I don’t typically do Christmas posts. I have in the past, I’ve also done Christmas-themed videos, but how much can you really say about a holiday that never changes? Therefore, at least online, I pretty much ignore all holidays because I’ve said what I have to say.

However, Viced Rhino did a video on Christmas and there’s a lot of problems in it that I wanted to address. I think this is another case of only looking at things from your own side.

So here we go.

First, of course, here’s the video. Feel free to take a look and come back when you’re done.

He goes into a lot of detail on the Puritans, which is absolutely correct and something I suspect most theists aren’t even aware of. For most far-right theists that I see, their awareness of reality starts around 1950, with the sole exception of the fanciful tales in their big book of multiple choice. They don’t tend to know much. So far, so good.

Unfortunately, immediately thereafter, he starts reading things into the right-wing position that simply isn’t justifiable. He shows a Prager U video, where Dennis Prager asks people to say Merry Christmas. That’s asks. Not demands. Not proposes force of law. Asks. What’s wrong with that?

Rhino immediately goes off on a tangent where it seems, he thinks that Christians are insisting that everyone say Merry Christmas. They’re not. They’re asking that people do it. It’s self-serving to be certain, but they’re not holding a gun to anyone’s head. You know who is doing that, at least metaphorically? The left. After all, it’s the left that has passed, or tried to pass, laws to penalize people who use the “wrong pronouns”. Some of those laws have passed and then been booted because they violate free speech. There’s a whole section of the video about free speech that we’ll get to later, but I find it bizarre that the left aren’t even aware, or at least aren’t willing to be honest about the actual reality that’s going on.

He then tries to use a Ben Shapiro video against Dennis Prager when, in reality, they both agree. Free speech matters. They’re only asking people to freely exercise their rights to say Merry Christmas. They aren’t demanding that anyone be forced into it, at least in the videos presented, so where’s the problem?

Rhino then goes into a discussion about workplace requirements and corporate rights and all of that, but the part that I wanted to respond to was this. Corporations and any business really, has every right to tell their employees what they can and cannot say while on the job. Employees are inherently an extension of the business and must operate in the businesses best interests if they wish to remain employed. You are trading your labor for a paycheck. That’s how it works. Therefore, if Hobby Lobby says “you’re going to say Merry Christmas” you say Merry Christmas. If another company says “you’re going to say Happy Holidays” then you say Happy Holidays. You are doing what your employer tells you to do while you are on the job. What you choose to do on your own time is entirely up to you. It’s why, as crappy as it is, I’m fine with Hobby Lobby not paying for abortion coverage. If you don’t like their policies, go get a job somewhere else. Nobody owes you employment. You decide where you’re going to spend your time in exchange for a buck.

Whether anyone likes it or not, your right to free speech is somewhat curtailed while on the job. You don’t get to tell customers that your place of employment sucks, at least not if you hope to remain employed.

Now you can still say it but as we all know, actions have consequences. You can say Merry Christmas where a company has mandated Happy Holidays. You’ll just be on the unemployment line after you do. That’s your decision and you can’t blame anyone else for what happens. You knew the expectations and you violated them. Go find a different job. If your employer mandates a specific uniform and you show up to flip burgers in a t-shirt that reads “Fuck McDonalds”, expect to get fired. You’re on their dime and they get to decide if they want to continue paying you or not.

He then goes into proposed bills, all listed from the south, that insist that teachers can use religious language if they want.  That’s a really gray area. On the one hand, the school is the employer and thus, they ought to have a right to dictate behavior among their employees. On the other, it’s also the government and the government can’t discriminate for or against religion. Is the fact that a teacher, who is a representative of the state in their role, insists on pushing a Christian-only sentiment discrimination against those who aren’t Christians, or, as I personally think, since Christmas is almost entirely a secular holiday these days that people across the religious and non-religious spectrum celebrate, does it not matter? I’ll leave that up to you to decide.

He talks about the courts, which to some degree I agree with. The courts, especially the Supreme Court, is a mess, but it always has been and I question how he would have reacted, should it have been a left-leaning court like we used to have. A conservative trying to push for conservative rights through a liberal-leaning court system would face the same thing, but I doubt he would have batted an eye at that because it was his side in power. Far too many of these commentators are biased and lack the capacity to put themselves in someone else’s shoes. He suggested it earlier in the video for Prager and Shapiro, which I agree, they probably couldn’t, but I’m not sure that Rhino could do it either. This is exactly why the courts should not be open to being stacked by any political entity. It leads to clear and obvious abuses.

Thereafter he talks about the Dedham Public Library case, where they chose not to have a Christmas tree, saying they’d received complaints and the local Christians freaked the hell out and made them put one in. Sorry, but Christmas trees aren’t religious, any more than Santa Claus and Frosty the Snowman. It’s a secular symbol of a secular holiday. Deal with it. That’s the point that needs to be made, that Christmas, as much as some Christians might value it, it’s no longer something that belongs to Christians. You can go into almost any store in the country and all of the decorations are secular. You might find a manger scene stuffed on the bottom shelf gathering cobwebs, but there is nothing overtly Christian in the mix.

However, he gets incensed that they’re “threatening librarians” which is positively silly, considering how much his own side threatens anyone who doesn’t go along with their virtue signaling. Granted, I have no clue how seriously Rhino takes any of that but he’s said things on his channel that lead me to think he’s convinced everyone ought to use the right “pronouns” or else. Free speech is free speech, it applies to everyone. If you don’t want Christians to force you to say Merry Christmas, I don’t want liberals to force me to refer to anyone as “them”. No double standards, no hypocrisy. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.

In the end, he talks about people getting mad for “Happy Holidays.” Yeah, fuck those people. Now personally, I don’t care, it’s just words and words are irrelevant. They’re just sounds that you make with your mouth. They mean as much or as little as you decide. That brings us back to pronouns though, and remember, he brought it up, not me, and there are tons of people on the left who will scream at you if you “misgender” them and their 74023 different genders. If you’re going to get mad at Christians for being emotionally attached to their religious greeting then you need to get mad at leftists for being emotionally attached to their silly pronouns. Again, no double standards and no hypocrisy. If their feelings don’t matter, neither do yours. If you don’t want them trying to put their beliefs into the law, where were you, standing in protest when your own side actually did the same thing?

This is where I say that both sides are wrong. Both sides are effectively acting the same way, using the same tactics and relying on blind faith to get to emotional comfort. Fuck both sides. Both sides are also entirely blind to the fact that they’re all doing the same thing. It’s for different reasons, certainly, but bad behavior is bad behavior no matter who does it. Maybe you all need to grow the hell up.

Anyhow, Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, whatever you celebrate, I hope it’s good. Stop worrying about words. It gets no one anywhere fast and it just betrays the utter irrationality and immaturity of your side. Learn how to step back and evaluate the facts from a neutral position. I know it’s hard but at least it keeps you from looking like a complete idiot. You are not special, neither are your beliefs. Learn to knock it off.