Re: OT: It's a Christmas tree daggone it!

Pan Ohco wrote: 
On Tue, 13 Dec 2005 16:11:34 -0500, Bob (this one) wrote:

Pan Ohco wrote: 

My  problem is a corporation trying to remove a greeting, that a
significant portion of their customers use. If they directly told
their employees not to say Happy Hanukkah to a jew, or Happy Ramaden
to a moslem, you would be shouting discrimination.

No one has "directly told" an employee *not* to say Merry Christmas to a Christian. They've told their people to say Happy Holidays to *everyone* so they can offer equal good wishes to *everyone* without stopping to ask what their religious affiliation is. 

Wrong Bob. WalMart directly told their employees not to wish people
a Merry Christmas.

They told their employees to say Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas to *everybody. Not just Christians. Everybody. How about keep the sense in there if you're going to bitch about it. Changing the statement the way you did is shabby and deceitful.

> Even though "Merry Christmas" has been the normal
greeting for many years.

That was then. This is now. And now, the recognition that it's not just Christians coming through the door.

My extreme puzzlement is why you're so frothingly insistent that businesses mouth your formula words. Ostensibly, Christmas is about a long list of *internal* things. Religious and philosophical things. Private things. And you're all bent out of shape because somebody says Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas?

Like all lightweights, you think history began with your life. Do you have any idea how old Merry Christmas as a greeting is? Take a small clue from the fact that it's in English. And look at what the expressions are in other languages.
<http://www.inglewoodcarecentre.com/history/christmas_history.htm>

You want a theocracy - like the ones you right wingnuts decry - in so many countries of the world. You want religion to be a deciding factor in areas with no connection to it. The founding fathers specifically said that shouldn't be the case. You want to undo two centuries of the wisest structure in human political history because of your dimwitted inability to see where it leads. Where it has led in countless other cultures.

Also a numbers of Jews and Moslems in this country celebrate
christmas as a secular holiday.

Irrelevant. Unless you want to start saying "Happy Ramadan" and Happy Yom Kippur" to *everybody*.

That anyone can construe the words offered by a greeter in a store to be an insult or somehow diminishing religion

They don't

<LOL> You've already said it does. Forgot so quickly? And why else get all knicker-twisted? Remember, you said it harms your belief?

There have been few tempests in tiny teapots to rival this one.

Then why order you people to change their greetings.

<LOL> *You're* making the tempest. You poor, victimized Christians who want everyone to talk to you in the only acceptable fashion you will consider. *You* are the source of the tribulation about this meaningless bit of wordage. *You* are the sound and fury in this. Everyone else has taken it for the trivial thing it is. A pleasant way of greeting people and a formulaic statement of good will.

It's so stridently typical of this "victimization of the majority" nonsense that so many people want to drape themselves in.

Perhaps the majority is tired of bending over for the minority.

You disgusting idiot. Not saying Merry Christmas is somehow victimizing you? Some words *not spoken* harm you? Words, merely words, not delivered to you as you insist they be given diminishes you? Somehow, this harmless greeting means you're getting screwed? You pathetic whining, self-centered infant.

Waaa, you're not saying the words right, it makes me not want to go to church and pray any more and it's all your fault. Waaa... waaa...

No we have to talk to Christians in ways they approve of, screw free speech. 

Excuse me but did some one say that you could not say "Happy Holiday".
Oh by the way Holiday is a form of holy day

Looks like you and all the rest of your wackos are saying exactly that. Everyone *must* say Merry Christmas to you or else it makes you lose your beliefs, you say. It victimizes you. It demeans the nature of the celebration. Idiocy, pure and simple.

How utterly unAmerican.

Its un american to preserve your right to say "Merry Christmas".

Oh, Bull***. And learn to write a sentence. Whine more. Let's see tears this time to make it even more convincing. Phony baloney fake emotionalism

You may say whatever you want *when speaking for yourself*. When you're speaking for an organization that's paying you, you say what they want you to or you may seek your fortune elsewhere.

The only free speech that was removed, was that of the WalMart
employees.

Perhaps you need to understand that freedom of speech is a governmental right. It doesn't apply everywhere, in all situations. It's also probably against Walmart policy to tell customers *** you. They'd get fired for it, and reasonably so. The company *can* dictate what employees say in the performance of their duties. Period. It's a fact of everyday life in every job.

How sublimely stupid is this whole objection to Walmart's position. I'm tempted to shop there just so these whiny, "poor me" fudge-witted types don't get the upper hand in this.

Pastorio
.