The WRight Way
By Ron Wright
(Cazenovia, NY – Feb. 2014) This is partially in follow-up to my last column on racial issues. The words racism and hate are often used in conjunction with each other. In this column I’ll focus mainly on the latter. Both words by themselves and in derivations can be verbal missiles very prone to misuse.
Humans are not to be hated for who they are; however, and this is key, what people do or say may well be hateful and prompt a response. I like Gen. Colin Powell’s comment about the difference between passive and active human characteristics: Passive characteristics include race, ethnicity, skin color, inherited physical characteristics, physical gender, perhaps certain basic aptitudes and so forth. Those things you were born with. You have no control over who your parents were. What you do with your life however is active. You can do good or evil. You can lie or tell the truth. Your personal activities may intrude in others’ lives. You may expect certain reactions if your words and actions endanger, annoy or become oppressive for others.
You are justified in hating the violence of a man who comes home after work and uses his wife as a punching bag. You may hate the fact that millions of innocent children are aborted all over the world every year. You might hate the fact that a repeated drunken driver has injured or killed people. The actions of brutal authoritarian regimes may be hateful, but you should not hate someone for being Japanese, Ugandan, German, Russian, Cambodian (1975-79 KR era) or Chinese, as examples.
The widening ideological division in this country politically offers many the “cheap shot” of throwing the Hate Bomb. In a recent editorial of a major regional newspaper, House Speaker John Boehner was applauded for criticizing the Tea Party and other conservatives in his party. In the article the paper gave the speaker accolades for “rejecting hate.”
This is an excellent example of what I am writing about. The editorial positions of that paper frequently equates contemporary conservative groups with hate mongers. Other organizations and news outlets known for doing this include MSNBC, the ACLU and The Southern Poverty Law Center.
Mob speech often consists of yelling out derogatory words and euphemisms, and utilizing implied threats to drown out any semblance of intellectual conversation or discussion. But such boisterous activity was never intended for that. It is intended for intimidation, smoke screening, emotion charging and theater. The word hate and kindred words are often employed by participants using placards or signs and shouting verbal outbursts.
An example in recent years includes marchers carrying hate-loaded signs calling President G.W. Bush a Nazi and calling for his execution. Most often, the rowdy or unruly marches in this country come from the left.
And the issue of association. In a free society, people need to have a wide level of tolerance of others. They do not need to have a wide level of acceptance. One does not have to verbally approve of, celebrate or pay homage to the activities of others that you find boring or offensive or for any other reason. It is up to you.
In India, there is a minor religion called The Jains. As a Jain progresses, he will begin to shed both clothing and personal hygiene. The ultimate Jain wears no clothing and never bathes again in his life. You may choose to associate with a person who is always naked and never bathes if you have an urge to do so for any reason. I and, I am sure many others, would choose not to. But then I am not a progressive whose goal in life to impress other progressives. I also choose not to associate with Nazis, Communists or cannibals.
I don’t hate (there is the word again) any of these people, but I am understandably repulsed by some of their activities.
Ron Wright of Cazenovia is a retiree with keen interest in his family, history, politics and his church. He began putting his thoughts on paper a little over a decade ago to share with family and friends. Ron, whose column appears the third edition each month, may be reached at madnews@m3pmedia.com.
‘Hate” when associated with racism, ethnicity, gender identity, language, nationality, physical appearance, religion, or sexual orientation equates with ‘bias’, or “prejudice in favor of or against one thing, person, or group compared with another, usually in a way considered to be unfair” [Google Dictionary]. The word ‘unfair’ is the key and you seem to understand this as being ‘unjustified’.
And, this why crimes that appear to motivated by this kind of bias are referred to “hate crimes”, as monitored by MSNBC, AFLCU, and SPLC, thank goodness.
The Tea Party began rearing its ugly head about the same time it seemed inevitable that Barrack Hussein Obama (Harvard educated Law Professor and Illinois US Senator from Hawaii) might be elected President of the United States. I distinctly remember seeing an early Tea Party group’s t-shirt showing then Senator Obama’s face made to look like a chimpanzee holding a banana with the words “Some where in Kenya, a village is missing an idiot”. There are at least four ways I can think of that this t-shirt’s characterization of the man is unfair, or biased, or unjustified, or hateful.
And fortunately, although most of the country saw the light after George Bush’s war crimes, which I will not trot out here, and elected Obama, many carry on this campaign of bias toward our President with feeble attempts to justify their hate.
The Republican plot to obstruct President Obama before he even took office, is well known and documented now, including secret meetings led by House GOP whip Eric Cantor and Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell where they laid out a plan to undo our popular President during our economic emergency (which started with Bush). “If Obama is for it, we have to be against it.”
That is the essense of UNFAIR! It is bias! It IS HATE! And they continue to do it today. The Boehner of late seems to finally be getting a clue that it is hurting his party. He knows it is hate.
A level of unacceptance is one thing if it is based on a disagreement with actual policies or activities one disagrees with. But these ‘conservative’ hypocrites fabricate garbage in order to justify their lack of acceptance. I would be embarrassed to associated with them. Their dishonesty is despicable.
It seems fairly obvious that making a cogent argument is also not one of your life goals.
“Progressive Liberals” and “Tea Party Conservatives.” Which one is worse for my country? I don’t know, they are both so busy making crap up that there is no real debate regarding real issues anymore. The only difference between the two groups is not if they hate, they both certainly do, but who they hate. I guess the best thing that could happen for the people that are REALLY running the world is nothing, and thanks to both of these “hate groups”, nothing is getting done.
Also, the Tea Party that began “rearing its ugly head” is not the original tea party. The original tea party was only about fiscal conservatism and minimal government. Unfortunately two things happened to the tea party. They were “hijacked” by one group of interests that thought they could benefit by making the tea partiers seem like the kind of people that would make the t-shirt you described, and therefore, many of those types of people were attracted to the group. Additionally, certain interests “on the left” who could not (and never will be able to) debate issues using only reason and actual facts, decided it was easier to throw accusations at the group rather than debate them. It is very handy to label the people who want to watch the country’s purse strings closely as racist or selfish. A lot less work to call a wealthy man evil than it is to create your own wealth. It’s a lot easier to call someone else a rascist while trying to “redistribute” that someone else’s wealth than it is to really try to figure out what we can do to help all people economicaly.
The sad thing is, the REAL MONEY is sitting back and laughing so hard that there is a true danger of it wetting itself while it watches us argue over the issues it has so easily made us think are important.
Mike! The Boston Tea party was about taxation without representation! It happened before the American Revolution!
Here is prime example of not having your fact’s straight. Talk about reason and actual facts! Good grief, man.
For me, this renders the rest of your discussion unworthy of response.
I’m trying to maintain some polite composure here but I have to wonder if you attended or graduated from an American school. If so, I hope it wasn’t a New York school because if so, we’ve got serious problems right here.
I have to disagree with you on the concept that both parties are the same. THAT is patently false and dangerous notion. As a friend said, “There is a reason Elizabeth Warren is a Democrat and the Koch Brothers spend millions to keep Democrats from voting.”
The issues of race and redistribution of wealth have what to do with each other? Explain that.
OK, first, when I said the original tea party I didn’t mean the ORIGINAL tea party, LOL, I should have been more clear! I simply meant that when the grass roots, if you will, organization that called itself the tea party started it was about fiscal conservatism and nothing else. Unfortunatly now it seems to be quite different. I personally could not in good conscious align myself with it, and that’s a shame.
From there I started ranting a bit I guess but my point, was that as a fiscal conservative myself I resent having fiscal conservatism equated with racism or any other type of hate. My opinion is that the “right” is too often accused of being rascist (which most of us are not), religious (many of us are, in fact atheists) and anti gay, anti abortion (most of us are neither.) I see, in the media, daily, our pleas for fiscal sanity being dismissed as just a bunch of hoo-ha coming from “the religious right” and other such labels.
In turn, I see daily in the media “the left” also being labeled many things that I am sure you and most of your fellow lefties are not. By tricking us into always being against each other, at each others’ throats, the 1/1000th of 1% that really control everyone’s live’s can continue on with the status quo. One FACT is that Barack Obama and George Bush were BOTH put in place by the same machine. I, for one, “hated” Obamacare way back when Bill Clinton thought of it! I, for one, was extremely proud of where my country had progressed to, regarding race issues, when Obama was elected, even though I voted for his opponent based on my POLITICAL convictions.
Another FACT is that big corporations are not affected by redistributing wealth, nor are the super rich. The regular guy like me though, resents deeply seeing the fine print every other week in his or her paycheck (federal and state “deductions”)and doing tax returns each year where a huge portion of the “side money” I’ve earned, through fair trade of value for value also taken by force and then seeing the masses of people (of ALL races, creeds and sexual orientations) having their housing, clothes, food etc. paid for by those “deductions.” The regular guy (or gal) that has studied hard in school, tried their best to avoid breaking laws, started out in low paying (minimum wage) jobs, worked hard to climb the ladder, resent deeply being called “priveleged” and then shamed into sharing what we have earned. This does not make us rascist or unsympathetic to the poor of any color. It does prove that we are smart and forward thinking which just might mean we could have a lot to contribute intellectually to changing things in the country for the better. Do I, personally have the answers? No way. But taking by force (taxes) from the very people that invent, produce, manage and look forward every day of their lives and giving to those that survive simply by knowing how the welfare system works is definitely not the answer. How many bright minds never get to shine because they simply never had to try? And what about the truly needy? They do exist, I know some of them personally! It must be like adding insult to injury when they have to listen to us fight over wellfare and food stamps. Those things should be there for them, but not for everyone, just the truly needy.
I have just as much disgust for Fox News as I do for MSNBC. WE (“right” and “left”) can not solve anything until we see that we are all being used by someone (something?) else.
Ranting again, I think. My point is that disagreeing with someone does not mean you hate them and I think that is what Mr. Wright was saying.
And back to your question regarding race and wealth redistribution, they have absolutely nothing to do with each other. But fiscal conservatism is constantly branded racist, hateful, anti women, anti gay, anti anything that will get people angry etc. in order to evade a productive discussion.