Politics 2012: Overcoming Hatred

This blog has talked about how our national elite fears the change coming to America's political order, so fights back as does a cornered animal. We are witnessing fear, and its related expression of prejudice and hatred.

Here’s Stanley Kurtz in National Review:

Liberalism nowadays may be the last great holdout of old-fashioned prejudice. By telling themselves they’re against group hatreds of all kinds, and dismissing their opponents’ arguments as nothing but bigotry in disguise, liberals grant themselves license to despise. They swear, mock, and hate with a clean conscience, never guessing they’re turning liberalism itself into an outpost of bigotry in reverse. The flip side of liberal guilt is this hidden license to hate.

Peter Wehner, in Commentary, has his own column about our rising climate of hatred. Wehner writes that

politics often stirs up intense feelings. This makes perfect sense, given that it involves issues of power and consent, liberty and order, rights and duties, ethics and morality. A huge amount, including our way of life, hinges on how political matters resolve themselves. People are right to feel strongly about these things. But we all know that political passions can. . . give way to hatred.

Wehner believes our political leaders should call out one’s own side when it’s warranted. He relays a story from Indiana governor Mitch Daniels. Daniels, who used to be a White House staffer, said that when he and others showed anger in Ronald Reagan’s presence, the President would tell them, “Remember, we have no enemies, only opponents.” Wehner reminds us that Reagan was “on the receiving end of many slanders, yet he remained a model of graciousness and good manners.”

It’s really true. The best way to fight prejudice and hatred is to rise above it.