Hate Speech

Recently, a vile man (sorry, but his comments define him as nothing less) decided the proper course of action in reacting to a comment he didn't like (and admittedly, the comment was mildly demeaning), well, he decided the proper course of action was to engage in speech which any of us, standing on a street corner and hearing, would make us think the man was unhinged, vulgar, and disgusting.

That sort of speech isn't tolerated, obviously not here, but it isn't tolerated really anywhere by ordinary citizens. That isn't to say we deny the person the right to say them in public, far from it, but rather that react viscerally to such speech and call the person out for being precisely what they are, bigoted, hateful, and behaving in a way which calls into question everything they say. That is the normal reaction, and has been, to this kind of person, since the founding of our country. Someone who stood upon a soap box and claimed that they were allowed to kill anyone they desired, that women should be whipped regularly, that rape was merely the improper denial by a woman of any man's sexual rights, we looked at as someone not deserving of our respect or time.

Such was the conduct of Serr8d. This man followed folks from blog to blog to assert that he, and he alone, knows the mind of God. That he, and he alone, can decide what his rights are, and that he alone is so smart that he, and he alone understands what rights are "his" and which rights he reserves to himself, but he can otherwise take away from others. Any disagreement is met with prurient, recommendations of sexual violence, quite frankly suggesting someone who has repressed issues with sexual liberty and dealings with the opposite sex. He goes on to threaten with real violence anyone who disagrees. It is his right, or so he claims, to attempt to deny others a right of speech he claims is God given to him, but apparently not to anyone he doesn't agree with. Apparently, God has said he (Serr8d) should go and take those rights away from others if they aren't preaching the "proper" word, a word which only Serr8d understands (how convenient).

In the past we have correctly deemed such people to be at best "off kilter" and at worst, dangerous, not dangerous like an Army Ranger (i.e. tough, well-trained), but dangerous like David Koresh, or the Reverend Jim Jones - dangerous claimants of divine authority, dangerous in that they may act out violently, not only because they claim that ONLY THEY know the truth (so who can argue with them or stop them?), but also because they are liable to act utterly inappropriately, failing to apply proportion to their acts. They seek, like Eric William Rudolph, some sort of pseudo-moral outcome (the end of abortion), but their steps in achieving such outcomes are morally outrageous and hypocritical (he blew up buildings, killed innocent people). They claim to be on a "mission from God" so their mission justifies their acts, in short, they are on their own little "Jihad."

The bottom line is that it is people like this who society again needs to "walk on the other side of the street" from, we need to call the likes of Strom Thurmond (who openly advocated racism) out, we need to start to reply and denounce the extremist, intolerant, "God filled" voices who espouse a word which is neither pious, loving nor moral - and we need to do so in ways which drives these nut-cases either back into the dark closet created during their own tragic childhoods from when they've sprung, or requires them to seek true engagement and moreover, to use proportion and decency in dealing with others. We don't shoot people for jaywalking, we don't blow them up for worshiping a god we don't believe in, and we sure as heck don't engage in threats of violence, and use images of rape in response to being accused of being hateful. Not only have we stepped over the line into the "insane", we've proven the person right.