When words lose their meaning

In Animal Farm Orwell argued that a broad and well understood language was essential to liberty. As the masses moved from understanding broad messages to trumpeting only the official party doctrine they lost their freeoms and returned to the state they were in prior to achieving their independence.
It is strange how words are losing their meaning today. For instance, I had been noting a vast increase in the verbal battles over "Merry Christmas" and had planned to write on it but I kept putting it off and then someone beat me to it. It is, however, an important battle.
It gets to the root of what this country used to be about and what it is about now. The people offended by the words "Merry Christmas", in my humble yet accurate opinion, should make a point of working on December 25th and refusing any extra pay such as time and a half or double time.
By the same token, the people insisting on the use of that phrase should NOT be using words like "damn" and "hell" when participating in the discourse. I have always found it funny that "Christians" with beer in hand, cigarette in mouth, and a string of profanity feel compelled to be rambunctiously offended by other people not using "Merry Christmas".
Kind of the classic example of being worried about the symptoms and not caring about the disease.
I find myself in an interesting place. On the one hand, I firmly believe scraping away the meaning of the day by making mention of "Christmas" illegal totally contradicts the spirit and intentions of the founding fathers (whether doing THAT matters or not is another question) and steals our freedoms....doing the very thing many anti-saying "Christmas" people say using that word does...though the actual birth of Christ most likely happened in the summer, a day has been affixed for the celebration...and that very day selection is part of my antipathy toward the phrase.
December 25th, the Yuletide, the use of the Yule log and the tree, these were all facets of Druidic worship. It was selected and incorporated to appease the rebellious Celts and Islanders.
Furthermore, the word "Christmas" breaks down to "Christ mass", a direct reference to the catholic celebration in which they blasphemously say Jesus dies each time they take their version of communion.
You don't have to read much of my work to understand how little regard I hold for catholicism. They have done more to dishonor, disgrace, and shame the name of Christ. More people hate religion because of how catholics have taken part in it than for any other reason, and that includes the always warlike Muslims. For all their spouting that it is not a religion of violence, the first several centuries were drenched in blood and there have seldom been moments of peace.
I never have and never will equate catholicism with Christianity. Yeah, a lot of people will call me narrow minded. I tend to think that instead I am realistic. I have studied their history, their beliefs, their practices, and while I will LISTEN to arguments in favor of catholicism, I will be incredibly hard to convince. Right is right, wrong is wrong, and that brings us back to Christmas.
I hesitate to use the word and, in fact, for several years did not. But the way it is being treated now by people who claim to be offended by its use has, in turn, offended me. You believe what you want, that is your right and privilege in this country. But do not take it too far and demand Nativity scenes, names of the holiday, and so forth be changed WHILE SIMULTANEOUSLY demanding the celebration of Kwanzaa (a very recently artificial, deliberately created holiday), Ramadan, and so forth.
The funny thing is this started as a complaint about another word that has been misused, so look for that post coming soon to a blog near you.