Ain't No Time for Hate

[Netzach]

i am not so sure that a ton of liberals like the idea of being the world's policeman

I like having a large stick to whack people with when they decide to fuck with me or "the kids."

I do not, needless to say, see myself as a moderate.

Nor do I have affection for straight-line Marxism, which I'm conveniently accused of whenever I point out the failures of current policy.

I think we could do with a larger dose of concern for other human beings other than me me me and mine, ie: more northern Euro-style socialism than we have. The Latin American Dictatorship distribution of wealth in the country which is the product of many many years of deregulatory frenzy isn't a world I care to live in and I think it needs to change. And probably will when the middle class sees itself completely impoverished.

I think there's a remarkable strength to the American economy that doesn't exist in Nothern Europe and I think this could be the ticket to helping the poor here: more emphasis on entrepreneurial help. Treating poor people as moronic children rather than adults with ambitions, talents, and interests creates a system no sane person would want to invest in mentally or energy-wise. The fiscal moderate mistakes the experience of the underclass, I mean REALLY underclass, as identical to their own. There are people not getting the basic cultural nuances of what can lead to success because they are not being parented OR taught. People who genuinely could use a leg up - children of Vietnamese boat people and Somalis just here, poor white kids whose parents got busted for running a meth lab - you can't say these people all have a reasonable start.

Am I pissed off? Fuck yes. I have frustration, anger, and isolation from people who fundamentally would deny me my humanity and citizenship based on who and what I am and what I think. I have no love lost for these people, but I believe in the foundation of the country. I don't think the Klan should be denied the right to speak. I just don't think they should be highly paid to do it.

If you hate this crap, use your dollar.

I'm not going to apologize for thinking terrified ignorant racists to not be my intellectual equal. I don't think that terrified ignorant racists should be making decisions for the people simply because they're the vox pop. That's positively proto-nazi - it's been the MO of almost every successful fascist regime to foment hate of intellectuals and people perceived as elite. Every single one.

Every pair of UGG boots keeps Limbaugh on the air. Pay attention to sponsorship. The Simpsons may be great but hello, PEOPLE, they are on Fox. Use brain.

I realized what I hate. Regressive Romanticism. The left has it too, embodied by environmental extremists and animal rights lunatics. They scare me as much as creationists changing textbooks.

 

[vampire28]

I like having a large stick to whack people with when they decide to fuck with me or "the kids."

I do not, needless to say, see myself as a moderate.

Nor do I have affection for straight-line Marxism, which I'm conveniently accused of whenever I point out the failures of current policy.

I think we could do with a larger dose of concern for other human beings other than me me me and mine, ie: more northern Euro-style socialism than we have. The Latin American Dictatorship distribution of wealth in the country which is the product of many many years of deregulatory frenzy isn't a world I care to live in and I think it needs to change. And probably will when the middle class sees itself completely impoverished.

I think there's a remarkable strength to the American economy that doesn't exist in Nothern Europe and I think this could be the ticket to helping the poor here: more emphasis on entrepreneurial help. Treating poor people as moronic children rather than adults with ambitions, talents, and interests creates a system no sane person would want to invest in mentally or energy-wise. The fiscal moderate mistakes the experience of the underclass, I mean REALLY underclass, as identical to their own. There are people not getting the basic cultural nuances of what can lead to success because they are not being parented OR taught. People who genuinely could use a leg up - children of Vietnamese boat people and Somalis just here, poor white kids whose parents got busted for running a meth lab - you can't say these people all have a reasonable start.

Am I pissed off? Fuck yes. I have frustration, anger, and isolation from people who fundamentally would deny me my humanity and citizenship based on who and what I am and what I think. I have no love lost for these people, but I believe in the foundation of the country. I don't think the Klan should be denied the right to speak. I just don't think they should be highly paid to do it.

If you hate this crap, use your dollar.

I'm not going to apologize for thinking terrified ignorant racists to not be my intellectual equal. I don't think that terrified ignorant racists should be making decisions for the people simply because they're the vox pop. That's positively proto-nazi - it's been the MO of almost every successful fascist regime to foment hate of intellectuals and people perceived as elite. Every single one.

Every pair of UGG boots keeps Limbaugh on the air. Pay attention to sponsorship. The Simpsons may be great but hello, PEOPLE, they are on Fox. Use brain.

I realized what I hate. Regressive Romanticism. The left has it too, embodied by environmental extremists and animal rights lunatics. They scare me as much as creationists changing textbooks.

I don't disagree with the idea of socialism. I think this country has ignored the poor and marginalized for way too long. We need to recognize that people need help -- they need access to medical treatment, to education, to help getting out of financial hardship. I support group that is concerned with helping others if they are not pushing an agenda (conservative or liberal) while doing so.

I think you're right about talking with one's money. It can be the most effective agent of change. Unfortunately, it has most often been used by the fundamentalist right to advance their agenda.

 

[Etoile]

But when it comes to misogyny and racial hatred and religious hatred and hatred of those with alternative sexual orientation, hatreds based not on opinions or personal choices but hatred of others simply for who they are, hatreds so profound that the haters are driven to subjugate and oppress and physically assault or even murder other human beings -- that's a right wing thing.

Right on. That's why I put out the question of "Why do they hate us?" I have no problem with people attacking each others' beliefs, as long as it's not personal. It's the "Go hang yourself, faggot" that bothers me. And I see it a lot more from the right than the left, as you said. The pure hatred of people.

"Liberals just don't hate the way conservatives do."

Substitute left & right for liberal & conservative in that sentence, and I agree with you.

To me, "conservative" = someone who advocates fiscal restraint, keeping the government out of peoples' way at home, and speaking softly and carrying a big stick in the world at large.

True conservatism (as I would define it) has been overrun by evangelical, anti-intellectual, unprincipled, Constitution ripping, privacy invading, hundreds of billions of dollars of deficit producing, right wingers.

Point well taken. You're right, I'm not really talking about liberals vs. conservatives, I'm talking about left vs. right as they are in this country. (For foreign stuff, my answer is YMMV.) CM and Gracie both identify as conservatives, and they aren't the hateful ones I'm thinking about. So I do need to be more careful with my wording.

Gracie, to answer your question, I am a definite liberal/left-winger.

Any thoughts this morning (er, afternoon) on Luke 14:26? Gracie and others who consider yourselves Christian/religious, I would love to hear your thoughts on that line and whether it is an excuse for the kind of hate-spewing this thread is about.

 

[Netzach]

I guess I absolutely reject the idea that you have to be personally moderate and mid-road to resist the temptation to call to kill other people.

Plenty of people with strongly off-center beliefs manage to do this. Both on the right and the left. I'm sure this will be shouted down as my own bias, but I know where I see people jumping the shark from MORE often.

I'm sorry, but I'm not the person saying "let's blow up a clinic. Let's blow up a building." or even "those people are subhuman animals with no right to live."

I don't associate with people who use this kind of rhetoric at all, but I've met them on the sidelines of many protests and events I've been at to make my point vocally and without throwing things.

 

[intothewoods]

Things didn't seem so hateful to me until the RNC. The sneering about "community organizers" and elitists and all that.

 

[Netzach]

2000 years (give or take a few centuries) of inbred, racial, cultural, and religious hatred is hard to just sit down and talk out.

That's not accurate. 500 years ago, the Muslims were pulling us in when the tolerant European continent was killing us.

I don't know how we all forgot that bit so fast, to me it's the saddest and stupidest part of all. We're like siblings who are killing each other.

This has a LOT to do with the colonial cutup of the mideast by the British. And a lot to do with the rejection of the holocaust-displaced Askenaz by the Jewish population already IN Israel, and the subsequent shameful treatment of the Mizrahim by the new Askhenaz majorities, because, you know they're kind of like these native people even though they're Jewish, and a million other factors that soundbites don't cover. It's a mess, but it's not just crazy Semites who got it that way.

 

[Netzach]

Things didn't seem so hateful to me until the RNC. The sneering about "community organizers" and elitists and all that.

You're not listening to talk radio. Why do you think that was set rolling unless it had somewhere to play?

 

[intothewoods]

You're not listening to talk radio. Why do you think that was set rolling unless it had somewhere to play?

Oh, well, yeah. I used to listen to it, including Michael Savage, until around the 2004 election. I just couldn't take it after that. But I wasn't hearing so much negativity or anything much at all from Guiliani, Thompson, etc. And I find Palin's tone very negative and hateful.

 

[Netzach]

I also think it's a complete wild stretch of the imagination to expect someone who's just been accused of being Satan incarnate by a screaming person to say "oh, how very interesting. Please tell me more about your fascinating worldview, so unlike mine, Ma'am."

This "we must be tolerant of all intolerance" is the last line of insanity. Ignorant and uninformed intolerance is one thing - you get a certain amount of "pass" if you don't know better and have no reason to know better, you're 80 years old, whatever. But the idea that I have to remain civil and nice and smiling to people who are spouting unprovoked hate rhetoric at me is a completely anti-survivial crock which I will not eat.

I'm a little too uncomfortable with the idea of a world in which some intolerance is simply a consumer choice to which people are entitled without anyone saying anything. Or worse, that people who despise injustice and intolerance are now being *equated* with those attitudes.

I'll continue saying what I think when I think the underdog is being kicked, whether people decide I'm hateful or not.

 

[Etoile]

I guess I absolutely reject the idea that you have to be personally moderate and mid-road to resist the temptation to call to kill other people.

Is that from something I said?

People who blow up and kill are extremists, but not all extremists blow up and kill, is what I meant.

 

[Netzach]

Is that from something I said?

People who blow up and kill are extremists, but not all extremists blow up and kill, is what I meant.

No, I just kept hearing things like "well the whackos are all at the extremes, if the more moderate minds could get together we'd fix it all..."

 

[Etoile]

No, I just kept hearing things like "well the whackos are all at the extremes, if the more moderate minds could get together we'd fix it all..."

Ah, okay.

 

[Netzach]

What an awesome definition.

And yep, yep. I used to be a republican, but I've come to realize that they want the govt to control America as much as the democrats - just in different areas. The democrats want gun control, and the republicans want to 'protect people from their vices', etc. K and I switched to indipendant, but we still consider ourselves conservatives - we just want the government to mind it's own business, and to stop spending us into debt to freaken CHINA!

I could get behind that platform, more or less. It's funny how most people want these very basic things and the sales job of politics is inserting all this extraneous shit into it. Most people want a shot at success if they work hard (and I mean like a 50/50 shot not a 1 in 90 shot) and to be left alone to think their thinkings and have sex however.

I'd like functioning health care and housing too, call me pie in the sky. Saying everyone is entitled to try and cover their basic humanity in the current climate and it's their own weakness/badness if they can't is, to me, incredibly cruel and blind to how corrupt and stacked against average people our system has become. This is why I guess I'm not a fiscal conservative. I'd love to see the contracts going to bob mcblowjob kind of kickback crap stop, because I think that's where most of the waste is, not in social programs.

It's really not THAT much to ask is it?

 

[off2bed]

Those of you that agree with the idea of Socialism, please pick another country to live in because the rest of us aren't interested. We don't want to be your source of income redistribution, thank you very much. Now go. Cuba's not far. Venezuela isn't far. What's stopping you?

 

[Netzach]

Those of you that agree with the idea of Socialism, please pick another country to live in because the rest of us aren't interested. We don't want to be your source of income redistribution, thank you very much. Now go. Cuba's not far. Venezuela isn't far. What's stopping you?

I love this.

This is exactly the kind of shit I'm talking about.


Uh maybe because I'm very proud of my country, I just think there are other ways of looking at things?

But I don't agree with you so I should move.

China's not far either, if you love unregulated business. Have some melamine. Regulation is for pussies. They also don't tolerate criticism from within, sounds like a great destination for you.

Now if you want to talk like rational people, maybe it's worth looking at Sweden or Norway. I hear a lot of *conservative* people on this board advocating taxes based solely on consumption and I have a hard time arguing against that while I want to on a knee jerk level.

 

[Netzach]

At what point does income redistribution become less of a dirty word? Do we have to wait for 2 people to control the entire GNP?

 

[Etoile]

I love this.

This is exactly the kind of shit I'm talking about.


Uh maybe because I'm very proud of my country, I just think there are other ways of looking at things?

But I don't agree with you so I should move.

China's not far either, if you love unregulated business. Have some melamine. Regulation is for pussies. They also don't tolerate criticism from within, sounds like a great destination for you.

Now if you want to talk like rational people, maybe it's worth looking at Sweden or Norway. I hear a lot of *conservative* people on this board advocating taxes based solely on consumption and I have a hard time arguing against that while I want to on a knee jerk level.

Excellent post. I just don't understand the "if you don't like America, go somewhere else" mentality. No, I don't like America, and I'M STAYING HERE because that's what America IS. We're SUPPOSED to have different opinions, we are SUPPOSED to question the way things are. How about "if you don't like America, VOTE" instead? Yeah.

 

[Etoile]

Those of you that agree with the idea of Socialism, please pick another country to live in because the rest of us aren't interested. We don't want to be your source of income redistribution, thank you very much. Now go. Cuba's not far. Venezuela isn't far. What's stopping you?

Ah, but we have just as much right to be here as you do.

 

[EmpressFi]

Excellent post. I just don't understand the "if you don't like America, go somewhere else" mentality. No, I don't like America, and I'M STAYING HERE because that's what America IS. We're SUPPOSED to have different opinions, we are SUPPOSED to question the way things are. How about "if you don't like America, VOTE" instead? Yeah.

I like that.. that should be on a bumper sticker or Tshirt or something..

 

[Netzach]

Take me with a grain of salt. I'm just from the place with the bridge that fell in the Mississippi because no one should have their income redistributed to maintain it.

 

[ecstaticsub]

Excellent post. I just don't understand the "if you don't like America, go somewhere else" mentality. No, I don't like America, and I'M STAYING HERE because that's what America IS. We're SUPPOSED to have different opinions, we are SUPPOSED to question the way things are. How about "if you don't like America, VOTE" instead? Yeah.

Etoile I have to ask, do you really not like America? Or is it more they are things about America you do not like? Or you don't like America the way it is right now?

I love America, especially compared to so many other countries. No, we aren't perfect and we have tons of room for improvement. But i can't imagine living any where else.

I don't believe in "love it or leave it" but I can't help but feel a bit offended as a military spouse by someone saying they don't like America, yet they enjoy their right to have a different opinion and to question things.

 

[Netzach]

Etoile I have to ask, do you really not like America? Or is it more they are things about America you do not like? Or you don't like America the way it is right now?

I love America, especially compared to so many other countries. No, we aren't perfect and we have tons of room for improvement. But i can't imagine living any where else.

I don't believe in "love it or leave it" but I can't help but feel a bit offended as a military spouse by someone saying they don't like America, yet they enjoy their right to have a different opinion and to question things.

I fiercely and deeply love this place. I read De Tocqueville and Poor Richard when I need a lift these days. I think I'm living through a very dark spot in it, but not the darkest. We've gotten through worse, it could just be better and more like what the FF's actually envisioned.

"Just leave" is so painfully offensive to me, as the offspring of people who were kicked out of most of the world for thinking unpopular things and killed for being "in control of" things they weren't supposed to excel in or have access to. I'd have left by now if I could stand the thought. I don't know if this is the best place in the world at this moment, honestly, but it doesn't matter to me. It's MY place to be here, even if there are better places. I don't just divorce a woman because someone looks hotter this decade, even if that is the new morality standard.

Half the people who tell me to leave have never gotten all the way through reading the damn constitution and can't tell me 3 amendments without Google. I'm glad it applies to them too, though.

 

[Etoile]

Etoile I have to ask, do you really not like America? Or is it more they are things about America you do not like? Or you don't like America the way it is right now?

I love America, especially compared to so many other countries. No, we aren't perfect and we have tons of room for improvement. But i can't imagine living any where else.

I don't believe in "love it or leave it" but I can't help but feel a bit offended as a military spouse by someone saying they don't like America, yet they enjoy their right to have a different opinion and to question things.

Sorry if I offended you. Perhaps what I should say is I don't like the people who have all the power. Both in government and industry. The people who control the country don't have the best interests of people like you and me at heart, IMHO. You're right, what I don't like is the way America is right now. I don't like that we go sticking our big butt in where it doesn't belong (the war in Iraq is almost a new kind of imperialism), I don't like that millions of people don't have health insurance, I don't like that the line of separation between church and state is getting blurry, I don't like that I can't marry the woman I've spent my life with for 10 years, etc.

It's not that I don't like Americans. It's not that I don't like the land we live in. There are just some elements of society that I dislike, and I think other countries (especially Canada) have it better off than we do.

For the record, I support the troops completely, but I don't support the war at all.

However, I do believe that even people who don't like America have the right to express their opinion saying so. That's what makes America great. And the phrase "I may not like what you have to say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" should be a maxim we all live by. Americans have the right to dislike America - it's the way this country works. Likewise, you have the right to be offended by what such people say.

 

[Etoile]

"Just leave" is so painfully offensive to me, as the offspring of people who were kicked out of most of the world for thinking unpopular things and killed for being "in control of" things they weren't supposed to excel in or have access to. I'd have left by now if I could stand the thought. I don't know if this is the best place in the world at this moment, honestly, but it doesn't matter to me. It's MY place to be here, even if there are better places.

Thank you Netzach. This may be the most powerful thing I have ever read. It describes my feelings exactly.

 

[Netzach]

I don't like that I can't marry the woman I've spent my life with for 10 years, etc.

As more and more of what we consider the civilized world allows this and embraces it, I have to wonder how anyone in this position can say they love the place that doesn't love them.

Considering this, my sense of patriotism ain't got shit on Etoile's even if she "doesn't like".