Third Post

So….this is pretty addictive.  Three posts in one day.  I must have too much free time on my hands.  Why do I always feel busy then?

Anyway, people often try to tell me that love is the most powerful motivator, ever.  They point out what a mother will do to protect their child, how someone will win their one true love, etc., etc.  These people watch too many Lifetime Movies of the Week.  They are sadly deluded.  Either that, or they though John Lennon was serious.  I guess they haven’t understood the joke yet.

Hate is far more powerful.  We try to say the opposite, to disguise our true nature from ourselves, but history laughs at our foolishness.  Hate has changed the world far more then love ever has, or ever will.  Hate has accomplished more in just this century.  People will do things out of hate that defy description.  Many of our technological developments began as ways of inflicting pain and damage to our hated competitors.  Humanity is a tool using animal.  The first tool we used was a club to beat our food or our rival to death.  Our survival and success as a species depends on our aggressive capacity for hate.  Well, it used to depend on such things.  These days, its primarily momentum that keeps us going  

Regardless, hate changes the world.  Love does not.  Hate disguises itself as love, just ask the Christians.  Yes, I am singling them out.  Yes, I don’t agree with their views.  Yes, I resent the constant attempts to legislate the way everyone behaves.  The point remains that for all of their incessant chatter about the “love of Jesus Christ”, they really could give a rat’s ass about it.  They don’t “love the sinner, hate the sin”.  They hate the sinner and everyone else that does not do things the way they want.  Rather than be direct in their hate, they use passive-aggressive “conversion” and “witnessing” techniques to make others feel guilty about why Christians hate them.  

Here is a perfect example:

Many years ago, a good friend of mine would spend some of his quality time wandering around downtown Tucson.  Once a month, Tucson held a festival of sorts called Downtown Saturday Night.  These events would bring out many of the alternative lifestyles around, punks, Goths, skinheads, mods, you name it.  Therefore, it also brought out a corresponding number of street preachers, out to “save” the assorted freaks.  My friend certainly fit the part: tall, skinny, dressed primarily in black, and looked like death warmed over.  As an intellectual exercise, he would often converse with these street preachers.  As he says, “I believe in God, I just hate his fucking fan club”.  One young street preacher engaged him in conversation, particularly on the topic of pre-marital sex.  This person took the approach of comparing sexual encounters to the purchase of a gift.  The story went something like this:

Suppose you start seeing someone.  You truly care about this person, and you want to express that emotion, so you buy them a lovely heart shaped locket.  Unfortunately, things don’t work out, and you part company.  You begin seeing someone else, and find yourself in the same position.  You purchase an identical locket for your new romantic interest.  Once again, however, you break up.  You start seeing a third person, and find yourself in the same position, and buy them the same locket.  At this point, the gift is no longer special or unique.

My friend countered that each sexual encounter he had was different, because the people were different, that it was always special and unique.  The street preacher then switched tactics.  He made the comparison to purchasing something versus getting it for free.

That’s right.

He compared people, and sex, to merchandise.  

People he claimed to “love” were analogous to getting a slurpee at 7-11 or a new TV.  

It’s not that he loved people, and he wanted to see them happy, it’s that they were doing something of which he disapproved, and he wanted them to stop.  He would resort to any verbal or logical trickery to convince these people.  

You don’t lie to people you love.  Or, at least, you aren’t supposed to.  But it was okay to him, just to make them behave.  It wasn’t love, but hate and a desire for obedience that drove him.

Hate has allowed me to do incredible things.  Anytime I think that I can’t go on, I push myself one step further because of my hate.  I refuse to let go, and give up, or give in.  I graduated from college on the strength of my hate.  I’ve gotten my belts in Martial Arts on the back of my hate.  I’ve achieved what is conventionally defined as success by hatred.

All love ever made anyone do is act like an idiot.

That, and sell a ton of flowers.