Hate. It is the deadliest virus in the history of humanity. There is no cure.
People have tried many things, including religion. “Love thy neighbor as thyself,” the Golden Rule, was thought to be an antidote.
But the fact is people love to hate.
The early Christians claimed to love their neighbors and were murdered for being different. Being different has always been a top ten reason to hate and kill.
Such is the power of hatred to turn the heart cold and the mind mad.
Ironically, even those who claimed to live by the Golden Rule eventually would torture and kill others who professed the same belief because they were Protestant and others Catholic, or maybe it was the Catholics who murdered the Protestants.
Get it wrong and people may kill you to this day. When it comes to the history of hate, you better get it right. Ask the Serbs and Croats.
The Crusades, pitting Christians against Muslims, went on for hundreds of years.
Muslims and Hindus murdered each other in India.
In Germany, Adolph Hitler knew that people hated Jews just because they were Jews and decided to exterminate them. It was a popular political position built on centuries of intolerance and discrimination. Hatred has always been good politics.
People say “love thy neighbor,” but more often than not they have hated their neighbors.
Tribes that shared nothing but desert in the Middle East hated each other before the Pyramids were built.
Countries in Eastern Europe hated each other so much that after centuries of simply raping, torturing and beheading the folks living next door, they created poison gases, machine guns and massive artillery shells to do the job more effectively.
It was called the War to End All Wars. As if there could ever be an end to hatred and its longtime companion, death.
In Asia, in Africa, everywhere you go throughout the globe you will find dead bodies and a legacy of hatred.
People have hated others because they look different, dress different, have too much wealth, or are too poor.
“They deserve it!”
“You can’t trust them!”
“They are dirty, lazy, and mentally inferior.”
“They’re not like us.”
You know the haters by their words, like warning signs. People may not understand what’s happening, but feeling superior to someone else makes them feel better. It feeds the hate.
Socialists, communists, capitalists and atheists … you can hate any of them, or all of them.
Homosexuals, intellectuals and foreigners. Take your pick.
Our menu has something for everyone.
It is a historical fact that hatred destroys cultures and countries. Nothing good has ever come of it. Yet people won’t let it go. If that isn’t love, tell me how else to account for it. I say it is a disease. Maybe a genetic defect in our DNA.
Hatred goes into remission at times. Humanity writes laws, builds churches, uses its schools to teach children the many ways hatred can kill.
All effort is expended because once unleashed, hate is like a forest fire carried by the winds, blowing in every direction, laying waste to everything in its path. It cannot be controlled.
It spreads with every human breath. One man at the right time has the power to set it off with a puff of noxious language.
Those fatally infected will tell you they do not hate but are simply doing their best to protect their homes, their countries and the world.
You can try to talk to them, but it will do no good. They are completely mad.
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