In the prayer room of a local hospital, a man was caught stealing and otherwise abusing copies of the Quran, Islam’s holy book. Accepting of most viewpoints and bursting with forgiveness, the chaplain in charge of the prayer room finally figured out who had been violating the sanctity of the sacred spaces in his care. Instead of having the offender arrested for the hate crimes he’d been committing, however, the chaplain merely alerted hospital security, who in turn approached the offender and gave him a stern warning, whereupon he pledged to cease his hateful, criminal assault. The man claimed he had been desecrating the translations of the Quran out of concern for the spiritual safety of his Christian neighbors. In his mind, it appears, the Muslim teachings promote only death and hatred - leaving no room for celebration, compassion, or love.
Imagine for a moment that this scenario had played out the other way around, that a non-Christian had been entering local chapels to steal, ruin, and similarly abuse the Christian holy books stored therein. Imagine he claimed he was doing it to protect the minds of children from the influence of Yahweh, the Christian god, who orders his followers to kill homosexuals (Leviticus 20:13); to murder people who work on Saturday, the Sabbath (Exodus 31:14); and to end the lives of those who don’t believe in him (2 Chronicles 15:12-13). Oh, how swift would be his likely judgement, how brutal the townspeople's reaction. Such an offender would probably rot in jail for months until he faced a hostile judge and jury; then, he’d go back to jail for the maximum period of time allowed by law.
Why did hospital security not take steps to prosecute the Christian who was abusing Qurans? Why did they not do everything in their power to protect the persons working in or visiting the hospital from the openly violent ways of a religious extremist? To this author’s eye, it seems that the original offender was given a pass because he was a Christian who chose to abuse the Muslim holy book. If this scenario had played out any differently, the outcome would have been one of rapid and furious action in the pursuit of justice. The area in which these hate crimes occurred is predominantly Christian; it is therefore not surprising that a person who would act in the manner of a Christian terrorist should receive not his due punishment but a mere slap on the wrist. When justice is kept blind, mankind has the chance to achieve greatness; when those who deserve her wrath are instead allowed to roam free, their minds poisoned by prejudice and hatred, the human race is doomed to wallow in fear-soaked failure.
© JPR / whorphan / americanifesto / 場黑麥
Showing posts with label hate. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hate. Show all posts
15 December 2016
12 October 2012
on words, briefly
As part of my daily self-betterment routine, I make an effort to spend some time each day studying the following books: The Guide to Self-Sufficiency by John Seymour, Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt, The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White, Dictionary of Word Origins by Joseph T. Shipley, Sallust as translated by John C. Rolfe, and an Universal-Sprachführer Neiderländisch (universal language guide for Netherlandish) by Langenscheidt. (I also read other books, mostly science-fiction and American classics, for leisure.) In the course of my studies, I am frequently reminded of the plasticity of language, noting the changing of words over time; studying in multiple different languages (German, Netherlandish, English) keeps my tongue nimble and my brain's speech centers primed.
For the most part, words change less than one might think; cat does not start meaning dog overnight, nor will the average user of language dream up new words or new meanings, pulling definitions from the misty aether. I have noticed, however, that society can change the weight of certain words profoundly, sometimes within a brief span of time. Take, for example, the word retard. While I was growing up, and until about a few years ago, this was a mostly soft slur flung at individuals displaying a comical lack of good judgment; persons casually using the word retard could expect to go about their business unmolested and without fear of being sat down and spoken to sharply about the damage they were causing to persons with disabilities. Today, however, even mentioning the word retard will cause any know-it-all soccer-mom or her snot-nosed spawn who happens to be in earshot to scold the offensive party with righteous indignation, the color rising in her face, the pulse quickening in her veins. Cocksucker is another word that works very nicely to describe someone who displays a distinctive lack of compassion and a propensity for ruining the fun for everyone else; the word has nothing to do with persons who actually suck cock, be they male, female, or something in-between. Today, however, other ugly words – nigger, chink, whore, slut, cunt, fag, or kike – stir up a forest of waggling fingers as soon as they leave someone's mouth, whereupon the grizzly-moms are at a body's throat, tearing into him with a passion all but lacking from the rest of their lives. (These busybodies are so hyped up about keeping everything nice that they judge every word coming from any and all suck-holes, leaping forth in the manner of steel traps within milliseconds of having detected an offensive remark.)
What I am at root trying to say is that words are only throaty grunts, nasal buzzes, chopped whistles, and blunt chirps; they have only as much power as we give them; they only mean what we think they mean because we agree – each and every day – to define them the same way as everyone else. I therefore urge the reader to remember that the next time someone else uses a word not to his liking, he can choose to understand it as something completely different, thinking cat for dog or green for orange; to allow other people to control our minds, to allow other people to dictate the conditions of our Happiness, is to blame the Universe for our sorrows and to hate other people for the contents of their minds, which is on some level just as bad as hating on other people for having been born with disabilities or with skin-tones slightly darker than our own. The world is not a nice place, and the sooner we understand and accept that, the sooner we can get on to minding our own business.
場黑麥 mentiri factorem fecit
For the most part, words change less than one might think; cat does not start meaning dog overnight, nor will the average user of language dream up new words or new meanings, pulling definitions from the misty aether. I have noticed, however, that society can change the weight of certain words profoundly, sometimes within a brief span of time. Take, for example, the word retard. While I was growing up, and until about a few years ago, this was a mostly soft slur flung at individuals displaying a comical lack of good judgment; persons casually using the word retard could expect to go about their business unmolested and without fear of being sat down and spoken to sharply about the damage they were causing to persons with disabilities. Today, however, even mentioning the word retard will cause any know-it-all soccer-mom or her snot-nosed spawn who happens to be in earshot to scold the offensive party with righteous indignation, the color rising in her face, the pulse quickening in her veins. Cocksucker is another word that works very nicely to describe someone who displays a distinctive lack of compassion and a propensity for ruining the fun for everyone else; the word has nothing to do with persons who actually suck cock, be they male, female, or something in-between. Today, however, other ugly words – nigger, chink, whore, slut, cunt, fag, or kike – stir up a forest of waggling fingers as soon as they leave someone's mouth, whereupon the grizzly-moms are at a body's throat, tearing into him with a passion all but lacking from the rest of their lives. (These busybodies are so hyped up about keeping everything nice that they judge every word coming from any and all suck-holes, leaping forth in the manner of steel traps within milliseconds of having detected an offensive remark.)
What I am at root trying to say is that words are only throaty grunts, nasal buzzes, chopped whistles, and blunt chirps; they have only as much power as we give them; they only mean what we think they mean because we agree – each and every day – to define them the same way as everyone else. I therefore urge the reader to remember that the next time someone else uses a word not to his liking, he can choose to understand it as something completely different, thinking cat for dog or green for orange; to allow other people to control our minds, to allow other people to dictate the conditions of our Happiness, is to blame the Universe for our sorrows and to hate other people for the contents of their minds, which is on some level just as bad as hating on other people for having been born with disabilities or with skin-tones slightly darker than our own. The world is not a nice place, and the sooner we understand and accept that, the sooner we can get on to minding our own business.
場黑麥 mentiri factorem fecit
03 August 2012
right of way
Recently, NPR aired a show which included mention of efforts undertaken during the first decades of the Twentieth Century to teach the American public to cowtow to the automobile, explaining that Americans had to be trained to think that roads were the domain of cars, the rightful place of automobiles, and that citizens not driving cars had no right to be on them. As a velocipedist – an avid and regular bicyclist – I suffer daily of the affects of this mis-education of my fellow upstanding Yankee, who now sees the car as an almost sacred thing, whereas persons not trapped within the stifling confines of these glass-and-metal prisons are seen as bothersome interlopers upon our tens of thousands of miles of commonly-owned bituminous track.
A car is nothing more than a hunk of steel and glass and plastic with a person or persons sitting on its plush seats and being moved around through space-time by the internal combustion of gasoline, a byproduct of oil, for which our brave brothers and sister pour out their blood and tears in distant and dusty places; oil is a poisonous thing that must be pulled from deep below the earth and refined before it can be used, whereas a bicycle is a few pounds of metal and rubber that allows a person to move himself around through space-time using little more than the muscles rippling beneath his taut and ruddy skin. And yet – daily – I am confronted by at least one person who considers his souped up, gasoline-guzzling shitbox, and his business, to be far more important than the car, conveyance, or business of anyone else.
Just two days ago, in fact, as I was approaching a blind intersection on my way to the local public library, I heard a motor behind me rev up, as if the vehicle's owner intended to pass me in the scant thirty feet that separated us from the stop sign. Putting myself squarely in the lane, I balanced for a moment, waiting for a gap in the approaching vehicles before shooting down a narrow side alley. Riding squarely in the center of the alley, the impatient driver approached to within a few feet of my bicycle's rear wheel, revving his engine and making as if to pass me where there was no room to pass. Flying into the next, two-landed road (the alley ends in a yield, not a stop, sign) and barely making it in front of an approaching car, I had moved to the far right side of the lane and was approaching my next right-hand turn when I heard that same engine rev up behind me. Turning around to see what was the matter, I made eye-contact with the impatient driver, whose vehicle – a black SUV – was so close to the silver Volvo behind me that I could see neither grill nor bumper. Passing the car in front of it, the truck screeched to a halt directly next to me, restricting all north-south traffic by completely Blocking The Box, the man within it staring at me menacingly.
Turning after having made the appropriate hand-signal (I signal all turns, and am loathe to ride at night without running-lights fore and aft), I glanced back again, laughing at the impatient man and giving him a little fare-thee-well hand flick. These egregious actions caused the man to reverse his vehicle very quickly (on a one-way street, into oncoming traffic), whereupon he, with squealing tires, raced down the road toward me, screeching to a halt next to me on the sidewalk where I had taken refuge near a tall brick building. “You're a real tough-guy, eh?” the man said, pushing his finger against some sort of box on his throat. Scrambling to keep moving, I bounced down the sidewalk and started to pedal onward, glancing back and noticing the black car had a Harley-Davidson front plate. The man pulled into a gravel lane, threw open his door, jumped out, and began to stalk toward me, chest puffed up and face fixed in the tortured rictus of a man whose heart is calcified with fearful hatred. Seeing that I had bruised his ego, and knowing the human ego to be one of the most terrifying and murderous of foul things ever to grace the planes of our fair Universe, I kept moving. “You're a real tough guy, eh?” the man said again, to which I responded with a shouted, “Slow down!” The man, of course, shouted back, “You slow down!”, touching a finger to his tracheal collar before speaking, each time.
A number of things became clear to me during yesterday's altercation. First, the man's business was so inconsequential (even though he seemed in a terrible hurry) that he could take time out of his schedule to run down and harass a bicyclist who had dared to retain right of way. Second, the man considered himself more important than anyone else on the road, riding everyone's ass and generally being a poor sport about things. Third, seeing that his belly resembled a beer keg and that his throat was perforated with a plastic speaking-collar, the man had ruined his health and body by eating too much, smoking too much, and drinking too much, which had obviously filled his heart with such frustration and self-loathing as to make him a Danger To Others. And, finally, he had allowed himself to be brainwashed into thinking that roads were made for cars (or, at least, for vehicles with gasoline-combustible engines), and that roads were the domain of nothing else, causing him to menace persons who happened to have left their own homes a few moments before he did, putting them, unwittingly, in his hateful path, riding, of all fucking things, bicycles.
To persons who insist on driving cars everywhere they go (even though, of course, buying gasoline puts cash in the pockets of Saudi Arabians, who use our money to fund terrorist groups such as al-Qaida), please remember that bicyclists are simply persons who have freed themselves from the prison-like confines of internally-combustible vehicles, flinging off the foul fat-folds of sloth and moving their bodies around using only muscle power. So, dear friends, please give other persons the right of way, even if they are not burning as much oil as you are burning while out-and-about; and, of course, please share generously of our common roadways, byways, highways, paths, alleys, lanes, and streets; but, most importantly, keep a smile on your face, a song in your heart, and your head on a fucking swivel. Mahalo.
場黑麥 mentiri manufactorem fecit
A car is nothing more than a hunk of steel and glass and plastic with a person or persons sitting on its plush seats and being moved around through space-time by the internal combustion of gasoline, a byproduct of oil, for which our brave brothers and sister pour out their blood and tears in distant and dusty places; oil is a poisonous thing that must be pulled from deep below the earth and refined before it can be used, whereas a bicycle is a few pounds of metal and rubber that allows a person to move himself around through space-time using little more than the muscles rippling beneath his taut and ruddy skin. And yet – daily – I am confronted by at least one person who considers his souped up, gasoline-guzzling shitbox, and his business, to be far more important than the car, conveyance, or business of anyone else.
Just two days ago, in fact, as I was approaching a blind intersection on my way to the local public library, I heard a motor behind me rev up, as if the vehicle's owner intended to pass me in the scant thirty feet that separated us from the stop sign. Putting myself squarely in the lane, I balanced for a moment, waiting for a gap in the approaching vehicles before shooting down a narrow side alley. Riding squarely in the center of the alley, the impatient driver approached to within a few feet of my bicycle's rear wheel, revving his engine and making as if to pass me where there was no room to pass. Flying into the next, two-landed road (the alley ends in a yield, not a stop, sign) and barely making it in front of an approaching car, I had moved to the far right side of the lane and was approaching my next right-hand turn when I heard that same engine rev up behind me. Turning around to see what was the matter, I made eye-contact with the impatient driver, whose vehicle – a black SUV – was so close to the silver Volvo behind me that I could see neither grill nor bumper. Passing the car in front of it, the truck screeched to a halt directly next to me, restricting all north-south traffic by completely Blocking The Box, the man within it staring at me menacingly.
Turning after having made the appropriate hand-signal (I signal all turns, and am loathe to ride at night without running-lights fore and aft), I glanced back again, laughing at the impatient man and giving him a little fare-thee-well hand flick. These egregious actions caused the man to reverse his vehicle very quickly (on a one-way street, into oncoming traffic), whereupon he, with squealing tires, raced down the road toward me, screeching to a halt next to me on the sidewalk where I had taken refuge near a tall brick building. “You're a real tough-guy, eh?” the man said, pushing his finger against some sort of box on his throat. Scrambling to keep moving, I bounced down the sidewalk and started to pedal onward, glancing back and noticing the black car had a Harley-Davidson front plate. The man pulled into a gravel lane, threw open his door, jumped out, and began to stalk toward me, chest puffed up and face fixed in the tortured rictus of a man whose heart is calcified with fearful hatred. Seeing that I had bruised his ego, and knowing the human ego to be one of the most terrifying and murderous of foul things ever to grace the planes of our fair Universe, I kept moving. “You're a real tough guy, eh?” the man said again, to which I responded with a shouted, “Slow down!” The man, of course, shouted back, “You slow down!”, touching a finger to his tracheal collar before speaking, each time.
A number of things became clear to me during yesterday's altercation. First, the man's business was so inconsequential (even though he seemed in a terrible hurry) that he could take time out of his schedule to run down and harass a bicyclist who had dared to retain right of way. Second, the man considered himself more important than anyone else on the road, riding everyone's ass and generally being a poor sport about things. Third, seeing that his belly resembled a beer keg and that his throat was perforated with a plastic speaking-collar, the man had ruined his health and body by eating too much, smoking too much, and drinking too much, which had obviously filled his heart with such frustration and self-loathing as to make him a Danger To Others. And, finally, he had allowed himself to be brainwashed into thinking that roads were made for cars (or, at least, for vehicles with gasoline-combustible engines), and that roads were the domain of nothing else, causing him to menace persons who happened to have left their own homes a few moments before he did, putting them, unwittingly, in his hateful path, riding, of all fucking things, bicycles.
To persons who insist on driving cars everywhere they go (even though, of course, buying gasoline puts cash in the pockets of Saudi Arabians, who use our money to fund terrorist groups such as al-Qaida), please remember that bicyclists are simply persons who have freed themselves from the prison-like confines of internally-combustible vehicles, flinging off the foul fat-folds of sloth and moving their bodies around using only muscle power. So, dear friends, please give other persons the right of way, even if they are not burning as much oil as you are burning while out-and-about; and, of course, please share generously of our common roadways, byways, highways, paths, alleys, lanes, and streets; but, most importantly, keep a smile on your face, a song in your heart, and your head on a fucking swivel. Mahalo.
場黑麥 mentiri manufactorem fecit
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)