We Can't Have It Both Ways, Can We?

The opinion on Christmas from B.S., former speech-writer for President N., [I'll just let both of those hang and make of it what you will] is making the rounds of the e-mail in-boxes again, although it's several years old. It seems to work in nicely with a previous post of mine, so I'll complain about it here. Mr. S., although Jewish to the bone, doesn't mind being wished a Merry Christmas because it makes him feel all warm and cozy about his fellow Judeo-Christian [Where's the Islam there? Shouldn't it be Judeo-Christ-Islamist?] believers and that's what I was talking about earlier. That's very broad-minded of him to accept the greeting as kindly meant and good taste of him to enjoy those over-decorated trees.
Where he crosses the line, though, is to expect everyone to feel that way, especially atheists. He describes how Christians probably feel pushed around about showing their religion and equates it to how he doesn't like being pushed around for being Jewish. It seems, though, that he is completely unaware that non-religionists have been pushed around. Atheists are supposed to take it. Sitting in his "beach house" (to separate that from some other house he might have) he feels sorry for Christians, a vast majority, and not for the little people who are starting to push back. I don't like being pushed around for being an atheist, and so for years I just didn't mention it. Even as a child brought up Christian I had trouble with public displays of my religion because I was only too aware that there were people who didn't subscribe and I could see myself in their shoes. Mr. S. seems to think looking at it from his shoes alone is good enough.
I'll grant you that some of our number could stand to shut up, even some intelligent high-profile ones. And Christians are free to complain about political correctivity swinging the wrong way on them, but they've had their day in the sun and their chance to run things better. And there were still hurricanes, floods, famines, and pogroms.
We worry about current events precisely because they are current and we base past experience on our childhood memories of being totally clueless. The 1950s were not the halcyon days of nuclear families and religious devotion. They were years of Cold War and witch hunts, peoples' lives ruined by rumor mongering. Do I remember any of that? Of course not, I was sent to bed before Huntley and Brinkley came on! The 1960s were years of political upheaval over the Vietnam War and Civil Rights. I do remember that, because I was sickened by images of war during the dinner hour. Fortunately, our area of Kentucky was not torn apart by riots ... like those of the white Bostonians rejecting school integration. This means, however, that I put out of my mind what wasn't happening in my happy little galaxy. I remember my home and family.
What is happening, contrary to what Mr. S. believes, is that there is a whole lotta demagoguery going on. People are being whipped up on both sides by individuals who enjoy power. These people scaremonger, but not with anything so blatantly ridiculous as the destruction of Christianity, because only the mentally ill would believe that could possibly happen (and on the other side, only the mentally ill atheists could believe Christianity in particular or religion in general can be toppled), but they start with little things, like the alleged War on that Holiday celebrating the birth of You Know Who. Everybody can get behind Christmas! Christmas is harmless! Why, even that Jewish guy with the beach house likes Christmas! If you can get people to believe the little lies, then the big ones becomes that much easier to swallow. If you believe the atheists are out to ban That Holiday, you can be easily led to believe that all religious holidays are up for the chop. And then you can believe these people are un-American. Then you think your elected officials should take a stand on the issue, and their seasonal greetings should say a certain phrase. And then you start scrutinizing what these officials do about their greeting cards, totally missing what they're up to on matters that do fall within their purview, like fixing the economy, or at least making sure that greed will not be given free rein to create "exotic financial speculations" again.
So what are atheists up to? Hell's bells, even if we were organized it would be impossible to say. There are as many kinds of atheists as there are religions. They all become atheists different ways: some are born into atheist families, some wake up one day and ask themselves whether they really believe all that, some wrestle with their beliefs ... and win, and some have had bad experiences. Some drop their faith suddenly, sometimes faith fades slowly away. Mostly I think these people want the right not to be marginalized. We're all hopping on that civil rights bandwagon that seems to be so handy. You wouldn't fault black people for having been marginalized all those centuries, would you? You wouldn't say, "Look, there are just more white people, so just go with the flow and keep your mouth shut. We're tired of hearing about all we've done wrong or are doing wrong and we aren't going to change anything just to make you happy. 'Majority,' ever hear of it? So stop making us feel bad."
Okay, maybe some of you would say that.

Oops, forgot to post this ages ago!