IS HATING A NECESSARY HUMAN CONDITION?

You may have noticed that we humans, at least we Americans, always seem to have someone or some group we hate. Maybe hate is a strong word, but we, nevertheless, seem to require a boogieman in our lives or we are not happy.

For some people it’s those radical liberals who want to give away “everything I’ve worked for” to those “worthless bums unwilling to work for a living.” For others the boogieman is those insensitive conservatives who always want to turn back the clock to some earlier time, ignoring the plight of those around them who have suffered setbacks in their lives.

Lately, however, the target of much of our hate has been directed at the Muslims. They are a handy target since we don’t know many, if any, of them personally, they dress funny, have funny sounding names, and allegedly have a religion that allows, even encourages, them to mistreat their women and kill infidels, meaning us good Christians. What’s not to hate?

I heard an interview the other day of one father of a firefighter killed in the 911 tragedy. The reporter asked why the father opposed the Muslims building a cultural center two and one half blocks from Ground Zero, the former site of the World Trade Center, when within a block of that site were several sleazy strip joints and stores selling pornography. Wouldn’t a cultural center be preferable to such businesses so near Ground Zero? The father’s answer: “They didn’t kill my son, the Muslims did.”

The first part of his answer is factually correct. The second part is factually wrong. “The Muslims” didn’t kill his son. Twelve radical Muslim fanatics killed his son. Whackos never represent the main stream whether they are radical Muslims, radical Christians, radical abortionists, radical pro-lifers, or radical whatever. Crazy is crazy.

Am I nitpicking? I don’t think so.

If we are going to direct our hatred at groups of people based on the actions of a few, in particular the actions of one or more radical members of a group, then we need – using this logic – to condemn Irish Catholics. Say what?

Timothy McVeigh, convicted and executed for his part in the Oklahoma City bombing that took the lives of 168 people, many of them children, and injured 680 more people, was raised as an Irish Catholic. He was raised in Lockport, New York. Should we add all those people to our hate list? Are they guilty by association?

If that doesn’t make sense to you, as it doesn’t to me, why do we insist on making all Muslims guilty by their religious association with the 12 sick-minded radicals that commandeered four planes and flew two of them into the World Trade Center towers? The only answer I have to my question is that some of us just have to hate someone and we are easily led to hate the target-of-the-month, in this case, the Muslims.

If we are not capable as adult, rational people to think through news reports and inflammatory comments to reach non-hysterical conclusions, we run the risk of being no better than the radical Muslims who swallowed the hatred fed them about America by “their” propaganda leaders or biased news media.

Hatred is destructive. Let’s not go there.