Browsing around YouTube I have come across many videos lately expressing views on animal rights. These range widely from statements against cruelty to animals to outright militant views on vegan lifestyles.
One in particular is very militant in his vegan views and considers anyone who has differing opinion to be a “hater.”
I find the term hater as it is used online to be very disturbing. It doesn’t disturb me because I feel threatened by being called a hater on occasion. I am not bothered in the least by name calling online what bothers me is that it seems effective in backing down many people from what may be very logical and worthwhile counter opinion.
There are people who simply do not want others to think badly of them and that is precisely what the term hater is designed to do. Labeling any opposing points of view as hate is a tactic that has been used now for some time. Talk radio is often called hate radio by some. Even President Bill Clinton used the term Hate Radio to describe certain right wing political talk. President Obama has also used the term hate to describe opposing political points of view. It may seem harmless when you see it online but what about when your elected leaders use the term to describe what you think?
The name I use on YouTube and the logo you see here on this page says FreeThoughtPolice. I picked that name after some consideration because I knew that at times offering honest opinion on how I see things or what I believe to be true would result in having people call me a hater. Terms like hater are intended to be discussion stoppers. They are designed to end free flow of ideas and free exchange of opinion by backing down anyone who opposes your views. People in general do not like to have others dislike them or paint them in a negative light so when accused of being full of hate many will back off.
Attempts to silence free thinking and end critical thinking in my point of view is distasteful and I think many, such as President Clinton and some on YouTube, know exactly what they are doing when they throw terms like this around. It reminds me of George Orwell’s 1984 where anyone expressing views that opposed the ruling authority were charged with Thought Crime or crimethink in Newspeak. These people either arrested by the Thought Police and disappeared or were re-educated in the Ministry of Love (miniluv).
Today we are dangerously close to that kind of society and that is why people on YouTube are so comfortable calling any opposing views hate. In many countries it has simply become accepted that if you commit certain kinds of crime with intentions the legal system has branded as hateful you are not simply charged with a crime but a hatecrime. Hatecrime, crimehate, thoughtcrime crimethink. How far away is the Orwellian society?
It seems few people ever stop to wonder why an assault should be subject to a different criminal standard if it was motivated by intentions the state has decided are hate. An example of the absurdity of this would be if one citizen of Oceana murders another because there was hate between them but they both share the same skin tone this is not hatecrime however if the person who was killed has a skin tone that society identifies as indicating minority membership it may be a hatecrime. Understand someone is dead either way, someone murdered someone either way and both murders may have been motivated by hate but depending on superficial circumstances the motivation may make it subject to different standards. And few see a problem with this because they want to feel like we are being just in the face of racism or prejudice.
I will never use the term hater against anyone on my blog or on YouTube. I post things that are intended to generate thought and not all of it needs to be in agreement with what you perceive my point of view to be. What I want people to do is simply think about issues not accept what I say as being the truth. I try to be honest in my opinion and I try to present things in a way I believe gets at the truth but I honestly will get it wrong sometimes so people should question what I say or what I put in a video.
Instead of a ThoughtPolice that try to end opposition FreeThoughtPolice encourage and defend critical thinking and rights to free expression of ideas regardless of whether we all agree or not.
I may disagree with you but I don’t take it personally and I don’t consider it hateful to simply state your views in a strong manner. Maybe you are very angry and boisterously opinionated but I have a hard time assigning any more emotional meaning to it other than that. I also don’t really care if people I don’t know think I am an ass.
Think Critically
“Sometimes the law defends plunder and participates in it. Sometimes the law places the whole apparatus of judges, police, prisons and gendarmes at the service of the plunderers, and treats the victim - when he defends himself - as a criminal.” - Frederic Bastiat
