On Hate, Political Speech, and Identity

Too many people on Patch just spewing hate speech and bigotry. Patch is not a news organization it is just a collection of people writing nonsense. These people are not reporters just people out to polarize. Waxman is elected and if he won elections to keep him in office for 100 years well that is America. It is one thing to disagree with the policies that Waxman has supported but to publicly insult him in a forum is so disgusting - shame on those people who do it and for Patch for allowing it to occur as a blog on their site. Leave the dumb comments where they belong - in the comment section.....(A Comment from “Patch” News service)

“Too many people on Patch just spewing hate speech and bigotry.”

It is neither hate speech nor bigotry to inform voters about their prospective Congressional candidates.

“Hate speech” is becoming the happy mantra for many to attack those people who disagree with them. But disagreement with a point of view does not mean hatred or disdain for the person.

One flagrant example is the enormous backlash which followed Chik-fil-A CEO Dan Cathy’s remark about gay marriage, and then the outcry and vandalism that followed at Chik-fil-A restaurants around the country.

In my hometown, Torrance CA, one protester painted a huge indictment against the restaurant, which read “Tastes Like Hate”

Since when did registering an opinion on “gay marriage” or Waxman’s legislative record or sharing any other point of view on a divisive matter morph into “hate speech”?

It is a vapid and trivial epithet to label any disagreement as “hate speech” – why should a political point be equated with racial slurs or other demagoguery that has in its essence a desire merely to denigrate others? Not agreeing with someone is not an attack on anyone, necessarily, yet a growing number of people in this country seem to believe otherwise.

The crisis that leads people to yell “hate speech” when they hear a line of reasoning that they disagree with stems from their strong identification with these points of view. Men and women who identify as gay lesbian, bisexual, transgender, are proceeding from the argument that they were born a certain way, and thus any limitation to practice the lifestyle which they have chosen they understandable view as an attack on their very selves.

I question the notion that men and women are born inclined to connect with the same sex or even the opposite sex. I decry the idea that men and women should be defining themselves by whom they are attracted to physically, as feelings and thoughts are subject to change, and there is ample evidence of men and women who have lived a homosexual lifestyle for a period of time, only to leave the lifestyle, marry a partner of the opposite sex, and have children. There are numerous accounts of people who married and had children, then chose to end their marriages or engage in an open marriage in order to have relationships with people of the same sex.

The deeper problem, it seems to me, therefore, is the basis for a person’s identity, the chief source of security for people in a world that is now shaking far more than ever before.

To stake oneself on how one feels or what one does or even the values one thinks is shaky ground at best. Men and women naturally should be open to new ideas, to the degree that they have received more truth to supplement the points of view which they have espoused before.

This crisis of opinion confused with identity is causing much of the problems in our schools, in our government, and in our culture.

This country has a growing problem, it seems, with dividing emotion from opinion, identity from values. Just because I do not believe in gay marriage, for example, does not mean that I do not respect the natural rights of individuals who live a homosexual lifestyle.

My protest to the views and values of Henry Waxman does not constitute that I hate the man. “Hate” is a strong word, to begin with, and the polarization that surrounds this man stems in greater part to his conduct in Congress with his own colleagues on both sides of the aisle.

The reason why the rancor and bitterness is so strong in this country, I believe, is that this country is having a healthy and necessary discussion about the very identity of this country and our political discourse. The fundamental argument about the role of government touches on the identity and character of us all as Americans. Was the Constitution a document which outlines enumerated powers, or is the Constitution a “living” document, one which can be turned and changed depending on the dictates or the currents of the times?

Another reason why political discussion has become bitterly dividing, I believe, is that more people find themselves on the government dole or receive some subsidy from the state. Former New Hampshire Senator John Sununu reported that almost 50% of the people in this country are receiving money from the government in some way, shape, or form: disability, pension, social security, Medicare, Medicaid, and so on. “The Declaration of Independence” solidified the political identity of this country and the people living in this country on a Creator, not the state, the chief argument which justified the Framers raising arms against the King of England and breaking away to form their own country. Now that more people are defined by their connect to an agency of the state, that they have developed an attachment to an arm of the federal government, I am not surprised to see men and women up in arms when other members of the political spectrum cry out that we have to limit government, lower cuts, and lessen spending.

A third reason for the confusion of identity and opinion, in my opinion, stems from the identity politics of the Sixties, where the trend in government was to push out God, country, adherence to principles which had been laid out since the foundation of the nation. Men and women were permitted to pursue whatever interests they thought were convenient or acceptable. Rejecting tradition instead of merely questioning it to understand or fine-tune what they were receiving, men and women were told that they could make their own way, their own mark in the world, complete and unrivaled individualism.

Of course, the result has been the exact opposite – a nation of conformists who look to any club, agency, or movement to find truth, stability, and identity in these tough times. Who we are must be informed by much more than our feelings, thoughts, opinions, and actions.

The confusion of input and identity has created the polarization eating up our political discourse. This is what leads people to cry “hate” when someone shares a point of view contrary to their own, as more people are now identifying exclusively with their political views, as a greater number of people are looking for association to provide them the constancy of security and identity in a world which refuses to stand up to the shocks and storms of public opinion.

When we can define ourselves by more than ourselves – our opinions, our actions, our thoughts --- when we can agree to disagree on issues without attacking our persons and our place in this world, then we will see more compromise and accomplishment in government and our national polity and fewer protests of “hate”, and even fewer hateful protests – protests which do not respect the rights others, the personhood that every one of us has regardless of where we stand on the issues.