A conservative Christmas greeting

The following has been making the rounds:

To the liberals I know:

Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, My best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasion and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all. We also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2006, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great. Not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other country nor the only America in the Western Hemisphere. And without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wishee. By accepting these greetings you are accepting these terms.

This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely transferable with no alteration to the original greeting. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for herself or himself or others, and is void where prohibited by law and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher. This wish is warranted to perform as expected within the usual application of good tidings for a period of one year or until the issuance of a subsequent holiday greeting, whichever comes first, and warranty is limited to replacement of this wish or issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wisher.

To My Conservative Friends:

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

In their preference for a simpler image, conservatives are reacting to a reality they find uncomfortable or unnecessarily complicated by ridiculing a recognition of the increasing diversity in our society:

It is worth noting that the evangelical Protestant movement gained force in this country in the latter half of the 19th Century as middle and upper-class white women began to limit their own reproductive rates, and as large scale immigration from southern and eastern Europe began to challenge the image of this country as populated primarily by fair-skinned whites (and their slaves) who spoke English as a first language. The greeting aimed at liberals above clearly prefers an image perpetuated in the mass media of a largely fair-skinned, white, and Christian America and thus seeks to perpetuate white male hegemony. It is entirely consistent with the notion of a woman’s body as an object, a place for others, be they embryos cast as unborn babies, or men seeking sexual gratification. It is the reaction of a frightened people, a reaction exemplified by the Ku Klux Klan and in lynchings.

And it comes in the form of a Christmas greeting, on a holiday celebrating the birth of one who reputedly advocated peace on earth and goodwill towards men, from those who appropriate the religion founded in his name to justify their own image of themselves as privileged to exploit the earth and all its peoples, all its creatures, all its life, and all its resources, for their own profits. The message of this greeting is that we who are not members of the socioeconomic elite exist only for them, and that our own lives are to be mocked.

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