Rights, Sociability, and Hate

An article linked from Trying to Grok has opened up a whole (long) line of thinking for me. The statement that particularly caught my attention appeared in the author's original op-ed:

I want Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, Marxists, Independents and anyone with a halfway decent idea that doesn't incorporate hate.

"That doesn't incorporate hate."

Here's part of my comment at TTG, as a springboard to further thought:

People can have hate, regardless of their political leanings.

But when it comes to ideology, which seems more "hateful":

a) Regardless of your feelings, you may not violate Person X's rights, nor may you join with others to do so in a collective fashion; or

b) Regardless of your feelings or actions, if you have a material or immaterial advantage over Person X, then Person X may individually or collectively violate your rights to eliminate that inequality ?

"Hate."

In this world, there are a number of things we can't force other people to do - eating, sleeping, and potty training among them.

We can't forcibly change someone's opinion, and we can't force others to feel love - or not to feel hate.

We have to figure those things out inside ourselves.

But as a species, that's been hard for us to accept. In our impatience to see a "change," governments throughout history have abused our power and theirs by hastening to "take action," with some actions considered more "civilized" than others. However, government, as an external force, can only address behavior, in a misguided effort to change what's *inside* of us.

Frederic Bastiat had this to say about liberty of thought and association, and forcing social interaction where it has not developed naturally:

Mr. de Lamartine once wrote to me thusly: "Your doctrine is only the half of my program. You have stopped at liberty; I go on to fraternity." I answered him: "The second half of your program will destroy the first."

I cannot possibly understand how fraternity can be legally enforced without liberty being legally destroyed, and thus justice being legally trampled underfoot.

We can't force social interaction - or social action - without violating our more fundamental rights.

I'd add that protecting particular classes of people serves to perpetuate the idea that there *are* particular classes of people.

The most recent example is all the "hate crime" legislation flying around the Senate: S.909, becoming one of five hate-crime-related amendments to the DOD authorization bill. With the latest amendment, military members would become a protected class, as well.

Are all occupations to be equally protected?

Is the nonsense of hate crime legislation evident yet?

We'll just have to wait for people to learn to be nice on their own, and settle for protecting each other equally before the law, in the meantime.

Effecting change will come as we try to be examples of love; and as we THINK, in order to counter the demonic, intellectually-deadening idea that "hate" is the exclusive domain of any particular party.

---Quote source: The Law, by Frederic Bastiat, translated by Dean Russell, of The Foundation for Economic Education, pub. 1977, p. 25. (Also found here.)