic-331894-santa-christmas.html

“...When an explicitly Catholic institution thinks that the meaning of Christmas is “tenderness for the past, vapid generalities for the present, evasive abstractions for the future,” it’s pretty much over. ....

“The crisis afflicting the West is not primarily one of unsustainable debt and spending. These are mere symptoms of a deeper identity crisis.

“It is not necessary to be a believing Christian to be unnerved by the ease and speed with which we have cast off our inheritance and trampled it into the dust.

“When American municipalities are proudly displaying the execution of skeleton Santas and giant Satans on public property, it may just be a heartening exercise of the First Amendment, it may be a trivial example of the narcissism of moral frivolity.

“Or it could be a sign that, eventually, societies become too stupid to survive.

“The fellows building the post-Western world figure they know which it is.”

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