Michael speculates as to who the aggressors in The Liberal War On Xmas might actually be--those shadowy folk who are always trying have it cancelled, or trying to replace "Merry Xmas! with "Happy Holiday!", or trying to have the whole thing renamed "STFU Day", or who go to the mall and tell all the kids in line that its not really Santa, and he probably drinks.
Well, Michael Coren, I am those people. And you do get some stuff right in your column: its not a strictly anti-christian thing--I hate Santa even more than Jesus. But it isn't a crusade against "The West" by any means. Its something at once deeper and more idealistic than that.
Put simply, we militant secularists are against Joy. Life is boiled potatoes, offered on a plate without even margarine as a condiment. Xmas just makes people think that life is boiled potatoes with a bunch of gross sticky syrupy stuff added, that seems good for a bit and then tastes nauseating in its sweetness, which makes you lie around on the couch and fart like a pig for two weeks as your stomach reels from the excess! And which all just disguises the fact that once February comes around its back to boiled potatoes again, straight-up.
And as Joy breeds Hope, and Hope is never justified, we militant secularists eschew both. And if we don't need Joy and Hope, neither does anyone else. Quod erat demonstrandum.
Our philosophy is best articulated in that Xmas Classic cartoon How The Grinch Stole Xmas! Except you have to ignore the last five minutes of it, where The Grinch, on the very cusp of victory, cracks at the sound of music (there's a reason the Taliban hate music!) and gives those freaks in Whoville all their Xmas Crap back! Which, I might add, mostly winds up in a landfill before New Years Day!
I hear the studio insisted thay add that bit, but it totally spoils the story-line. My heart is broken every time I watch.
Except you have to ignore the last five minutes of it, where The Grinch, at the very cusp of victory, cracks at the sound of music (there's a reason the Taliban hate music!) and gives those freaks in Whoville all their Xmas Crap back!
ReplyDeleteYou have to watch it backwards, from finish to start. That way it turns into a tale of a joyous and generous spirit who learns to despise Christmas. This also works when watching A Christmas Carol.
I suppose if you watch A Christmas Carol backwards, it does turn into a story of how capitalism corrupts good men.
ReplyDeleteOddly enough, that's pretty much the story you get if you watch it frontwards. The only difference is that the backwards version is a tragedy, as the main character is never redeemed.
Hm!
From Coren's column:
ReplyDelete"But I’ve hardly ever met any members of the occupation forces, those people who hate the season and want to expunge it from our calendar."
Ah, but he's sure they exist, that they are Legion, and that their presence is a symptom of the west's inexorable decline.
This is a man who is certain he knows how you should live, while he flops back and forth between tepid Catholicism and evangelical Christianity.
But he knows how you and your neighbors ought to behave down to the smallest detail; and he knows that any deviation from his standard is a sign that western civilization is DOOMED.
He really should have called his Sun News show The Eunuch Who Scolds You.