After
calling out several people for spreading hate around through their postings, I
have received just as many replies that the sender didn’t have a “hateful bone
in his/her body” and that they were just exercising their right to free speech. I am unable to reconcile these actions. Because
much of our Country is partaking of this kind of hate we should understand
what’s happening.
The Penguin
Dictionary of Psychology
defines hate as a "deep, enduring, intense emotion expressing animosity,
anger, and hostility towards a person, group, or object”. This is certainly the kind of thing I was
calling out and that we see every day in the media. Many will blame the internet for this dumbing
down of America and it certainly is doing its share. We citizens are the real ones to blame as we
would rather read about some famous person’s personal problems than what that
person is doing to help the world.
Politicians have learned that they can win an argument when logic won’t
prevail by name calling. The media have
learned that they can sell more if they lead off with one famous person
insulting another famous person. This is
a lot more entertaining than learning about centrifuges in Iran.
Most
in this country agree that it is heading in the wrong direction. What we must understand is that once someone
is endowed with power, it is more important to them to keep their power than to
use it as previously promised. It’s also
much easier to be against something than to
be for something. It’s easy to
point out all the problems with an idea and to even make up some. Proving an idea is right can only be done by
implementing it and with many wanting to prove it wrong, nothing happens. It’s now so bad that even good ideas that
have been implemented with positive results are the subject of many lies about
how bad they are.
The
Center for Responsive Politics put the total cost of the 2012 campaign at over
6 billion dollars. While we pay much
attention to who gives this money, (even if we can’t find out), we tend to ignore
who receives it. Every penny of these
funds end up with the media. With no
assurance that this annuity will be received every two and four years the media
has a lot of interest in not reducing or changing the way that campaigns are
financed. By focusing on hate, anger,
and blame, the media can keep our eyes turned away from the fat cats that are
busy collecting the wealth of this nation.
The status quo is what those in power want and by using a divide and
conquer tactic they are assured of keeping things just as they are.
Just
because we have a “right” is no reason to use that right. Each right carries with it the responsibility
to use it properly. Hurling insults and
calling names may be a right (freedom of speech). What purpose does it serve? One person gets something temporarily off
their chest, but others are incited to hate.
We still have many in this world that believe in an eye for an eye. We must make everyone understand that this
just leads to everyone being blind. The
issues are different from the people behind them. We must learn to criticize the issue not the
person. We must learn not to vote for
the bullies that are good at throwing insults but refuse to provide their own
answers.
