Letters to the Editor
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Gah, pushed send too soon. It happened to my dad, too, though it was long ago.
For mine, it wasn't the politics so much as it was the guns. Something about Clinton and the 2nd Amendment scared the bejesus out of him. He went from a guy who owned a few rifles (we're talking classic shotguns, lever action rifles, not anything the FBI would be interested in) to constantly indulging in the right-wing fear about conspiracies and jack-booted thugs coming to kick down his door and take his guns, despite the fact that he owned about 3 and FBI agents would've been bored out of their mind digging through his file. Of course, he began to tune out the Liberal Media Conspiracy and has gradually grown into a hardcore right-winger as he's barraged with "Red alert! Real Americans Under Attack!" It's just really disconcerting to see someone genuinely paranoid and on edge because "the ATF might be coming" for grand-dad's old hunting rifles.
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The Real War on Christmas
Leave it to a liberal to not get all the facts...Bill O'Reilly is AGAINST the death penalty, and has said so many times on his show. If you knew this, you deftly left it out of your tirade. Oh, wait, you don't watch his show all the way through...never mind. We just rail against someone without watching...
Get your facts straight please, and MERRY CHRISTMAS!
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Is it California and Los Angeles?
I was fortunate that my father stayed an unrepentent liberal to his dying day (age 85) and my mom has never had any deep-seated political interests. My mom, however, has many, many extreme rightwing friends (from her condo association, old college connections, etc.) and I share your amazement at how rightwing talk radio has cranked these folks up until every topic turns into a political one and they miss no opportunity to launch into rants complete with bulging eyeballs, red faces, curled lips, and even spittle.
From her working class friends, I sort of expect this. But I was shocked when we recently visited an extremely wealthy college educated couple -- gourmets, art collectors -- and at least once an hour they worked themselves into near-hysteria on the topic of race, crime, abortion, homosexuality, AIDS, or teen sex. You would think that their Los Angeles hilltop mansion were in a war zone -- and apparently they think it is, with more gates, alarms and security paraphernalia that you'd see in a high-tech computer company. They're retired, don't seem to have many friends, so a lot of their time is spent watching TV and listening to talk radio.
I won't go into any details, because you've described it well enough, but it did occur to me that I'd never heard anything close to what I heard in Los Angeles in Boston, New York or Miami. Could this be something about L.A.?
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It isn't just the holidays...
Beautifully written, and too familiar.
My parents keep the 24 hour news channels on about 12 hours a day; frequently FOX, but CNN too. They are addicted to it emotionally. It is like a drug for them.
While my wife and I live nearby and visit fairly regularly, we spent 3 months earlier this year living 3000 miles away. When we returned to Florida, we stayed with my parents and, even though they hadn't seen us in months, they couldn't bring themselves to turn the tv off and have a conversation with us. It always had to be on, and they had to know what the latest was on the lost girl in Aruba, the plane that had crashed or was about to crash, or which anchor person was moving to a new network. It was sad.
I imagine the right-wing talk radio works in much the same fashion. It adrenalinizes them, and they get hooked.
Thanks for sharing this with us, Wil.
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Just say "no" to spittle flecks
I agree: one loses an argument in direct proportion to the volume of the voice used to argue (also when tossing Nazi, fascist, and other such epithets that have lost their true meaning). However, in this case, we have only Wil's version of the incident. I, for one, would be interested to hear his father's recollection.
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Widget wrote:
It's not the point of view that's the problem. It's that his father was screaming it, red-faced, in the middle of his living room. That isn't how "wise" people express their opinions in my family. Is it how they do in yours?
In this case, the medium IS the message. A wise opinion - an opinion to be respected - isn't delivered in a raised voice, accompanied by flecks of spittle and finger jabs, to one's child in a living room during a holiday dinner.
-- Widget
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What it's really about, in my humble opinion
Wil's posting brought something up for me that is finally making it's way out, even if it's to be buried in a pile of replies either full on agreeing with or blasting Wil for whatever reason. I know I'm not the only person who is feeling this these days, and I can't help if some of the reactionaries on both sides of the line are completely missing the point.
I was raised in a slightly unique situation in that my parents were both hippie-lite, though definitely were involved in their share of protests and the sort back in the day. But my dad was also a cop, or rather a probation officer, and "cop" and "hippie" aren't two words that commonly go together, even in the San Francisco Bay Area.
I was raised with very left-leaning attitudes and beliefs. When I was young, they left all the metaphorical doors and windows open, allowing any and all questions to be asked about war and religion and belief and sex, race, science, law, everything that kids can think to ask. And we asked and asked and asked. And with few exceptions, more on my brother's part than mine, we are a lot like our parents.
I have no idea what Bill O'Reilly's views on the death penatly are. He could be completely against if for many of the same reasons I am and I'd still hate him for the scum-sucking hater he is. He stills spouts crap that makes no sense and then insults any who disagree with him. Perhaps THAT is the reason I have a hard time finding any good sides to these people, the people who refuse to listen to the other side, no matter how well it's presented. That goes for both those I completely disagree with and those I put on a pedastal because of what they believe.
What this "War on Christmas" is about, and it's really just one of the battles inside this war, is the extreme lack of respect we have for others. To get right to it, I work retail. I say Happy Holidays 90-95% of the time. Why, you may ask? Because I find it respectful. True, at least 90-95% of people celebrate Christmas in the area I live, so it would be safe to simply say Merry Christmas. But do you know why I don't? In the off chance someone doesn't celebrate Christmas, I choose not to disrespect them by wishing them a good Christmas when they celebrate Hannukah or Kwanza (sp?) or Ramadan or nothing at all. In fact, sometimes I wonder if perhaps I should just say "Have a good one" like I do the rest of the year. I'm an atheist, a rather devout and strident one at that, and I don't appreciate the amount of disrespect piled on me when people learn this fact and instantly assume I'm a devil worshipper (which happens more often than people expect) or that I hate this country, which to me seems to have nothing to do with the subject.
I choose to say Happy Holidays for the same reason Wil does, in hopes that people realize I'm just wishing them a good season, day, weekend, day-off, Christmas, first night of Hannukah, or whatever, because I respect them and wish all of us to have one or five or eight days of beauty and peace and fun with those we love, whomever they may be.
It's not just about which holiday you celebrate, or what church you go to, or what side of the aisle your political leanings put you, it's about how politeness and respectful discourse has gone down the drain in the last few years. The phrase "agree to disagree" has gone the way of the turn signal and the polite smile as you pass. There's nothing wrong with it, and it might help things a lot.
I do feel I must add that Bush and many of his followers have allowed this to situation to happen, or at least worsen. Once this batch of cronies came to power, any hope of piecing this country back together went right out the window, and this War On Christmas is just one of the symptoms, ands it pathetic. I may not of had the same experience as Wil with my father, but I did with a friend, and I can't help but wonder if that's not one of the reasons these people don't talk to me. Because I blew up and got on a soap box about something, which I now look back at and shake my head in disgust and embarrassment, wishing I had come to the decision to at least try and be respectful to others, no matter their opinions.
Of course, sometimes there are people who don't deserve respect, particularly those that are disrespectful to you. But it's not "politically correct" to say Happy Holidays, it respectful and polite. There are many, many things that my family and I discuss in the privacy of our own homes that I know would have someone off their rocker if they heard me say in public. But I try not to out of respect for others and the desire to be able to attempt to discuss the subject in a grown-up and RESPECTFUL way.
After all, we're all humans, we probably have a ways to go before we can completely cut ourselves off from those we don't like, so why don't we figure out a way to live with each other and not go out of our way to piss each other off, often for a very small and stupid point we insist on pounding into the ground until it's dead, and any tie of anything between us is too.