The Narrative of Hate

posted at 12:19 am on August 27, 2010 by Doctor Zero

You hear a lot about the “hatefulness” of conservatives and Tea Party activists these days.  Lefty web sites were eager to pin the recent stabbing of a Muslim cab driver in New York on right wingers, since all opposition to the Ground Zero mosque is dismissed as vicious bigotry.  They were crushed to learn the perpetrator was a volunteer for an interfaith organization that supports the mosque.

Jim Treacher of The Daily Caller points out a hilarious post from Talking Points Memo, where the commenters cling desperately to The Narrative Of Hatred, even after learning the guy who urinated on a Muslim prayer rug was a garden variety drunk instead of a Tea Party storm trooper.  One TPM blogger was so upset by the blood-dimmed tide of right-wing fury that he ran off and firebombed Russ Carnahan’s office.

Ignoring this useless reality, MSNBC ties the wee-weed rug into “a spate of anti-Muslim incidents” and delivers the chilling warnings of a CAIR spokesman that fiery clouds of violent hatred are massing over the Religion of Peace:

FBI Special Agent Richard Kolko told msnbc.com that New York City has not seen a change in the number of hate crimes reported by Muslims so far this year, but every report is taken seriously.

But recent incidents — including the stabbing of a Muslim cab driver and the desecration of a California mosque — have some members of the Muslim community worried that crimes against Muslims could reach crisis levels.

“Without a significant response by mainstream political leaders, this disturbing trend will only continue to grow,” said Faiza Ali, a New York spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Even the Grand Old Party may fall victim of a hateful “insurrection,” as Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne sobs from his fainting couch:

Republicans are in the midst of an insurrection. Democrats are not. This vast gulf between the situations of the two parties — not some grand revolt against “the establishment” or “incumbents” — explains the year’s primary results, including Tuesday’s jarring outcomes in Florida and Alaska.

… That the deficit increased primarily because of two tax cuts and two wars was not part of most conservatives’ calculation because acknowledging this was ideologically inconvenient. In the meantime, the election of President Obama by a demographically diverse coalition anchored among younger voters helped unleash the furies inside an older, overwhelmingly white and Southern-leaning GOP coalition.

Leave aside the fact that only a complete idiot would believe the deficit has increased primarily because of tax cuts and wars, and heed the wisdom of Dionne’s warning to his beloved Republican Party.  Last Tuesday’s primaries were the most horrific bloodbath since Blade walked into a vampire disco.  Rick Scott ran a “brutal campaign” to become the Republican nominee for Florida governor.  A terrified Lisa Murkowski was crushed by “right-wing power” and is now huddled beneath her desk, waiting for the murderous avatar of Joe McCarthy to come and devour her soul.  John McCain barely survived his primary by “modifying long-held positions to appease hard-line conservatives,” and unleashing Darth Palin on the fearful voters of Arizona.  Meanwhile, Glenn Beck prepares to lead a horde of his followers across the sacred ground where only duly authorized heirs to the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. may walk.  They will spend the weekend dressed in ghoulish makeup and tattered baseball outfits, marching in circles around Congress and taunting Democrats to come out and play.

The Narrative of Hate is a crowbar desperate liberals hope they can use to separate moderates from conservatives.  Moderates recoil from the idea of being pressed into a bloodthirsty mob.  They might be angry about the comprehensive failure of the Obama Democrats, but hateful? No, they’ve got to draw the line at hate.  They might even start feeling bad about being angry.  Maybe they should vote for the people hailed as paragons of tolerance and compassion by the media, or even sit this next election out altogether.

This business of designating inconvenient ideas as “hateful” is also an expression of the collectivist instinct.  It’s a less brutal variation on the way hardcore statists like to declare the opposition clinically insane.  Once you have established the premise that hateful ideas must be dismissed without further thought or discussion, immense power accrues to whoever gets to classify ideas as “hateful.”  Hatefulness becomes a virus, spreading rapidly through association with anyone the elite have identified as a carrier.  You don’t have to argue with the infected, or consider the merits of their arguments… just avoid all contact with them.  Thinking unclean thoughts could cause the contagion to spread.

To be brutally honest: a lot of people are sincerely angry about what has been happening to their country.  They were provoked.  The “transformative agenda” of this Presidency came looking for them, and there is no way to hide from it.  There is no option to step away from the politics of an aggressive State, and live your life in peace.  You may have considered yourself a moderate who prefers not to get involved in nasty political arguments, a desire I understand and respect… but if you think you should be allowed to buy your own health insurance, you’re a right-wing conservative now.  In a few more years, you’ll be an “extremist.”  Your children will be handed the back-breaking invoice for the politics you preferred to stay clear of.

It is pointless to tell people they should not feel certain emotions.  However, we choose what to do with those feelings.  The New Deal is dead, and the question before us is whether we will allow it to destroy America in its death throes.  Anger will not provide the answer to that question.  The task ahead of us requires logic and courage.  I would prefer to temper our anger into resolve, and place passion at the service of reason.  It is difficult to ask people to follow angry leaders into constructive endeavors.

Sometimes people tell me they’re angry and frustrated because they think there’s no way out for us, that we’re doomed to end up in a horror movie whose red-band trailer was filmed in Greece.  To believe that is to lose faith in your fellow Americans.  We are conservatives, so we believe in them. Liberty is not a flame ordinary people are too childish to be trusted with.  I can’t wait to see what they can do, once we unhook them from the political machine that has been sucking them dry.

The Left is frightened and confused.  Nothing that is happening right now makes any sense to them.  It defies all of their elegant theories and deeply held beliefs.  How can the magnificent Lightworker turn out to be hapless empty suit, with no real skill for anything except giving speeches?  How can the brilliant elite of the Democrat Party, with total control of the entire federal government, preside over stagnation and collapse?  The people cannot hope to lead fulfilling lives without the enlightened control of liberals – why are they turning on their saviors with cold eyes and sharp questions the Left cannot answer?  What the hell are those awful thumping and hissing noises coming from the deficit boiler room beneath Capitol Hill?  The cold and fearful Left must work some feeling back into its numb fingers by pointing them at someone.  They must reassure themselves that there are no legitimate points of view beside their own… and no alternatives to the ruinous course they have set for their country.

The massive government Americans will soon begin the battle to control was built entirely on emotional appeals.  Its failed programs are said to be eternal, because every alternative to them is immoral.  The amount of assistance actually rendered to its supposed beneficiaries is beside the point.  We must do it for the children, the science is settled, health insurance is a human right, the rich must pay their fair share, compassion can only be expressed through government spending.  Don’t ask how much money reaches the downtrodden, or where the rest of it goes.  Don’t ask why you should shiver in the dark to “save the earth,” while your betters ride in limousines and private jets.  Questions are a burden to yourself, answers are a burden to others.

Why would conservatives be “hateful?”  Our victory will return liberty and property to everyone, including those we disagree with.  On the other hand, the victory of the Left requires increasing levels of compulsion, to overcome mounting resistance to an agenda based on highly subjective “rights” and obligations, distributed by the central government.  Everyone who clings to leftist ideals will eventually be required to hate the designated enemies of the State.  Many of them have received their instructions already.

Both sides in the coming clash understand they must express their philosophy to voters with passion, of course.  Allowing our passions to be ruled illegitimate is equivalent to disarming ourselves.  The acolytes of a dying philosophy, who ignore reality when it conflicts with their feelings, have no lectures to give about “hatred.”  If all dissent from this President is equivalent to hatred, then no sincere dissent is possible, and quiet submission is the only moral course.  Anyone who makes that argument is a totalitarian, and I am happy to be counted among their adversaries.  I do intend to be a happy adversary.  The man who led America up from the disaster of Jimmy Carter did it with a smile.  Obama’s successor will be wearing a smile, too.  No one who truly understands the character of this nation can stay mad at it for long.

Cross-posted at www.doczero.org.

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