Peeve Farm

g r o t t o 1 1

Peeve Farm
Breeding peeves for show, not just to keep as pets

Brian Tiemann
Silicon Valley-based purveyor of a confusing mixture of Apple punditry and political bile.

btman at grotto11 dot com

Read These Too:

InstaPundit
USS Clueless
James Lileks
Little Green Footballs
As the Apple Turns
Entropicana
Cold Fury
Capitalist Lion
Red Letter Day
Eric S. Raymond
Tal G in Jerusalem
Secular Islam
Aziz Poonawalla
Corsair the Rational Pirate
.clue
Ravishing Light
Rosenblog
Cartago Delenda Est

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Tuesday, July 5, 2005

20:54 - The Hatred Gap

(top)

"Hate is a strong word," some caution. "Not strong enough!" others retort.

And all I can think, when I see something like this, is that some people's lives are just so consumed by hate�either feeling it directly, or fantasizing it in others�that I can't even fathom jumping the gulf that lies between myself and that kind of mentality.

From the linked discussion thread at Daily Kos, the genesis of which was a seemingly innocuous bit of satire, we get this:

These wingnuts have my goddamned adrenaline going, these days more than ever. After all the truth that has come out, they're still spweinhg filth about "liberal traitors."
Shit, I'm ready to snap back into old form and whale on a few of them. They're fucking asking for it.

What will it solve? Not sure. Maybe nothing.

But it'll sure shut their fucking mouths while I'm pummelling them, and that'll be enough for the time being.

Let them call me a traitor. Please, let some doughy piece-of-shit Rove wannabe call me a traitor.

It'll be the last word he says for a MONTH, because his fucking jaw will be wired shut.

by chumley

And

Here's to Truth, Orwell! (none / 0)
I know you got lots of flame for that comment, but I'm with you on it. These right wing assholes play games with the lives of many thousands of others, all for money and power in Washington, and IMO it is time they get their due. If these right wing personalities were to get the bar-b-cue treatment that those mercenaries in Fallujah got, it could very well turn public opinion in America, which in turn could save thousands of lives both American and Iraqi. The religious right is destroying America by putting us on a path to a sort of neofascist theocracy, and anything that derails their agenda has got to be good on at least some level.

As long as it's Independence Day, we should remember that our nation was born in a blood bath. Jefferson was never afraid of being called a "King George hater."

This is the problem with Democrats; we are too nice, we are too careful about hating only the policies and not the politician, we quiver in our boots when media personalities call us "Bush Haters". Fuck that! I AM a Bush hater, I hate that man and everything he stands for, just as I hate Saddam and Stalin, and yes, Jefferson Davis and all the slave traders and owners he represented. It is good to hate evil.

I guarantee you that most of those republican activists out there HATE all of us, and in particular they hated Kerry and especially Dean. And in a society enveloped in a noxious smog of fear, hate wins. Democrats will keep losing if we don't learn to hate and DESTROY our enemies.

Now let's be clear, I'm not saying I want those right wing hacks to die on their vacation in Iraq, I'm saying I don't give a fuck if they die or not. But if they do die - Shadenfreude.

"Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprize." -James Madison

by Subterranean

What kind of terms does this guy's "guarantee" promise? We hate people like Kerry and Dean? Where does this even come from? This is politics, not some kind of backwoods family feud. I don't hate Howard Dean. Hell, I barely know him. I believe he's tone-deaf and counterproductive, but I bear him no ill will, either personally or even for his political prospects. John Kerry? The only thing that could make me hate someone in his position is if he were proved to have consciously and egregiously betrayed his country and caused a lot of soldiers to be killed, and I don't think anyone has conclusively shown that�or that he was anything less (or more) than a fairly mediocre minor officer, and the primary emotion I feel when anyone mentions his name is boredom.

Hate? Jeezum crow, people, get a grip.

Do I hate the people in comment threads like this, at Daily Kos and Democratic Underground? That would be a stretch. I might be said to despise them, but that's not the same thing�I abhor the things they say, and I find it repugnant that they tend to celebrate a lot of sentiments and ideals that I disagree with firmly. But primarily my reaction upon reading the stuff I see there, like what's quoted above, is sadness and futility. How can I even talk to people who say these things so blithely, so earnestly, like they're desperately working out some kind of deeply held passion? How much mileage lies between their opinions of, say, George W. Bush and a discussion that would involve statements like "Well, I disagree with his policy on such-and-such issue, for the following reasons"? I'm not even asking for consensus on issues like the war�just a common ground of rational discourse, something that doesn't involve conspiracies of power-drunk idiot madmen in thrall to Satanic oil companies (yet, for some reason, stumping for nuclear power). How do you weigh the pros and cons of an issue in a calm manner with someone who thinks he's being a brave representative of the "reality-based community" by saying I AM a Bush hater, I hate that man and everything he stands for, just as I hate Saddam and Stalin, and yes, Jefferson Davis and all the slave traders and owners he represented. It is good to hate evil? What kind of forum is it where�far from pointing out that even a politician from the far opposite side of the aisle from where you stand has human constituents and is trying to support them as best he can�merely expressing the idea that Iowahawk's original parody was funny gets you banned?

"Sure," some will now say, "This is extreme stuff. Yeah, we say we hate conservatives. But that's only because they did it first!"

And sure enough, one of the new Family Guy episodes that I caught last night while I was half-dozing in my chair features Brian the dog (who now, in the zombified Second Coming of the show, drives a Prius with a "Kucinich '04" bumper sticker and reads Michael Moore books) starts an alarming spate of loud and fierce baying at a black man that enters the room (waking me up in my chair with a start). Immediately, though, he catches himself and apologizes profusely to the man: "Sorry! I'm sorry! I can't believe I did that�that just completely isn't 'me'. I have no problem with black people; I vote Democrat!"

(It would have been great if the black man had said, "Yeah, well, I'm a Republican. What, you vote for the party of the slaveholders and the fire hoses?" �But that's not something we can expect out of Seth McFarlane, no sirree.)

It's become such an unquestioned article of faith on the Left�"conservatives hate"�that this kind of thing is par for the course, and whether it has any basis in reality or not, it's the grounding for the philosophy espoused by these people on Kos' forums.

It's as good as proved, for example, that Bush wants to kill gays. What good would it do, then, to point out the "Bush tapes", wherein he said behind closed doors that he didn't want Republicans to be "kicking gays"? Well, not much good, apparently�rather than take such words at face value, as off-the-cuff utterances captured on tape that reflect not just a policy statement but a directive from his own heart, the sentiments are interpreted as a "turnaround", and as a "weasel-like, cowardly approach to gay bashing".

Occam's Razor means nothing to these people. There's no such thing as assuming benign, humane, or even human principles in explaining the doings of someone on the other side. It's all just part of the greater tapestry of regimented hatred.

I honestly don't know what to do or think when confronted with these earnest pledges, by people who claim to be the vanguard of compassion and understanding and peace, to beat the life out of me for the opinions I hold.

I'm no Christian, but I know what it is to feel the sadness of watching someone willingly damn himself. It's born of love, and pity, and a wistful wish to be able to bridge the gap and bring the person back from the brink. Despite Kos' insistence that the Religious Right thrives on hatred and lives to damn those with which it disagrees, I have to say that after some four years now of dwelling primarily on the right-hand side of the aisle, I haven't even seen anything that comes close to the truly frightening level of murderous rage that emanates from what claims to be the country's rightful moral guide. I can't even remember the last time I saw someone on the pro-war/pro-Bush side even say or type the words "I hate..."

But I'm probably just not paying attention. Kos' people aren't just our moral guardians, they're our intellectual superiors, too.

UPDATE: I know I asked for it by using a blanket statement, but please refrain from pointing out Google results for "I hate" that appear in places like anti-abortion forums and white-power sites. Addendum here.

UPDATE: As if there were any doubt: reaction to the London bombings.

I'm not even shocked anymore. That's a very bad thing.