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Consider this: Taylor Swift wasn't even born yet when the fight over the Mount Soledad cross began. How much longer will it drag on? Disgruntled atheists first filed suit over the memorial at a veterans park in San Diego in the summer of 1989. The fringe grievance-mongers have clung bitterly to their litigious activities for nearly a quarter-century. It's time to let go and bring peace to the city.

The historic 43-foot cross has stood atop Mount Soledad on public land since 1954. The Mount Soledad Memorial Association erected the monument to commemorate the sacrifice of American soldiers who died in the Korean War, World War I and World War II. The cross has long carried meaning for the city's residents far beyond religious symbolism. "It's a symbol of coming of age and of remembrance," Pastor Mark Slomka of the Mount Soledad Presbyterian Church said years ago when the case erupted. The San Diego Union-Tribune editorial board explained that the cross is "much like the Mission San Diego de Alcala and the cross at Presidio Park, both of which also are rooted in Christianity but have come to signify the birth of San Diego."

I first started covering the case as an editorial writer at the Los Angeles Daily News in the early 1990s. A federal judge initially ruled that the landmark cross's presence violated the California constitution's church-state separation principles. The city of San Diego put the issue before voters, who overwhelmingly approved a practical solution in 2005: Sell the cross and the park to the veterans group for use in a national war memorial.

A pragmatic, tolerant resolution with 76 percent of voters' support? Heavens, no! The extreme secularists couldn't have that. They sued and sued and sued and sued. By 2007, the state Supreme Court—affirmed by a state appellate court—had rejected the atheists' campaign. The courts affirmed the constitutionality of the San Diego referendum (Proposition A) and the sale of the cross to the Mount Soledad Memorial Association. The American Civil Liberties Union intervened to suppress and "de-publish" the ruling as a way to prevent its use in future litigation. They lost.

Lawyers for the Thomas More Law Center, which represented the memorial association, were relieved: "This decision protects the will of the people and their desire to preserve a historical veterans memorial for future generations." They've fought hard to remind America that the Founding Fathers fought for freedom of religion, not freedom from religion.

But still the cross-hunters press on. Fast-forward to Christmas week 2013. U.S. District Court Judge Larry Burns, who earlier had ruled in support of the cross, was forced to rule that it must come down in 90 days in the wake of a liberal 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decision overturning his prior decision. In anticipation of new appeals, Burns stayed the order. All eyes are on the U.S. Supreme Court, which refused to hear the case last summer.

Rabbi Ben Kamin, who lives in Southern California, responded sensibly to the hysteria of the Mount Soledad cross-hunters who claimed to be irreparably "hurt"

VDARE.com Editor Peter Brimelow with Felicity, his wife Lydia with Karia

VDARE.com’s Christmas Eves Past

2012 Merry Christmas From VDARE.com! By James Fulford

2011 VDARE.com Remembers Christmas Eves Past, Broods About The Future By Peter Brimelow  

 2010: The War Against Christmas 2010: God Bless Us, Every One! By James Fulford  

2009: Christians Against Christmas? By  Tom Piatak  

2008: A Nebraska Atheist Wishes VDARE.COM A Merry Christmas!

2007: Merry Christmas From VDARE.COM! By James Fulford  

2006: Diversity Is Strength! It's Also…War Against Christmas By Tom Piatak  

2005: Resistance Rampant, Whether National Review Likes It Or Not! By Tom Piatak  

2004: Merry Christmas By Peter Brimelow  

2003: From The Lawns Of Iowa To The Sands Of Iraq By James Fulford  

2002: Christ, The "Other", And Counterfeit Citizens By John Zmirak   

2001: A Christmas Meditation: St. Augustine on the National Question By   Chilton Williamson Jr.    

2000: Merry Christmas From VDARE! By Peter Brimelow   

1999: How the HUD Stole Christmas by Peter Brimelow   

See also: War Against Christmas 2013 [1] [2]   2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002, 2001, 2000, 1999 All Posts

[Previously by Tom Piatak: Happy Holidays? Bah! Humbug!, November 23, 2001,  The War On Christmas After Ten Years January 5, 2012, and at least a dozen more in between.]

Let me start off by noting that the Duck Dynasty, ground zero of the most intense battle in America’s Culture War since Chick-Fil-A, drew an estimated 30,000 people from all over the country to the recent “Commander Christmas” (not “Holiday”) parade in Monroe LA.

The Culture Wars are One.

In 2013, the 2013 War Against Christmas is marked by the same patterns we have seen in recent years: an elite consensus that the War against Christmas does not exist coupled with outrage that anyone should care about constant attempts to diminish the public celebration of Christmas, matched by a steady popular resistance by ordinary Americans to further encroachments on Christmas. This popular resistance, as VDARE.com Editor Peter Brimelow has noted, is essentially leaderless. But it is nonetheless effective in maintaining this deadlock, even as other fronts in the culture war—most notoriously, “Gay marriage”—threaten to turn into routs by the left.

The War against Christmas, as VDARE.com has long noted, is not confined to the United States, and thus cannot be attributed to the First Amendment. I commented on this in May for Chronicles, after reading a piece in La Stampa describing how the education minister in the Spanish province of Asturias had ordered schools there to replace references to Christmas and Holy Week with references to "winter holidays" and "end of second term holidays."  [Spanish province of Asturias says goodbye to “Christmas” and hello to “winter holidays”, By Marco Tosatti,   May 21, 2013]The rationale given for this nonsense: the need to "not to hurt peoples' sensitivities," driving home the point that those of us who enjoy the public celebration of Christian holidays simply don't have "sensitivities" worth considering.

La Stampa’s Tosatti  also noted similar efforts in Belgium, where

 Does GOP Establishment Senator John Cornyn, who is facing down a surprise primary challenge from Congressman Steve Stockman to thunderous applause from the MSM and Conservatism Inc., have a Southern Avenger problem?

“The Southern Avenger” was the stage name of former talk show host and conservative polemicist Jack Hunter, who was in the process of mutating into a Beltway operative working for Libertarianism Inc. Senator Rand Paul when he was outed for his Politically Incorrect past by the neoconservative webzine Washington Free Beacon.

Let me be clear: I don’t think Hunter should have been purged for his (former) Political Incorrectness. I think Hunter should have stood his ground and Paul should have backed him up, just as I think Rand’s father Ron Paul should have stood his ground over the somewhat similar point-and-splutter faux scandal (there was nothing in either case that had not long been on the public record) over his paleolibertarian Ron Paul newsletters. Political Correctness is the mortal enemy of any sort of rational thought on the National Question and America’s post-1965 immigration disaster.

Oh—maybe that’s the idea?

But Hunter and Paul caved and groveled anyway, just as Ron Paul did before him.

The moral of this story: Conservatism Inc. takes promising activists and redirects them into dead ends. Next case: Brendan Steinhauser, Cornyn’s campaign manager. He was a Tea Party organizer and a former campus radical conservative.

In college, Steinhauser was a chapter leader of Young Conservatives of Texas—the same group that recently hosted a “Catch an Illegal Immigrant Day” before pressure from the state Republican Party forced them to back down. In 2004, he (literally) wrote the book on using controversial tactics to build conservatism on campuses: The Conservative Revolution: How to Win the Battle for College Campuses. The book heavily promotes the “Affirmative Action bake sale,” a onetime staple of conservative campus activism which involves charging different races different prices for baked goods. Steinhauser even wrote an article for David Horowitz’ FrontPagMag.com: Two, Three, Many Bake Sales, (September 28, 2003).

And Steinhauser was also explicitly on the side of secure borders during the Bush Administration. In 2006 he condemned “illegal aliens” who wanted “citizens’ rights” and urged

From patriarch Phil to granddaughter Sadie, the Robertson Family is united.

It’s another Chick-Fil-A moment, as the historic American nation rises in defense of the “Duck Commander” of A&E’s Duck Dynasty. Whether this is beginning of the successful counter-revolution against the controlled media’s intimidation that Paul Kersey predicted after the Paula Deen debacle, or just another conservative false start, depends entirely on whether the Robertson family sticks together and if the Duck Commander holds the line. 

After comments about homosexuals and blacks deemed Offensive by elite opinion makers, Robertson family patriarch Phil Robertson was suspended from the record-breaking program, leading to public outrage, a backlash against gay rights organizations, unease among a few liberals like Andrew Sullivan and Jon Stewart and even—incredibly—support from Republican politicians.

The controversy began as it so often does, when a liberal publication sent out a reporter to write the kind of the “Gorillas in the Mist” story that pathologizes anyone who doesn’t get their opinions straight from Rachel Maddow or the Huffington Post Gay Voices. Reporter Drew Magary duly elicited the now-famous quote from Phil Robertson:

“It seems like, to me, a vagina—as a man—would be more desirable than a man’s anus. That’s just me. I’m just thinking: There’s more there! She’s got more to offer. I mean, come on, dudes! You know what I’m saying? But hey, sin: It’s not logical, my man. It’s just not logical.”

[What the Duck, GQ, January 2014]

The reaction to these light-hearted comments was instantaneous. The Main Stream Media, which has increasingly abandoned even the pretense of reporting instead of brow-beating, flew into its usual mode of caterwauling, wailing and humorless passive aggressive proclamations. The Huffington Post (headed by a woman sporting the name of her homosexual ex-husband) predictably shrieked about “shockingly vile” comments. 'Duck Dynasty' Star Phil Robertson Makes Anti-Gay Remarks, Says Being Gay Is A Sin [UPDATED] ” Piers Morgan sputtered that Phil’s comments were “repugnant” and called for “responsible” corporate donors to drop him.

And of course, the hysterics at the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation screeched at A&E, who instantly suspended Robertson because of his defiance of the “fundamental values of the company.” Apparently, sodomy is more “fundamental” to A&E than freedom of speech.

But a funny thing has happened on the way to the lynching —the Robertsons closed ranks. They issued a statement saying that

"Duck Dynasty's" Phil Robertson is not alone. He's the latest in a long, long lineup of politically incorrect targets of the left's sensitivity mob. Founded in 1985, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) gangstas won't stop until both the cultural and legal enforcement of their agenda are the norm.

The A&E network (Atheists & Elitists) suspended the reality TV patriarch and self-made businessman on Wednesday for the Biblical views he expressed in an interview with GQ. Robertson was asked by the liberal magazine what he viewed as sinful. Drawing on the condemnation of sexual immorality in Corinthians 6:9, he cited "adulterers, the idolaters, the male prostitutes, the homosexual offenders, the greedy, the drunkards, the slanderers, the swindlers—they won't inherit the kingdom of God."

Robertson's punishable transgressions? Responding honestly to a question posed to him (this was not an unsolicited "anti-gay rant"; it was a response) and abiding by his Christian faith. GLAAD's P.C. Praetorian Guard sprung into repressive action. The same group that initially gave f-word-spouting, homophobic liberal Alec Baldwin a pass accused Robertson of uttering "some of the vilest and most extreme statements" against "LGBT people" ever. (They should listen to the Koran-inspired executioners' rants of gay-hanging and gay-stoning Iranian mullahs sometime.) GLAAD also railed

Instead of always taking incoming fire, how about Republicans start sending some back?

Some Americans are afraid to visit Mexico, given the ongoing and well-publicized drug cartel violence, but millions do still visit and aren’t victims of crime. What’s going on?

I’ve written about this issue before. It’s is not a merely academic issue for me: I take my family to visit Mexico twice a year. (For my most recent trip, click here.) We’re planning our next visit at Christmastime.

I neither encourage nor discourage Americans from visiting Mexico. But for those who go, I recommend they be well aware of where exactly they are going and what they plan to do there. The U.S. State Department website’s Mexico Travel Warning is quite informative:

Millions of U.S. citizens safely visit Mexico each year for study, tourism, and business, including more than 150,000 who cross the border every day. More than 20 million U.S. citizens visited Mexico in 2012. …Resort areas and tourist destinations in Mexico generally do not see the levels of drug-related violence and crime that is reported in the border region and in areas along major trafficking routes.

On the other hand….

Nevertheless, U.S. travelers should be aware that the Mexican government has been engaged in an extensive effort to counter TCOs [Transnational Criminal Organizations] which engage in narcotics trafficking and other unlawful activities throughout Mexico. …Crime and violence are serious problems and can occur

The "S" in President Obama's DHS doesn't stand for "security." It stands for "sleaze." In the wake of Dirty Harry Reid's sabotage of the filibuster, Democrats have rammed through the Senate nomination of a shady Chicago crony associated with dangerous Clinton corruption and at least two visas-for-sale schemes.

 The White House wants Alejandro Mayorkas to helm the No. 2 position at the Department of Homeland Security. It speaks volumes about this ethics-challenged administration that the most qualified person it could find for this important post is a government DHS hack currently under investigation by other DHS hacks. More on that in a moment.

On Tuesday, Democrats on the Senate Homeland Security