Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays

Every year at this time there are discussions and some controversy over saying “Merry Christmas” versus saying “Happy Holidays”. (I’m a Merry Christmas guy, but the other is fine too. Both are nice sentiments. That is not the case with retailers who talk of “holiday gifts” when they mean “Christmas presents”.  That’s phony and deserves disapproval  just like any other phoniness.  Any retail executive whose company’s ads blather about holiday gifts  deserves to have his bonus reduced  to reflect only profits due to sales of Kwanzaa gifts.)  Religious people have observed correctly that leftists created the controversy by making saying “Merry Christmas”  at least somewhat taboo under the canons of political correctness.  They often attribute this to the leftists’ disapproval  or even hatred of Christianity.  There is something to that, but I do not think it is the main reason many on the left have a problem with Christmas.  Christmas is as much a secular holiday as a religious one. Millions of people around the world who are not Christians enjoy the Christmas season and take part in its festivities.  Christmas trees, Santa, Frosty the Snowman, presents, Yule logs, long cherished Christmas movies, and Rudolph have little or nothing to do with Christianity.   Easter is a far more Christian holiday than Christmas, and the leftists seem to leave it alone.  

(The leftists’ stated  reason that saying Merry Christmas might offend  people who do not celebrate Christmas or leave out people who celebrate other holidays at the same time of the year is not to be taken seriously because it is not applied anywhere else. For example one can imagine how people making that argument  would react to a similar claim that Martin Luther King Day  should be referred to as the January Holiday to avoid offending those who instead celebrate Elvis’s birthday or Confederate Heroes Day.)

I think the leftists' real objection is more to the “Merry” than to the “Christmas” in its religious sense.  The Christmas season is one of  people freely and  on their own having fun, appreciating family and friends, feeling and acting benevolently, and  generally experiencing joy in their lives all without any direction or supervision from their self-proclaimed betters and would be rulers. Many leftists are puritans in Mencken’s sense of the term. They also have abiding distaste for this country and most of its people.  The idea of millions of people going around so obviously feeling good and being happy and generally satisfied with themselves and their lives would naturally be hard for them to stomach.

So Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night. 

The FBI and Me

The news about the FBI seems to speak for itself. It is hard  avoid the conclusion that  the bureau is to some degree a corrupt, politically biased organization which should not be trusted in matters connected with politics.  From the treatment of the various cases concerning  Hillary Clinton, to Mueller’s  and Comey’s behavior, to the business about fabricating an “insurance policy” against Trump,  to the recent disgraceful stuff in the trial of the Bundys, the recent evidence seems fairly clear.

This leaves open the question of how well the FBI does in cases without a connection to politics. One incident proves nothing about that, but my only interaction with the FBI of the Obama years is interesting. A few years ago my brother, another nephew, and I learned  that a widowed, childless aunt of ours in her nineties had been cheated out of many thousands of dollars by fake lotteries and other mail, phone, and internet scams.  (We found no evidence of money going to Nigerian princes, but there were things of that sort.)

We reported it to the local police. They sent an officer to talk to her, but since all the places she had sent money were out of state, all he could do was advise her to stop falling for scams. We made contact with people at the FBI and, as they instructed, sent them evidence including proof of transactions with amounts and dates and the names and addresses of places  our aunt had sent money. That was it. After that we never heard from them – no phone calls, letters, emails or anything.  If our aunt heard anything, she never mentioned it. As far as we know, the whole thing was just dropped without even the courtesy of  telling us so.

I have no way of knowing if this is unusual or typical.  

Bad Behavior and Explanations

The news lately has been full of stories of  famous or at least well known men having behaved badly sexually toward women (and sometimes boys or other men)  by  actions including vulgar and unwanted solicitations, insulting inducement, harassment, intimidation, bullying, or even assault or rape.

Some religious and social conservatives have blamed this on people’s abandoning traditional notions of proper sexual behavior  - such as the disapproval of sexual activity before or outside of marriage, the condemnation of homosexuality as sinful, the particular importance of female virginity at the time of marriage, and the general view of sexual interest and behavior  as part of humanity’s lower nature  -   starting with the so-called sexual revolution of the 1960s and getting worse ever since.  To them there is a natural progression from  more liberal attitudes on sexuality   to Weinstein, Spacey, and Lauer.  Yet there is no necessary or observable connection.  It is quite possible to think that people do not need the approval of the government or a church for their sexual activities, that homosexuals are not sinners, that  virginity up to marriage is not important, and that sex is a fine thing and still disapprove of and refrain from coercing or harassing  anyone sexually. Many people do  so, while many people with strict traditional beliefs are guilty of these things.  The argument seems to say more about a historical thread of hostility to sexuality in Christianity than about anything really occurring. It calls to mind both Mencken’s definition of a puritan and the old quote about a person having been taught  that sex is the most bestial and degrading of human activities, and one must save it for one the person he loves most in the world.

Some leftist feminists have put the blame on masculinity – not some  men’s hubris, indecency, or lack of honor, but on masculinity itself. This makes even less sense than what the social conservatives are saying. There are plenty of strong, masculine men  who restrict their romantic attentions and activities to women who are receptive to them, do not assume all women fall into that category, and behave as gentlemen.  There are plenty of wimps who are harassers or worse.  (It is fair to note that it is likely  neither Al Franken nor Kevin Spacey nor Matt Lauer, to cite some prominent examples, would be seen by most people as an exemplar of masculinity.)  This argument seems to say more about a thread of neurotic man hating in leftist feminism than about anything really occurring.  It also serves to support the viewpoint of some rude stereotypes and crude jokes about leftist feminists. 

There are, however, some simple and obvious observations to help explain what has gone on.   Successful phonies are good at fooling people and often can do so for a long time. Unethical people will tend to do what they think they can get away with.  When they get  some power and authority, they will tend to think they can get away with a good deal.  Fame  does not make trash any less trashy or scum any less scummy.  People sometimes tolerate more than they should from people they fear or think can be of benefit to them. That covers a lot of it. 

Hollywood, TV, and Business

Many people have noticed and complained that business people are usually depicted in American movies and TV shows (including news shows) as villains.  The usual explanation is that  the industry is controlled by leftists whose work displays their ideology.  While that is well supported by evidence, I think there may be another important reason for the bias. 

When one sees  a priest or preacher denounce all humanity as inherently base, wicked, and damnable, it is fair and useful to remember that the human being he knows best is himself.  When one sees a white American leftist denounce white Americans as vile, pampered, exploitive,  racial bigots who do not deserve anything they have, it is fair and useful to remember that the white American he knows best is himself.  Similarly when one sees people in the movie and TV business  depict  business people as vicious, scheming, unprincipled, hypocritical, brutal phonies and scoundrels, it is fair and useful to remember the business they know best is their own.

While the opinions of business they present are false about  the business world in general,  they  could be accurate and justified takes on business as practiced in  the  industry in which  they live and work  - one dominated by its Kevin Spaceys, Harvey Weinsteins, and Matt Lauers.  There they have direct experience and might know what they are talking about.