Phrasing matters. There are a lot of these signs around these days, blue with flag motifs. I go through a whole street of them in Concord on one of my routes to work. I don't know these people. They may be nice folks. But they don't quite say "We Don't Hate Anyone," do they? That's less poetic, of course, and doesn't have quite the same seriousness of tone. Hate Has No Home Here is nicely alliterative, and it has just a touch of old-fashionedness in its phrasing. Very serious. There's more than a whiff of We're disappointed in the rest of you. We'll discuss this after dinner. Go to your room and think about what happened today. The implication is that hate does have a home in other people's houses, and we should all be alert for that and not let them succeed, those haters. It's a statement that hatred is on the rise. The many signs that say Be Kind are something of a cliche but I think those people mean something much closer to "We Don't Hate Anyone." I think they mean to be kind.
Hate Has No Home Here is a rather hateful sign when you think about it, isn't it? I'm guessing that many people who have it don't interrogate themselves what they really mean.
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It's a lie, too. Go up and say that you voted for Trump, and you'll find out exactly how much hate they have at home.
Tom Lehrer: National Brotherhood Week.
"I know that there are people who do not love their fellow man, and I hate people like that!"
For years I talked politics over beers on Friday night with a Democrat neighbor. If my criticism of a Democrat politician came too close to home, he would reply that he was not a hater. Criticism means hatred, right? His dislike of hating didn't stop him from talking about "Teabaggers." Oh Well.
"Hate has no home here"...but there's a place for it next to the fireplace.
"It's not hate if they deserve it."
I also find the "Got empathy?" slogan not only invidious, but brazen in its false dilemmas. "Oh, no one reeeaaaaly doubts the 100% accuracy of these findings, nor the infallibility/necessity of our preferred means. It's all a façade."
Wow. Just wow.
Mirrors too painful, PG?
Before I commented, I looked it up, and apparently Dumas thought of the mirror trope before Stoker did. https://medium.com/@toothpickings/vampires-mirrors-shattering-a-myth-bcb4199e0531
You learn something new every day...
I was mulling over your juxtaposition of 'Hate has' vs 'Be Kind' yesterday morning because there's a couple of the 'Be Kind' signs on my drive to the railroad, and I have somewhat the opposite feeling. The 'Hate has' folks at least have a plausible neutrality regarding where hate does have a home. I'm sure 'Be Kind' is often considered a gentle reminder to the reader but it's still more direct.
I know some people who have "Be kind" on their office walls or Facebook pages, and they are kind people who are deeply bothered by contention, so that likely influences my impression. Similarly, I have worked among liberals all my life and know what the ones who bring up hate so quickly say when they think there are only their own present, and these signs are in the same heavily Democratic town, so that likely influences me as well.
"Mirrors too painful, PG?" No. Its obvious why your country is approaching a civil war.
For me as an old Buddhist, the universe is one thing, one mind. That means there is only one me, and its all of you. Watching all this hate is difficult for me, as I see no way out, that does not involve a great deal of suffering.
I do not ascribe to your religion, but it does say love one another. Follow that path.
If you interpret disagreement as hate, that's your problem, not mine.
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