Below is my column in the Hill on how some on the American left have learned how to hate. Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones is actually leading in the polls after admitting that he wanted to see a political opponent and his children killed. It appears that many Democratic voters have now embraced the rage as leaders ratchet up violent rhetoric. Those who once demanded the criminalization of hate speech appear to relish it.
Here is the column:
In Shakespeare’s Richard III, Queen Elizabeth — whose husband King Edward IV was overthrown and her twins taken to the Tower — asks the older Queen Margaret (widow of the murdered King Henry VI) to “teach me how to curse mine enemies.” The Queen responds that it is easy: “Think that thy babes were sweeter than they were, And he that slew them fouler than he is.”
The lesson: The key to hate is to decouple it entirely from reason and reality. Only then can you hate completely without restraint or regret.
It seems that the left has learned how to hate. Hateful speech is in vogue as Democratic leaders ramp up violent rhetoric and political violence rises. The key is to get voters to hate your opponent so much that they forget how much they dislike you.
The irony is crushing. For years, liberals have sought to criminalize hate speech while expanding the range of viewpoints considered to fall within this category. Democratic leaders, from senators to former presidential candidates, have falsely claimed that hate speech is not protected under the First Amendment.
In “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage,” I write about rage and the uncomfortable fact: “What few today want to admit is that they like it. They like the freedom that it affords, the ability to hate and harass without a sense of responsibility.” Rage is addictive, and it is contagious.
This week, Bravo star and liberal podcast host Jennifer Welch praised footage of a “No Kings” protester celebrating the death of Charlie Kirk, holding her up as an example for all liberals.
In the clip, the elderly woman said, “Charlie Kirk is horrible. Yes. I’m glad he’s not here.” When pressed if she was actually happy that the husband and father of two had been murdered, the woman said “Yes…because he was horrible on the campuses. Horrible person.”
After playing the clip, Welch laughed with joy and declared, “So listen up, Democratic establishment. You can either jump on board with this s—, or we’re coming after you in the same way that we come after MAGA. Period.”
Celebrities like Jamie Lee Curtis certainly got that message. The actress was facing a social and professional meltdown after openly mourning Kirk’s death in a podcast interview. “I disagreed with him on almost every point I ever heard him say,” she said. “But I believe he was a man of faith, and I hope in that moment when he died, that he felt connected to his faith, even though his ideas were abhorrent to me.”
It appeared to be a moment of weakness that briefly overrode wokeness. Curtis quickly found herself persona non grata in Hollywood, as an angry liberal mob began to circle her. Curtis quickly saw the light and effectively retracted her fleeting expression of humanity, claiming it had been “mistranslated.” It is said that in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. But that does not apply if you then gouge out your own eye. Now fully and comfortably blinded by her own hand, Curtis is back as a member of good standing in Hollywood.
Internationally, the left has pushed for criminalizing the speech of those with opposing views as hateful and harmful. UNESCO works off a definition of hate speech as including “pejorative or discriminatory language with reference to a person or a group on the basis of who they are, in other words, based on their religion, ethnicity, nationality, race, color, descent, gender or other identity factor.” This includes “scapegoating, stereotyping, stigmatization and the use of derogatory language” based on any “identity factor.”
Countries are also “required to prohibit” speech tied to “conspiracy theories, disinformation and denial and distortion of historical events.”
In the past, some leftists have included political criticism or parodies of their leaders as hate speech. For example, when a rodeo clown, Tuffy Gessling, donned a President Barack Obama mask at the Missouri State Fair as part of a skit years ago, the response was calls for his arrest. The President of the Missouri chapter of the NAACP, Mary Radliff, insisted that it constituted criminal hate speech.
But things have changed. The left has now discovered the thrill of uninhibited hate.
Recently, in Chicago, elementary school teacher Lucy Martinez was shown on video reacting to an image of Kirk by mockingly making a gesture akin to being shot in the neck, mimicking how Kirk had been assassinated.
Another educator, Wilbur Wright College Adult Education Manager Moises Bernal, screamed to a crowd that “ICE agents gotta get shot and wiped out.” Bernal told the crowd, “You gotta grab a gun!” and “We gotta turn around the guns on this fascist system!”
In academia, hateful speech has long been a way to establish one’s bona fides as a faculty member. By attacking and excluding others, you reaffirm your own protected status.
Faculty have thrilled their colleagues and students by talking about “detonating white people,” abolishing white people, calling for Republicans to suffer, strangling police officers, celebrating the death of conservatives, calling for the killing of Trump supporters, and supporting the murder of conservative protesters.
Even school board members have referred to taking faculty “to the slaughterhouse” for questioning diversity, equity and inclusion policies.
Last week, Democratic strategist James Carville went on a hate-filled rant, to the delight of his podcast audience. He declared that anyone supporting Trump and the Republicans will be treated like collaborators in World War II who were publicly abused and paraded by mobs.
“You know what we do with collaborators?” he said. “I think these corporations [funding White House renovations] — my fantasy dream is that this nightmare ends in 2029 and I think we ought to have radical things. I think they all ought to have their heads shaven, they should be put in orange pajamas and they should be marched down Pennsylvania Avenue and the public should be invited to spit on them.”
Carville later repeated the call that “The universities, the corporations, the law firms, all of these collaborators should be shaved, pajamaed and spit on.”
For years, Democratic leaders have given their base the license for such blind rage by calling Republicans “Nazis” and claiming that democracy will die unless their opponents are stopped.
The effect has been transformative across the party. In the current race for Virginia Attorney General, Democratic nominee Jay Jones admitted to sending text messages expressing the desire to kill a political opponent, “piss on the grave” of a dead Republican, and kill his children, whom he dismissed as “little fascists,” in their mother’s arms.
There was a time when such a candidate would be denounced by those on the ticket from his party and made a nonentity in politics. Instead, the Virginia Democratic gubernatorial nominee, Abigail Spanberger (who had previously told her supporters to “Let your rage fuel you”), has refused to withdraw her endorsement. Moreover, the race remains close, with most Democratic voters still planning to cast their ballots for him.
It is a lesson many hope will take hold in the midterm elections. Like Queen Elizabeth, these voters have overcome all inhibitions and can now teach others “how to curse.”
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. He is the author of the bestselling book “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”
Well, one Lefty Leviathan Quasi-Religious Belief is starting to bite the dust:
“Think that thy babes were sweeter than they were, And he that slew them fouler than he is.”
You’ve mistakenly have cited Queen Margaret as the author of that statement. It was James Comey that said it to Hillary Clinton, after a brief session between the sheets in the Lincoln Bedroom.
It’s know wonder why Trump had the Lincoln Bedroom Bathroom remodeled. It’s been nearly impossible to get rid of that Clinton stink.
The West seems headed toward another Thirty-Years War. The first one was so horrible, it was blotted from collective memory, and after zealots spent a generation murdering each other, the West was so exhausted with religious intolerance that it gave rise to the Enlightenment and the rule of separating religion from government.
Did Jefferson anticipate that social and political movements could also devolve into violent cults? How do you separate that from the state??
Another question, if we’re headed toward a knock-down-drag-out, how would a tribe of eggheads, ghettos, and woke women fare in such an encounter? Probably not as well as they fantasize. More like the Thirty-Seconds War. In any event, their program is doomed to be hijacked by dictators… “and the beards have grown longer overnight.”
Somebody should talk reason to these ninnies before they do something that stupid.
Diogenes,
If it came down to a knock-down-drag-out fight, I would expect, as in most socialistic societies, the majority would expect “someone” else to do the fighting. Kinda like that one annony moron who will post things about the Ukraine/Russian war, expects everyone else to go to the front lines to fight and die, but not him or any of his family! Oh, no, they want everyone else to do the fighting and dying!
A small contingent may try to fight at the start, but when those black bloc, pasty white soy boys come up against real fighters, likely it would look more like the scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail: “Run away! Run away!”
🙂
That is how it is supposed to be. Civilians pay professional soldiers to do the fighting so that the civilians don’t have to. This isn’t necessarily a wrong or bad thing.
Good luck with getting gunnery sergeants to risk their lives for the trans agenda.
You assume Democrats will be giving the orders. You assume those professional soldiers will risk all for trans rights, DEI, etc. That’s truly unlikely.
You have a bunch of leftist civilians trying to tell me to disregard my oath to uphold and defend the Constitution because they are filled of hate and rage at one group of Americans, you just might find yourself on the wrong end of the rifle.
The problem in a 21st century civil war, with no geographic borders or uniforms, are the grotesque mistakes would take place in summarily defining friend vs. foe upon the thinnest of information…people would be paranoid and kill on a hunch….complete opposite of how our rich legal heritage deftly handles conflict with inquiry, fact and law at a slow pace where reason can prevail.
That’s what’s so naive and stupid about those who think civil war is coming or is “the answer”. What if your sympathies are misread by someone in a hurry to cleanse society with bullets based on faulty first impressions? Ever think of that?
Study the civil wars going on in Myanmar, Sudan, Republic of Congo. Then tell me what possible good can come of that breakdown of law and trust. I dare you to think critically, not just romantically.
Don’t misunderstand me, Pbinca. I’m not romanticizing civil war. My fear is that once it goes there, it means politics and the law have failed. We’ll probably never see democracy, again, regardless of who wins.
I hope you’re directing your comments to those who celebrate Charlie Kirk’s assassination. I can tell you, they don’t see it the same way as I do.
What with me being a relatively high-class person, when I am not elbow-deep in the cat litter pan, or re-using paper plates to save a few pennies, I came across this passage last night in the introduction to Selections From Coleridge, page xxiii, 1916 printing. William Watson, on The Ancient Mariner. They seem to presage the current iteration of the Democrat Left –
“The conditions of time and place were purely ideal ; there was no uncomfortable elbowing of Wonder by Familiarity ; the clumsy foot of Fact did not once tread upon the rustling train of Romance.”
What was that little Democrat meme??? And also a pro-tranny book??? Oh yes,
LOVE LIVES HERE
Bwahahahahaha!
I thought conservatives don’ do hate speech? Hating on a book is your big moment?
It is comments like this that make me doubt anyone on the left has an IQ over dirt.
What “conservatives” and most of the world and particularly liberals of the past “don’t do” is seek to criminalize and/or censor speech they do not like.
Hatred like all emotions can be good or bad depending on specifics.
“I thought . . .”
Your daily, neurotic need for attention is duly noted.
Online, that neurosis is merely an annoyance. What comes next, though, is frightening: The “or else.”
A few decades ago the competition of ideas was fought through reasoned, civil debate. The competitors would adjourn after the battle to socialize and dine together. In the pursuit of power the Dems abandoned debate and competition for political warfare where they sought to disqualify the opposition and enact their policies through the control of government. A young man who was successfully attempting bring back civil public debate and discourse was assassinated for his efforts. Violence is the end product of a strategy that seeks to disqualify the opposition by dehumanizing them. The left is broadening its aim beyond the political class to include the private citizens that reject their ideology. There is a rational reason the Dems are moving towards open adoption of socialism. It is the favored ideology of authoritarians.
Mamdani is just a Sociopath with a Business Card
https://torrancestephensphd.substack.com/p/a-sociopath-with-a-business-card
When people tell you who or what they are, believe them
So what are you then?
Based off Whig’s previous comments, Whig is sane, normal, reasonable, logical and has common sense.
For my money, Chuck Schumer deserves top billing as the Democrats’ chief hate-monger and violence-promoter: “You, Justices Kavanaugh and Gorsuch, have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price. You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.”
Hate speech is but one micro-step away from physical hate violence. And if the Marxists and hatred-fueled leftists think the rest of us will take much more of their bile by “turning the other cheek…,” they are sadly mistaken, and need to re-assess their position. Quickly.
Memo to the Left: the “normals” have run out of cheeks to turn, and in the absence of restraint and your return to civility, it could get ugly. Really ugly. Soon.
” they are sadly mistaken,..” That sounds a lot like hate speech.
There is no such thing legally as “hate speech” in the US. There is only speech. Most is lawful, rarely is it unlawful if it meets the Brandenburg v Ohio test. “They are sadly mistaken” does not meet the Brandenburg elements of speech intended to incite immanent lawless action which is likely to do so IRL.
So ?
Again demonstrating an IQ near dirt.
You are under the delusion that everyone in the world shares your warped and self contradictory set of values.
Hatred and hate speech are NOT inherently wrong.
What is Wrong is hating the wrong things.
What is wrong is allowing hatred that you can do nothing about consume your life
What is wrong is allowing misguided hatred to drive you to do something evil.
What is wrong is allowing hatred to drive you to ignore the rule of law.
You are free to hate whatever ideas or people you wish – and the rest of us will judge you for that.
Not for the hatred itself but for the wisdom or stupidity of who and what you choose to hate.
Government may not impose consequences for poor choices regarding hatred
That does not mean there are no consequences.
How, precisely, does saying others had best stop poking one with sharp sticks, as one is no longer willing to just sit still for it, constitute hate speech? No insults. No grouping, no threats of instating action, merely a statement that one will defend one’s self.
But then, you probably think it would have been a much better outcome if that deranged imbecile had killed Kyle Rittenhouse in the first instance. Because, you know, it’s so very hateful to volunteer to help others protect their property, render first aid to protestors, run away from attackers until there’s nowhere to run, and when forced to it. defend one’s life successfully.
There is no greater or more dangerous group of fascists than today’s Democrats. They are exactly the same as the historical Nazis they claim to want to fight against. Ironic, isn’t it?
There is no greater or more dangerous group of fascists than today’s Republicans. Fixed it!
You just validated the point of the whole article. Sure we have some loose cannons on our side of the fence but it persists within supposed main stream democrats. When you teach hatred for conservatives for years in media and schools this is the result. Why else are Palestinians hellbent on killing Jews, they teach it to their young children
Loose cannons you call them? But that’s okay. They’re conservative. But when one lib screams F you, its hate? Then all libs are evil? That’s the take I get from the comments on this blog. Its all a maddening circle.
“Then all libs are evil? That’s the take I get from the comments on this blog. Its all a maddening circle.”
Of course we do not believe “all libs are evil.” That is a gross stereotype. Just like the gross stereotype you apply here on the good professors’ blog. Elon Musk, Bill Maher, the good professor, my own liberal sister, are not evil. It is just a small but very vocal contingent of far left wing leftists have taken over the Democrat party and are the ones pushing for the hate and rage. The bad news is it is infecting others. The good news is the sane and normal, moderate and traditional Democrats find the hate and rage fill lefitsts as abhorrent as the rest of us do. They do not want you in their party. They see how you are bringing their party down.
I don’t think liberals are evil at all. Progressives, however, tend to be the most illiberal people in the nation. No free speech unless you’re Jimmy Kimmel, no freedom of religion unless you’re Muslim, no right to bear arms, no right to be free of secret government surveillance, just the right to do what their experts tell you to.
Ellen,
That is a very good point and distinction: Liberal vs illiberal. It is the illiberals who are bringing the Democrat party down. I may disagree with some/many of their planks in their party, but I do not go around spewing the kind of hate and rage rhetoric they do. I most certainly would not celebrate if one were to die for whatever reason.
Too bad that is not reality.
What will happen to this country if the majority of republicans got their way ?
A small amount of harm and a great deal of good.
What has happened when Obama and Biden who are moderate compared to much of the left today got their way ?
Obama produced a small collection of bad laws, and a protracted period of European style economic stagnation.
while continuing the worst of NeoCon US is the worlds policemen nonsense.
Biden was a complete economic and foreign policy disasters. Likely defeating James Buchanan as the worst president ever.
And Biden and Obama are tame compared to what those on the left Actually want.
Yes, the left is dangerous – very dangerous.
The modern left combines the WORST elements of actual fascism, stalinism, and maoism, with a healthy does of the bloody french revolution.
Are they the entirety or even the majority of the democratic party ? No.
But they are the power today within the democratic party.
They are not merely dangerous because oof what they openly seek to do.
But they are even more dangerous because given power they will FAIL even more spectaularly than Biden did.
And history tells us that universally when left wing nuts gain power and fail, they resort to violence to hold and expand power.
The left today wishes to pretend that Hitler and fascism come from the right – ignoring that fascism is a form of socialism and unabashedly about state control of everything. But even if we put blinders on and pretended that Hitler was right wing.
Stalin murdered atleast 4 times as many of his own people as Hilter and Mao beat Stalin by a factor of 5.
There is no instance in which some permutation of marxists came to power that did not result in massive bloodshed.
Whether it is the Obvious – Mao and Stalin or the less obvious Pol Pot or Castro or Chavez/Maduro.
Violence as the means to obtain, hold and expand power are inherent in the extreme left.
That would be of small concern – if the far left was a fringe group that most democrats disowned or ignored.
But they are not – while not the majority of the democratic party, they are the power in the democratic party today.
Are the majority of democrats left wing nut whack jobs ? Nope.
But few of the supposed moderates are doing anything – even quiteley to divorce themselves or their party from the hold that the whack jobs have over the party.
From J H Kunstler today:
You might have noticed by now that the most hysterical voices crying about “fascism” are exactly the people who yearn to push everybody else around, tell them what to think, run your life, wreck every institution and relationship in society, and take all your stuff. The Left never notices how all that resembles their notion of what fascism is. Self-awareness is not the Wokesters’ strong suit.
ATS – how so.
Fascism is
“everything inside govenrment
nothing outside govenrment
nothing against government”
Benitto Musolini.
The US federal govenrment is not shutdown right now because Republicans want MORE government, but because they want LESS.
Prove it… while you losers support BLM & Antifa
TAF it is a mistake to think of the modern left is simply modern day fascists.
They are at times fascists, and a moment letter anarchists, and in the next moment the most bloody of marxists.
At times the modern left is a reflaction fo the bomb throwing anarchists of the late 19th century.
At others they would make Musolini and Hitler proud.
Moments later they are committed Stalinists,
and then we find them echoing the cultural revolution.
lets see what the rage addicts here come up with today.
Isn’t hate speech a form of defamation? Defamation is a public communication that spreads falsehood to intentionally denigrate and harm a disliked party. All human beings are born with such infowarfare instincts —
it doesn’t have to be taught. Rather, children are taught to tune out such instincts by responsible parents and other caring adults — the process of socialization. “If you don’t have something nice to say about someone, don’t say it”.
I distinctly remember such gems of wisdom from my mom, and Ozzie and Harriet sitcoms.
Those civics values are essential to meritocratic problem-solving, which is essential to cohesion and functioning of every human group — from the family, up through the business organization, school, church, town, state and nation.
Before the internet, the distempered voices of the hate-filled and undersocialized were mostly confined to private exchanges — friends and family. There were responsible, mature adult gatekeepers (editors, radio/TV producers) there to sideline those whose crude message was essentially hateful and defamatory. This highly decentralized system of moderation worked splendidly for a free society — it allowed for healthy disagreement couched in goodwill and civility. It notched some very impressive social and political reforms — ending racism, sexism, clandestine pedophilia, smoking, unsafe products, dishonest business practices, mafia organizations….communism!
Then the likes of Mark Zuckerburg and Jack Dorsey (and their VC-prodders) decided “Who needs gatekeepers?”.
Within a short time, the public square was transformed into an open sewer of verbal diarrhea. Because of Section 230 ( passed a full decade before social media ), defamation lawsuits as a cleansing tool was ruled out.
Those over 50 lived through a time when free speech hit a zenith in terms of productivity and enlightenment. Now, what we are witnessing is a cacaphony of unhinged combative rhetoric that drives thinking into defensive crouches and results in heat and no light. Today’s media landscape is a propagandist’s Disneyland, a militant’s playground, and meeting ground for hearts seized by hatreds.
We had a great system, but let techies and VCs destroy it, while Congress dialed for campaign dollars. We had productive free speech, but let it be carved up on the alter of techie experimentation with culture and social architecture. Getting it back might be possible, and repealing Section 230 is the logical starting point. Then, we’ll need fast-speed defamation courts to tame the beast.
No, speech that expresses hate or is motivated by hate, even when directed at a broad category of people, does not necessarily constitute defamation.
“Defamation is a FALSE statement communicated to a third party that injures a person’s reputation. It includes two main types: libel (written statements) and slander (spoken statements).” – from the internet.
If you express your hate by making unflattering assertions about your target, but have good reason to believe those assertions are true, you are likely not defaming them. (“I’ve never seen Mary tip more than 10%.” or “Joe told me he only bathes once a week.”)
Additionally if it is clear that your assertion is limited to your personal opinion, the assumption is that you are not claiming the derogatory assertion as a fact; the “fact” that you are asserting is only a statement of what your real opinion is. That is likely also not defamation.
“Politician A robbed a liquor store” (when he may not have) – probably defamatory,
“I think Politician A is a crook.” – clearly an opinion, thus probably not defamatory,
“Politician A is a scoundrel” – establishing falseness would be hard, and scoundrel in not a universally negative label, thus prob not defamatory.
Certainly if you spew a whole bunch of these derogatory, but non-defamatory comments out about a single person or group, they would likely be taken as hate speech. And while most of us would prefer that people didn’t do that, allowing legal prohbitions against it would almost certainly create a precedent that would be abused to restrict freedoms that we all need. I agree that the world would be a better place if more people practiced civility, but I don’t really trust government or any other group to enforce civility by defining legal limits to statements the speaker believes are truthful, with some obvious exceptions for privacy (“Joe’s SSN is xxx”), state secrets (“The nuclear lauch codes are …”), etc. I need to be able to say “Politician A robbed a liquor store”, if it is true, even if they are a member of an underprivileged class, without fearing censure, violence, jail or penury through legal persecution.
In the end the problem isn’t so much with Free Speech laws, its with the sometimes vile nature of people. In what environment will you find the most regulations limiting behaviour and the least amount of personal freedom? I’d say prison, but from what I hear that’s also the most dangerous, uncivil environment you’d never want to find yourself in. Ultimately the answer doesn’t lie with more laws restricting actions, but with finding a way to get most people to raise children with the ability and inclination to think logically, and understand and practice better values, including an appreciation for civil behaviour. (How? Unfortunately IDK, maybe education and gentle peer pressure?)
I think we agree. There is a legal threshold for defamation honed over time and casework, and it’s much more precise in its application than vague “hate speech” laws. And, defamation takes the conflict into the Court system with facts, depositions, lawyers, Judge and Jury WITHOUT a State Prosecutor. That’s a brilliant way to avoid centralization of power over political information (which defames by intent or side effect). It’s decentralized control of public standards, which is the rarely-appreciated wisdom behind 1A. The Founders would be aghast at today’s unsupervised, unmoderated instantaneous media where the public has lost the ability to uphold shared standards of decency, and hyperindividualism has seized the upper hand.
I would like to see defamation tort law expanded to cover public frauds of a political nature, where an actor attempts to dupe the public for political gain (though nobody is defamed in the whopper). To me, the great offense of BOTH defamation and public frauds is the attempt to pull the wool over the public’s eyes. We’ve seen how a corrupted, biased 4th Estate CANNOT BE COUNTED ON to dig out the truth (in realtime) in such instances. It’s not just willful slant, it’s also that the moist dogged, truth-seeking journalists do not have the tools of subpoena and compelled deposition to smash through coverups and covert disinformation campaigns.
If we had Public Frauds lawsuits, they would.
*. The left, the haters are trying to teach the right how to hate, how to hate with unyielding bitterness.
They cannot abide your happiness, contentment, satisfaction.
Isn’t hate speech a form of defamation?
No, at least not under US law. In the USA there is no such thing as “group libel”. Any statement made about a group of more than about 25 people is not actionable, because a normal person would assume that it was not meant to apply to every single member of that group.
So if I were to say “John Smith murdered someone”, that would be defamation. If I were to say “every member of the Smith family is a murderer”, assuming the family is of normal size it’s still defamation, because each individual member of the family who can prove he didn’t murder anyone can sue me.
But if I were to say “the Democrat congressional caucus is full of murderers”, or even “every Democrat congressman has murdered someone”, no individual member can sue me for it, because everyone understands that “every member” is not meant literally, and there are a few exceptions implies, and the plaintiff may be one of those exceptions. Likewise “all Jews murder Christian babies and drink their blood” is not actionable under US law, because of course there are exceptions, and any plaintiff may be one of the exceptions.
Persuasive!
Gosh, I’d just be happy if just Hunter’s and Big Tish’s mugshot were made public.
Why not a equal treatment under the law?
The main question to me, with all this hate on the left, is whether it will consume the left before it totally explodes throughout our culture. I would hope they turn on themselves and burn themselves out.
The hate has been there for some years and was only encouraged by the media which was so left wing. The problem for the left besides the above difficulties is whether this is being tinged with desperation. First Twitter fell and is now X, the WAPO fell and is slowly becoming less biased, CBS news has fallen out of the left orbit, Trump won and the Republicans control House , Senate and Supreme Court, Hollywood is sinking because no one will buy their movies and streaming services (Disney Especially), The Climate hysteria has become a bust as more balanced eyes look upon the data or lack thereof, Funding sources that used to reside in the US Government are disappearing or drying up, the Trans movement is crashing. So where is a hating progressive going to turn.
So again will their flame burn out like a whimper or will they go out like a Nova and burn everyone else even as their dead star becomes a burned out husk. Time will tell.
“with all this hate on the left…”
Do you even read the comments here?
Yes. We read the comments here. GEB, OLLY, TiT, Young, James, OldManFromKS, and others, are reasonable, sensible, logical comments. Very rarely are there examples of “hate” coming from us.
You on the other hand, are a perfect example of what the good professor is calling out. The hate and rage.
We see you for what you are.
UF
Do you renounce Satan?
And all his works?
And all his empty promises?
Do you renounce sin,
so as to live in the freedom of the children of God?
Do you renounce the lure of evil,
so that sin may have no mastery over you?
Do you renounce Satan,
the author and prince of sin?
Hatred is neither inherently evil or inherently good.
What you hate matters as well as how you deal with that hatred.
While there are differences between left and right with respect to the degree of hatred,
the important difference is not how much hatred is on the left or the right.
But what each hates, and what that hate drives them to do.
ATS – absolutely those not on the left hate what you and yours are doing to the country.
There is plenty of hatred on all sides.
But there is enormous differences.
Actually hating Satan is a virtue not a vice.
The hate driven misconduct is near exclusive to the left.
I would note this is NOT accidental.
It will always be true that those who want MORE govenrment will be far more dangerous than those who want less.
It will alsoways be true – not just in the US but throughtout the world that those on the left, those who fixate on class warfare will be more violent than anything from the right.
In the 20th century we had numerous wars. WWI WWII. Korea, etc.
But the death toll from the wars was completely dwarfed by the death toll from Communists and socialist govenrments murdering their own people.
The left when out of power resort to violence to gain power.
When in power they use violence to keep power, consolidate power, expand power.
They use it against political enemies.
They use it even against political rivals on the left.
You don’t have to live through a fire to know what smoke means. History isn’t a membership club you have to suffer in to learn from—it’s the record of what happens when arrogance blinds people to warning signs.
That line—“Were you there?”—isn’t an argument, it’s an evasion. It’s the same thinking that lets every generation repeat the mistakes of the last while mocking anyone who sees them coming. The Germans who were there didn’t see it either until it was too late. Pretending knowledge only counts if it’s firsthand is how you end up reliving the very history you refuse to understand.
As long as people like Jamie Lee Curtis bow to the pressure of hate there will be no change except for increasing hate. It takes a strong person to stand up for what they know is civil. I taught my children this and I can only hope that one of them does not succumb to the peer pressure.
The retreat of Jamie Lee Curtis is an excellent example of how the liberal actor class, for the most part, has no spine.
“So listen up, Democratic establishment. You can either jump on board with this s**t, or we’re coming after you in the same way that we come after MAGA.”
In his lust for power, Saturn devours his own children.
The Left has been captured by the Frenzied ones — those in a “state of extreme, uncontrolled emotional or mental agitation characterized by wild activity or panic.”
As with a rabid animal, stay away. Stay very far away.
Rabid animals? Is that hate speech you directed at liberals?
No, it’s called common sense
That is not hate speech directed at liberals. That is a warning to all us sane and normal people; do not get close to those who are consumed by hate and rage least you too become filled with it.
See? Not hate that you claim is here on the good professor’s blog. Just common sense, logic, reason.
UF – too many here have adopted too much of the lefts idiotic argument about hate speech.
Hatred is NOT inherently wrong.
Do not let the left force you into accepting constraints on yourself that they proselytize for but would never adhere too.
Observing that the left is massively hypocritical about hate and hate speech
DOES NOT require accepting their framing of the argument.
There is nothing wrong with hating evil.
The left is hypocritical because they claim hate speech is evil and then engage in it.
The rest of us hopefully hate evil. Condemning hatred ONLY when it is not hatred of evil.
Turley is a liberal the left today is not. The democratic party is no longer liberal.
Yes, alot of people hate those of you on the left. We hate what you are, and what you stand for.
And justifiably so.
While like all emotions hatred must not be allowed to overpower reason,
whether hatred is evil of good depends on WHAT it is that you hate, and what you do about it.
The left has not merely called for the assassination of those it opposes – it has done so – repeatedly.
The left when given power has both botched things up and used that power to actually harm those it disagrees with.
Whether in power or out of power the left when frustrated resorts to violence.
That is DESERVING of our hatred.
What’s most alarming is how this rage is being normalized. It’s not new — we’ve seen this before. This is exactly how 1930s Germany descended into darkness. Dehumanization didn’t begin in the camps; it began in the culture.
When people are taught to hate their neighbors and view dissent as evil, reason collapses and atrocity becomes possible. That’s what the Nazis did to the Jews — they stripped them of humanity first, so that cruelty could later be called duty.
The parallels today are ominous. Once hate becomes acceptable in public life, it never stops where its champions think it will. History is warning us, and too many are pretending not to hear it.
The notion of “dehumanizing” is essential to all societies allowing slavery. First dehumanize, then they lose rights, then they become property. Then atrocities are acceptable.
It appears to me the POTUS is hell bent on “dehumanizing” liberals when he went on CBS yesterday, and then over the past 30 days on X and Truth calling them “evil”.
Are you denying that their is evil and evil people out there ?
Did you actually live in Germany in the 30’s, or you just read reports and 90 years later, that now makes you an expert on hate?
My father and his family lived through WWII in an occupied country. The poster is absolutely correct
One does not need a college degree to read history and see the common trends.
Now a days it appears that one needs a college degree to MISS them.
John Say,
Okay, that one, I did LOL!
OLLY,
Well said. The normalization of hate is truly disturbing by the leftists.
Upstate, you nailed it about the normalization of hate—but I think it’s gone a step darker than that. Normalizing hate means society learns to tolerate it. Moralizing hate means it’s baptized as virtue. Once people convince themselves that hating the “wrong” people is righteous, there are no brakes left.
That’s the pivot we’re living through right now—where malice is preached as moral courage, and cruelty feels like justice. History’s most dangerous chapters didn’t start when hate was tolerated; they began when it was celebrated.
OLLY,
“That’s the pivot we’re living through right now—where malice is preached as moral courage, and cruelty feels like justice. History’s most dangerous chapters didn’t start when hate was tolerated; they began when it was celebrated.”
While very accurate, that is a frighting thought as we are seeing what you are saying unfold before us.
In Shakespeare’s Richard III, Queen Elizabeth (whose husband King Edward IV was overthrown and her twins taken to the Tower) asked the older Queen Margaret
Edward IV was not overthrown at that time. He had been briefly overthrown 13 years earlier — by Margaret’s husband! — but quickly took his throne back, and reigned for another 12 years until he died of natural causes.
And Edward’s sons in the Tower were probably killed much later, at the direction of Henry VII, not by their uncle Richard.
Hmm, The Daughter of Time is a work of fiction. The evidence is much more mixed than Tey presented it in that novel. There’s some evidence that Richard did have them killed, and we’ll probably never know the truth.
Good points all. This has become the era of “the four-letter speech.” Overall, most candidates are poor at making speeches, speaking with flat voices and reading from flat prompter pre-written speeches. It seems most have never been to church, to learn from the preacher who makes his/her keep through passionate and contextual sermons. There is even a name, hermeneutics, for this. Many candidates these days cannot whip themselves up to any resemblance of passion unless they are f*-ing this or f*-ing that, all the while making outrageous hateful claims.
“f*-ing this or f*-ing that…’ I’ve seen a lot of that on Turley’s blog. And you as one of many perpetrators.
No you have not see that on the good professor’s blog. If you have, provide us with comments.
ATS you idiotically and hypocritically fixate on style rather than substance.
We should all say F#$K far less – copious use of expletives robs them of their power.
But the use of expletives itself says little about the arguments of those using them.
Those of you on the left are shilling for violence. You spew hatred at people merely for disagreeing with you.
You do not hate evil – you hate whatever it is you do not like at the moment.
You hate everything and everyone that gets in the way of your excercising power over others.
And worse still – when you attain power – you fail and use that as justification to hate even more.
But it is not that you are hatefilled – many times more hate filled than those you hate.
It is that you justify the use of violence the destruction of the rule of law by your hatred.
The left has decided killing political opponents is not hate, but not letting men beat up on women in women’s sports and not letting them be able hang their ‘junk’ out in the women’s locker room is hate
The left is mentally insane.
So true. Plus the left keeps pushing even more hate
So all trannies in women’s sports are taught to beat up women?
Bet in high school you did a lot of peeping huh?
Well actually any man playing in women’s sports, changing in their locker rooms and using their bathrooms is beating up women. That’s why it is going away and why it is hurting Democrats everywhere.
Actually? So the simple presence of a tranny near woman’s sports is “beating up women”?
Reads like you mastered liberal gobbledygook – speech is violence.
Like this?
‘I lose no matter how hard I train:’ Heartbreaking words of female cyclist who quit sport after constant beatings by trans competitors – as transgender rising star, 46, hammers competition
‘My sister and family sobbed as they watched a man finish in front of me, having witnessed several physical interactions with him throughout the race.’
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11895323/Heartbreaking-words-female-cyclist-quit-sport-constant-beatings-trans-competitors.html
What you call “gobbledygook” we call reality.
In wrestling and boxing they have weight classes – because most everyone knows that someone who is 110lbs is going to lose to someone who is 180 – and likely to get hurt in the process.
Even in sports without those formal distinctions. We do not expect wide receivers to block defensive linemen.
Decades ago Billy Jean King one of the best womens tennis players barely beat Bobby riggs – an unranked male who was twice here age.
If you allow men to compete in womens sports – you might as well get rid of womens sports. The MTF Trans who are dominating in womens sports are NOT particularly good at their sport – universally competing against men they do poorly.
They are quite literally taking unfair advantage of women physically. And they are OFTEN doing so with dangerous and violent results.
Rational people understand that.
The fact that you don;’t is because you are not rational.
Rational people do not pretend that men are women
Rational people do not pretend that ideas that have never worked in reality will do so this time.
I would note that it is not merely Communism and socialism that have failed everytime they have been tried – it is all forms of statism.
If you want the world to improve more government will not only not do that it will make things worse not better.