Ain't No Time for Hate

[off2bed]

I know this is a touchy-feely liberal kum-by-ya thread that I've invaded, and you'll hate me for it. (Ironic, ain't it?) But someone's got to say this.

I'm sorry, but Socialism is completely incompatible with the reason this country exists. If you can't deal with that fact, that's not my fault. If you want to turn this country into a Socialist nation, you have to expect some fierce resistance.

Socialism is for losers. Does that sound hateful? It isn't. I only want you to be free, successful, self-sufficient, and independent of government. Socialism does not even try to accomplish that. So if you can't handle freedom, then maybe you're a loser and maybe a Socialist country is right for you after all.

Just please don't try to impose your views on three hundred million fellow citizens.

 

[Etoile]

I know this is a touchy-feely liberal kum-by-ya thread that I've invaded, and you'll hate me for it. (Ironic, ain't it?) But someone's got to say this.

I'm sorry, but Socialism is completely incompatible with the reason this country exists. If you can't deal with that fact, that's not my fault. If you want to turn this country into a Socialist nation, you have to expect some fierce resistance.

Socialism is for losers. Does that sound hateful? It isn't. I only want you to be free, successful, self-sufficient, and independent of government. Socialism does not even try to accomplish that. So if you can't handle freedom, then maybe you're a loser and maybe a Socialist country is right for you after all.

Just please don't try to impose your views on three hundred million fellow citizens.

Where did you get the idea that anyone here is trying to impose their ideas on anyone? For that matter, where did you get the idea that anyone here is into socialism? Did you even read the thread? This thread is about people hating each other and why they do it. You're playing right into it. You're demonstrating exactly what I'm talking about. You're saying, "You don't agree with my views, you're a loser, get out of my sight."

This is not the place to discuss economic theories. We're talking about how some people hate and some people don't. If you're going to be deliberately inflammatory, at least stay on topic. Your suggestion that this is a "touchy-feely liberal kum-by-ya" thread indicates that you haven't read it at all.

You are completely off topic, and you're just spewing things to piss people off. This thread is not about socialism, capitalism, or anything else. It's about human interaction. If you want to start another thread about socialism vs. other economic theories, go right ahead. But we're having an intelligent discussion here, and you're jumping in the middle with a lot of nonsense just to piss people off. Of course this IS a free speech board, but you're clearly trying to derail the conversation and I suspect I'm not the only one who doesn't appreciate it.

 

[Netzach]

I know this is a touchy-feely liberal kum-by-ya thread that I've invaded, and you'll hate me for it. (Ironic, ain't it?) But someone's got to say this.

I'm sorry, but Socialism is completely incompatible with the reason this country exists. If you can't deal with that fact, that's not my fault. If you want to turn this country into a Socialist nation, you have to expect some fierce resistance.

Socialism is for losers. Does that sound hateful? It isn't. I only want you to be free, successful, self-sufficient, and independent of government. Socialism does not even try to accomplish that. So if you can't handle freedom, then maybe you're a loser and maybe a Socialist country is right for you after all.

Just please don't try to impose your views on three hundred million fellow citizens.

FDR = LOSER

that's a good T shirt.

a 90/10 wealth distribution is AS incompatible with the reason this country exists as Maoist communes. Which no one's advocating.

Now run along, Etoile just nailed you with the last post. FFS, I was talking about how I think entrepreneurial boosts and microlending are important in alleviating poverty, you're going to have to find a more socialist scapegoat to piss off.

 

[ecstaticsub]

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.

I fully agree with the part I bolded. Like I said, America is not perfect. But after living in Europe and travelling all over there plus having my husband spend time in Bosnia, Albania, then Iraq and Afghanistan we appreciate the USA even more.

I tend to be a positive thinker. I have a great deal of hope for this country. I have young children and I am dedicated to doing what I can to make the US a better place to live. I want them to like the US, I want them to be proud to be an American.

 

[Netzach]

I hate freedom. Those low-interest SBA microloans are the end of life as we know it.

 

[subbie_333]

I hate freedom. Those low-interest SBA microloans are the end of life as we know it.

Silly girl, you're so cute when you are feisty

 

[midwestyankee]

I was stunned by some of the posts in this thread that spoke of experiencing equal degrees of hatred from people on both the left and the right. It is simply so far out of my experience that I cannot conceive of anyone I think of as being liberal being hateful on a scale such as one regularly hears on right-wing talk radio.

I'd be very interested in hearing about specific instances of individual acts of hatred from the left. I understand that there are small pockets of institutionalized extremism in the anti-animal-cruelty kingdom and the like. I'm talking about Joe Average spouting hatred from the left in the same way that so many do who imitate the Limbaughs and the Savages of this world.

Please, can someone give me a better picture of what this hatred from the left looks like?

Also, why is it that those who complain so loudly about income redistribution are so happy to see my federal tax dollars being redistributed to the Halliburtons of the world?

 

[Netzach]

Silly girl, you're so cute when you are feisty

Dude, I love microloans almost as much as I love America.

If I were a bit more *organized* in my ways, I'd be volunteering to help people navigate the forms and requirements of applying. I'd hate to get someone other than me in trouble . A lot of times the money to help people is there, but the resources to dispense the information to the people who need them are not. You can't benefit if you don't even know the opportunity exists.

 

[Netzach]

Please, can someone give me a better picture of what this hatred from the left looks like?

I think it's whether your parents taught you "never to hit anyone ever it's always wrong" or if you are parented by people who were like "why the hell didn't you pop him one back, that would shut him up!"

I personally don't equate hitting and hitting back. I don't have a problem with the violence of a Stonewall riot. The most effective act of liberation for GLBT people would be quieted today with rubber (?) bullets and people would say "well they're terrorists."

 

[subbie_333]

This is getting more testy than the "Hillary Clinton" thread. Maybe i will do what i did with the PrincessGoddess thread, ya know, lay low for awhile, take a long running start, and, drop a bomb

 

[Netzach]

This is getting more testy than the "Hillary Clinton" thread. Maybe i will do what i did with the PrincessGoddess thread, ya know, lay low for awhile, take a long running start, and, drop a bomb

Hater.

 

[subbie_333]

Hater.

FOTFLMAO

 

[Homburg]

The right makes bank on people like Limbaugh an dsavage. Limbaugh and Savage make bank on being like that. It sells. The sensibilities of the left are offended by such things, so they don't support it. It does not mean, conceptually, that those emotions aren't there. As wenchie mentioned previously, there are a lot of pagans hating on christians, and pagans of that sort are frequently on the left politically. Now, frankly, I can't really blame those pagans, but there's an example of hate from the left.

I suppose the difference lies in how it is expressed and towards what it is directed. Etoile's uncle hates gays, MWY hates Halliburton (I don't know if you do or not, just using an example). The former hates on an entire group of individuals for how they are made, and how they live their life. The latter hates on an organisation because, well, because it's pretty frikken evil.

Expression is partly because of people like Limbaugh and Savage. They subtext of their speech is that it's okay to hate. It's okay to villify. It's okay to spew invective. On the left, it's not. You can hate, you just express it differently. The judgement is still there.

Overall, it's a matter of economic. For the unwashed masses on the right, hate sells.

 

[Netzach]

The right makes bank on people like Limbaugh an dsavage. Limbaugh and Savage make bank on being like that. It sells. The sensibilities of the left are offended by such things, so they don't support it. It does not mean, conceptually, that those emotions aren't there. As wenchie mentioned previously, there are a lot of pagans hating on christians, and pagans of that sort are frequently on the left politically. Now, frankly, I can't really blame those pagans, but there's an example of hate from the left.

I suppose the difference lies in how it is expressed and towards what it is directed. Etoile's uncle hates gays, MWY hates Halliburton (I don't know if you do or not, just using an example). The former hates on an entire group of individuals for how they are made, and how they live their life. The latter hates on an organisation because, well, because it's pretty frikken evil.

Expression is partly because of people like Limbaugh and Savage. They subtext of their speech is that it's okay to hate. It's okay to villify. It's okay to spew invective. On the left, it's not. You can hate, you just express it differently. The judgement is still there.

Overall, it's a matter of economic. For the unwashed masses on the right, hate sells.

I also would like to point out that hatred of Halliburton does not one damn stupid thing in this world except maybe affect your vote, while "hatred of gays" crucifies a 21 year old man on a fence. Hatred for institutions and injustices is not the same as a categorical hatred that applies to everyone you meet who's not like you. One could say that I "hate the sin" in a way.

Again this "tolerance of intolerance" "never ever hit anyone" line makes me very queasy. If you don't hit the people back who are beating the shit out of you it's a form of insanity. If you so much as make faces at them, now you're treated like you started this.

"It doesn't matter WHO started it" is possibly the worst thing I've ever seen parents tell their children. If Ayn Rand was horrified by forcing them to share, telling them, whoever started it doesn't matter is just as criminal to me.

 

[WriterDom]

Halliburton just provides a service. If not Hallilburton, it would be someone else. If not Coke, Pepsi. If not Halliburton, Schlumberger.

 

[Netzach]

post dysfunction

 

[Netzach]

Halliburton just provides a service. If not Hallilburton, it would be someone else. If not Coke, Pepsi. If not Halliburton, Schlumberger.

I beg to differ, antitrust laws were actually enforced in the not so distant past. This award of one contract for the most of the entire Marshall plan would have been a joke.

I mean, the whole point of this place is supposedly consumer choice, right? Don't we love consumer choice and diversity and anyone can make a buck?

How come my choices are constantly being narrowed down?

Even regulated industries have a free pass to just do whatever the hell they want. Notice how the FAA inspections scandal fell off the news radar.

 

[caela]

I was stunned by some of the posts in this thread that spoke of experiencing equal degrees of hatred from people on both the left and the right. It is simply so far out of my experience that I cannot conceive of anyone I think of as being liberal being hateful on a scale such as one regularly hears on right-wing talk radio.

I'd be very interested in hearing about specific instances of individual acts of hatred from the left. I understand that there are small pockets of institutionalized extremism in the anti-animal-cruelty kingdom and the like. I'm talking about Joe Average spouting hatred from the left in the same way that so many do who imitate the Limbaughs and the Savages of this world.

Please, can someone give me a better picture of what this hatred from the left looks like?

Also, why is it that those who complain so loudly about income redistribution are so happy to see my federal tax dollars being redistributed to the Halliburtons of the world?

Example of left-wing hate: I work with a doctor who is, typically, a pretty nice man. He's well educated (can you be poorly educated and make it through med school???) in a much more well rounded manner than simply pushing his way through med school. He's well read and has a variety of interests outside of the OR that usually make him quite pleasant and interesting to talk to.

All that aside I refuse to discuss any sort of political policy or theory with him. If you don't agree with him you are nothing more than an uneducated simpleton who clearly doesn't know how to use braincell number 1 in your head...if he'll even give you the credit of having any to start with. He is as intolerant as any right-winger I know and just as unwilling to listen to any viewpoint that disagrees with is, and has even used the whole, "If you don't like it leave" line more than once.

On the last question about tax redistribution, I can only speak for myself when I say that I'm not. I disagree with wealth re-distribution in general (I don't think it's my job to pay for someone else's groceries or anything else, I have myself and my daughter to provide for already) and if the gov't is going to steal my money I certainly don't think it should be using it to give kickbacks and contracts (that have never been bid on by anyone else) to companies like Halliburton either.

 

[Etoile]

All that aside I refuse to discuss any sort of political policy or theory with him. If you don't agree with him you are nothing more than an uneducated simpleton who clearly doesn't know how to use braincell number 1 in your head...if he'll even give you the credit of having any to start with. He is as intolerant as any right-winger I know and just as unwilling to listen to any viewpoint that disagrees with is, and has even used the whole, "If you don't like it leave" line more than once.

But does he hate people because of who they are, or only for their beliefs? I see the right hating people based simply on who they are, and I don't see the left doing that.

 

[caela]

But does he hate people because of who they are, or only for their beliefs? I see the right hating people based simply on who they are, and I don't see the left doing that.

Being conservative or leaning right is just as much a part of who people are as being gay/kinky/female etc. At least it is for me. My beliefs are a part of who I am, without them I wouldn't be the same person as they shape my view of the world around me...so yes, he hates people for who they are but couches it in hating their beliefs.

I think that the biggest difference between hatred on the right and left isn't in how much of it there is, but in how it's expressed.

 

[JMohegan]

Are people seriously equating the level of maliciousness expressed on a routine basis by the left and the right? Seriously? Straight up?

Michael Seitzman's piece, "Sarah Palin Naked," is obnoxious and insulting to those with an alternative view. That's true. But compare it to the excerpts from Etoile's link. Are people honestly postulating that the depth of hatred is the same? Is it really just a difference in "how it's expressed"? Is that what people are saying here? Really?


Sarah Palin Naked

She said "nucular." Twice.

I realized three things tonight. For one, if you are a McCain/Palin/Bush voter, you and I do not have a difference of opinion. We have a difference in brain power. Two, she really is as ignorant as I feared. And, three, she really is kinda hot. Basically, I want to have sex with her on my Barack Obama sheets while my wife reads aloud from the Constitution. (My wife is cool with this if I promise to "first wipe off Palin's tranny makeup." I married well.)

Now, I want to be clear and speak directly to those of you who LOVED that Palin interview. You're an idiot. I mean that. This is not one of those cases where we're going to agree to disagree. This isn't one of those situations where we debate it passionately and then walk away thinking that the other guy is wrong but argued well. I'm not going to think of you as a thoughtful but misguided person with different ideas who still really cares about the country and the world. No, sorry, not this time. This time, if you watched those interview excerpts and weren't scared out of your freakin' mind, then you're mentally ill, mentally disabled, or mentally disturbed. What you are NOT is responsible, informed, curious, thoughtful, mature, educated, empathetic, or remotely serious. I mean it.

But I like to think that anyone can change.

Stop voting for people you want to have a beer with. Stop voting for folksy. Stop voting for people who remind you of your neighbor. Stop voting for the ideologically intransigent, the staggeringly ignorant, and the blazingly incompetent.

Vote for someone smarter than you. Vote for someone who inspires you. Vote for someone who has not only traveled the world but who has also shown a deep understanding and compassion for it. The stakes are real and they're terrifyingly high. This election matters. It matters. It really matters. Let me say that one more time. This. Really. Matters.


Excerpts from Etoile's link -

Savage calls liberals "the enemy within our country;" "an enemy more dangerous than Hitler"; "traitors" who are "dangerous to your survival" and who "should be placed in a straightjacket".

"Oh, you're one of the sodomites. You should only get AIDS and die, you pig. How's that? Why don't you see if you can sue me, you pig. You got nothing better than to put me down, you piece of garbage. You have got nothing to do today, go eat a sausage and choke on it. Get trichinosis."

"That wasn't the cries of the downtrodden. That's the cries of the useless, the worthless. New Orleans was a welfare city, a city of parasites, a city of people who could not, and had no desire to fend for themselves. You have a hurricane descending on them and they sit on their fat asses and wait for somebody else to come rescue them."

"It's Ramadan and Muslims in your workplace might be offended if they see you eating at your desk. Why? I guess it's because Muslims don't eat during the day during Ramadan. They fast during the day and eat at night. Sorta like cockroaches."

 

[ThorkelGriersen]

Moyers

To return to the opening of the tread, the Moyers' program dealt with the fact that a man entered a Unitarian Church and opened fire to kill as many liberals as possible. It was assumed that he was generally upset by his economic situation and was taking it out on people he assumed to be the object of his discontent.

A search of his home turned up books by Savage and O'Rielly with passages that called for the killing/ extermination of liberals marked. It is rather obvious that he read these books and took these ideas into actuality.

I don't listen to that sort of program because I don't need to get my blood pressure worked up. I have read more than enough of that sort of thing coming out of the Germany of the '30s and '40s. If the questions is one of inciting to violence, I think the delineation is rather clear. I hear liberals criticize the right frequently. I do not hear liberals calling for the death of those who disagree.

The right takes the approach of "agree with me or leave the country." The next step is "you didn't leave so you deserve to die." Savage and his ilk openly refer to people as "insects" and "vermin." I have never heard any liberal use such terms.

And incidentally, when it comes to denunciations of the "liberal media," the classic is Paul Joseph Goebbels' speech at the 1934 Nazi Party Rally in Nuremberg. [View Leni Riefenstahl's film The Triumph of the Will for the speech.]

A great many post here have been about the idea that the extremists don't respect the middle. Respect is one thing; pulling a trigger is an entirely different can of worms.

 

[Netzach]

Example of left-wing hate: I work with a doctor who is, typically, a pretty nice man. He's well educated (can you be poorly educated and make it through med school???) in a much more well rounded manner than simply pushing his way through med school. He's well read and has a variety of interests outside of the OR that usually make him quite pleasant and interesting to talk to.

All that aside I refuse to discuss any sort of political policy or theory with him. If you don't agree with him you are nothing more than an uneducated simpleton who clearly doesn't know how to use braincell number 1 in your head...if he'll even give you the credit of having any to start with. He is as intolerant as any right-winger I know and just as unwilling to listen to any viewpoint that disagrees with is, and has even used the whole, "If you don't like it leave" line more than once.

Until he begs to differ with you with his fists or blunt instruments or actively advocates the same, I think you're dealing with something other than "hate."

It's like the "oppression" of Christianity. If you're in Lebanon, I agree with you, there's oppression for Christians. Here there's the backlash of non-Christian people who are sick of hearing it everywhere you go.


Unpleasant, not civil, not especially constructive, but honestly not going to ruin more than your afternoon. If your ideas can't stand up to challenge, if you can't manage to shrug off someone saying you're stupid, that's not a crime in the making. Plenty of people have acted like I have to be a moron because of my political beliefs or simply the presence of my vagina in the office. That alone is not "hate." It blows, it's dumb. If I get fired or passed over for promotion it's pretty illegal, but proving that is next to impossible. Seems like you still have your job in spite of Dr. Asshole's disagreements, yes?

We're beginning to equate being really really uncomfortable with the experience of people who are attacked, followed around stores, pulled over for being the wrong color, and fired from jobs.

 

[JMohegan]

Respect is one thing; pulling a trigger is an entirely different can of worms.

Exactly.

Left-wing "hate" = You're an idiot, and you should wake the fuck up and change the way you vote.

Right-wing hate = You're a traitor/pig/parasite/cockroach, and you should die.

 

[Netzach]

To return to the opening of the tread, the Moyers' program dealt with the fact that a man entered a Unitarian Church and opened fire to kill as many liberals as possible. It was assumed that he was generally upset by his economic situation and was taking it out on people he assumed to be the object of his discontent.

A search of his home turned up books by Savage and O'Rielly with passages that called for the killing/ extermination of liberals marked. It is rather obvious that he read these books and took these ideas into actuality.

I don't listen to that sort of program because I don't need to get my blood pressure worked up. I have read more than enough of that sort of thing coming out of the Germany of the '30s and '40s. If the questions is one of inciting to violence, I think the delineation is rather clear. I hear liberals criticize the right frequently. I do not hear liberals calling for the death of those who disagree.

The right takes the approach of "agree with me or leave the country." The next step is "you didn't leave so you deserve to die." Savage and his ilk openly refer to people as "insects" and "vermin." I have never heard any liberal use such terms.

And incidentally, when it comes to denunciations of the "liberal media," the classic is Paul Joseph Goebbels' speech at the 1934 Nazi Party Rally in Nuremberg. [View Leni Riefenstahl's film The Triumph of the Will for the speech.]

A great many post here have been about the idea that the extremists don't respect the middle. Respect is one thing; pulling a trigger is an entirely different can of worms.

We as human beings should be really fucking alarmed when we hear people being referred to as "vermin." Any and all of us.