"I was at - forgive the expression - a christmas party..."

Originally posted by Sherlock Holmes
I know this may be slightly off-topic, but, as a non-American, here's something that I've wondered:

In the First Amendment of the US Constitution, it says: ''Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion...''.

Yet, as far as I understand, Christmas Day is an officially designated National Holiday. Doesn't this contravene that part of the First Amendment, as the only religious-based Public Holiday in the US, is the holiest day of one particular religion ?

Winter holiday.
Theoretically, new years day is closer to a religious holiday than christmas.
Christmas is simply a old pagen festival that the christians rebranded...new years is a count of how many years it has been since the birth of a messiah.

I see no real issue with christmas being a offical holiday considering it can be called by many other things. offically its called somethign benign, however religious people tend to label it something else...pagens label it yule-tide, christians label it christmas, jews label it winter holiday, atheists label it a consumerist pain in the arse dealing with family..etc

but new years is of no uncertain term and is questionable to its constitutionality beyond simply tradition.

reply to post by SaturnFX


Thanks for clearing that up.

As for the New Years Day holiday, I wouldn't have thought that it was overly religious - at least no more so than Christmas Day.

Even though its origin is Christian, it is the calendar and dating system that we use in the Western world, and most New Year's celebrations take on a rather secular meaning.

Although, I suppose if we really wanted to get PC, we could change our dating system to reflect the number of years since - forgive the expression - the Big Bang.

reply to post by SaturnFX


The party I went to last night started out as a Christmas party but gradually evolved into a hedonistic celebration of all things carnal. Whoa!

If I find political correctness offensive does that mean people must not be PC with/around me?
2nd line (forgive the expression)

Originally posted by SaturnFX
-sighs-

Political Correctness is stupid and annoying.

So are OPs like this. If you had the decency to include the actual source rather than hide the article behind the non-descriptor Source I wouldn't have bothered to click through to NEWSBUSTERS! Whose tagline is literally "Exposing & Combating Liberal Bias in the Media".

For the love of god...stop the idiotic Sara Palin speak...divide..divide...take a non-story, pitch it to ignorant folks and tell them they should be angry... and divide some more.

Who the Ef cares if Nina Totenberg said "forgive the expression"?? Who gives a rats ass? People speak.

It is doubly strange that she is being trashed for "culture war purposes" for actually saying "Christmas Party"...What would you have done if she had said "Holiday Party"...lynch her?

Dumb folks...desperate to get thier hate on, in the "Christmas" season of all times.

Newsbusters??? Seriously? Just bored and went fishing for some imaginary thing to get angry about?

I honestly hope you can find peace this holiday.

Originally posted by maybereal11

Originally posted by SaturnFX
-sighs-

Political Correctness is stupid and annoying.

Who the Ef cares if Nina Totenberg said "forgive the expression"?? Who gives a rats ass? People speak.

Uh, except remember Juan Williams, who was recently fired from NPR for saying sometimes fellow travelers made him nervous? He was fired for offending how many people with that remark? I'm willing to bet that quite a few millions more people are offended by Totenberg's remark.

The only fair action NPR's can take considering what they did to Williams is to also fire Totenberg - whether you like her or not.

Originally posted by maybereal11

Originally posted by SaturnFX
-sighs-

Political Correctness is stupid and annoying.

So are OPs like this. If you had the decency to include the actual source rather than hide the article behind the non-descriptor Source I wouldn't have bothered to click through to NEWSBUSTERS! Whose tagline is literally "Exposing & Combating Liberal Bias in the Media".

For the love of god...stop the idiotic Sara Palin speak...divide..divide...take a non-story, pitch it to ignorant folks and tell them they should be angry... and divide some more.

Who the Ef cares if Nina Totenberg said "forgive the expression"?? Who gives a rats ass? People speak.

It is doubly strange that she is being trashed for "culture war purposes" for actually saying "Christmas Party"...What would you have done if she had said "Holiday Party"...lynch her?

Dumb folks...desperate to get thier hate on, in the "Christmas" season of all times.

Newsbusters??? Seriously? Just bored and went fishing for some imaginary thing to get angry about?

I honestly hope you can find peace this holiday.

edit on 20-12-2010 by maybereal11 because: (no reason given)

lol, I read your post, and got a lol for christmas.

As far as political correctness beyond reason, I don't see that as a liberal thing, I see it as a moronic thing.
She went to a flipping christmas party..why do you have to excuse anyone for using a description of the party theme you went to?

As a full fledged far left social liberal, I find her wording stupid. I find its mindsets like that which frankly make the whole concept of political correctness to be total crap and an insult to communication.

Political correctness = not using racial slurs when discussing and ethnicity, or not using sweeping judgement statements, such as we are a christian nation...etc. Things like that

Where it turns into a disservice and stupid is when we find mentioning what type of party, or church, or holiday event you went to.

The problem here...the liberal media is now slowly morphing into some absurd sideshow circus freak by doing this completely by reaction.

As a right wing person will blast the lunatics and nonsense of their side, so the left should blast the nonsense from their side (like code pink, and this apologetic style even mention of the christmas in any context crap.

If you disagree and the left should never be pointed out for stupidness by their own side, then you should never speak of the opposite side of the fence when they (often) screw up or do something just stupid...you are unable to be anything more than a hypocrite.

For myself...I will always smack a liberal when they do something idiotic, which allows me to smack a conservative when they are being idiots.
luckily for me, cons are always doing something stupid, so I don't feel like I am picking on the left very much in comparison

Originally posted by whaaa
reply to post by SaturnFX

 

The party I went to last night started out as a Christmas party but gradually evolved into a hedonistic celebration of all things carnal. Whoa!

1) Die in a fire
2) invite me to next years party!!!
3) if no to 2, then see 1

at work, we deal with diverse clients, so i say "happy holidays". the catholics/christians always say "merry christmas" back. but we deal with muslims and jews so i dont want to be presumptuous.

"merry christmas" is exclusionary. "happy holidays" is inclusive. which do you want to be?

Originally posted by SaturnFX

Originally posted by whaaa
reply to post by SaturnFX

 

The party I went to last night started out as a Christmas party but gradually evolved into a hedonistic celebration of all things carnal. Whoa!

1) Die in a fire
2) invite me to next years party!!!
3) if no to 2, then see 1

2] then....bring Tequila and a can of Planters mixed nuts.

Originally posted by SaturnFX
lol, I read your post, and got a lol for christmas.

As far as political correctness beyond reason, I don't see that as a liberal thing, I see it as a moronic thing.
She went to a flipping christmas party..why do you have to excuse anyone for using a description of the party theme you went to?

As a full fledged far left social liberal, I find her wording stupid.

So do I....It was made in casual conversation...not prepared remarks...it was a nonsense remark, dumb and a clear overreach in political correctness.

That said...WHO CARES....The degree to which this NON STORY is being used to attack and divide grosses me out. Ooooo a reporter said something stupid....Those outlets that demand I see this as important news in any way offend my intelligence and reveal an agenda of division.

A reporter named Nina Tonenberg said something dumb....Whoopee.

In truth I believe she was trying to be humurous...in the video of her statement she even laughs a little and lulls her eyes to one side as if to say how the political correctness of Holiday vs Christmas is exhausting before she says it. If she was shooting for politically correct she would have simply said "Holiday Party".

But either way...who the ef cares? Seriously....what an absolutely dumb story...Fox News is robbing America of IQ points. They keep folks thinking about...and talking about... REALLY stupid stuff.

With that I won't be returning to this dumb thread..Que the pop-shots without fear of response.

It is funny to me, the whole Christmas versus "holiday" semantics.

Funny how uptight religious people can get when they feel their fictional character of choice is being slighted or left out.

That is why I choose to remain non denominational and just wish everyone a "Happy cold and flu season"

I really dislike this time of year.

1) I do not believe in the Christian stuffs, so I do not celebrate Christmas.

Well, I suppose I should put "try" not to celebrate. I don't care what anyone calls it, why must I be forced to participate?

I am not talking about decorations, I am talking about the treatment one recieves if they say "I don't celebrate this stuff." Take the example in the OPost, a "Christmas/whatever party." I used (remember that word) to have a job! At this job it was this time of year, man do I hate this time of year. Well this job had a "Holiday party", I explained that I did not wish to attend. I told them "I do not celebrate this stuff." (Paraphrased, I was not rude.)

Anyway, remember that word from before "used"? After that day, my hours were cut back drastically. Not all at once, of course, but I went from a 35+ hour week down to a 2 hour week.

I decided to get a new job.

This brings me back to my point, I am forced to celebrate the "Holidays" or "Christmas" or whatever. I don't want to, so hows this:

I won't tell you what to call it, if you don't tell me to participate.

Deal?

(I am sure you agree OPer, you have a good head on your shoulders. But how many others would agree?)

Originally posted by maybereal11

Originally posted by SaturnFX

A reporter named Nina Tonenberg said something dumb....Whoopee.

A reporter named Juan Williams also said something dumb....Whoopee. Oops! Fired by the same NPR both worked for ...

Only difference? Williams is perceived to be more "conservative", while Totenberg is by consensus a flaming lib.

Agreed, political correctness will be the end of us all.

When are people going to learn that you can't please all the people all of the time? Western nations are nearly always Christian based. If Jews, Muslims, Atheists want to live in the West, then fine, but they need to accept that the primary religion of the countries they choose to call home is Christianity.

In any event, Christmas was a celebration long before Christianity, they just hijaacked the holiday and built there religion over existing observances, something that was common in the time period.

I'm also an atheist, but have no problem telling people "Merry Christmas" or when people say it to me.

Just my 2 cents...

It didn't surprise me that she phrased it that way given that she is an NPR rep. That isn't really a slight against her or NPR as much as its just a statement of how I view the "company stance" at NPR and her following of it.

Now if say Hannity from Fox it said it would be surprising. But as it stands this is just talking head following the company / party line.

Now that I've said that - I do think its silly. If its where she (or anyone else) went - then that is where she went and she should say so.