Constant Conservative

The following video (HT: PowerLine) is a remarkable example of people in France who are perfectly happy to disregard flout a number of laws so that they may express their hatred for Israel. The language on the video is French, so it may be a bit difficult for English speakers to understand, but I think you’ll get the gist of it.

In my experience, no one has been able to give me a unequivocal definition of “hate speech.” I doubt that anyone will. Why, you ask? Well, because at its heart any definition of hate speech is highly subjective.

For example, let us look at the following article which addresses what happened when someone publicly expressed his disagreement President Obama’s views on abortion:

An Oklahoma City police officer wrongly pulled over a man last week and confiscated an anti-President Barack Obama sign the man had on his vehicle.

The officer misinterpreted the sign as threatening, said Capt. Steve McCool, of the Oklahoma City Police Department, and took the sign, which read “Abort Obama, not the unborn.”

[...]

”The Secret Service called and said they were at my house,” Harrison [the driver of the vehicle] said.

After talking to his attorney, Harrison went home where he met the Secret Service.

”When I was on my way there, the Secret Service called me and said they weren’t going to ransack my house or anything … they just wanted to (walk through the house) and make sure I wasn’t a part of any hate groups.”

Now, in the particular case, local law enforcement has apologized, stating that the officer overstepped his bounds. Nonetheless, the Secret Service showed up to talk to the chap who expressed his views.

Hate speech, or its cousin, hate crimes are notoriously hard to work with because they are predicated on knowing people’s motivation for particular speech or crimes. I do not recall (which does not mean it did not happen) articles about anyone being visited by the Secret Service for holding signs which advocated for the violent removal of Bush from the presidency. No, that was covered under free speech rights and the First Amendment.

Hatred (strong negativity toward something) like love (strong positivity toward something) is not absolutely negative or positive. For example, I hate lying. Many people would consider that a good use of hatred. Some might not.

The bottom line is that laws which purport to address hatred must by definition be interpreted by whomever is currently in power. That can only lead to abuses of that same power.

I’m saddened more than normally to see this, in part because I have a very strong family connection to the Philadelphia area:

As a lifelong Caucasian, I am beginning to think the time has finally come to take the right to vote away from white people, at least until we come to our senses. Seriously, I just don’t think we can be trusted to exercise it responsibly anymore.

I give you Exhibit A: The last eight years.

In 2000, Bush-Cheney stole the election, got us attacked, and then got us into two no-exit wars. Four years later, white people reelected them. Is not the repetition of the same behavior over and over again with the expectation of a different outcome the very definition of insanity? (It is, I looked it up.)

It gets worse from there, but we need to go no further. Given the level of logic and erudition displayed to this point, I have no choice but to agree with the concept. I believe that the writer of this piece, being a white person (as he fully admits) should stop voting. That, my friends, is change we can believe in.

HT: Sister Toldjah

It is sad, but there are things I cannot say (which need to be said) without being called racist. I cannot claim that anything which has ever happened to any minority is anything else than the overlordship of the evil majority. Sigh. Sarah Palin cannot even bring up Barack Obama’s association with a white man (Ayers) without being called racist. (Nice response on her part to that.)

The man in the following video will no doubt be vilified for his approach, but he makes it more difficult for the charges to stick.

If he has written his own material (which I believe to be the case) he’s got a well-spoken future ahead of him.

HT: The Anchoress

Yes, there are those who are, broadly speaking, “conservatives” who are marked by their hatred. Yes, I’m sure that given the proper context, I could be brought to strongly dislike to the point of wishing imminent and violent demise upon certain individuals.  Angry I can become, no matter how strong the force may be.

However, I believe that I can honestly say that I do not hate anyone. I’m still struggling to consistently apply the command to “love your enemies,” but I do not hate them. Since “enemy” is a rather broad term these days, let me use it use it to encompass those who range from wishing that I and my ilk would just crawl back into our dirt-floor cabins, to those who would seek to destroy us (in a physical sense) because we do not be believe in and follow the same fatalistic, irate, deity.

The much maligned Latins had a term for arguments which addressed the person, rather than the idea, principle, or position which was being presented: ad hominem. In short, this means “directed against the person.” Examples of such arguments abound within modern written and spoken news and discussion. When I come across such material, whether from someone who seems to largely agree with my views (a conservative) or someone who largely believes my views are inaccurate (a liberal), I suffer from an adverse reaction.

These reactions differ. If I see such an argument put forth by a conservative, I cringe. After all, I am not, nor do I believe that conservatives in large part are, proponents of hatred. Are we often defined by those things which we are against more than those things which we are for? Yes. Is this wrong? Not entirely, since one can often tell more about someone based on who his enemies are rather than who his friends are. Nevertheless, the approach is wrong, no matter how much I might want “our side” to win the broader discussion.

On the other hand, if I see the argument put forward by a liberal, I tend to discount any truth which might be included in article, interview, etc, since I am thinking that “this person is fighting illogically, why should I assume that the rest of their argument is not similarly flawed”?

It is not uncommon for me in both cases (that is whether I agree with the person presenting the argument or not) to think something along the lines of “what a maroon” (which I must point out, comes awfully close to an ad hominem statement in itself).

In either case, the discussion or the presentation has lost its place (as far as I am concerned) within the marketplace of ideas. Unfortunately, for many others, it is simply lowering the bar and encouraging the discussion to descend into the maelstrom.