Red rags and bulls.

Sometimes it only takes a few words to set off a rant. A seemingly random comment can start that fury a-bubbling…

Anonymous said...
the Santa=Satan bit has been around for a loooooong time. some groups - like jehovah wtnesses I think - don't allow any observance of things like Santa or Halloween, etc

Ah, the commenter that dare not speak its name. Posts under the title 'Anonymous' are always fair game here.

You'd have to ask Tom Sheepandgoats about the specifics of why JW's don't observe Christmas. I suspect it's because it's actually a pagan sun-festival rather than any issue about name anagrams. The sun is at its lowest on the winter solstice, the 22nd, and doesn't appear to start rising in the sky again for three days. The 25th is the 'sun’s rebirth' to many ancient religions. I had a link to a documentary on that from Southern Writer, but can’t find it now.

Halloween is frowned upon by many religious groups. Many Christians, and other religions, refuse to get involved because of the supposed link to witchcraft and demons (in fact, it's the Celtic New Year and has nothing to do with either Satan or Santa), although most religions ignore it because it's simply of no interest to them.

Easter is a Pagan fertility rite, still practised as such in some parts of the UK. Again, Christians and others who refuse to get involved in chocolate eggs, rabbit costumes and dancing around maypoles are perfectly within their rights. It's not part of their religion.

However, none of the groups above are attempting to ban these festivals totally. None of them are trying to stop the rest of us having as much fun as we like. JW's don't observe Christmas but they've never knocked on my door and threatened to have me arrested if I deck a tree with tinsel, or nail a reindeer to my fence.

No Muslim has ever threatened me for buying a chocolate egg. No Hindu has ever tried to kill me for buying Halloween trinkets. No Sikh has ever kicked me while Christmas shopping. Most of these people are in fact quite happy to sell me these things, even though they won't make use of them themselves. They are not offended by them. They ignore them.

I have received a Christmas card from a Muslim ex-student who now lives in Syria. It’s not part of her religion, nor is it part of mine, but it was a very nice gesture. It was a gesture that doesn’t quite tally with the ‘Muslims are offended by Christmas’ rubbish that spouts from trembling politically correct lips these days.

I have no idea what Diwali means to a Hindu, but it evidently means a lot so I support their right to celebrate it. Likewise Hanukah, Ramadan, Easter, whatever festival anyone wants to have, let them have it. None are of interest to me. I won’t attend or take part. I will never, ever, support a ban on any of them unless they involve ritual human sacrifice. Banning one religion’s festivals while actively encouraging others is nothing more than bigotry. I defy you to prove me wrong, PC-bigots.

You, Anonymous, appear to have missed the point, and centred instead on my repeat of a very old joke.

The point is that all these bannings are done by the politically correct, not by the religious or other groups that get blamed for them. Banning 'Ho ho ho' is just another example of how ridiculous these people are. Offensive to women? Why, then, has no woman ever slapped a Santa for saying 'Ho ho ho' to her? Perhaps because the 'offense' exists only in the deranged imagination of halfwitted poltroons with the cognitive capacity of a sea-cucumber. This ban is one of the more extreme forms of insanity so far, but I’ll bet they’ll surpass it soon.

I'm not a member of any religion, nor of any group. If I was, I would feel demeaned and patronised to hear that a bunch of pompous morons have decided I need 'protecting' from something that 'might cause offence', without asking me or any member of the religion or group whether that was true.

Last Easter, in Aberdeen, the local health service decided not to let the staff observe Easter in case it offended the Muslims. The most vocal condemnation of this decision came from the local Muslim groups. They had never asked for this, they had no interest in suppressing the rest of the population. They said it was the most ridiculous idea they had ever heard. They were right. It insulted Christians and patronised Muslims, with the result that both were furious.

Naturally, the Muslims were blamed by the general public for the Easter ban. Unfair, but the faceless, anonymous politically-correct once more kept their heads below the parapet, their names out of public view. The public blame who they can see. They need a visible target because they’re not, on the whole, very bright.

Political correctness, and the control-freaks who use it, is causing more and deeper divisions between communities than any political party could ever manage on their own. These ridiculous rules make one side feel angry, the other feel patronised and used.

In the middle are the politically-correct, who might as well be lizard beings from the planet Zog, since they never have the courage to reveal their names or faces. Why is that? If they are, as they claim, the guardians of all public morals, why are they hiding? What is it? Three arms each? Severe facial unpleasantness? Or could it be that, deep down, they know they are worthless idiots and if anyone notices them, they’ll be out of work? Possibly tarred and feathered too.

I have observed (but never participated in) the flame-forums on Yahoo UK. The weapons of the politically correct are used to the full there. Principal among these weapons is deflection. Pick out a random, irrelevant point and make it the focus of discussion, so the original point is lost. Common, and easily spotted.

Those who make a comment such as ‘Immigration to the UK is out of control’ are shouted down and branded racist, bigot, Nazi. Yet recently we hear that something like five thousand illegal immigrants (illegal, mind) are working in sensitive security jobs. When you go through airport security, the guy checking you, and deciding whether you can get on the plane, might have no legal right to even be in the country. I expect I’ll be called Racist or some such for stating this, even though the news comes from the government itself and does not specify any race at all. It doesn’t matter any more. The words have no power now. They’ve been misused and overused to the point where they affect nobody. Soon, real racists will have the time of their lives because when they're denounced as Racist, everyone will shrug and say 'So what? Everyone gets called that.'

I will continue to ridicule the politically correct wherever I find them. To their faces, should they ever be found to have any. I will not be deflected, shouted down, sidetracked with irrelevancies or bow to lunatic claims of ‘racism’ because I have no interest in race.

I am interested only in intelligence. The colour of your skin, your accent, your gender, your origins are of no importance to me. You can be a green-skinned five-legged hermaphrodite from the bottom of the sea, who worships the Eyeballs in the Sky. I don’t care. If you’re intelligent, that’s all that matters.

On the other hand, if you’re an idiot, don’t expect me to keep quiet about it.