The sensitive executives at Federated are victims of the growing campaign to make people feel uncomfortable about Christmas, not just the religious feast but all the secular trappings, and even a mention of the word Christmas in conversation. Some public schools have been banning “Silent Night” and other carols from school concerts, though no court has ever ruled that these songs can’t be sung. In West Bend, Wis., the school district announced that students could not distribute religious Christmas cards. No law or court has ever ruled this way. The school district backed down when Liberty Counsel, a religious-liberties group, threatened to sue. The anti-Christmas lobby implies that schools can’t teach about Christmas and says creches can’t be placed on public property. Not so, as long as the teaching purpose is educational and the creche is part of a broad seasonal display.
\nSome PC people have begun to argue that even “Jingle Bells” is a church-state no-no. Santa Claus, a totally secular figure, is controversial because he was originally based on St. Nicholas.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Wow — that’s a startlingly high number of implications, innuendoes, and indirect arguments — all hallmarks of sloppy journalism. Note how few of Leo’s assertions are linked to any verifiable facts. In fact, Leo is making a startling six unsupported assertions (some of them compound) over this section, interrupted briefly by only one supported claim. Let’s count them:<\/p>\n
1. There is a “growing campaign to make people feel uncomfortable about Christmas, not just the religious feast but all the secular trappings.” Who’s part of this campaign? Support, please. Oh, there is none.<\/em>
\n2. “campaign to make people feel uncomfortable about . . . even a mention of the word Christmas in conversation.” An inflammatory claim, to be sure, and completely unsupported. If anyone is actually arguing that other people shouldn’t say “Christmas” in conversation — well, Leo sure hasn’t found them<\/em>.
\n3. “Some public schools have been banning “Silent Night” and other carols from school concerts.” Where, John, where? <\/em>
\n(Brief interruption for an apparently substantiated assertion — or at least one that can be tied down to a specific case somewhere — “In West Bend, Wis., the school district announced that students could not distribute religious Christmas cards.”)
\n4. “The anti-Christmas lobby implies that schools can’t teach about Christmas and says creches can’t be placed on public property.” The anti-Christmas lobby? Implies? Possibly the sloppiest sentence in the whole section, and that’s really saying something<\/em>.
\n5. “Some PC people have begun to argue that even “Jingle Bells” is a church-state no-no.” Gotta watch out for those “some PC people.”<\/em>
\n6. “Santa Claus, a totally secular figure, is controversial because he was originally based on St. Nicholas.” Lesson #167 in sloppy journalism: Use “is” construction to avoid actually having to find anyone who holds the view cited. <\/em><\/p>\nThe irony is that when Leo discusses the nascent “counter-anti-Christmas” movement at the end of his piece, he is able to list several concrete examples. Apparently there is a real backlash against a perceived anti-Christmas movement. What is less clear from Leo’s piece is whether the perceived anti-Christmas movement is itself real, or simply a figment of editorialists’ imaginations. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In his most recent anti-PC rant, U.S. News columnist John Leo applies his characteristic sarcastic outrage to a subject that he loves to pontificate about — the problems of “PC” behavior. Christmas is being banned — or so Leo would have us believe. But Leo’s piece is sadly lacking in specific facts to substantiate that claim, as the most cursory examination of his piece makes clear.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corn"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1801"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1801\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}