Consuming hate: the imperialist passion

A man, with apparently little qualms, walked through a crowded youth camp randomly killing dozens of kids, the death count appears to be reaching around 90. He is consumed with hatred for Muslims, yet it is not Muslims that he kills. His victims are young Norwegians.

Do not get confused. I am not saying it would have been better had he killed some Muslims instead. I am just pointing out how his hatred became so displaced that he ended up snuffing out the lives of young people who previously he wanted to save from the so-called evils of multiculturalism.

Anders Behring Breivik has been described by police as "Right-wing Christian fundamentalist." I wish I could be surprised but my journey among fundamentalists tells me they are hateful people. They are people obsessed with hatred. They constantly look for the "evil" in others to damn it, condemn it, and punish it.

But often, as much as they hate gays, Muslims, feminists, and others, the people they are most likely to harm are those closest to themselves.

People tell me that being consumed by hatred can be good, if you hate the right people. But the more I see hatred in action the less I am convinced by such advice. Instead I see people consumed with hatred becoming less and less able to distinguish between potential victims.

I think of a radical "libertarian" group that prided itself on being the guardians of purity. Lead by an impish little "intellectual" this organization would go around chanting "smash the state." But they never smashed the state. They became consumed by the desire to smash and, like their guru, spent most their time smashing other libertarians. They were, and are, impotent when it comes to smashing the state. So their desire to smash something gets twisted into an attack on people most like themselves.

Yes, hatred can be a powerful motive. But I see people often so given over to the hatred that they cease to discriminate about where they focus their rage. And, too often, the desire to destroy becomes so powerful that they don't give a damn anymore as to who is their victim.

I have trouble finding the positive in hate. I see hatred turning into rage and rage turning in violence. Through that metamorphosis it becomes less and less discriminating until it simply turns into a hatred for everything or everyone.

Rarely does hate pinpoint its targets. It tends to broaden them beyond any justification in fact or history. For instance, a man who is the victim of a crime by someone of another race may easily learn to hate the entire race, not just hate the person who victimized him. Hatred isn't a laser beam capable of focusing on minute, specific targets. It tends to be cluster bombs destroying anything and everything within a relatively large area. Previously I wrote:

Hatred is an imperialistic motive, it always seeks to conquer new territory, and it seeks to expand in a person’s life. There is a reason that you find bigotry against one group often accompanied by bigotry against multiple groups. The typical Jew-hater I’ve met also hates black people and gay people. The fundamentalist who despises gay rights is often equally opposed to Mormons, Jews, Catholics, and others.

People inspired by hatred easily become violent. And violence is inherently destructive. That is precisely why a libertarian opposes institutional violence or coercion. Violence breeds more violence, it takes a society on a downward spiral. Martin Luther King wisely said: “The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it.” Action inspired by hatred teeters constantly on the edge of violence.

And that is contrary to the basic principles of peaceful cooperation that is at the heart of libertarianism. Hatred fuels hatred and evils multiply. Our first priority as libertarians is the defense of the rights of the individual, not opposition to some policy or government. Policies change, governments change, but individual rights are a constant.

What distinguishes libertarians from the anti-government crowd is not that we oppose many government policies but that we support the rights of the individual. Ours is an agenda inspired by positive values, by the love of human freedom, by our belief in the sanctity of the thinking mind, not by hatred for a president, or an administration, or any government.

Who is Jared Loughner: insane, Right-wing.

By now you may have heard that a gunman shot Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in the head. The attack took place at a public meeting in Tucson. My first thoughts were Right-wing fanatic or a mental case. It may well be that the shooter is both. There are confirmed fatalities including a child. Giffords is in critical condition at this time.

Initial reports indicated the shooter was a young white male. He has now been identified as Jared Loughner. I believe the following YouTube page belongs to the shooter. These videos indicate someone who has mental problems and appears to be paranoid, as well as definitely Right-wing.

The videos are bizarre rants that are illogical and confusing. One talks of how it is unconstitutional for Pima Community College to give Loughner a grade "because of the United States Bill of Rights." Pima County is the county where Tucson is located. In another video it refers to District 8, which is the district that Giffords represented in Arizona. Loughner complains that the "majority of people who reside in District 8 are illiterate" because they are not "literate in English grammar."

In one rant Loughner refer to the police removing someone from "the educational facility for talking..." He says all police are unconstitutional. I suspect that Loughner had run-ins with the campus security or police at Pima Community College. Remember the suspect is college age, another indication these rants are from the shooter.

Loughner warns: "You shouldn't pay unconstitutional money for free speech! Don't trust the current government, listener!" He urges his "listeners" to "read the United States of America's Constitution to apprehend all of the current treasonous laws."

One of his more bizarre videos is entitled: "My Final Thoughts" which sounds ominous. In one part he says: "You call me a terrorist. Thus, the argument to call me a terrorist is Ad hominem."

Updated Information: Jared Loughner, who was arrested, had a MySpace page that was deleted today after this took place. That page confirmed that Loughner attended Pima Community College. The YouTube video page refers to the poster attending that college. The YouTube rants about grammar frequently. The MySpace page of Loughner who was arrested says he majored in grammar. Numerous news sites report Loughner's middle name as Lee which is gives an exact match to the YouTube videos.

Here are his videos for you to watch.