Why is Christmas a national holiday when Election day isn't? (illegal, poll)
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
In NYC, the public schools are closed for Election Day as they are used as polling places.
In my county the schools are out also, I vote at the local school in my area today also.
But I think the problem is that many people have to work from 8-5 and then their kids are out of school when they get home and they don't have a chance to vote from all the daily run around from a normal work day.
Christmas is a uniquely American holiday. It was basically abandoned by the rest of the world, but we needed something to celebrate, and Christmas was a good one to do that.
Christmas is religious in origins, yes, but much like Thanksgiving its much more about getting together with the ones you love and the ones you haven't seen all year.
Election day should be a national holiday, like I think that the Monday after the superbowl should be a national holiday, but it is what it is.
Most of the people I know, even Catholics, don't go to midnight mass on Christs Mass.
Would we call the Monday after the Super Bowl "Hangover Monday"?
I really don't care about "religious" holidays anymore since when was the last time "Christmas" was about "Christ"?
As for the Elections? It is mandated in some nations and you could be fined or jailed for not participating! I have personal qualms about this can you imagine all of the American Idol idiots or rednecks voting?
The rednecks and American Idol idiots are the main ones who vote...them, the crotchety old people and the jobless bums.
That's the "brilliance" of our system. We allow the nation's dumbest to decide the future of the country.
Location: By the sea, by the sea, by the beautiful sea
68,325 posts, read 54,330,205 times
Reputation: 40716
Quote:
Originally Posted by Memphis1979
Christmas is a uniquely American holiday. It was basically abandoned by the rest of the world, but we needed something to celebrate, and Christmas was a good one to do that.
What do you care about the value of a vote? Your's is being thrown away on someone who has no hope of winning at all. A vote for Gary Johnson might as well be a vote for Big Bird. It's pointless. And so would turning Election Day into a holiday.
My vote is not being wasted, I'm actually voting for someone that has views in line with my own. Plus, I'm in California where my vote for president doesn't matter...but if Johnson gets 5% of the vote he gets federal funding and maybe the Libertarian party can finally take hold.
An apostrophe does not pluralize a word...your's means "your is", which is utter gibberish...
Quote:
You could give some people all the time in the world to vote and some people just won't do it. If they don't care enough about voteing to figure out a time where they can vote and they have to have a celebration or party in order to get them to the polls, then maybe they need to sit it out anyway. You would have a bunch of drunk or hungover people choosing our president.
So instead we have a bunch of housewives, old people, unemployed people and bosses voting while the middle class is stuck working in the office. I personally vote absentee, but many people do not trust mailing in their vote.
Voting, not voteing. Seriously, did you finish elementary school?
Quote:
Religious holidays are a wonderful thing even if you are not religious. It is a time to be with family and friends and strengthens love and relationships. Elections are not a family thing and I don't know anyone that takes their friends into the booth with them. Turning it into a "holiday" doesn't make sense. There is no hypocrisy involved in religious state holidays, Scrooge. Bah humbug to you.
Christmas means nothing to me other than the annoyance of Christians assuming that I celebrate their holiday and the fact that far more drunk driving accidents happen at the holidays than other times of year and the roads are completely unsafe.
Parents taking their 18 year olds to the polls is a longtime tradition...you obviously wouldn't understand because you just got interested in politics, but that's how it is for many Americans. It's a right of passage. And many people have election-day parties to celebrate our Democracy.
I don't find any value in Christmas as someone who does not celebrate it and it's absolutely egocentric to assume that everyone spends Christmas with family and friends. Many of us spend Christmas doing housework because we have the day off and then we go back to work the next day. Jews don't get Chanukah off...they don't even get an official day off for Yom Kippur. Muslims don't get a day for Ramadan or some other Muslim holiday. There's no Kwanzaa celebration sponsored by the state. There's no day off for Richard Dawkin's (or some other prominent Atheist) birthday. It's OBVIOUSLY a bias towards Christianity and that's wrong.
And how is there no hypocrisy in having a religious state holiday in a nation where the establishment of a state religion is forbidden by the bill of rights?
This to me is the biggest hypocrisy of this nation. As a secular nation, we should not have religious holidays as official state holidays. It completely flies in the face of the Establishment Clause.
However, we SHOULD have election day as a national holiday. It's the most important day in the world's most importand democracy and yet 40% of the voters do not participate, many because they either cannot get the time off to vote (because many people work far from their polling stations and lines are too long to vote during lunch breaks) or because they simply don't see the value in their vote. Shouldn't election day be a national holiday where everyone has the day off so we can truly have a participatory democracy?
If we did make it a holiday, then people would ***** that it's not a four day weekend.
I know the rest of the world celebrates it now, but no where like they do here in the states. Germany is probably the second biggest celebration I've seen, but it fails to compare to ours.
We brought the holiday back from obscurity, it was paid attention to as much as all saints day was. Most ignored it. Christmas is something American.
Last edited by Memphis1979; 11-06-2012 at 09:23 AM..
This to me is the biggest hypocrisy of this nation. As a secular nation, we should not have religious holidays as official state holidays. It completely flies in the face of the Establishment Clause.
However, we SHOULD have election day as a national holiday. It's the most important day in the world's most importand democracy and yet 40% of the voters do not participate, many because they either cannot get the time off to vote (because many people work far from their polling stations and lines are too long to vote during lunch breaks) or because they simply don't see the value in their vote. Shouldn't election day be a national holiday where everyone has the day off so we can truly have a participatory democracy?
It's quite simple bub....
Christmas is a time for families and friends to get together, shower each other with gifts, and eat good food.
Election day is all about voting a bunch of useless @zzholes into office.
This to me is the biggest hypocrisy of this nation. As a secular nation, we should not have religious holidays as official state holidays. It completely flies in the face of the Establishment Clause.
However, we SHOULD have election day as a national holiday. It's the most important day in the world's most importand democracy and yet 40% of the voters do not participate, many because they either cannot get the time off to vote (because many people work far from their polling stations and lines are too long to vote during lunch breaks) or because they simply don't see the value in their vote. Shouldn't election day be a national holiday where everyone has the day off so we can truly have a participatory democracy?
and do you really think making it a federal holiday would help get out the vote. There is not a person in this country that can not vote if he/she wants to unless they are suddenly taken ill and are hospitalized.
comparing Christmas, regardless of your religious views, with election day is like comparing an orange to an apple. One has nothing to do with the other...
Christmas is a time for families and friends to get together, shower each other with gifts, and eat good food.
Election day is all about voting a bunch of useless @zzholes into office.
Thanks...but no thanks.
Only for Christians...
The growing % of Americans who are not Christian just see Christmas as a day off of work where everything is closed so we can't actually get much of anything done...
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
