Easier to Hate

Than to Love

What do you see in this illustration -- hate, love, or maybe both?  Maybe it depends on your perspective.

In the United States right-wing "hate radio" talk shows are alive and well....

...further dividing an already badly divided country, and....

...fueling attacks against gays, Jews, blacks, immigrants, and most anybody else who "isn't like us."

These talk shows provide daily fodder for the more than 600 recognized hate groups in the U.S.

Can it just be a coincidence that violence and murder based on race, religion, sexual orientation or disability have reached a five-year high in the U-S-of-A?

Ironically, a great many of these groups flourish under the Christian banner.

After spending more than fourscore years observing and chronicling human behavior, I'll offer some suggestions.

First, it's very easy to stir up feelings anger and hatred.

Once these emotions are ignited, further fanning the flames is even easier.

Soon, clear thinking and reason seem far less satisfying than venting this anger and hatred, and even striking out with violence...

...especially for the folks who have trouble with clear thinking and reason...

..and especially for people that are sitting on a lot of anger to start with...

...which, of course, includes a few million of the ever-growing-number of our economically disenfranchised.

Early in our nation's history we had mob violence and lynch mobs.

Today, we have contagious anger and "righteous indignation" from talk show hosts...

...who typically wrap their views in super-patriotism and even some aberrant form of Christianity.

Hate is easy...arousing...appealing...and it generates listeners and ratings.

Love is difficult...hard to explicate.

Despite what the originator of Christianity said...

...the very individual that these people profess to follow...

..far too many of these super-Christian, God, guns, and guts people...

...see love as sissy...

...embarrassing...

...not "macho."

And then there is this.

Consider these quotes that you will never hear openly admitted:

"I can only feel better about my own plight by putting down other people."  

(Was it Lincoln who said the only way some people can appear taller is by trying to cut other people off at the knees?)

Or, "The only way I can feel adequate is by aligning myself with a group that...

...crusades against some 'inferior,' 'immoral,' or 'evil' entity....

...thus making 'us' feel superior to 'them'...

...and giving me a noble and motivating purpose."

Right-wing religions try to justify their latent anger and jealousies in the name of....

...good verses evil and...

...some god that bears no resemblance to the loving God of any enlightened scriptures.

It is said that hate is not the opposite of love, but rather fear.

It would seem that we need no better evidence than the fear-based right-wing groups we see emerging.

Editor's note: This issue is also discussed here and here.

Recent consequences include:

• May 18, 2008: A Chasidic Jew in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, was chased and badly beaten in an incident being investigated as a religiously-motivated hate crime.
• May 5, 2008: A Sikh teenager’s turban was set on fire by a classmate in New Jersey, which the school initially dismissed as a childish “prank.”
• April 25, 2008: Within a two-week period in Madison, WI, five large swastikas were drawn across the front doors of a synagogue along with the words “Die, Jew” scrawled on outside doors and walls.

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