If I read the word “hatred” one more time to describe a reaction to President Trump, I’ll scream! Admittedly, the media and critics have often been biased in their comments on him. However, using such an intense word to describe almost any disagreement in viewpoint is rampant and reflects a distortion and devaluation that essentially ignores the true meaning of the word.
This current propensity represents a danger that threatens to cloud our thought processes and emotions. Intimidating people who disagree with us with destructive force, guns or imprisonment, and encouraging others to defend us or our beliefs with violence, vitriolic written, verbal or physical attacks on opponents’ families, physical characteristics, religious, sexual or political viewpoints verges on “hatred.”
Continually and inaccurately attributing personal or national failures to a single ethnic or racial group, devising methods to systematically eradicate such people and/or their opinions (forced labor, concentration camps, execution, etc.) and using political power to carry out such plans — these actions constitute hatred.
We all need to examine our thoughts more closely and choose our words more carefully, before they lose their meaning and effect completely.
Toni Aromatorio
Derry Township