Duh, yup, sure. Alls of us'n really bulieves this Christmas-hating lunatic.
Only deranged minds would engage in this kind of atrocity.
These crackpots demonstrate a visceral hatred of Christians, Christmas, and its sacred meaning to billions of people around the world.
There's a place for sickos like this: a padded cell, in straitjackets.
Better yet, Joel and Mildred, if you don't like the way I celebrate Christmas, then GTH out of my country.
Being outraged does not give one the right to criminal behavior.
The abysmal event described here also serves to underline the cultural undermining going on, which Focus on The Family might address.
Although Julius Spohn should not have gone on private property to commit such an act (loudly applauding him), the crack pot Krupnik that erected the Santa actually incited the act.
Bravo, Marine, Bravo!
I also have no idea why Santa is a holy part of Christmas..., and yes, I know the history of St. Nicholas. When I see what Christmas has become, I think strangling "Santa Claus" might not be a bad idea myself.
Is it possible to love the idea of Christmas and hate with all your being what it has become?
As an aside, we celebrated Christmas a week early, as my wife is flying out to visit relatives today and yesterday was the last day we would all be together. For various reasons, we had two people join our family for the meal and for presents. One of these kids was Mexican and not very wealthy at all. When the gifts were opened, he pointed to a box and to me and said in his broken English "For you." It turned out that many months ago, I had enlisted him to help me move some stuff, and I complimented him on his Nike sneakers. The kid remembered that, and when we invited him in to share Chistmas meal with us, he went out an bought me an identical pair for Christmas! I have seldom been so moved by an expression of simple love and generosity, as his budget was not one that made such a purchase "easy." If there is a reason to keep St Nicholas in Christmas, that kind of stuff it is. I would be more in favor of Santa displays if there were some way to get that kind of stuff in there, rather than "BUY BUY BUY!!!!"
Funny how this piece of crap is tolerated and protected as "free speech" but when it's about Jesus, all of a sudden it's "forcing your beliefs on someone else" and "offensive". Glad these folks aren't my neighbors. I'd be really concerned about living near someone who would even THINK UP something like that, much less have the nerve to be so in-your-face as to actually put up something that they know would be so offensive to everyone else.
While we don't have to like the display, the guy was in the wrong. He did tresspass and tear up the owners' property.
'Nuf said. Too bad he apologized, because he had nothing to apologize for. The ghouls who set this up should have been apologizing!
Bravo , Bravo , Semper Fi and a Merry Christmas to him and his whole family . . .
The man has no impulse control.
Good work, Marine. As usual.
What an idiotic display. My kids know the reason for the season is Jesus, but good Lord, we do have fun with SAnta. I get so sick and tired of people thinking that they cannot peacefully coexist. ARGH!
He was wrong but his heart was in the right place. LOL
I believe that while it was trespassing and destruction of property and should be subject to law, he did the right thing.
I don't necessarily think though he should be prosecuted. if anything, give 'em both d.c. tickets--IMHO, if he didn't do it, someone else eventually would have. Plus, it's not like Julius saw a brownhouse and vandalized it. That would be trespass and destruction of property. He walked through a gate and put the display on the ground.
If these Nutts were able to hang their gory display back up, folks, did he really destroy any property? IMHO, not at all.
However, free speech is not absolute, and Uncle Joel here needs to learn that. Speech that is hateful, gruesome, obscene, or depicts something clearly beyond poor taste is generally held NOT to be protected speech.
What Joel should have realized is that by displaying such a perverted display, he'd be instigating his own problem. It's a lot like yanking the dog's ears and tail until he bites you, then trying to have the dog put down because he bit you.
Having a beef about Christmas is his own can of worms. If that's what this Scrooge thinks, fine. While I'm sorry he believes it, that's his problem to deal with, not mine. But setting up a grisly fake murder of Santa Claus in public sight is a different case entirely.
Especially when this Moonbat's teenage daughter came up with the idea. That's what makes it even more disturbing.
People motivated to view any of the anti-Christmas displays, should go to their houses and start carolling. The people inside those houses would go nutz if they heard Christmas carols every night.
hehehe... that is just better.
Right on. And if you don't like the way they celebrate Christmas, GTH out of theirs.
All season long we Freepers have been rightly applauding the retailers who say "MERRY CHRISTMAS", despite the fact that some people will be offended by it. There's something un-American about allowing our actions to be dictated by fears of offending somebody.
Well, that has to cut both ways and back again. If this guy was offended by the way some jerks observe Christmas, he should have said something offensive back to them and left it at that.
"Bow Down, Bow Down, Before the Power of Santa,
or Be Crushed, Be Crushed,
By His Jolly Boots of Doom."
This is for little kids.
I was on 18th St. on Thursday & saw this display. It's a quiet block in a fairly low-key area of Manhattan, a few blocks away from the Village. A few doors down from this brownstone there is a row of houses that are among the oldest remaining in Manhattan, more than 150 years old & on the National Register of Historic Places. I'd wanted to take a picture of these houses for quite some time but am not often in that neighborhood. I'd heard about the bloody Santa display but didn't know it was on that block.
The building where the display is has some of the most amazing gargoyles I've ever seen. Some looked like fairly recent additions, but there were many where it was difficult to tell how old they were. These brownstones are typically around 80-100 years old. Thing is, when you see a collection like that, it's usually a tip-off that the owner is some type of eccentric, to one degree or another.
The display itself was much ado about nothing, with the exception of Santa's bloody knife, and a prominently displayed, bloody & decapitated Barbie doll strung in a tree a few feet away. It was certainly one of the more extreme & nonsensical expressions of opinion on something like a holiday that I've seen, but I certainly didn't think it was worth wasting any time thinking about. There's always going to be some wacko looking for attention. And there's always going to be someone whose feelings steer them toward misguided acts who will give them that attention.
I snapped a few pictures & went on my way. While I was there, a few people stopped to look, had some sort of reaction, & continued on their way as well. Nothing to see here? Perhaps that's overstating it. Little to see here, is more like it. If you care about Christmas & think it was somehow disgraceful...well, I saw a poster above state that this was not 'destruction of property,' which is probably true. However, to say that it was not trespass is completely inaccurate.
Anybody has the right to protest on the street & call attention to this if they find it offensive. I would suggest that if it bothered this guy so much, that's what he should have done. Of course, then he's calling attention to something that should be ignored as much as possible, in my view. Even more obviously, what he did called even more attention to it.
Brilliant.
I will not disagree that this is probably more of a protest on Christmas than one about the commercialization of it. Nevertheless, unless I care to call the person a liar, then I may accept that they are sincere. To be honest, though, I fail to see why anyone would care all that much. This is not a school block, so, outside of neighbors (and I will point out that this is a very expensive area in which to own such property), I don't think all that many children are going to see this display. Until it made the news, that is. (There was a report on the local cable news outlet about it early last week, but a minor one) I do like the idea that children raised properly will either understand the ridiculousness of this, or will have it explained to them by their parents. I realize that there are many scenarios in which this is not going to be the case, but in the bigger picture I don't think this is something that's going to damage or scar a child, especially one who's growing up in a place like Manhattan.
I will not post the photos I took, because I will not give this the sort of attention they're so eagerly seeking. I did show them later that day to one of the most rabidly liberal people that I know. He was shocked, outraged, and looked physically ill when he was handing my camera back to me. He didn't say 'hate speech,' but, knowing liberals as I do, I have a feeling it was on the tip of his tongue. He's lost interest in throwing that term out at me, though, at this point. In any case, I understand the outrage, but there are things I find far more outrageous--such as what looks like a transit strike in this city 12 hours from now--and I say let a jerk put something like this in his front yard, and let the rest of us roundly ignore it.
How does destroying a maccabre "Santa" display "save Christmas"? Jesus had no part of this display. It is a shame to see this ex-Marine confusing Santa for Christ somehow. There is no connection. Better had he added a Mother and Child to the display.