Christmas Rant Interlude

So far my Christmas posts have garnered feedback that ranges from apathetic to downright hostile. The atheists got mad at me for suggesting we should do away with Christmas' Christian symbolism while the Christians got mad at me for saying we should preserve and give credit to Christmas' pagan roots. I've had friends tell me I "made some good points" in that tone parents use when congratulating children on crappy macaroni portraits. I've had people tell me I'm giving atheists a bad name, that I have a problem with Christianity, that I'm incoherent and rambling.

And I got called a Grinch once or twice.

I resent that.

Overall I get the feeling that, no matter how good my points are, people are going to react negatively. I'm not terribly shocked; I am shitting on everyone's favourite holiday, after all, and for what? No one really cares where Christmas came from or how it became entangled with Christianity. No one is actually going to stop calling it Christmas. This little witch-trial of mine is a lose-lose.: I'm not winning any arguments, nor am I hooking new readers.

I started regretting my commitment to write about Christmas almost from the onset, when I realized two things:

1. Eight weeks is a really long time to spend writing about something you despise, and
2. My qualms with Christmas are just that: mine.

I've been wanting to take Christmas to task ever since I quit celebrating it. The initial harassment I faced left a bitter taste in my mouth and even though people stopped giving me a hard time a few years ago I never stopped resenting Christmas.

I know that my beef with Christmas is childish and hypocritical. It also goes against the purpose of this blog. The Meme Merchant is about seeking enlightenment and cultivating positive thought. It's about exploring new ideas, new ways of thinking, and improving yourself.

It's also an outlet for my noisy mind and a way for me to work things out. I'm always looking for ways to improve myself and my fixation with Christmas is just another item on my endless to-do list. My last four posts are therapy. They aren't meant to turn anyone off Christmas or convince people to discard the name; they are my attempts to rid myself of this irrational bitterness.

Don't think that I'm back-tracking. I stand behind every word I've written on this topic. None of us  decided that December 25 should be a special day requiring that we observe a series of ancient rituals. These traditions were stitched together by politicians and handed down to us via a long line of people who lacked the ability to think critically.

We are not slaves to tradition. In fact, our willingness or refusal to carry traditions forward determine their survival. That's why I encourage everyone to customize Christmas. Pick and choose what you want to keep in your holiday. Make up your own traditions. Why not? No one can tell you how to celebrate Christmas. Inventing new traditions might sound like a strange idea but we've already witnessed the rise of at least one new tradition in our lifetimes: the ugly Christmas sweater party.

Brilliant.

If you're hesitant to modify Christmas, just remember that the Christians did this very thing when they introduced the holiday in the fourth century CE. I imagine it went something like this:

"How can we get these dirty heathens to abandon their ways and follow Christ's teachings? I got it! We'll let them keep burning crap and feasting on Dec 25 but we'll tell them it's for Jesus' birthday instead!"

Cue laughter and high-fives.

For my last Christmas rants I'll explore the ethical dilemma of Santa Claus, the pitfalls of having a season of charity, and the materialistic focus of the holiday season. I imagine I'll get some more Reddit hate mail before I'm done but you can't please everyone, especially on the Internet.

26 days till Christmas

/rant over

Reddit Hate Mail

It didn't take long for the Reddit hate mail to start rolling in. Thanks to /u/yaysuekristy for providing me with the most coherent argument so far. Here's the abbreviated version. Italicized text is yaysuekristy; anything bold is my reply or original post. And here's the link  to the full page in case you want the unadulterated version complete with awesome comments from other wonderful people.

yaysuekristy: So basically you are arguing that every bit of mythology ascribed to Christmas is a shining example of the "great wisdom and creativity" of our ancestors... except the Christian mythological parts. So I guess Handel's Messiah, Silent Night, other amazing classical Christmas pieces are shite?

Quite the opposite, I find it unfortunate that such masterpieces are relegated to a 2-month window of time every year.

And how is Christianity not part of our history, when pagan myths are? 

It is a part of our history. A part of our history that has nothing to do with this season and Dec 25.

Also, the "family gathering" bit didn't come into Christmas until a reformation in the 19th century, prior to that it was mostly a raucous public festival akin to Mardi Gras. Should we go back to that too? That aspect was also pagan. 

I think we could do with a little more partying and a little less shopping and church-going. Personally I would skip out on the public orgies and human sacrifice but otherwise sounds like an upgrade from how we currently do things.

 "I have no problem with Christianity. " Yes, clearly, you do. Admitting that bias is something you need to do.

Feel free to browse my comments on Reddit. I spend far more time defending Christians and religion in general. I think it's awesome that online atheists champion truth and the dispelling of myths and falsehoods... until those falsehoods are linked to warm and fuzzy childhood memories. Then it's like 'Fuck that I like those lies!' To reiterate: my issue isn't with the Bible or New Testament or Jesus; it's with the idea that this season has anything to do with all of the above.

"The first order of business should be to abandon the word “Christmas.” I know, I know. "Why bother? It's just semantics. You can make it whatever you want it to be. Call it what you want. Festivus. Saturnalia. Solstice Day. Gift Day. Whatever." How about.... Christmas? "We Wish You A Merry Gift Day" and "White Saturnalia" don't quite have that ring to them... and Festivus is already a SEPARATE HOLIDAY that is a REJECTION of the consumerism of Christmas, yet you want to equate it with a holiday you call "Gift Day"? What ignorance. 

You got me there. Didn't know Festivus was a 'thing' outside of Seinfeld.

Christians clearly don't have a problem with "Easter" deriving from the name of a pagan goddess, so why do you, the person who self-identifies as having "no problem with Christianity", have such a beef with the word Christmas? 

Early Christians also had no problem shoving Christ into the pagan solstice where he had no business so I assume they chalked Easter up as fair trade. But that's neither here nor there. We (I posted this to an atheist subreddit so "we" means atheists here) are not Christians. Why should their willingness to adopt pagan rituals equate to our adopting Christian myths into our lives? I thought we were the rational ones? The Mythbusters? Many of us go throwing scorn and insults at our theist brothers and sisters in the name of "dispelling myths" that have little to no bearing on our lives. Christmas affects all of us but here we are arguing semantics.

Do you also favor renaming Halloween, St. Patrick's Day, Valentine's Day, and BC/AD/BCE/CE (yes, BCE/CE still reference the supposed birth of the Christian deity)?

Time is subjective and we need a reference point we can all agree on. I would much prefer we use the fall of Rome as our marker for BCE vs. CE but it's too late to change it now.

Besides, the word "Christ's Mass" only has significance to Catholics anyway.

Really? Seems to have significance to anyone celebrating Christmas since they named the holiday after Christ's Mass.

Neopagans still believe that mistletoe has magical powers, so why aren't you deriding that practice as much as a nativity scene or religious Christmas carols? 

Because neopagans have zero influence beyond their own small circle whereas tons of people still believe Christ was born on Dec 25. I get it. It's a harmless myth. A white lie. But then the bible is filled with all sorts of debatable information, some of it beneficial, some of it harmful. Maybe you can explain to me why atheists defend the Christian mythology of Christmas but attack nearly every other aspect of the Christian faith?



I haven't gotten an answer yet but I got some downvotes (for anyone not familiar with Reddit, people can give you what amounts to "internet points" if they like your comment; likewise, they can downvote you and take your points away. These points are completely meaningless but Redditors lose their shit over them) so I posted this response:

Downvotes without arguments are just as good as upvotes. If you want to do something constructive you should address my counter-arguments... 

I won't hold my breath.

Oh and One More Thing...

Saturnalia may have provided the blueprint for Christmas but even it was not an original idea. The Babylonians celebrated Zagmuk—meaning literally “beginning of the year”—a 12 day festival that symbolized Marduk’s triumph over chaos. Marduk also happened to be the Babylonian sun-god.

Sacaea, another Middle-Eastern solstice festival, sounds remarkably like Saturnalia. Berossus, a Hellenistic-era Babylonian writer, described a series of festivals characterized by a subversion of order similar to the reversal of power seen in Saturnalia. A mock-king was crowned. Masquerades filled the streets. 

Why were ancient peoples so obsessed with the solstice? 

Our ancestors didn’t have long weekends and statutory holidays: they worked the fields, often at the end of a whip's crack, for as long as there was work to be done. So when there was a brief moment of idleness—typically after the harvest—the priests who ran things back then decided to kill three birds with one stone. 

The priesthood was the elite; they didn't soil their hands in the fields. And since they lacked HBO and Reddit, they spent a bunch of time watching the sky and tracking the sun, moon, stars. They were the first to pick up on the shortening of the days that occurred like clockwork every year.

Our ancestors also happened to be a superstitious bunch. Whereas you and I know that the sun will rise tomorrow, the ancients had no such guarantees. The solstice festival resolves this first dilemma in a typically human manner: by flattering and bribing the sun-god into coming back full-time.

The second dilemma to afflict our ancient elite--how to keep the workers happy--was resolved in an equally pragmatic way. If the rituals and sacrifices were meant to appease the sun then the feasts and benders were meant to appease the slaves and lower classes who composed the bulk of these ancient civilizations.

The second solution also helps to remedy a third problem. Even today winter is a depressing time. The short, dark days wear people down, and we know the sun is coming back. Imagine how shitty this season would be if we believed that the sun's return was dependent on whether or not we made him happy with our offerings! 

We don’t need to burn yule logs to appease a trivial deity. We don’t need to light up the the night to ward away evil spirits. The Christmas tree, a pagan symbol of winter's inability to stop the cycle of renewal, is also unnecessary.

We’re practicing ancient, outdated, and obsolete rituals, and I for one think it's great. They are a part of our human heritage, little pieces of history carried to the modern era by the minds of our ancestors. They’re founded on real natural phenomenon and are largely symbolic. We can burn yule logs without believing that the sun would forsake us if we didn’t. We can decorate an evergreen with lights without believing it's a safety precaution against ghosts and spirits.  

What we can't do is support the Christian mythology of Christmas without believing in it. And since the Christian mythology supports a carefully crafted lie, it cannot qualify under the symbolism exception.

Whereas symbolism represents or suggests a belief, the Christian mythology of Christmas promotes false beliefs to the masses.

I'm a big proponent of letting people do their own thing. I don't subscribe to any religion myself but I support those who do and defend their beliefs so long as those beliefs don't bring harm or suffering. Deceiving people by appealing to their spiritual beliefs qualifies as harmful in my book.

I have no problem with Christianity. To me, all religions are memes born of human minds, possessing lives and minds of their own. Christians reading this should not be offended. If anything is offensive about this whole affair it's that early church fathers, hand-in-hand with the Roman empire, soiled Jesus by implicating him with Saturnalia, the pagan Fourth of July. 

Apologists who concede that Jesus wasn't born on December 25 say they are doing good by honouring Christ and taking attention away from Christmas' pagan roots. Only Jesus specifically warned his disciples to abstain from such practices in Matthew 15:9: "But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines of men." Then, in Mark 7:9: "Full well you reject the commandment of God, that you may keep your own tradition."

Uncanny. It sounds as if these passages were penned to address this exact situation!  There goes the "honoring Christ" explanation.

The reason I am spending so much time on the origin and evolution of Christmas is twofold: first, I want to make it clear that fighting to keep Christ in Christmas is a waste of energy. The historical and archeological evidence is unanimous on the topic. On this basis alone, we should take Jesus out of Christmas,

Second, I want to illustrate Christmas' obedience to memetic law. From Babylon to Rome to nearly a third of the world, Christmas has changed, adapted, and evolved to survive. We have been carrying the meme in our big sexy brains for 4,000 years, shaping and moulding it with our beliefs before passing it onward to the next generation.

Christmas is just one example of this phenomenon. Since the dawn of our species we have been the unwitting, unknowing carriers of religions, ideologies, traditions, and rituals. 

If enough people realize that they carry and shape ideas, we can turn the tables and gain some control over the process. If instead of blindly following tradition we look at the things we take for granted with a critical mind, we can trim the fat. We can discard the things we deem unnecessary and keep the things that make us happy. We can dispel the myths that have no place in our modern age and reinforce the facts. 

Quitting Christmas doesn't mean quitting the holidays. It doesn't mean getting rid of the family gathering, evergreen tree, bright lights, gifts, mistletoe, and yule log. Quite the opposite. These rituals form a part of our legacy. They are the fossils of dead memes dug up every December and re-examined. They serve as a sober reminder of how far we have come and that even our ancient ancestors possessed great wisdom and creativity.

We should honour our history, not a series of carefully constructed myths.

Let's take control of this storied tradition and make it ours again. The first order of business should be to abandon the word “Christmas.” I know, I know. "Why bother? It's just semantics. You can make it whatever you want it to be." True, we can and should make it our own, but as long as we call it Christmas, we're still enforcing a lie.

Something tells me he wasn't big on presents

Call it what you want. Festivus. Saturnalia. Solstice Day. Gift Day. Whatever. Even after we ditch the Christian myth, the spirit of the holidays remains unchanged. It will continue to be a time for the gathering of family and friends during the cold dark days of winter; a time to reflect on yet another year of life in this awesome and mysterious universe. And if you want to break the bank and buy a bunch of presents, why shouldn't you?

Just don't do it for Jesus.

(PS: You'll notice I haven't mentioned Santa yet. That's because he is perhaps my favourite character in the mythology of Christmas and deserves his own post, which I will be putting out next Friday. Until then, 33 days till Krissmuss. /rant over)

Taking Christ out of Christmas

While researching this post, I discovered that many Christians are "fighting" to keep Christ in Christmas. Seems like a strange cause to champion considering Christmas originally had nothing to do with Jesus or Christianity.

The evolution of Christmas from pagan Mardi Gras to religious holy-day is an intriguing story. Christmas, like all ideas borne of human minds, falls within the sphere of meme theory. Its popularity has waxed and waned. It has competed against some memes, merged with others, and adapted to survive.

Christmas didn't start with Christ. It existed in other guises long before Jesus came around and it didn't start up in its Christianized form until 300 years after his death. Selecting December 25 as Jesus' birthday was a pivotal decision made by humans for social, political, and economical reasons. Ancient sources are quite clear. Jesus' birthday was a topic of great debate for the early Christians. Doesn't help that the Bible is shockingly vague on the topic. And what hints we do find in the Bible tend to contradict the December 25 hypothesis.

Why did early Christians decide on that specific date if there is no evidence to support it? The answer is tied to another holiday that originates in the Roman republic long before Jesus was ever conceived, though I suppose some people will argue that he was always conceived in his father's mind.

Anyways. Let's talk about Christmas' drunk uncle, Saturnalia.

Saturnalia, aka Best Christmas Party Ever

Long before the birth of Jesus, intrepid Romans created what is possibly the greatest holiday conceivable.  Imagine if Mardi Gras and Carnival had a baby together and decided to raise it in Las Vegas.

Saturnalia started on December 17th with the closing of the courts and culminated on December 23rd, the winter solstice and birthday of the Roman sun-god Sol Invictus. During this time, gambling and dicing, typically frowned upon in Roman society, were allowed and encouraged; slaves were served by their masters and given temporary freedom; marital bonds were shattered; togas were cast aside in favour of colourful outfits which were otherwise considered poor taste; everyone wore masks.

The Roman poet Horace called it "December liberty." It was a time for leveling the playing field. Noblemen and slaves partied side by side as equals, protected by anonymity and the good grace of Saturn, god of agriculture.

Oh, and there were orgies. Lots of orgies.

December 23 marked Sigillaria, a day of gift-giving. Sound familiar? The season's greeting, Io Saturnalia, also bears heavy resemblance to our own "merry Christmas." Christianity took root and flourished in the Roman empire, where Saturnalia originated and was widely celebrated. During the 300 years between Christ's death and the appearance of Christmas, it's hard to believe that Christians--the bulk of which were former pagans--weren't heavily influenced by Saturnalia.

Saturnalia wasn't all about liberty and gift-giving though. There's talk of human sacrifices taking place. My favourite story is that Romans, at the onset of the festivities, elected a "King of Saturnalia." For the duration of Saturnalia, this person was honoured at feasts and banquets. He hosted parties and issued capricious commands ("You, over there: dance naked on the table!") that were obeyed without question.

Sounds rad, right?

Except at the end of the week, the "King" was sacrificed to Saturn. As in, brutally murdered in public. This hasn't been concretely proven so take it with a grain of salt. Whether true or not, there are clear social benefits to such a tradition. People would certainly be inclined toward kindness if they believed they might be elected as the King of Saturnalia next year.

So how did Christ, who died for our sins, get involved with a pagan festival composed primarily of sinning?

The First Christmas

The first mention of December 25 as Jesus' birthday appears in the fourth century CE, well after the death of Christ. What prompted this move? Did someone discover evidence regarding Jesus' birthday? Actually, no. As it turns out, his birthday was as much a mystery then as it was shortly after his death.

Claiming December 25 as Christ's birth was a business decision, not a revelation. Remember that Christianity's primary goal has always been to convert the heathens. In an effort to ease the transition from pagan to Christian, early church-leaders decided to steal Sol Invictis' birthday and make it their own. They also allowed converts to celebrate Christmas as they had celebrated Saturnalia with one exception: rather than pay homage to Saturn, the Roman god of agriculture, they were to honour Christ instead.

It may be difficult for us to understand how such an obvious lie took root and managed to persist for so long. First we must remember that gods were very real back then. People took their existence as matter-of-fact. For Romans in the fourth century, the jump from Osiris-worship to Christianity was more of a hop, the modern-day equivalent of switching cable providers. They weighed the pros and cons, then made a decision.

By transposing Christian imagery onto Saturnalia, early church-leaders eliminated the biggest obstacle to conversion. Adapting Christianity to Saturnalia was the incentive many pagans needed to make the switch. The spread of Christianity throughout the known world was greatly facilitated by its willingness to adapt to the times. The invention of Christmas is a perfect illustration of this.

So What?

I respect Christmas' ability to morph and adopt the traits of its competitors in order to survive. The end result of its evolution isn't pretty, though. It resembles Frankenstein, a monster made of mismatched parts. Some of the parts are valuable and worthwhile; other parts should be hacked off. The Christian mythology of Christmas, as appealing as it may be, is a lie.

Let's amputate this unsightly appendage. Let's dispel the Christian myth and at least accept this holiday for what it truly is.

40 days until Krissmuss.

Christmas on Trial: Three Observations

I already spoke at length about my personal experience with quitting Christmas (and got plenty of grief for it on Reddit) so this time I'm actually going to get into it. But before I expound on the weird religious thing or the disturbing trend toward consumerism or the creepy character of Santa Claus, I want to share some observations I've made over the last few years. Yes, I'm aware these are subjective opinion. I'm banking on the fact that many of you will have made similar, if not identical, observations, hence lending them credibility.

These observations can be summarized as follows:

1. Most people hate Christmas
2. Most people are reluctant to quit Christmas
3. Most people hate it when others quit Christmas

Disclaimer: I'm not digging up stats for this. These are my personal observations, not a peer-reviewed research paper. If you happen to agree with my "findings," welcome to the circlejerk. If not, see you next week with some hard facts.

Most people hate Christmas

In the last few years I’ve noticed a growing hatred for the holiday season among friends and strangers alike. Working in sales, I've had the "pleasure" of talking to thousands of strangers. Custies, as I like to call them, were the first to clue me in to this trend. In the past, they would get testier than usual around the holidays (I work in the insurance industry so they are testy all year round) but recently they started to voice their hatred for Christmas. And if they'll open up to me about it ("you people raised my rates again!") you know it must be serious.

Many of my friends have also emerged from the closet and admitted they wish they could quit Christmas. Most of their complaints are standard fare—crowded malls, traffic, stress, money, the music—but a surprising number relate to that wholesome holiday tradition of spending time with your family. It’s not that my friends hate their families (at least I hope they don’t) but rather a matter of scheduling. These days, having two families is not uncommon. If your parents split and remarried, you now have two Christmas dinners to attend to. If you're married and your spouse also came from a broken home, you have four.

Another Christmas at the in-laws, eh Brian?

I have one friend whose wife was adopted. Her adopted parents divorced and remarried. Then my buddy's wife decided to find her biological parents and is now close with her mother, adding a third family to the equation. Spread this mob of people across two cities, add my buddy's own gigantic family (also has two sets of parents) into the mix and you have the Dante's Inferno of holiday seasons.

Isn’t this the time for rum-and-eggnog fueled chats by the fireside at some mountainside ski-resort? Guess not.

A few of my friends have even taken the brave first step to quitting Christmas. You know the one. “We’re not doing gifts this year.” So far, none have progressed any further, which brings me to my next point.

Most people are reluctant to quit Christmas

At the height of my bitterness, I wanted to write a book called "The Cult of Christmas." The way people used to defend it blindly, often on religious grounds, baffled me. Didn't everyone know that Christmas had nothing to do with Jesus? That the Romans had dressed their favorite pagan holidays in Christian clothing? That the whole thing was a sham hijacked by corporations in order to drive up profit? Whenever I mentioned such things I was met with feverish denial or evasion--just how I imagine a cult-leader might respond to criticism of his cult. 

I don't actually think Christmas is a cult (anymore) but the parallels between the two are hard to deny. Forget the people who are on the fence; why do those who admittedly dislike Christmas still go through the motions? Like the poor cult member who has suddenly realized the lapse in his judgment, my friends see Christmas for what it is and they don't like it one bit. So why do they stick it out year after year? Do they think they will miss it once they leave? Are they trying to avoid disappointing family and friends still in the cult? Christmas isn't easy to leave and doing so can sometimes be painful. Another parallel can be drawn between Christmas and an abusive relationship. Like a beaten spouse who just can't leave her tormentor, who even rushes to his defense, folks keep going back to Christmas despite knowing better. Hence #3.

Most people don't like it when others successfully quit Christmas

If we accept premise one and two, it is easy to see how they lead to this conclusion. Many people strongly dislike the holiday season, either in part or completely. Despite this, they feel obligated to continue the tradition. When they meet someone who has done what they could not--who has gone ahead and severed ties to Christmas--they react bitterly.

At least that used to be my explanation for it. Recently even this trend has begun to change. 

Initially my abstinence was met with confusion, anger, and sadness; last year, it was met with envy and indifference just as often as it was met with scorn. Who knows? Maybe in another few years we'll see more people doing their own thing. We have the time off. Why not take the holidays back for ourselves? Why not relax, spend time with the people we want to spend time with, and celebrate whatever we believe in however we see fit? Traditions, whether innocent or malign, are carried forward by people. Why not take what we like about the holidays and discard the things that stress us out and make us bitter and exhausted?   

Until then, the holidays remain a curious juxtaposition. On one hand it's a time for charity; on the other hand it drives people to put themselves into debt. On one hand it's "the most wonderful time of the year;" on the other hand people seem more miserable than at any other point of the year. On one hand it's a time for family; on the other people are stressed and overloaded and the last thing they want to do is have Christmas eve dinner with mom and brunch the next day with the in-laws and dinner with dad that evening and then...

You get the point.

48 days till Christmas!

/rant over

It's Already Begun

November 4th, 2013. 2:23pm.

I'm sitting in my local Starbucks surrounded by red and green merchandise and there's Christmas music blasting in my ears. Two months to go and we're already getting primed for Christmas by our corporate overlords.

I've been quietly boycotting Christmas for about 5 years now. I don't make a big production out of it. Whenever questioned on the topic I try to keep my answers as generic and simple as possible. My boycott isn't some cry for attention nor do I want to push my views on others. I also don't want to offend anyone.

I've been cornered on this topic more often than I care to remember. Strangers, co-workers, family members, and friends have all, at one point or another, pushed the issue. No matter how evasive I am, people can't seem to let it go.

I get it. It's rare for people to just quit Christmas. It's no surprise that the first question I get is regarding my faith. Apparently being a Jehovah's Witness is the only legitimate reason for boycotting Christmas.

Reactions go something like this: confusion, because why would anyone willingly choose to abandon Christmas?; anger, because I just gave them a bunch of reasons; and finally sadness, because poor me, I must be miserable. I've been called a Grinch so many times I just started accepting it. When rational arguments are met with insults, no matter how silly, then you'd best walk away. It's all downhill from there.

To recap: I never initiate these awkward conversations and I do everything in my power to derail them before it's too late. Even after it's too late, I never pass judgment on people who celebrate Christmas. To each their own, I say. Despite all of these precautions, I get ostracized and insulted. People infer that maybe I'm just an angry, bitter person who is incapable of feeling joy.

My boycott is a personal choice based on critical thought and research. Furthermore, this choice only affects me. My family is free to celebrate however they choose. I'm not trying to stop anyone from doing what they want. So why do I get so much grief for my personal decision?

This year, I decided to take a new approach.

I've been building my case for long enough. It's time to put Christmas on trial.

You can be the jury. If at the end you still think Christmas is a valid holiday worthy of celebration, I will wish you the best. I'm not on a crusade to wipe out Christmas or anything, only trying expose you to some new ideas and present old ideas in a new light. If these ideas convince you to abandon Christmas, great. If not, also great. As long as you're happy, I'm happy. At least now my opinion will be out there for all to see. I can refer any inquiries to the blog.

The way I see it, if I have to listen to "Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer" for the next two months, I might as well give something back. I'll be posting my Christmas rants every Friday, nowhere near as often as I will have to listen to some infuriatingly catchy Xmas song, and on December 24th, I'll drop my closing statement.

Consider it a gift. Some of you will undoubtedly think it's a lump of coal, but it's the thought that counts, right?

50 DAYS UNTIL XMAS!!!

/Rant over

A Modern Political Party

If we agree that our political system is broken--that it is ancient and plagued with loopholes and redundancies, that it serves a small group of individuals who are not accountable for their actions and decisions--and want change, how should we proceed? If we listen to Russell Brand, we will abstain from voting and... then what? Sit around waiting for a revolution? This is the same passive approach that perpetuates our current paradigm. Unless we want to repeat the past, we have only one option: get involved. In a representative democracy, that means voting.

The question then becomes: who should we vote for? What political party is attempting to reduce corruption, increase voter turnout, and modernize our government? The answer, sadly, is none.

There are glimmers of hope here and there. MP Kennedy Stewart's motion 428 is certainly a step in the right direction. Likewise, Justin Trudeau's call for more transparency inspires hope. Transparency is the best weapon against corruption; eliminate all the hiding places and politicians will have no choice but to behave. Trudeau and his Liberal party may only be revealing their expenses to the public but it's a step in the right direction.

Aside from these two examples, political parties are pretty busy slinging mud at each other, presiding over witch trials, trying to disband the senate, building oil pipelines or fracking (to the detriment of our environment), cutting funds to education and the arts, and negotiating Internet censorship behind closed doors. Canadians, having elected their so-called representatives, sit idly by and watch these episodes unfold. Is it any wonder people don't believe in democracy anymore?

I started by telling you to vote, then proceeded to tell you that the political party of our choice doesn't exist. What gives?

One potential solution is to start a new political party dedicated to the neglected issues listed above. Our mandate would be to eliminate corruption, modernize our system, educate the masses on key issues, increase participation, and actually represent the people. Below you will find a general outline of how such a party might operate. It's only a  skeleton, meaning it needs to be fleshed out by people who are smarter than I. You'll note that my outline says nothing about social policy: that's because such talk should be driven by voters, not politicians.

The Power of Crowd-funding

We've only just begun to realize the full potential of crowd-funding. Websites like Kickstarter have helped raise funds for video-games, TV shows, movies, and more. Now it's time to apply this idea outside of entertainment. Dan Carlin recently alluded to crowd-funding as a tool for political and social change and I couldn't agree more. The creation and implementation of a sociopolitical crowd-funding website ought to be one of our first steps as it would allow our supporters to donate their time, knowledge, expertise, and most importantly, their votes. Love our cause but can't afford to donate money? No problem. Come donate your time! Help out at your local office, canvas your neighborhood, or spread the word on message boards and social media. You don't even have to leave your home to contribute!

Political Facebook

Social media is everywhere. Facebook. Twitter. Instagram. But where's the sociopolitical media at? The development of a political Facebook would help with a variety of our goals. Log on and read about what each political party is working on, which motions they are supporting, where they get their donations from, and how they are spending their funds. This site could serve as the foundation for online voting as well. Imagine you are provided with a secure PIN, allowing you to vote at every level of government--from municipal to federal--with the click of your mouse. Online voting may not be technologically viable today but it should be implemented as soon as the experts deem it safe and secure. Modernizing democracy means making it widely accessible, simple, and transparent. A secure sociopolitical Facebook would give the public easy access to the parties, their members, agendas, and past stance on key issues. It would also provide a centralized forum for political discourse. Add to this the ability to vote and you have what I call a Game Changer.

Repackaging Politics

The above suggestions--crowd-funding and sociopolitical media--encourage and facilitate participation but they do not make politics interesting. In order to do that, we should take a page from reality TV. Now before you get incensed and close your browser, take a deep breath. What you just had is called a knee-jerk reaction and it's typical when faced with new and unorthodox ideas.

I don't mean that we should have weekly eliminations, elaborate contests, or night-vision cameras spying on secret lovers on Parliament Hill. I'm only suggesting that we package political discourse in a way that is, once again, accessible to the masses. Envision a weekly TV show complete with its own hosts (smart, funny, and representative of the full spectrum of political views in our nation) and guests (experts, celebrities, and of course politicians). This show would serve a variety of purposes, from educating the masses on political issues to exposing people to the views of others. It could also serve as a platform for weekly televised debate, something which should be at the core of our political system.

If you think that this approach would cheapen politics and make a spectacle of democracy, I invite you to read the news. Politicians and their unscrupulous behaviour have already cheapened politics. They've drawn the attention away from the management of our country and drawn it instead to their own corrupt, dishonest, and hilariously ineffectual ways.

Televising their shenanigans couldn't possibly worsen the situation. And at least we'd get some good ratings!