NationStates Jolt Archive

The War on Christmas

Recently many special interest groups characterized as the “Religious Right” have been proclaiming a direct “War upon Christmas”. The evidence for this claim is that businesses now advertise this year as the Holiday Season. At the end of the commercials the phrase “Merry Christmas” is now replaced with the phrase “Happy Holidays”. The once called “Christmas List” is now referred to as a “Holiday Shopping List”. Specifically reporters for Fox News find this very alarming. One of which attacked a fake news show for assisting in the “War upon Christmas”.
What the special interest groups and Fox News does not realize is that with our capitalist economic system the object of every business, whether it is a price taker or price searcher, is to make profit. There are numerous ways to go about making profit but, the basics of any successful business is relatively similar. The more customers that a business has the more opportunities it has to reach zero economic profit or become a profit maximizing firm. Discriminating against consumers for their personal beliefs does not help achieve that. The only discrimination that a business should enlist to expand output and increase profits is price discrimination.
If any of these special interest groups or Fox News knew anything about business they would realize why the phrase “Merry Christmas” has been replaced with “Happy Holidays”. It is a marketing ploy. Lets say that you own a major corporation like Target, if you make a commercial that states “Merry Christmas” at the end then you have appealed to the Christian audience, which is quite large, but you have excluded everyone that does not fall into the category of a Christian. The solution is not to replace the phrase with “Happy Hanukkah” because that would only add to the problem at hand, you would alienate even more potential consumers from your products or services. The basic idea of any advertisement campaign is to make profit (we come full circle) the way that you achieve that is by appealing to as large an audience as possible. The phrase “Happy Holidays” was found to do just that through I’m sure a tremendous amount of market research. What happened when one company began to benefit from this, you guessed it their competitors copied the idea so as not to lose profit (there’s that word again).
Fine thought you don’t believe that Target (still running with the pervious example) should be run that way, and you choose to discriminate against consumers for their religious beliefs what happens? Well first off you competitors are going to eat you alive, and they will do so by taking profit from you and by running attack adds against your company. Why? Is it because out of the goodness of their hearts they care about diversity and tolerance so much? No. It is because you are a competitor and you are a threat to their profit. So say you choose to downsize, eat the loss of profit, and wage a costly un-needed war with your competitors over the phrase “Merry Christmas”, well this would represent opportunity cost and guess what? That is 100% legal. But how many profit maximizing firms are there who have done this?
Finally on the flip side of the argument some claim that stores are discriminating against consumers who are not Christians with the majority of religious items on sale pertaining to the Christian Faith. Is that some horrible form of discrimination? No. This represents supply and demand, the majority of Americans do follow some form of the Christian Faith, therefore majority of religious icons pertain to Christians. Say that for just a moment the majority of Christians suddenly “saw the light” and converted to Judaism. Then what would happen? Would the majority of religious items on sale pertain to Christians or would the corporations devoutly follow their true “faith” of Christianity? You would find more items in the stores appealing to Jews than you would Christians. So do corporations in America just simply not have a faith? They have a faith all right it’s called PROFIT.

Paragraphs, Please.

You can't wage war on a tactic! Er, I mean on a spirit.

I honestly can't bring myself to care, and I'm saying this as a Neocon-Fascist-Imperialist-Papist-Fundie-Amerikkkan-Warmonger. Suffice to say the 85-90% of Americans who call themselves Christian obviously don't constitute a niche market businessmen feel they must attract. Whatever.

Here's the issue: organizations like Fox aren't telling businesses that it would be better for them to de-secularize, they're trying to influence demand by telling the public to take offense at Happy Holidays. They're not telling companies to do something unprofitable, they're trying to make what the companies are doing right now unprofitable.

*YAWN*

In a couple of months, it will be the War on Easter.

Lookin' forward to it. Me and Jihad Daniel are training bunnies everywhere how to field strip and clean their painted egg launchers so that they will be effective tools in yolking the risen Jesus.

I just think the Americans like prefixing random nouns with "The War On".

Personally, as a Christian I have mixed feelings on the issue. I fully understand the stores that say "Happy Holidays", I even mildly understand "Holiday Trees" (the tree thing still annoys me though)

I understand a public school's reluctance to have Christian themed carols, if they feel that other religions or ethnic groups are being ignored. I think it should be all or nothing though, either do something to represent all December holidays or don't do any of them (maybe just sing songs about snow and stuff)

I don't understand the whole "boycott" of the stores that say "Happy Holidays", not all thier customers are Christian, not even all of thier customers celebrate Christmas, they are not trying to offend Christians, they are trying not to offend anyone. It seems admirable to me, to try to be inclusive.

I think it would be much better if everyone quit trying to slap "Christmas" everywhere, and quit trying to make it such a generic term. In my family Christmas is a very spiritual holiday, we don't need a Coca-Cola Polar Bear, and I would feel a lot better if I didn't have so much commercialism attached to a day that I find very important to my faith.

I wouldn't mind at all if come April, there were "Spring Baskets" instead of Easter Baskets. ;)

*YAWN*

In a couple of months, it will be the War on Easter.

Lookin' forward to it. Me and Jihad Daniel are training bunnies everywhere how to field strip and clean their painted egg launchers so that they will be effective tools in yolking the risen Jesus.
Oooooh! I want to join up. Can you give me a jihad name too?

Personally, as a Christian I have mixed feelings on the issue. I fully understand the stores that say "Happy Holidays", I even mildly understand "Holiday Trees" (the tree thing still annoys me though)

I understand a public school's reluctance to have Christian themed carols, if they feel that other religions or ethnic groups are being ignored. I think it should be all or nothing though, either do something to represent all December holidays or don't do any of them (maybe just sing songs about snow and stuff)

I don't understand the whole "boycott" of the stores that say "Happy Holidays", not all thier customers are Christian, not even all of thier customers celebrate Christmas, they are not trying to offend Christians, they are trying not to offend anyone. It seems admirable to me, to try to be inclusive.

I think it would be much better if everyone quit trying to slap "Christmas" everywhere, and quit trying to make it such a generic term. In my family Christmas is a very spiritual holiday, we don't need a Coca-Cola Polar Bear, and I would feel a lot better if I didn't have so much commercialism attached to a day that I find very important to my faith.

I wouldn't mind at all if come April, there were "Spring Baskets" instead of Easter Baskets. ;)
Oddly, of the major celebrations (atleast around here) occuring (hanukkah, christmas, kwanzaa, and new years), only christmas is a holiday. The remaining three are celebrations (granted, thats a symantics thing that I don't want to have a fun little war over)

My high schools winter concert is exactly like the spring concert. the only exceptions are the select ensambles (Jazz band, madrigal singers, brass choir). The jazz band plays winter songs (frosty the snowman) mostly for the little kids at the concert. Madrigals and Brass (renamed Santa Brass for the time) don't perform at that concert, but instead go to local businesses and do traditional carols. I may be Jewish, but damned if I don't love caroling.

I agree with not having christmas be so commercial, but those polar bears are so damn cute.
With my family, its not a religious holiday...my family doesnt have any. We've always had a tree, and used to do midnight mass with my grandma (I was too young and all the cousins usually slept through it). Its a day for family, and sometimes at night some friends. Or going to see the lights. This year, we'll be going on a cruise...so the commercialism only bothers me in that the commercials suck.

The War on Christmas

Recently many special interest groups characterized as the “Religious Right” have been proclaiming a direct “War upon Christmas”. The evidence for this claim is that businesses now advertise this year as the Holiday Season. At the end of the commercials the phrase “Merry Christmas” is now replaced with the phrase “Happy Holidays”. The once called “Christmas List” is now referred to as a “Holiday Shopping List”. Specifically reporters for Fox News find this very alarming. One of which attacked a fake news show for assisting in the “War upon Christmas”.
What the special interest groups and Fox News does not realize is that with our capitalist economic system the object of every business, whether it is a price taker or price searcher, is to make profit. There are numerous ways to go about making profit but, the basics of any successful business is relatively similar. The more customers that a business has the more opportunities it has to reach zero economic profit or become a profit maximizing firm. Discriminating against consumers for their personal beliefs does not help achieve that. The only discrimination that a business should enlist to expand output and increase profits is price discrimination.
If any of these special interest groups or Fox News knew anything about business they would realize why the phrase “Merry Christmas” has been replaced with “Happy Holidays”. It is a marketing ploy. Lets say that you own a major corporation like Target, if you make a commercial that states “Merry Christmas” at the end then you have appealed to the Christian audience, which is quite large, but you have excluded everyone that does not fall into the category of a Christian. The solution is not to replace the phrase with “Happy Hanukkah” because that would only add to the problem at hand, you would alienate even more potential consumers from your products or services. The basic idea of any advertisement campaign is to make profit (we come full circle) the way that you achieve that is by appealing to as large an audience as possible. The phrase “Happy Holidays” was found to do just that through I’m sure a tremendous amount of market research. What happened when one company began to benefit from this, you guessed it their competitors copied the idea so as not to lose profit (there’s that word again).
Fine thought you don’t believe that Target (still running with the pervious example) should be run that way, and you choose to discriminate against consumers for their religious beliefs what happens? Well first off you competitors are going to eat you alive, and they will do so by taking profit from you and by running attack adds against your company. Why? Is it because out of the goodness of their hearts they care about diversity and tolerance so much? No. It is because you are a competitor and you are a threat to their profit. So say you choose to downsize, eat the loss of profit, and wage a costly un-needed war with your competitors over the phrase “Merry Christmas”, well this would represent opportunity cost and guess what? That is 100% legal. But how many profit maximizing firms are there who have done this?
Finally on the flip side of the argument some claim that stores are discriminating against consumers who are not Christians with the majority of religious items on sale pertaining to the Christian Faith. Is that some horrible form of discrimination? No. This represents supply and demand, the majority of Americans do follow some form of the Christian Faith, therefore majority of religious icons pertain to Christians. Say that for just a moment the majority of Christians suddenly “saw the light” and converted to Judaism. Then what would happen? Would the majority of religious items on sale pertain to Christians or would the corporations devoutly follow their true “faith” of Christianity? You would find more items in the stores appealing to Jews than you would Christians. So do corporations in America just simply not have a faith? They have a faith all right it’s called PROFIT.

It's not just marketing where this is occurring. It's all over society. The marketing is fine, because I love capitalism and all capitalism-related activities, but the larger problem in society is quite alarming.

Fuck the "Holidays," I celebrate Christmas. My dogg Brendan celebrates Chanukka. Deal with it, cowards!

*drives off in low-rider, blasting chunks out of bystanders with Desert Eagle.*

I'm an atheist. I celebrate Christmas, not in any religious sense, but as an excuse to lavish gifts upon my family and friends. My children's babysitter is quite religious, and also celebrates Christmas, but feels that Santa Claus is a lie she should not be telling to her children. Oh, they still get presents, but the kids know who the presents are from. They focus on their Christian traditions. Both ways are fine with me...as long as they don't spill the beans to my kids about Santa.

I think it's kind of funny that Seinfeld's Festivus is becoming an actual celebration around this time of year...

And these ARE the holidays...for kids, and quite a few workers. So why not wish people happy holidays? What's the problem with that? Why wish people "Merry Christmas" when they may not even be celebrating it? What...they don't merit your well-wishing?

If Christians want to insist that Christmas is a Christian celebration, could we then have the public holiday which goes with it declared unconstitutional, a breach of the First Amendment? :)

It's not just marketing where this is occurring. It's all over society. The marketing is fine, because I love capitalism and all capitalism-related activities, but the larger problem in society is quite alarming.

Fuck the "Holidays," I celebrate Christmas. My dogg Brendan celebrates Chanukka. Deal with it, cowards!

*drives off in low-rider, blasting chunks out of bystanders with Desert Eagle.*

Amen, my low-riding, Desert Eagle blasting, Christmas celebrating brother.

I'm an agnostic, but I celebrate Christmas because it means people give me stuff. Also

I just think the Americans like prefixing random nouns with "The War On".

Seconded:p

Oooooh! I want to join up. Can you give me a jihad name too?

What about Nailbomb Nazz?

I just think the Americans like prefixing random nouns with "The War On".
*laughs*

I suppose there's some truth to that...

If Christians want to insist that Christmas is a Christian celebration, could we then have the public holiday which goes with it declared unconstitutional, a breach of the First Amendment? :)
different people celebrate Christmas for different reasons. If you declared that Christmas was a holiday for only religious people then wouldn't everyone else have to stop celebrating it?

I don't have problems with people that celebrate the secular end of Christmas at all. I just think that Christians should realize that it's not helping our cause any to try to push the Christian side of it on people.

I think it's kind of funny that Seinfeld's Festivus is becoming an actual celebration around this time of year...



As a brit i have to admit, What?? Can someone do me the honour of explaining this Festivus thingy. I never did see Seinfeld as BBC2 were stoopid in the scheduling

As a brit i have to admit, What?? Can someone do me the honour of explaining this Festivus thingy. I never did see Seinfeld as BBC2 were stoopid in the scheduling
Festivus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Festivus)

I've been invited to three Festivus parties this week:) One is very tongue-in-cheek and will feature a true 'airing of the grievances', one is for atheists with a few Hindus and Buddhists sprinkled in for fun, and the other is just a mixer, an excuse for a party. Oh wait...they're all an excuse for a party...but so is Christmas in my mind:)

I just think the Americans like prefixing random nouns with "The War On".
That is so not true. Next thing, you'll be saying that the War on Kitchenettes is a frivolous waste of time.
Actually, it kind of is, but what about the War on Mesons?

Yes, of course there is a war on Christmas...

We know, for certain, as evidenced by the news that people displaying Nativity scenes are routinely rounded up and imprisoned, people can be reported to the local gestapo for daring to mention Christmas to another person, and our executive and legislative branches are totally controled by evil satanic atheists like George W. Bush, J. Dennis Hastert and William Frist...

Paragraphs, Please.

There are paragraphs

This whole "War on Christmas" thing is one of the stupidest non-issue drivel-fests any special interest group has ever come up with. It's nothing but the most radical religious right-wingers trying to drum up paranoia that they hope will carry through to support their political agenda for the rest of the year, but they're accomplishing nothing, because they're alienating most other Christians right along with non-Christians. The only damage they do is those isolated incidents when they succeed in intimidating store owners or company executives into complying with their demands.

I like your view and agree. But i think it's also a ploy to get some people to go buy "Holiday Gifts" (the use of the term Holiday Gifts is so i don't get bombarded by those other religous groups that may be hiding around here) way early. They are afraid that the Christmas war may ensue and therfore prices will skyrocket. Unfortunatly like with our oil market we're falsly inflating our own prices again. I agree with Justinian and i hope you suceed in whatever path you wish to follow. I Third the comment about Americans liking to pair the words "The war on" and anything troubling. For anyone who cares i am American and not aethiest but i don't believe in god.

I would also like to adress the whole holiday/christmas tree debate. This is got to be one of the dumbest things politicians have argued on since Congress spent 19 million dollars on finding out how much cow flatuence affected the levels of methane in our atmosphere which i might add thgey alos argued on. The frst thing to think about here is who else puts up christmas tree's except christians? That's my first problem with this word war. My second is that does it really matter what the media calls it? this is just another prime example of how we are so controlled and affected by the media. I think people should get a life outside the media. It's sickens me that so many people watch Tv like ET and that all these movie stars make more money then any WORKING american. My father does construction work, if there was no concrete would the airplane pilots and movie stars have somewhere to work? i mean think about it people we pay so much attention to the media these people are getting rich for our entertainment. think of something else to entertain yourself otherthan lavishing these bands and movie stars with your money.

I would like to thank anyone who reads this rant and for anyone who cares i am 13 i live in the United States and i don't believe in god as i believe it undermines the concept of life itself.

We'll im still gonna use my good old 1st amendment! Merry Christmas!!!!!:D

Of course there is a war on christmas. Even as we speak, the evil liberals are preparing to mobilize their Secular forces of DOOOOM to capture Santa's workshop. In fact, that's what global warming is over too. Their trying to melt him out. The fact that they appear to be opposing global warming is just a smokescreen.

There are also plans underway to institute a reindeer season. And elves are now being kidnapped and brainwashed so that when the time is right, they can betray Santa.

Also, Nativity scenes will all be nuked at midnight U.S. eastern time tonight.

This whole "War on Christmas" thing is one of the stupidest non-issue drivel-fests any special interest group has ever come up with. It's nothing but the most radical religious right-wingers trying to drum up paranoia that they hope will carry through to support their political agenda for the rest of the year, but they're accomplishing nothing, because they're alienating most other Christians right along with non-Christians. The only damage they do is those isolated incidents when they succeed in intimidating store owners or company executives into complying with their demands.

Seconded, although you may be saying the highlighted bit about something else soon, knowing those wacky special interest groups...