Eye for an eye

I sometimes have to wonder if people ever listen to themselves. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard people quote the idea “An eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth leaves the whole world blind and toothless.” Perhaps I’m just not understanding the nuance there, and perhaps they’re actually advocating a blind and toothless world, but I thought the whole notion was that such reciprocity is a bad thing.

So why do so many people feel it necessary–their duty even–to fight hate with hate? It’s by no means limited to the reaction against Donald Trump, mind you, but it’s the case that is thrust in front of my face every day right now. Whatever happened to “Love Trumps Hate”? Did they really expect if they just showed enough love it would keep him from winning the election? (Except I didn’t see a whole lot of love then, either.) But it seems like since Trump did win, that convenient slogan has been completely discarded–after folding, spindling, mutilating, shredding, and jumping up and down on a few times, just to be sure.

Want to start an instant hate-fest? Just mention publicly that you don’t think Trump is so bad. You don’t even have to say you like him or support him or voted for him. (Heck, in some places you merely have to be white and male, and people will just assume–and it would be nice if assuming was all they’d do!) Accept an invitation to perform at the Inauguration? You’d think they’d single-handedly strangled every animal at the pet store. Let it be found out that you gave money to his campaign? People will organize themselves to not only destroy you, but any business you are related to. Never mind that their actions are more likely to harm all the innocent workers of that company who may have voted the other way. No, we must do everything in our power to punish anyone even remotely connected with Trump.

Don’t they realize that such behavior is driving people who don’t like Trump, but favor fair play and decency, into Trump’s camp? I didn’t vote for Trump. I don’t like the guy. But come on, people! Right now it’s hard to believe he’s really as big a threat to this country as people who think it’s perfectly okay to kidnap and torture a special-needs man because in their minds he represents Trump supporters, and hence Trump! In what universe is this okay? How do people accomplish the mental and moral gymnastics necessary to excuse such behavior, let alone support it?

You don’t quash hate by out-hating the haters.

It’s like all the people out there who are convinced if they just hate Israel hard enough it’ll convince Israel to start playing nicer with the Palestinians–while never holding the Palestinians to the same standard.

The trouble with hate is that the people you hate can always point out reasons why they are simply reacting to your hate. And round and round we go. Where it stops, nobody cares.

I don’t deny that there were plenty of Trump supporters who were motivated by hate. Their hatred of what the Left has been doing is well documented. But it’s baffling how the Left thinks it’s going to work to reciprocate that hate. They seem completely ignorant of the fact that not all of the Right’s hate is unjustified. The Left has been hating on people for years. No one really knows who started it any more. But more importantly, no one seems interested in stopping it. Both sides have guns to the other’s head and are insisting the other drop theirs first.

Ain’t gonna happen.

But like I said, this isn’t just about Left vs. Right. It’s everywhere. You can’t support cops without people hating you for hating blacks. You can’t support blacks without people hating you for hating cops. People can’t just dislike rival sports teams now. They have to hate them. People can’t just watch a movie and say “Meh, wasn’t for me.” They have to shred them and anyone who likes it. I see it in my own kids when something they’ve loved for years suddenly becomes popular (okay, perhaps I do this a little, too…).

I don’t know much, but I’m pretty sure this continual hate-fest is not going to improve our society. It’s not going to make us safer. It’s not going to help us deal with the problems with the environment. It’s not going to improve relations with countries that don’t like us. It’s not going to make the Internet a better place.

So why do we keep doing it? An eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth won’t leave us blind and toothless, because it would require a lot of self-restraint we don’t possess to stop there.

It’ll leave us dead.

Related: http://freebeacon.com/blog/people-wanted-politicized-life-congrats-got/