Defining Hate in the United States

 

When looking into this subject, there were a number of interesting findings which might cause one to pause and wonder about the why, who, and impetus behind things going on here. One of the first items was that there appear to be far more left leaning groups pointing fingers than right leaning groups. On the other side of that coin and unsurprising was that there appear to be more right leaning groups identified as hate groups than left leaning groups. The one item which everybody agreed upon was that the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) appears to be the self-appointed hate group identifier. There was also an amount of disagreement about whether this was a balanced and appropriate group to be trusted. The left leaning groups all unanimously applauded the SPLC efforts and findings having virtually no problems with almost anything stated by them while most right leaning groups gave the SPLC credit for doing a difficult job but insisted on pointing out that they had missed a number of definitions, especially on their “Hate Map” (see below). All the varied commentary on the “Hate Map” from any direction all had some glaring omissions which we, of course, took exception to and will now list. The hate groups missing consist of almost all anti-Israel, anti-Zionist groups and but very few anti-Semitic groups. Glaringly absent were BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions on Israel and Israeli products), BLM (Black Lives Matter who have been rabidly guilty of all three forms of anti-Semitism), Nation of Islam, Free Gaza (who organize the flotillas to attempt to break the legal arms blockade of Hamas and Islamic Jihad), Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (ANSWER who protest almost everything Israel and Zionist), Al-Awda (the largest Palestinian-American grassroots organization based in California), Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), Friends of Sabeel-North America (anti-Israel, anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic group demanding the eradication of Israel denying the Jews are entitled to a homeland and supporting replacement theology), International Solidarity Movement (ISM who support and aid Hamas and the PLO and have been caught using United Nations ambulances to ferry terrorists and munitions in Gaza), Jewish Voice for Peace (decidedly anti-Israel and largely anti-Netanyahu actively supporting the leftist parties in Israel to the point of interfering in Israeli election campaigning against the sitting government in the media between elections in attempts to weaken the Likud and Jewish Home parties as well as any Zionist or religious parties), Muslim American Society (MAS who are extremely active on American campuses pushing the Palestinian claims to all of Israel from the River to the Sea Palestine must be free is one of their rallying cries), Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP are actually an arm of MAS and was founded by a former MAS member) and finally, if the 2012 Democrat Party Convention (see video below) is any indicator, a fairly significant segment of the Democrat Party could also make the list and we suspect parts of the Republican Party as well. Unfortunately for Israel and the American-Israeli alliance which has been strong since a relatively rocky start where one could point to 1969 as the turning point where the United States began full support of Israel and the two nations have shared technological defense discoveries but that appears to be weakening after a long run. It was said by Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, as part of the Treaty of Adrianople, “I say that it is a narrow policy to suppose that this country or that is to be marked out as the eternal ally or the perpetual enemy of England. We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow.” Perhaps the wise man has a point, no permanence between nations except as serve the immediate needs of each nation.

 

Southern Poverty Law Center Hate Map

 

 

Hate is a difficult subject at any time and even more sensitive in the United States at the moment as charges of institutional hate are being brought against conservatives in general and the Republican Party and associated groups in particular. The media and some entertainment individuals have harped on this subject refusing to allow anything to calm after the horrendous display in Charlottesville a number of weeks back. The coverage of the violence there has been one sided in the mainstream media with an opposing view of a different tone coming from conservative talk personalities. There has been one area of agreement from both sides, namely that the Nazis, KKK and white supremacists are all unjustifiable hate groups who have no legitimate place at the table in American society. Where the left and right differ is the level and amount of support these fringe groups presumably have. According to the right leaning talk and opinion hosts and editorialists, these groups are marginalized by the conservatives and are a fringe area which has no power and very few followers and are given no quarter by conservatives and are a disgrace to all Americans. According to the left mainstream media, these groups are pervasive throughout the society and rule the conservative movements and dictate policy to the Republican Party and have a very strong showing at all right leaning events and are within all the right leaning groups almost without exception. Obviously, both sets of commentary cannot be valid; either they are a marginalized group of outcasts and are small in number or they can be found all throughout the conservative groups and rule the roost. Here we have exactly similar argument as was presented about the SPLC and their objectivity. Where you stand on either issue, we are willing to bet that you either support the conservative or the leftist side of the argument on both. We would be starkly surprised to find people taking opposing sides on these two issues, though we must assume such is possible.

 

Hate comes in different packages within any society and it will never be eradicated. Some hatreds are actually valid, though such strong feelings are rare. We can assume that cancer is universally hated, as are most diseases and illnesses. But these obvious items are also not areas of contention within our societies. Where hatred becomes a problem is when one group within the society holds such feelings for another group within the society. Often such feelings are mutually felt as if a group hates your group; it is human nature to hate that group in return. It takes a rare breed of people to resist such a reaction when targeted by hatred. These are the kinds of hatred which if we were to be a better people we could find resolutions to such feelings. Some of these hatreds go back hundreds if not thousands of years and are passed on from parent to child almost in their mother’s milk. Anti-Semitism is just such hatred as it has a history which reaches back before written history. Anti-Semitism has such a pernicious nature that we recognize it in the story of our liberation from bondage in Egypt when towards the end of the Seder dinner service we state, “In each and every generation they rise up against us to destroy us. And the Holy One, blessed be He, rescues us from their hands.” The validity of that ominous prediction is absolutely bone chilling terrifying. If one were to follow the entirety of the history of the Jews, they would be capable of identifying some atrocity perpetrated against the Jewish People either within Europe or the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) going back to before Islam and Christianity took turns persecuting or expelling Jews. Even the history of the United States has its examples which include but are not limited to the Order Number 11 issued by Major General Ulysses S. Grant on December 17, 1862, during the American Civil War which ordered the expulsion of all Jews in his military district, comprising areas of Tennessee, Mississippi, and Kentucky. The order was subsequently reversed by President Lincoln but not before much of the Jewish population had been dispossessed of their lands and property. Also there was the refusal by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt who in 1939 refused to permit any of the refugees to enter the United States from the ocean liner the M.S. St. Louis which was carrying over nine-hundred Jews fleeing Nazi Germany forcing the ship to return to Germany where the Jews were sent to concentration camps. Neither episode would make any rational person’s list of memorable events about which to be proud. And that is where we can get to a definition of hate which both groups could probably live with. Hate is any action which in general a population would rally against and refuse to grant it their support. With this definition, it requires that the population as a whole to concur that something is contributing to hatred before making that judgement. After all, would not being able to identify and define hate be preferable to allowing each group to get together and decide who they wish to call outcasts of society with an accusation of being part of a hate group. If any small group could decide who are parts of a hate group, then we would all soon find ourselves accused of hate. To accuse a group of being a hate group should be something taken carefully and with a general consensus. And not to worry, Nazis, the KKK, and White Supremacists would all easily qualify as hate groups despite the accusation that the conservatives are all members of such groups because that accusation is pure politicizing hate, and that is one thing which must be avoided at all costs unless your aim is to tear the fabric of American society asunder and turn brother against brother once more.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Internet Insanity Over Potential Trump Assassination

 

There have been numerous articles where people are all but, and some obviously, salivating over the possibility of President Trump being assassinated including as an example about Quora postings. What proved far more interesting was that many people had similar responses over had Bill Clinton, Barack Obama or both George Bushes had been assassinated. Much of this could be due to Quora being an international forum thus those disrespecting any American President becomes less surprising. Still, the reaction to the idea that no thinking or feeling Secret Service Agent should ever consider taking a bullet intended for President for us was unsettling. The fact that Kerry O’Grady, a now former senior Secret Service Agent who was the senior agent in Denver, explains that she viewed Trump as a candidate for President to be a “disaster” for the country, and especially for women and minorities and she would rather suffer “jail time” rather than “taking a bullet” to save his life. Apparently, she never read the fine print in her job description. Nowhere did it say take a bullet to save the life of whomever you are assigned to protect only if you liked them and believed them worth saving. Her position did not provide for such leeway or other considerations beyond it was her job to do everything within her power, to include but not limited to taking a bullet, to protect the President of the United States and all others deemed by the department as somebody the Secret Service was protecting. Apparently, the train has left the tracks and is teetering on the edge of a cliff as everything has gone south and the entire system is starting to fall apart all due to the simple fact that half the nation is upset that their preferred candidate lost an election. Could you imagine the New York Times, Washington Post and a thousand other leftist newspapers and news outlets reaction had a Secret Service Agent gone on the Internet and claimed that they would not protect Barack Obama? We would have become just as outrages over such a protestation and demanded that agent be relieved of their position, not just punished, but fired and made sure they never again received any position in law enforcement or other position where they were responsible for the lives of others, as to do so would be as criminal as would be her refusal to protect the President of the United States regardless of her personal feelings.

 

Now on to the continuing events and social media storms which are still showing little signs of reduction in numbers, ferocity of opinions or extremes in temperament. This is not normal nor is it healthy for the nation as it is tantamount to a Civil War except thus far without the bullets. The opinions were just as divided, though in exactly the opposite direction, both times when Barack Obama won and became President of the United States, yet there were minimal eruptions on social media and no Secret Service Agents refusing to take a bullet for the President on social media or marches on Washington or in major cities across the nation. Yes, there were the Tea Party rallies which somehow managed not to permit any signs showing the President being shot or otherwise being harmed. The Tea Party rallies mostly spoke of political action to take back the Congress and the White House through elections, not revolutions. There were no ninja styled black clad figures attacking Obama supporters on college campuses or at pro-Obama rallies. There were no rallies demanding he resign. The Tea Party was actually organized to fight the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and after that, other legislations which those people did not particularly care for. There were neither calls for the assassination of the President nor discussions on social media which gleefully called for him to die any one of numerous horrific deaths from assassination to diseases to poisoning and others. There were no demands that his opponents from the two elections be placed in the White House in his place by any means necessary. But, there really were many, many people equally upset when he won the first election and started implementing his socialist agenda and even higher emotions against his second term but never to the point of desiring him illness or physical harm. That was seen as simply beyond the pale by all and his opponents simply prayed for the nation to survive and for the harm to be minimized such that when a new election allowed for rolling back some of what his opponents saw as harm to the nation could start and sanity return to politics. Apparently, the desire for sanity to return to politics was one desire too far. The one thing which definitely has not occurred was for sanity to have returned to politics and that is true about both sides.

 

That is the one item which has proven the sole outlet for humor, that there are conservatives just as irate as the leftists though the conservatives are not amongst those demanded Trump’s head, at least not yet. The Never Trump conservatives such as journalist Jeff Jacoby and Arizona Senator John McCain have yet to decide that working with President Trump might result in accomplishing more for the conservative cause than trying to beat him into submission along with those from the left. Similar such things happened before in the conservatives corner and it cost the Republican Party severely. It was when Barry Goldwater won the nomination for President and the core of the Republican Party felt thwarted and worked more against his candidacy than they supported him. Their lack of effort very likely cost him that extremely thin loss to John F. Kennedy which led to the Presidency of Lyndon Baines Johnson, the singular president most responsible for the socialization and destruction of the United States. Many have laid blame for the wrong direction taken by the United States for the past three-quarters of a century at his feet even more than they do at those of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. We would rate President Johnson as the worst President in United States history and it will remain to be seen if President Barack Obama manages to eek out a victory over President Johnson for that title. We sincerely doubt that but are open to the possibility as President Obama does have a lot of potential going for him. Where much of the damage done by President Obama can still be reversed or at least mitigated, what President Johnson committed is now engrained into the fabric of the United States and to remove it would take a concerted effort and the winning of both the Congress and the White House for at least a third of a century, a near impossibility for the conservatives who are but a state or two away from electoral extinction. Should the Left manage to rip Texas over to the other side, the conservatives will possibly never recover without some cataclysm befalling the nation, and the United States might never recover from such an event.

 

The left realize how close they are to near total control of the electoral levers and the complete victory. They have been working to turn the United States ever since Woodrow Wilson if not Teddy Roosevelt. The problem is that both the Democrat (not Democratic) Party and the Republican Party have both been supporting the leftist goals of socialist governance. The mere difference has been the speed in which to arrive at their socialist utopia. The Democrats would have preferred to have arrived at their goal around 1999 while the Republicans were for a slower progress arriving around 2250. What is interesting is why President Donald Trump has equal disdain coming at him from both the extreme left and many on the empowered right. The reason for the mutual disdain is because President Trump actually is against the Progressive agenda, be it slow or fast. President Trump is no progressive, no socialist, no normal politician, he is actually as advertised, a businessman. President Trump knows little of the political games or how government works, nor does he care. He likely has an idea of what he would like to accomplish but unfortunately, less knowledge of the give and take required to reach his goals. The brighter side, for those who think that President Trump might be their knight in shining armor, President Trump is probably a faster learner than his opponents believe. That is something we will see with time. If Donald Trump is half the man he thinks himself to be, then it may be interesting to watch and see what he will accomplish. If President Trump is as big the fool as his opponents constantly claim, then the United States is in for four years of horrific despair and then hopefully a more fitting President after the next election. Again, we will see.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Freedom of the Media was and is an Illusion

 

Freedom of the Media, the Press, was intended to mean that the media was allowed to take position opposing those in power. With President-elect Trump we have a complete rebirth of freedom in Media as the leftist media has been permitted total freedom in denouncing, condemning, delegitimizing and casting overt dispersion in such rapidity that the Maxim machine gun is jealous of their repetition rate against all items Trump. The only threat the American, and its twin of the European media and much of the western and developed world’s media, is facing is that largely, with few notable exception, is pure leftist progressive slant where anything which is not in line with their politically correct, censored, straight-jacket narrow view of the world is denounced as demonic, evil, Nazi-esque and potentially leading to censorship closing down all opposing views of the right wing. The media and their vociferous echo chamber of NGO’s, political advocates, full array of supportive leftist and progressive alternative media, and various leftist lobbyists all standing together making as much racket as the world might stand. That is one of the precious secrets of the Progressive leftists, they are all for one and one for all even more so than the Three Musketeers. This becomes evident in the one area where the left progressives have mastered something that the other end of the political spectrum has yet to even consider, let alone adopt.

 

Watch any demonstration for any leftist Progressive cause and you will soon understand how they get hundreds or more at every demonstration, universal representation. Go to an ecology rally against perhaps coal powered electricity plant in your city and there will be all sorts of ecology demonstrators including anti-nuclear power, pro-wind power, save the whales, clean our rivers, save the oceans, clean air and any other ecology cause imaginable. But that is not all. There will likely be others there who support other causes and are not particularly worked up about the ecology of the Earth and more concerned with the pro-choice, anti-death penalty, anti-racism, and even pro-Palestinian or BDS or other anti-Zionist, anti-Israel movements all there for one reason, the leftist you scratch my cause I’ll scratch your cause. Often at a demonstration for some cause there will be protest signs for other causes within the demonstration because if you protest one leftist Progressive cause, you are there representing all leftist progressive causes. And the mainstream will give favorable coverage with inflated numbers of protesters and enthusiasm and will take their pictures selectively attempting to only get the right standards despite others also on prominent display. Many will accuse me and ask how it is I know this. Well, once upon a time many years ago I was one of those liberals back when being a liberal meant keep the government out of my life, respect for all people, equality for all, live and let live, and, believe it or not, gun rights was not an automatic exclusion from the club. To be honest, the one cause which had tepid support was gun rights, but at least in those days it was not a cause which caused one to be disassociate and shunned.

 

Back then one went to every protest just as is the means today. There were people who would pay people to attend protests which were considered vital. These were often the protests against particular politicians or counter rallies to out shadow any right wing causes by having greater numbers at the counter rally thus making the coverage all about the liberal progressive cause which opposed the scheduled protest. Often the counter protest did not have any license or permit and actually be technically illegal but they were seldom forced to disperse and were given much freedom. The exception were the anti-war demonstrations which the government took a dim view and would use violent force to break up such demonstrations. This was back in the late 1960s and into the 1970s and with the times the position of the establishment changed as the left took command during the Administration and Presidency of Jimmy Carter. That was a turning point as from that point on the left progressive tours de force began a simple tactic, the just ignore everything between progressive majorities and just pick up right where the last front left off. This made for a force which became all but an inevitability which could never be opposed by anything the conservatives could establish.

 

This became evident when President Jimmy Carter simply picked up where President Lyndon Baines Johnson left off with the Great Society, affirmative action, wealth redistribution, ecology restrictions on industry through emissions and every other leftist progressive cause. Then there was a break for a dozen years of the Reagan and George H. W. Bush Presidencies. Then came President William Jefferson Clinton who continued expanding the progressive cause and then came another Republican, President George W. Bush, who was not so much a counter to the progressive causes than a slightly different approach in establishing big government programs which the “No Child Left Behind” program. This brought on the yet another rendition of ‘new math,’ ‘full word recognition’ and stressing minority contributions from the past replacing history with little mention of any contributions from white males and especially Judeo-Christian ethics and instead an anti-ethical education which removed any standard history of the United States and other Western histories which when mentioned it received condemnations of how it was exclusive not as meaning something exemplary but rather as racist, prejudiced and intolerant. Any traditional history was belittled and condemned by using modern day morality and equal rights viewpoints making everything from the past appear hateful and vengeful being racist, prejudiced and xenophobic. Making normative history where Christian, white male formed history such as the Founding Fathers were cast as hateful slave owners and thus not ethical or acceptable because such was unacceptable in these modern times and the European greats such as Da Vinci, Michael Angelo, Isaac Newton, Galileo and others were also intolerant, supremacist, racist, sexist and likely homophobic or full of other forms of hateful white supremacist views which would be condemned in today’s world. This version of history left much of traditional history untaught or presented as something to be rejected and spurned as horrible examples of a hateful past.

 

 

Some of such views are being presented in the media where past events are presented under a modern viewpoint and leftist microscope where anything which was acceptable back in history becomes unacceptable and regrettable as it fails to measure up to the modern ethos and leftist yardstick which was unheard of and did not exist when the history occurred. This method was designed and makes children ashamed of their past history and thus leaves them unattached to their past and because of their being separated and unanchored their views can be molded in such a manner as to overturn their ethics and allows them to be made to accept anything as one who has no past can be given any defined future. This is an actual method for disconnecting children from their parents, their history, their religious affiliations and anything which might define them as a continuation of their actual society and are instead given an entire redefined ethos which has nothing connected to their history and disconnecting them from parents and everything which would allow for a continuation of history and a continuation of the historic societal models. This is reinforced by the mainstream media which works using the identical redefined ethical framework leaving a youth which when they take the reins of power, they will start a society completely detached from past realities and all of history. The casting of all former history as evil and ruinous and without any worth was beautifully exemplified by President Obama when he returned the bust of Sir Winston Churchill as he refused to retain the visage of a colonialist, racist, evil, hateful individual and not the man who saved the world from Nazi Germany’s world conquest. This is indicative of the new morality that the mainstream media and education which are both completely under the thumb of the progressive, leftist rewriters of all history and religious anchors in order to create a brave new world where for all intents and purposes they could teach children that 2 + 2 = 5 as truth and the children would have no anchoring to know it was a lie. Thus is the prospect for the future in Europe, the United States and the remainder of western society, culture and the developed world should it remain under the sway of the progressive leftists whose remaking of society has actually been in progress under even the ‘conservative’ politicians since Theodore Roosevelt and shifted into high gear by Woodrow Wilson and accelerated by Franklin Delano Roosevelt (yes, a relative of Theodore) and moved along even faster by Lyndon Banes Johnson and the line held by Jimmy Carter and slight advancement by William Jefferson Clinton and George W. Bush and then taken airborne and breaking virtually every barrier by Barack Hussein Obama with the future remaining to be seen. The main reason for the apoplectic fits and near convulsive contortions by progressive leftists over the election of Donald Trump is they fear those who hold their religion as holy, their ethics as cemented in a tradition worth preservation, their history as ethical and who desire moderation in progress where changes are evaluated over time, instead of great leaps being taken blindly without looking back and burning all the bridges and even the castles and fields behind them assuring there is no chance of retrieving any morsel from our collective past as they are ashamed of their Judeo-Christian history despite it having been the basis for many positive developments.

 

They refuse to credit the Judeo-Christian ethics with the end of slavery instead blaming it for slavery, bringing about the Renaissance instead dwelling instead on earlier Church anti-science standings ignoring the truth that things changed and the fact that many of those precious progressive ideas they hold as sacred have their roots in the Judeo-Christian ethos that people are all equal in the eyes of Hashem and instead teach that religion was all about exalting white, male Christian superiority and all the evils which can be appropriated to such a viewpoint. The fact that history has been a progression of events and evolutions caused often by the very past which originally opposed change but with time softened and became champions of the progressive changes in society. The reason for the new view demonizing the past of the youths’ parents and ancestors and pressing that all their views which are actually the logical result of the Judeo-Christian ethics, they want to disposes the past and make the youth divorce their history and thus be pliable and moldable into whatever the latest untested theories for society the progressives can invent. Where this will lead is to an entire unanchored generation which will fall before any anchored group which has a strong history and religious anchoring who are willing to fight for their beliefs. These types will rule the day simply because, as the old adage goes by G.K. Chesterton (we realize that anything old, especially adages, is unacceptable and makes any argument unacceptable but tough), “When men choose not to believe in God, they do not thereafter believe in nothing, they then become capable of believing in anything.” This probably states why the progressives work so hard to disconnect the youth from their past.

 

Beyond the Cusp