Everybody’s favorite curmudgeon—Christopher Hitchens—blasts the recent “War on Christmas.” Conservatives seemed to love him when he used scatological adjectives to describe Fahrenheit 9/11 (my mother forwarded me his editorial on it, apparently blithely unaware that she would hate the man in any other context), but something tells me that they won’t be trumpeting this article about.
No believer in the First Amendment could go that far [banning Christmas]. But there are millions of well-appointed buildings all across the United States, most of them tax-exempt and some of them receiving state subventions, where anyone can go at any time and celebrate miraculous births and pregnant virgins all day and all night if they so desire. These places are known as “churches,” and they can also force passersby to look at the displays and billboards they erect and to give ear to the bells that they ring. In addition, they can count on numberless radio and TV stations to beam their stuff all through the ether. If this is not sufficient, then god damn them. God damn them everyone.
Comments (4 comments)
I have a love/hate relationship with Hitchens because of his views on the war in Iraq, but he’s spot on here. I especially love the mentioning of the yule logs — as you know Scarborough and his other guest have no knowledge of that history.
Yeah, I agree with S4R. Hitchens can be an excellent (and vicious) writer, but I don’t understand his support for the war in Iraq. In fairness, I’m not a huge fan of his pre-9/11 foreign policy opinions, but I’m still confused.
He actually participated in a debate at my school about the Iraq war. Apparently, he was quite disdainful to several students and their questions. I also saw him on that espidoe of Penn & Teller’s Bullshit and was in agreement with him. So like you guys, I am also confused.
My guess is, he hates Islamic fundamentalists even more than he hates Christian fundamentalists. So, the idea of cleaning some Middle Eastern clocks probably appeals to him.
I suppose it’s sort of refreshing to see a pro-war liberal; in an unnerving sort of way.
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