Here is the "Black Friday" question of the day from Martin Lewis at the Telegraph: Is it time to ban Christmas presents?

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Mike Shedlock

Mike Shedlock

Mike Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for Sitka Pacific Capital Management.

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wrigdon Wrote: Nov 25, 2012 4:09 PM
liberals want to ban any and everything that they dont like and GOD AND JESUS and any thing to do with the two they want gone for good they want to keep killing babies and getting the gays married and teaching kids these heathen things is right is their agenda and so far its looking good for them protect the terroist who want to kill us its all good to them
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troglidite Wrote: Nov 24, 2012 9:29 PM
I'm voting straight GOP because the GOP knows that government doesn't work. It is simple logic.

Think of it this way. If you're hiring a bus driver you wouldn't want the (Democrat) guy who loves the bus and thinks it's the answer for getting people around and will waste time taking care of the bus and driving it all around nice. You'd want to hire the (Republican) guy who knows that buses are stupid, and everyone should drive cars, so he's going to crash the bus and set it on fire, so no one can try and use it again because BUSES DON"T WORK. See? Proof buses don't work. This one is just a useless burnt out shell that someone crashed and then set on fire. Can't get around in THAT, stupid Democrat. Buy a car.

--RetiredGeek
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David4 Wrote: Nov 24, 2012 11:03 PM
Try another analogy: Who would you hire to run the bus garage? Someone who realizes that the bus company isn't bringing in enough money to pay for upkeep, maintenance and operation? Or someone who will beg the government for taxpayer bailouts to keep it going?

The first guy will park or sell the buses. People are obviously already finding acceptable substitutes for using buses.
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crude Wrote: Nov 24, 2012 8:43 PM
Republicans see America as the center of the Universe. In fact, it is not. China is a land power. Who here thinks China is a sea power? Let's see, one of the world's richest resource areas is due north of China. Can anyone here tell me what that area is called?
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q16penn Wrote: Nov 24, 2012 8:33 PM
Republican have been saying that "Democrats like Big government."

It's so true! The Democrats also know that these programs cost money. They need to be funded. Life is not all about eating 'cake and ice cream' (entitlements) and not having to take your medicine (taxes). Life is about both.

Republicans are clueless or maybe, perhaps, they want to destroy our country by "starving the beast." Republicans are poor stewards of the government and the economy. For them it's all about handing out the spending programs (cake) and then getting excited about an assortment of tax cuts. (no medicine for you!)

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crude Wrote: Nov 24, 2012 8:13 PM
The United States still pays for the bulk of South Korea's and Japan's defense. WHY?? So those two countries can plow their saved money into taking over the consumer electronics and auto industries?
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troglidite Wrote: Nov 24, 2012 6:07 PM
From the bottom of my heart. This country now approves of OBAMACARE. Don't you get it?
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John C6 Wrote: Nov 24, 2012 8:08 PM
Don't need it, Don' want it, Better off without it.
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evie10 Wrote: Nov 24, 2012 5:05 PM
No, we don't need a ban, we need people to learn personal responsibility. The idea of a business being open on such a holiday as Thanksgiving is not the issue. I understand that consumers with children in school can have one parent at home while the other shops and that impinges on the rights of those working in the stores. But many people do not get any holidays off - prison guards, hospital workers (as the ER ward clerk, I would go to work at 7AM on Thanksgiving morning and leave on Saturday morning at 7AM to allow the other clerks with children to be at home), and such workers. So some store workers have to show up - they get compensation for it.
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Navy-baby Wrote: Nov 24, 2012 12:46 PM
I'd like to know how many non-believers are willing to work Christmas Day, and/or repay their paid holiday wages? They don't believe, they harangue America for her Christian heritage, and yet never complain about having a day off with pay.
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FairnessMan Wrote: Nov 24, 2012 12:13 PM
The Black Friday mobs. More proof that the IQ of the American people is about the same as the temperature in N. Dakota the day after Thanksgiving.
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Leb2 Wrote: Nov 24, 2012 10:37 AM
As a semi normal American that's in their 60's, I have this to say, Remember the Reason for the Season. It's not all for Angles we have heard on high tell us to go out and buy.
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jimwg2 Wrote: Nov 24, 2012 10:27 AM
Why not encourage/or only buy from merchants and schools practicing Xmas-free Octobers and Novembers? In these modern days of on-line shopping and Fed Ex, merchants can still get over starting Xmas ads and shopping the day after Thanksgiving, and we won't have Xmas ads and anticipations steamrolling over the significance of Veterans Day, Columbus Day, and even Thanksgiving itself. The first store that does this policy already has a sold customer.
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slk Wrote: Nov 24, 2012 10:13 AM
Exactly why I quit with the Christmas gift mess in high school. The entire spectacle of people trying to impress others with gifts was completely contradictory to the idea of Christmas in religion. I was actually relieved when Christmas was renamed to "holiday season" so people might not confuse the frenzied spending with a religious holiday. It's all very, very bad. Perhaps we could rename it "Spend like Fools" day and at least honestly would be injected. (I do buy gifts for people that I am sure they will want and give them to the person when I buy the gift--even if it's January.)
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gf3 Wrote: Nov 24, 2012 9:48 AM
I was in a Target store yesterday afternoon. A little boy looked up at his grandma, awestruck, and asked, "Is this Black Friday?"

Black Friday has become a national holiday.

We have an annual "Holiday Celebration" at work every year. The only Christmas songs we're allowed to sing are irreverent parodies.

Yes, the citizens have a right to celebrate an unknown holiday, but Christians should not be contributing to the anti-Christian institution.



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Manny41 Wrote: Nov 24, 2012 9:25 AM
Curious how mobs camp out at stores for days to buy Christmas junk, but fewer and fewer attend church services even on Christmas. The reason Christians celebrate Christmas has been swept away with frenetic buying of stuff no one needs. True, the Magi brought gifts to the baby Jesus, but they did not kill on Black Friday to get what they gave, and the bore gifts as acts of homage, not obligation to give stuff no one needs. Trying to persuade that we need to keep Christ in Christmas often engenders quizzical looks - "Who"?
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Macksfield Wrote: Nov 24, 2012 8:01 AM
If we abandon Christmas then we must abandon Government, Education, Fast Food, birthdays, etc, etc, etc... Since, all of these ideas have become extreme at one time or another. In some fashion each of these models/traditions have been taken to the extreme. So there you go bored "writer", I gave you (4) more hot abandon topics you can use for an article....
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slk Wrote: Nov 24, 2012 10:22 AM
Abandoning public education, fast food and birthdays is okay with me. Question: if these activities are not extreme now, how did that come about? Maybe if you post how that worked, we can apply it to Christmas and the abandoning can be avoided. Isn't Christmas voluntary any way? Government and education are not.
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Just an old soldier... Wrote: Nov 24, 2012 7:30 AM
I read the whole UK column and he isn't calling for a governmental ban but a personal one. He has some excellent points. Reading the Drudge headlines of the barbaric savagery going on at the malls yesterday, I think his point is well made.
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Cleombrotus2011 Wrote: Nov 24, 2012 8:31 AM
Gave up joining in the farce years ago. Personally, I think it's well past time for Christians to examine a lot MORE of what passes in their life for kingdom business that is actually the world's other than celebrating hoildays.

Most of what we do these days as Christians is not Biblical at all but tradtitional.

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Wumingren Wrote: Nov 24, 2012 7:20 AM
I think it is time for Christians to abandon December 25. There is ample discussion suggesting that Christ's birth occurred many weeks earlier, but the pagans had their very festive holiday on or about December 25, so that date was hijacked in order to make Christmas more popular. "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em," so to speak. I say give the pagans back their holiday. The world has already ejected Jesus from the public square. It's now the "Holiday Season" and the "Holiday Tree," so let them have it, and let us Christians observe Christ's birth without Fesitvus.
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anonymous1662 Wrote: Nov 24, 2012 7:43 AM
You are correct; let the pagans have their holiday season. I gave my share back to them long ago................
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Chris from Kalifornia Wrote: Nov 24, 2012 7:52 AM
I thought I read that Jesus was actually born in the late spring or early summer. Joseph and Mary returned to their home town for tax counting. What date did that happen? Josephus should have said. Can you look it up?
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Cleombrotus2011 Wrote: Nov 24, 2012 8:41 AM
While I wouldn't demand that anyone else agree with this, more than lilkely He was born in September on the feast of Tabernacles as all of the other Jewish fall feast are representative of something He did while the Spring feasts represent things He WILL do.

Plus, shepherds wouldn't be feeding their flocks in the fields in December.
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Wumingren Wrote: Nov 24, 2012 1:30 PM
It was because of the numerous alternative birthdates one can find on the Internet that I did not mention any particular date for the birth of Yeshua Hamashiach (Jesus the Messiah). But I, too, lean toward September and the Feast of the Tabernacles as a likely birthdate. The Muslims are big on dates of significance: check out September 11.
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Joseph64 Wrote: Nov 24, 2012 7:18 AM
If you think it makes no sense here, Mish, then how much sense does it make for the Japanese to celebrate Christmas? in Japan the dominant religious beliefs are Buddhism and Shinto, with many Japanese practicing a mix of the two. Japanese Christians account for only around 1% of the Japanese people so how can Christmas possibly be such a big holiday in a country with so few Christians? The answer is money. Christmas has even less of a religious connotation in Japan than it does here so the only possible explanation is that retailers have jumped on the Christmas bandwagon for the sole purpose of boosting their bottom line before closing out there books at the end of the year.
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Wumingren Wrote: Nov 24, 2012 1:35 PM
I lived in Asia for 20 years, and, because those countries took their turn manufacturing our Christmas decorations, each in turn adopted some form of a corresponding seasonal awareness. It was unsettleing, however, to find Christmas lights used to decorate bars and brothels long before the reason for the season caught up with the locals' understanding.
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Cleombrotus2011 Wrote: Nov 24, 2012 2:41 AM
One of the best quotes I've heard on the web these days isfroma n economist who said that "Retailers have basically ruined all the holidays."

Ain't that the truth.
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Chris from Kalifornia Wrote: Nov 24, 2012 6:44 AM
On the other hand, in a free society, retailers employ a lot of people and advertising is what has done the destruction. Commercialization like everything has good sides and bad sides. There is nothing wrong with making a profit. As long as the profit is earned without cheating anyone I'm fine with it. I simply stay home during the rush, and like I said on another post. I pay no attention to the dates, I buy gifts when I choose throughout the year. Being a recently "saved" Christian, I celebrate the "holidays" appropriately to my Christian beliefs.
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Joseph64 Wrote: Nov 24, 2012 7:30 AM
Then you should not be celebrating Christmas at all, because it is not a Christian holiday.
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Chris from Kalifornia Wrote: Nov 24, 2012 7:50 AM
You are so full of yourself. Christmas can still be a celebration of Jesus for those of us who are actually Christians. Notice I said I celebrate appropriately. Why are you being a scrooge?
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Cleombrotus2011 Wrote: Nov 24, 2012 8:26 AM
Chris, welcome to the fold.

Hopefully, you will begin to learn to distinguish between what's of the world and what's of God. Sometimes they look similar but are not.
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Joseph64 Wrote: Nov 24, 2012 8:32 AM
Maybe because God looks down on paganism and tells us specifically via the Bible not to do it? If you can't see that any of what I am saying is true then maybe you need to re-examine your beliefs and decide whether you are a Christian or a Pagan because you sound like a Pagan to me.
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DagNabbit Wrote: Nov 24, 2012 12:49 AM
Oh, krap, you've done it now: O'Reilly will label you a soldier in the "war" on Christmas.

Happy Holidays.
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Chris from Kalifornia Wrote: Nov 24, 2012 6:37 AM
O'Reilly's opinion is over rated and he is no longer relevant to any conservative. Saying "happy holidays" is really a politically correct slur against the event that we are supposedly celebrating at Christmas which is the birth of Jesus, the Christ, which actually took place in late spring or early summer if my history recollection is correct. The gift giving is based on the gifts of the three "wise men" who brought gifts to the baby. They gave the gifts because they WANTED to, not because of some obligation and they asked nor expected anything in return.
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Joseph64 Wrote: Nov 24, 2012 7:40 AM
O'Reilly was never a conservative. He is a wishy-washy centrist with only slight leanings to right on very specific issues. I find it funny as hell whenever the libtards claim O'Reilly is a right wing nut because it is only to someone to the left of Mao Tse Dong that O'Reilly would be considered right wing.
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