The Case Against St. Patrick's Day

I am part Irish. My grandmother's maiden name was Haggerty. Thus, St. Patrick's Day has some relevance to my life. However, I am actually in opposition to the fight to make St. Patrick's Day a national holiday.

I have been getting Facebook invites to a group that insists on making St. Patrick's day a national holiday. There is a petition that states that if it gets 1,000,000 signatures, St. Patrick's Day will become a national holiday. News stations have also begun to report on the fight for making St. Patrick's Day a national holiday.

St. Patrick's Day is in fact an exclusive holiday, only truly pertaining to the Irish, particularly Catholics, although St. Patrick was made a saint when the Catholic church was the only church around. St. Patrick's Day should not be a national holiday because it has nothing to do with the United States of America. All national holidays are in celebration of American history, not British, Irish, German, Candadian, or Djiboutian. Additionally, this is in no way a major religious holiday, therefore there is no reason to get out of work or school, the true reason people want to make St. Patrick's Day a national holiday.

To make St. Patrick's Day a national holiday would be going against the diversity of America. Every federal holiday has to do with American history with the exceptions of New Year's Day and Christmas. Christmas is the only Christian holiday that is regarded as a federal holiday, and that is due to the tradition of this country based on its founding upon the Christian religion. Its national status has been reduced in years past due to such inventions as the "holiday tree" and the fact that celebrators of other religions must be given off of work and school for their respective religious holidays.

Lastly, I would like to educate you on the color green in regards to St. Patrick's Day. Green represents Catholic Ireland, as it is a Catholic holiday. I actually wear orange every St. Patrick's day because my family is Protestant Irish.

I'm not trying to scream "USA! USA!" while drinking beer with my shirt off perched on top of a camper in the infield of a NASCAR race right now. I am merely stating that if we were to celebrate an Irish national holiday as one of our own, how would the other ethnicities and religions of the U.S. feel? I know you are all looking for a way to get paid or get out of school while getting plastered, but if it's that important to you, can't you take a sick day or something? Just a thought.

Here's the song of the day. I'm going to go to some all-American boys. The Kings of Leon are all either brothers or cousins, with the same grandpa whose name happened to be Leon. Their sound is similar to the Strokes sometimes, but it has a mostly has a more prominant bassline and even less decipherable lyrics. Caleb Hollowill has a delightfully raspy voice, which he has amazing control over. Rolling Stone named them the 16th best live band still existing in July of '07, and from what I've through live videos on YouTube seen they live up to that ranking. Caleb does every high pitched scream and voice inflection just as it sounds on the record, and every guitar solo is tight.

"Charmer" by Kings of Leon at YouTube