Members of Congress can’t tell constituents ‘Merry Christmas’

By David McElroy · December 17, 2011

For a country that allegedly values free speech, there certainly are a lot of conflicting rules about what member of the U.S. House can say to their constituents in franked mail.

If you’re a member of the Senate, you can say “Merry Christmas” in your constituent mail. If you’re in the House, the rules are different.

A franking commission spokesman confirmed to The Washington Examiner that Members of Congress indeed cannot wish constituents “Merry Christmas” in any official mailing.

“Currently, incidental use of the phrase Happy Holidays is permissible but Merry Christmas is not,” said Salley Wood.

Even if we’re going to keep the current coercive state around, I’d be happy to get rid of the franking privilege. That’s the perk that allows members of Congress to send out pretty much any mail they want without paying for it. Have you ever gotten something from your congressman and noticed his signature instead of a stamp? That’s what that’s all about.

But if we’re going to have franking, let the folks say whatever they want as long as they’re not campaigning on our nickel. If they want to tell people Merry Christmas or Happy Hanukkah or whatever makes them happy — or whatever they think the voters want to hear, more likely — let them. It’s silly to pretend that wishing someone Merry Christmas is somehow establishing religion in violation of the First Amendment.

I don’t care if what greeting people use at holidays. I don’t care if they use any greeting at all. But if people want to say Merry Christmas, let them. It’s political correctness run amuck to dictate the content of the greeting.

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I haven’t posted anything new in my YouTube series about narcissism in the last couple of weeks, so some people have been asking about it. There’s nothing wrong and I’ll be back soon. The issue is simply a technical problem because of a piece of equipment that died. Here’s a brief video I posted on YouTube to explain.

On a live awards show Sunday night, one man made a joke about a female celebrity. The husband of the celebrity was offended and hit the man who made the joke. Or maybe it was staged for entertainment. Who knows? Who cares? Social media is full of discussion — and even arguments — about this idiocy today. This baffles me. Let’s assume for a moment that the event happened as reported. People have been having such idiotic fights ever since there have been humans. Half the bars in the world see such brief dustups regularly. It simply doesn’t matter. The fact that so many people believe they need to talk about this — or even need to have opinions about it — is more evidence of the bizarre media brainwashing that convinces many to care passionately about brain-dead trivia. Your life will be happier and saner if you focus on yourself, your family and your friends, not on whatever scripted (or spontaneous) bilge that the media wants to pipe into your home.

I’m in the middle of migrating this website to new servers this week. This means you might encounter some unexpected behavior until I get all the bugs worked out. Clicking on my links (including this one) might cause your browser to give you the message that it’s a site without a current security certificate. It’s not actually unsafe, but there’s something which isn’t yet set up for the security certificate. I apologize for any such errors you might encounter while the process is going on. If you notice any problems with content which didn’t migrate properly, I would appreciate you letting me know the details at davidmcelroy@mac.com. Thanks for your patience.

I often wonder what animals think when they look at us and consider the society we’ve created. Yes, I know this is fanciful and unrealistic, but what if they could? Would they be astounded at how we treat each other? Would they be disgusted by the ugliness and pettiness which fill so many of our daily interactions? The truth is that I’m feeling pretty disgusted with humanity tonight. I made the mistake of reading some online interactions that I should have avoided — and it sickened me. The people involved appeared to be vile and stupid and arrogant. I wish I could pretend they’re a tiny minority, but I know better. It’s times such as this when I most need to escape much of “civilization” and disconnect from their world. If humans are going to be worthy of “ruling this planet,” we have a lot of growth to do. And I fear that growth is nowhere in sight. So my buddy Thomas, above, and all of his friends would be right to judge us harshly — and to think, “Why do you folks get to be in charge?”

I should have expected this, but I honestly didn’t. The article I wrote last week about disagreements over treatment for autistic children brought me angry emails. You could almost call it “hate mail.” Of the five emails about it so far, two have been to tell me that I’m wrong to even listen to critics of the most popular therapy for autistic children — and the other three tell me I’m wrong for not condemning the treatment as the “obvious” abuse it is. If you read the article, you know I didn’t take a position on the issue, because I simply don’t know enough to have an opinion. But by talking about the issue, I stepped into a heated controversy. The emails from the two sides convinced me of nothing. But they did give me even more empathy for the unfortunate parents who have to figure out for themselves where the truth lies for their children.

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