Death By Christmas Tree; the U.S. has always been a hot mess
Back in 2008, a man in Florida basically tried to kill his father with a Christmas Tree.
At first, in some horrible, weird way, I was kind of impressed, because seriously, how ironic and anti-Christmas is death by Christmas tree? Like, if I wrote that in a book some reviewer would say, "Jones' quirky writing style sometime stretches the boundaries of the imagination. The Christmas tree assault was highly unbelievable."
But the Florida Christmas Tree Incident really happened.
And I was also kind of impressed because this man tried to throw the tree at his dad, which made me think: Wow. Superman Strong. Captain America Strong. That's strong.
But I was unimpressed because let's face it -- It's never cool to try to kill your father unless your father is:
Darth was at the Criterion Theatre last year. He was scary. Also, his zipper broke.
Darth Vadar
EDITED TO ADD; SORRY! SORRY! IT IS NEVER COOL TO KILL DARTH VADER.
VOLDEMORT? HE'S OKAY. RIGHT?
It's so bizarre because the Christmas tree is currently a symbol of family, of light in the darkness, of celebrating Jesus' birth. In 2004, the Pope called the tree a 'symbol of Christ.'
Anyway, it turns out that the tree was not a normal-sized Christmas tree that touches the ceiling. It was a mini tree. A MINI CHRISTMAS TREE! This man tried to kill his dad with a three-foot-tall tree, and then the metal tree stand, because he didn't give up after the initial tree throw.
So, in the United States, nine years ago a man was so propelled towards violence that he attacked his father with a miniature Christmas tree, a symbol of Jesus, which leads me to believe that no matter how much I love my country it's a bit off. Violence isn't something that we should exalt, use to motivate, or even use to dehumanize others. Yet, we do.
Videos of people beating up other people are posted all over social media and even on our current president's Twitter account. These are real people. These are people who are hurt or who died and the incidents of them being injured and attacked? That shouldn't become a way to motivate other people to do what you want them to do. Because you know why? That's a part of the terrorist playbook from all the way back to the 1980s. Inspiring hate to go to any kind of war or motivate exclusionary actions isn't the way to be.
Yes, it's been done a million times before, but that doesn't make it okay. Women have been raped a million times before, religions oppressed, races tormented, difference tortured. There have been how many genocides? Because it's been done, because it's currently being done, doesn't make something right.
Taking an act of personal violence, twisting the facts around it, turning it into propaganda, and using it to incite anger against other groups of people isn't the high road.
That's not what Christmas is about. Let's work against it being what our country is about and all of us who have Christmas trees? Let's not use them as weapons any more.