Catholic blogger Mark Shea is usually wrong on economics and libertarians, but he’s good at identifying the more pathological aspects of the right-wing culture warriors. Today’s contribution from Shea is a nice introduction to this year’s war over “Happy Holidays!”:

Had a conversation recently on FB with somebody who announced “I love saying ‘Merry Christmas’ because it makes liberals squirm” and who followed this up with the strange remark that saying “Merry Christmas” is like giving rat poison to liberals.

Cuz that’s not at all pathological or anything.

Here’s the thing: when you turn a blessing like “Merry Christmas” into a culture war weapon against Teh Damn Libruls, the problem is with you, not the people you seek to make “squirm”.  Hoping that somebody will hate Christmas so you can make them squirm is an excellent way to make yourself hateful.  Comparing Christmas to rat poison is serious Mission Creep.

And, of course, the irony is that these mythical squirming liberals are mythical.  I live in ultra-violet blue Seattle and regularly wish people “Merry Christmas” all the time during the season.  Nobody takes offense or squirms.  They just say thank you, offer some similar sentiment, and smile and everybody goes on their Merry Christmas way.  The *only* people I ever run into who talk about how allegedly offensive “Merry Christmas” is are Culture Warrior Right Wing Christians who dream of making somebody squirm by saying it.  I have never in my life been told by any Lefty that “Merry Christmas” offended them.  I have often been wished “Merry Christmas” by Lefties (and by non-Christians of various stripes).

…

And, of course, the grand irony is that the real driver in the neutral “Happy Holidays” approach to Christmas is not Squirming Secular Humanist Liberals.  It’s good old-fashioned beloved-by-conservative-Christians Capitalism.  Corporations and businesses who don’t want to offend customers are the ones who opt for the cheery neutrality.  Ordinary people, however, still tend to take any greeting cheerily.  If a clerk says “Happy Holidays” the sane response is “Thanks!  Merry Christmas to you too!”  If a Jewish friend says “Happy Hannukah!” the sane response is “Thanks!  You too!” not, “Merry *Christ*mas, Jew!”

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