{"id":1443003,"date":"2023-12-09T03:20:00","date_gmt":"2023-12-09T08:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/?p=1443003"},"modified":"2023-12-09T03:20:00","modified_gmt":"2023-12-09T08:20:00","slug":"bah-humbug-the-police-state-wants-us-to-be-a-nation-of-snowflakes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/bah-humbug-the-police-state-wants-us-to-be-a-nation-of-snowflakes\/1443003\/","title":{"rendered":"Bah Humbug: The Police State Wants Us To Be A Nation Of Snowflakes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bah Humbug: The Police State Wants Us To Be A Nation Of Snowflakes<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Authored by John & Nisha Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThis boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

– Charles Dickens,\u00a0A Christmas Carol<\/em><\/p>\n

What a year.<\/p>\n

It feels as if government Grinches and corporate Scrooges have been working overtime to drain every last drop of joy, kindness and liberty from the world.<\/p>\n

After endless months of being mired in political gloom and doom, we could all use a little Christmas cheer right now.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Unfortunately, Christmas has become embattled in recent years, co-opted by rampant commercialism, straight-jacketed by political correctness, and denuded of so much of its loveliness, holiness and mystery.<\/p>\n

Indeed, the season for giving has turned into the season for getting\u2026and for getting offended.<\/p>\n

To a nation of\u00a0snowflakes<\/a>, Christmas has become yet another trigger word.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

When I was a child in the 1950s, the magic of Christmas was promoted in the schools. We sang Christmas carols in the classroom. There were cutouts of the Nativity scene on the bulletin board, along with the smiling, chubby face of Santa and Rudolph. We were all acutely aware that Christmas was magic.<\/p>\n

Fast forward to the present day, and Christmas has become fodder for the politically correct culture wars.<\/p>\n

Over the years, Christmas casualties in the campaign to create one large national safe space have ranged from the\u00a0beloved animated classic\u00a0Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer<\/em><\/a>\u00a0(denounced for promoting bullying and homophobia) to\u00a0the Oscar-winning tune \u201cBaby, It\u2019s Cold Outside\u201d<\/a>\u00a0(accused of being a date rape anthem) crooned by everyone from Dean Martin to Will Ferrell and Zooey Deschanel in the movie\u00a0Elf<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Also on the\u00a0endangered species Christmas list<\/a>\u00a0are such songs as \u201cDeck the Halls,\u201d \u201cSanta Baby,\u201d and \u201cWhite Christmas.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

One publishing company even re-issued their own redacted version of Clement Clarke Moore\u2019s famous poem \u201cTwas the night before Christmas\u201d in order to be more health conscious: the\u00a0company edited out Moore\u2019s mention of Santa smoking a pipe<\/a>\u00a0(\u201cThe stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth, \/ And the smoke, it encircled his head like a wreath.\u201d)<\/p>\n

In the politically correct quest to avoid causing offense, Christmas keeps getting axed.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Examples abound.<\/p>\n

Schools across the country now avoid anything that alludes to the true meaning of Christmas such as angels, the baby Jesus, stables and shepherds.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In many of the nation’s schools, Christmas carols, Christmas trees, wreaths and candy canes have also been banned as part of the effort to avoid any reference to Christmas, Christ or God. One school even outlawed the colors red and green, saying they were Christmas colors and, thus, illegal.\u00a0
\nStudents asked to send seasonal cards to military troops have been told to make them \u201choliday cards\u201d and instructed not to use the words \u201cMerry Christmas\u201d on their cards.<\/p>\n

Many schools have redubbed their Christmas concerts as \u201cwinter holiday programs\u201d and refer to Christmas as a \u201cwinter festival.\u201d Some schools have cancelled holiday celebrations altogether to avoid offending those who do not celebrate the various holidays.<\/p>\n

In Minnesota, a charter school\u00a0banned the display of a poster prepared to promote the school\u2019s yearbook as a holiday gift because the poster included Jack Skellington from Tim Burton\u2019s\u00a0The Nightmare Before Christmas<\/em><\/a>\u00a0and other secular Christmas icons, not to mention the word \u201cChristmas.\u201d<\/p>\n

In New Jersey, one school district\u00a0banned traditional Christmas songs<\/a>\u00a0such as \u201cJoy to the World\u201d and \u201cSilent Night\u201d from its holiday concerts.\u00a0 A New Jersey middle school cancelled a field trip to attend a performance of a play based on Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol” because some might have found it “offensive.”<\/p>\n

In Texas, a teacher in Texas who decorated her door with a scene from \u201cA Charlie Brown Christmas,\u201d including a scrawny tree and Linus, was forced to take it down lest students be offended or feel uncomfortable.<\/p>\n

In Connecticut, teachers were instructed to change the wording of the classic poem \u201cTwas the Night Before Christmas\u201d to \u201cTwas the Night Before a Holiday.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Virginia, a high school principal debated about whether he could mention Santa or distribute candy canes given that they were symbols of Christmas.<\/p>\n

In Massachusetts, a fourth-grade class was asked to list 25 things that reminded them of Christmas. When one young student asked if she could include \u201cJesus,\u201d her teacher replied that she could get fired if Christmas\u2019 namesake appeared on the list.<\/p>\n

Things have not been much better outside the schools, muddled by those who subscribe to the misguided notion that the Constitution requires that anything religious in nature be banned from public places.<\/p>\n

In one West Virginia town, although the manger scene (one of 350 light exhibits in the town’s annual Festival of Lights) included shepherds, camels and a guiding star, the main attractions\u2014Jesus, Mary and Joseph\u2014were nowhere to be found due to concerns about the separation of church and state.<\/p>\n

In Chicago, organizers of a German Christkindlmarket were informed that the public Christmas festival was no place for the Christmas story. Officials were concerned that clips of the film \u201cThe Nativity Story,\u201d which were to be played at the festival, might cause offense.<\/p>\n

In Delaware, a Girl Scout troop was prohibited from carrying signs reading \u201cMerry Christmas\u201d in their town\u2019s annual holiday parade.<\/p>\n

Clearly, Christmas has become one of many casualties in the misguided dispute over the so-called \u201cseparation of church and state,\u201d a controversy that has given rise to a disconcerting and unconstitutional attempt to sanitize public places of any reference to God or religion.<\/p>\n

Yet there\u2019s a really simple solution to this annual angst of whether students and teachers can display Christmas-related posters, wear Christmas colors of red and green or sing Christmas songs, and that is for government officials to stop being such Humbugs and create a vibrant, open environment where all expression can flourish.<\/strong><\/p>\n

While the First Amendment prohibits the government from forcing religion on people or endorsing one particular religion over another, there is no legitimate legal reason why people should not be able to celebrate the season freely or wish each other a Merry Christmas or even mention the word Christmas.<\/p>\n

After all, the First Amendment affirms the right to freedom\u00a0for<\/em>\u00a0religion, not freedom\u00a0from<\/em>\u00a0religion.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hoping to clear up the legal misunderstanding over the do\u2019s and don\u2019ts of celebrating Christmas, The Rutherford Institute\u2019s Constitutional Q&A on \u201cTwelve Rules of Christmas<\/a>\u201d provides basic guidelines for lawfully celebrating Christmas in schools, workplaces and elsewhere.<\/p>\n

Yet while Christmas may be the \u201ctrigger\u201d for purging Christmas from public places, government forums and speech\u2014except when it profits Corporate America\u2014it is part and parcel of the greater trend in recent years to whittle away at free speech and trample the First Amendment underfoot.<\/p>\n

Anything that might raise the specter of controversy is avoided at all costs.<\/p>\n

We are witnessing the emergence of an unstated yet court-sanctioned right, one that makes no appearance in the Constitution and yet seems to trump the First Amendment at every turn: the right to not be offended.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In this way, emboldened by phrases such as \u201chate crimes,\u201d \u201cbullying,\u201d \u201cextremism\u201d and \u201cmicroaggressions,\u201d free speech has been confined to carefully constructed \u201cfree speech zones,\u201d criminalized when it skates too close to challenging the status quo, shamed when it butts up against politically correct ideals, and muzzled when it appears dangerous.<\/p>\n

At the slightest hint of trouble, government officials (and corporations) are inclined to chuck anything that might be objectionable.<\/p>\n

Yet when all is said and done, what the police state\u00a0really<\/em>\u00a0wants is a nation of snowflakes, snitches and book burners: a legalistic, intolerant, elitist, squealing bystander nation willing to turn on each other and turn each other in for the slightest offense, while being incapable of presenting a united front against the threats posed by the government and its cabal of Constitution-destroying agencies and corporate partners.<\/p>\n

You want to know why this country is in the state it\u2019s in?<\/p>\n

The answer is the same no matter what the problem might be, whether it\u2019s the economy, government corruption, police brutality, endless wars, censorship, falling literacy rates, etc.: every one of these problems can be sourced back to the fact that \u201cwe the people\u201d have stopped thinking for ourselves and relinquished responsibility for our lives and well-being to a government entity that sees us only as useful idiots.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Greek philosopher Socrates believed in teaching people to think for themselves and in the free exchange of ideas. For his efforts, he was accused of corrupting the youth and was put to death. However, his legacy lived on in the Socratic method of teaching: posing questions that help young and old discover the answers by learning to think for themselves.<\/p>\n

Now even the ability to think for oneself is in danger of extinction.<\/p>\n

As Rod Serling, creator of the classic sci-fi series\u00a0Twilight Zone\u00a0<\/em>and one of the most insightful commentators on human nature, once observed, \u201cWe\u2019re developing a new citizenry. One that will be very selective about cereals and automobiles, but won\u2019t be able to think.\u201d<\/p>\n

We face an immense threat in our society from this drive to obliterate our history and traditions in order to erect a saccharine view of reality. In the process, we are creating a schizophrenic world for our children to grow up in, and it is neither healthy nor will it produce the kind of people who will be able to face the challenges of a future ruled by a totalitarian regime.<\/p>\n

As I make clear in my book\u00a0Battlefield America: The War on the American People<\/em><\/a>\u00a0and in its fictional counterpart\u00a0The Erik Blair Diaries<\/em><\/a>, you can\u2019t sanitize reality. You can\u2019t scrub out of existence every unpleasant thought or idea. You can\u2019t legislate tolerance. You can\u2019t create enough safe spaces to avoid the ugliness that lurks in the hearts of men and women. You can\u2019t fight ignorance with the weapons of a police state.<\/strong><\/p>\n

What you can do, however, is step up your game.<\/p>\n

Opt for kindness over curtness, and civility over censorship. Choose peace over politics, and freedom over fascism. Find common ground with those whose politics or opinions or lifestyles may not jive with your own.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Do your part to make the world a little brighter and a little lighter, and maybe, just maybe, we\u2019ll have a chance of digging our way out of this hole.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Tyler Durden<\/a><\/span>
\nFri, 12\/08\/2023 – 22:20<\/span><\/p>\n

\u200bhttps:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/political\/bah-humbug-police-state-wants-us-be-nation-snowflakes<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

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