Online Only: Merry holidaze

It's that time of the year again. It's time for crowded shopping malls, visits with the wonderful people in your family and the never-ending saga between Christmas and anti-Christmas idiots.\nThe old "war on Christmas" -- as Bill O'Reilly and other corporate news psychos have called it in the past few years -- seems like something that should have died out. However, the battle seems to be back in time for the 2006 season, as Wal-Mart recently announced that it would now be saying, "Merry Christmas" to its customers, replacing the previously used, "Happy holidays."\nO'Reilly asserts that other retailers, such as Best Buy and Crate & Barrel, are telling their employees to greet customers with "Happy holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas" (though evidence suggests such policies don't exist). This angers O'Reilly and others who feel that retailers who don't mention Christmas in their message are abandoning the holiday.\nWith so many different religious beliefs in America, this melting pot of a country with alleged First Amendment rights, why is it that pro-Christmas people are so selfish to think that everyone must mention Christmas? If a business wants to be respectful of all holidays, that respect includes Christmas. So why complain if they don't mention the Christian holiday? If you wish to celebrate Christmas, that's fine, but let other people celebrate whatever they want. Isn't this supposed to be a country where we have freedom of religion and freedom of choice?\nEven if businesses wanted to mention Christmas in their message, wouldn't they appear to be hypocrites if they didn't mention all of the other religious holidays celebrated during this time of the year? If so, doesn't it seem logical to think that there are too many holidays to mention them all? It should just be customary to say, "Happy holidays" and cover them all at once.\nI'm not just out to get people who celebrate Christmas. They are only one side of the problem. On the other side of the coin are the anti-Christmas wackos. These people complain that they are being oppressed each year because all of the talk about Christmas. Many of these whiners seem to think that people shouldn't be allowed to say things like "Merry Christmas" because they find it offensive. Apparently, they're just as bad as the pro-Christmas psychos because they only want their way and wish everyone else would be forced to live by it.\nSaying "Happy holidays" isn't so bad because it's a neutral way of telling peope to enjoy the month of December, regardless of what you believe. If someone has a problem with that, they're stupid.\nIf you would rather say, "Merry Christmas," that's fine, too. If somebody gets offended when you say it, they're also stupid. \nPerhaps for the holidaze this year, people should not celebrate anything. Doing some research and learning as much as they can about the First Amendment might be more beneficial. If such a high level of stupidity is allowed to continue, the future of this world does not look too promising.