Starbucks Ruins Christmas For Everyone. Or, Much Ado About A Coffee Cup.

     It's the most annoying time of the year.

     That time when a coffee cup somehow turns into a cultural battleground.

     We're only a week past Halloween, and already the self-righteous culture warrior brigade has found something trivial to be up in arms about. So, in the last possible topic I ever expected to have to write about in a serious manner, and the last possible thing I ever expected anyone could be legitimately upset over, Starbucks recently introduced it's cup design for the holiday season, and people are furious. Why, you ask? Because this year... they're just plain red cups with the company logo on them. While I can't imagine the good people at Solo are enthused about Starbucks encroaching on their territory, there's apparently a far greater outrage in all of this.

     As you've come to expect right now, the usual pandering suspects on the right are raising hell about this. I came across a link from a site called Right Wing News, which apparently decided accuracy was no longer a priority two words into their name. One of their writers spews this gem:

     Obviously normal people who are offended by the anti-Christmas ratchet tightening each year don’t count. In a country run by cultural Marxists, normal people never count. That they have been systematically eradicating Christmas tells you all you need to know about progressives.

     I wasn't aware that taking Christmas greetings off cups that never had them was "eradicating" Christmas, nor that snowflakes are the exclusive domain of the Christian religion, but what the hell do I know. So that's why it never snows at my house on Christmas.

     Then, there's the reason anybody's talking about this at all. In a video I have no intention of linking to because screw giving any more pageviews to a guy who tagged every conservative news outlet (and, oddly, MSNBC) in the comments to his own video, evangelical something-or-other and noted half-witted troll Josh Feuerstein came up with the brilliant idea of going into Starbucks, ordering coffee, and when asked for a name, telling the server his name was "Merry Christmas." Wow, you really showed those godless liberals, Josh! Because what better way to protest a business than by making it a point to go and patronize that business? I'm sure you'll be shocked by this, but Starbucks employees do typically still wish you a merry Christmas anyway (so I'm told; you'll never catch me paying for their overpriced coffee), and I doubt they care that you think you're somehow getting one over on them by making them write it on your cup. But nobody ever accused Feuerstein of making sense, or backing up his points with logic, or thinking in general. This, mind you, is the same man who screamed about a "Christian holocaust" when Kim Davis was jailed, and recorded a 'take-down' of evolution which really doesn't, though in his defense, it's really unfair to the monkeys to suggest Feuerstein is more intellectually evolved than them.

     And then there's Breitbart, the website that continues to carry on its late founder's legacy of being wrong about absolutely everything, often to a libelous extent. One of their writers went so far as to declare this injustice "Emblematic Of The Christian Culture Cleansing Of The West," without a hint of irony to be found. Never mind that Starbucks still prominently sells their "Christmas Blend" and offers gift cards with all the cutesy Christmas drawings you could possibly want. Oh, and Advent calendars. Yes, the godless heathens sell Advent calendars. "Frankly, the only thing that could redeem them from this whitewashing of Christmas is to print Bible verses on their cups next year." Did I miss the year that their cups featured baby Jesus in a manger with a pumpkin spice latte? There's never been any sort of religious display on a Starbucks cup, unless snowmen and ornaments are now religious symbols.

     Finally, presidential candidate Biff Tannen, who has yet to find an issue he can't make all about himself, decided to join in the fray, calling for a boycott of Starbucks, presumably by making them build the most luxurious wall ever around each one then kicking them out, despite having one as a tenant at Trump Tower. "If I become president, we're all gonna be saying 'Merry Christmas' again." And while I can see why the President's Committee on Holiday Greetings is being made a top priority here, that really leaves me with more questions than answers. Such as, "how is this schmuck the Republican front-runner?"

     It is somewhat refreshing, though, to see that many of the folks that usually perpetuate this culture war nonsense have been silent, if not outright condemning the likes of Feuerstein and Breitbart.
Even Sarah freakin' Palin came out against the uproar, though not without the usual dig at "the Left" as if we're the same kind of monolith that Christians despise being portrayed as (as well they should). When Sarah Palin is on the right side of an issue and you aren't, you're doing something horribly, horribly wrong.

     I've said it before, and I'm sure I'll say it again before all is said and done. Christians: You don't hold exclusive rights to the last two months of the year. If every store you go into doesn't have at least three nativity scenes set up in front of it, or Christmas music blaring from the speakers, it doesn't mean they're trying to oppress you. Look up the actual meaning of that word if you're still confused. Everybody else: Let 'em have their holiday. Do you really need to boycott your kid's band concert and raise unholy hell because they played "Silent Night"? Just take your day off (or your time-and-a-half) and let everyone else enjoy their day.

     But honestly, the cynic in me can't help but think this was all part of the plan, and that we're probably all playing into their hands by giving this any coverage at all. Starbucks had to know there'd be some level of scrutiny applied to them over anything that could even possibly been interpreted as anti-Christmas, as tends to happen in these circles when your CEO is unabashedly liberal.

     I've gotta believe they're loving every bit of the free publicity this has brought them.

     Over something as simple as a cup of coffee.