Just read a series of articles detailing the latest report from The Southern Poverty Law Center. The SPLC report talks about “Hate” groups increasing in the past year.
BLM is not listed. Although I personally think they should be.
But other groups are… Groups that I’m not sure I’d qualify as “Hate” groups per se.
Obviously the KKK is listed (the SLPC report says their numbers are dropping)
Some of the groups listed are simply groups that oppose illegal immigration. Does that merit the designation “Hate Group”?
Just because you disagree with and protest or vocally oppose illegal immigration does not automatically make you a hate group. Just because you’re in favor of accountability and vetting doesn’t mean you hate.
Having a dislike for something does not mean you hate it. I don’t like lima beans, but that doesn’t mean I hate them, it means that if there is an option, I’ll choose the option. That’s not hate, that’s a preference. If there’s nothing but lima beans, I’ll smile and eat them grateful for the meal.
I don’t like street signs in my country being written in a language that I don’t read or understand. That’s not hate or racism, that’s reasonable expectation that the signs be in the language generally spoken by the vast majority of the country.
After all, I wouldn’t go to Russia, China, or Saudi Arabia to live, and expect the signs to be in English. That doesn’t mean that those people hate me, it means I’m a visitor to their country and they shouldn’t have to make accommodation to me. Rather, I should do my best to learn the language.
Hate is very different from disagreement, or lack of accommodation.
Asking that someone wait in line to enter a restaurant, religious edifice,airport, plane, theater, or Country is not hate, it is maintaining order. Asking a stranger what their intentions are before allowing them into your house is common sense. Why do we cast these rules to the wind when we talk about allowing people into the country, (by extension our home)?
How do we equate asking questions or expressing our concerns, to hate?
My definition of hate is quite possibly different from yours. In my world hate is dark. It drives dark hideous deeds and it requires a lot of energy. You have to want to hate and you have to constantly feed hate to keep it alive.
Here’s my poor attempt at defining it:
Hate is unreasoning. It’s harsh, and comes from a place of darkness. Hate is violent and terrifying.
Hate is what creates people in masks, who riot, destroy property, burn buildings or kill other people who are just trying to get through their day.
Hate is “hurt or KILL X, Y, or Z” because they are X, Y, or Z. Hate is “Make them (whoever they may be) pay for who they are or what they believe”.
Hate is Poll Taxes, crucifixions, burning people alive trapped in a cage, beheadings, knock out games, vengeance rape, rape in general, “kill the fags”, Zyclon B, forcing people to dig their own mass grave, then shooting them, bombing school busses… shopping centers… night clubs, harming children, brutalizing anyone and throwing them off a building, or hanging someone in their own front lawn. These are hateful things born in the darkest parts of human nature.
These are acts that are so heinous that instinctively we know they are wrong; no religion or belief structures are needed, we know these acts are inherently wrong.
We look away in disgust, and a little spark of something lights in our souls because we viscerally react to people who are so… wrong. Not only wrong in their actions, but wrong on such a fundamental level that our instincts for self preservation of our species wake up, demanding we excise the sickness from the gene pool.
Is that feeling hate, or instinctive self preservation?
I believe that someone not liking me, or a Country telling me that I may visit but cannot live there is not hate.
I’d probably like very much living in Fiji, but the odds of me being allowed to become a permanent citizen are pretty low. Fijians probably don’t hate me, but they do understand limited resources.
The same goes for Australia, even though I have some talents that could earn me a living. I don’t have enough working years left to pay enough into their tax system that I wouldn’t be a burden on their society in my later years.
These are reasoned decisions, not hatred.
For our country to be expected to make any less reasoned decisions shouldn’t be construed as hate.
The word hate is bandied about all too frequently and the definition is too fluid in our culture.
Were I to go to Fiji and overstay my visa (i.e. permission to visit) I wouldn’t be at all surprised to have their equivalent of ICE arrest me and put me on the first plane home. Would they call me an immigrant or a criminal?
Probably the latter. The odds are, I’d be blacklisted from ever returning. Even that wouldn’t be “hate” that would be enlightened self interest on the part of the Fujian government. After all, I’ve demonstrated that I can’t be trusted to obey their laws and therefore I won’t be allowed back, and thus will not be their problem.
The fluid nature of our culture and language and the slow methodical coercion of the media has led us to a place where words no longer have any real meaning.
Immigrant – can now mean illegal visitors and legal citizens.
Hate – is now used to describe anyone who disagrees with the perceived (or peddled) correct opinion.
Racist – now only describes white people, (as I’ve mentioned before it’s the new “N” word.)
I think it’s high time that we got back to using real words with real definitions in a consistent way so that all of us have the same understanding of a situation.
I’d like to see the SPLC review their “Hate Group” list and reconsider the groups on it and the reasons those groups are classified as a Hate Group.
Moreover I’d really like words and terms like racism, racist, immigrant and illegal immigrant to actually mean what Webster’s says they do.
It’s unlikely that’s going to happen; that doesn’t mean anyone hates me.
