My Peace City | nonviolence & social change

They attend gay rights rallies with signs that exclaim “God Hates You! Die Fag!” They hang out at peace marches with shirts that read “Liberalism is a mental disorder.” You can hear them yelling out “terrorist” or “kill him” at campaign rallies.

They’ve maintained a strong presence throughout human history. They burned pagans at the stake in the name of Catholicism during the Middle Ages. They gassed to death millions of Jews during World War II in the name of Aryanism. They lynched, bombed, beat-up, burned and hanged thousands of blacks throughout U.S. history in the name of racism. They discriminated, bigoted and killed thousands of Catholics in Northern Ireland during “the Troubles” in the name of Protestantism. The long list goes on.

These seemingly unrelated events are connected, and it is important to understand how. The common thread between the people and the atrocities they were responsible for is intolerance, fueled by xenophobia and ignorance. The Intolerance Doctrine reads:

Our Belief- we are right, and anyone who disagrees with us is wrong.

Our Strategy- shut off our minds to reason, convince ourselves that god is on our side, and stifle any meaningful debate.

Our Mission- those that are wrong must either conform or else…

How the parties of intolerance became this way varies. Some of them were raised by parents who taught them to hate or discriminate instead of tolerate. Others were indoctrinated by manipulative religious or political leaders. A few were coerced, and many became intolerant through their own experience.

The irony is that I find myself sharing many characteristics with this crowd, for I am guilty of being intolerant of those who are intolerant. Most people today probably would agree with me and not tolerate the sort of intolerance that leads to ethnic cleansing or terrorism. But when things get murky, when people stop recognizing this type of intolerance is when it is right before their own eyes.

Just take a look at all if it surrounding us today. It seems intolerant people are at every turn. Check out the Westboro Baptist Church’s website www.godhatesfags.com to see what I mean. Or tune in to conservative talk radio (which is almost every station on your AM dial) and listen to some of the screaming:

“I’m thinking about killing Michael Moore and I’m wondering if I could kill him myself, or if I would need to hire somebody to do it. No, I think I could. I think he could be looking me in the eye, you know, and I could just be choking the life out of him. Is this wrong?”

-Glen Beck

“That wasn’t the cries of the downtrodden. That’s the cries of the useless, the worthless. New Orleans was a welfare city, a city of parasites, a city of people who could not, and had no desire to fend for themselves. You have a hurricane descending on them and they sit on their fat asses and wait for somebody else to come rescue them.”

-Neal Boortz

“It’s Ramadan and Muslims in your workplace might be offended if they see you eating at your desk. Why? I guess it’s because Muslims don’t eat during the day during Ramadan. They fast during the day and eat at night. Sorta like cockroaches.”

-Neal Boortz

I maintain a fundamental belief that this sort of hate-speech is wrong, regardless of whether it is said “facetiously,” because it incites violence and spreads intolerance. These “Shock Jocks” have shut off any meaningful debate or conversation. Instead of spending the valuable resource of the radio airwaves disseminating thought-provoking, educational ideas in an effort to improve our world, they instead spread fear and hatred.

Talk radio and the internet aren’t the only place to find intolerant people. Turn on the television or open the newspaper and you will find them everywhere. They are currently popping out of the woodwork at an alarming rate because we have a black man running for president. They claim he’s a terrorist, an Arab, or that they just can’t vote for him because of the color of his skin. At campaign rallies for his opponent, shouts have been heard calling for his death. Thus, it seems that as our world becomes more multicultural and less homogenous, intolerance is on the rise.

We need to take a stand and not tolerate such intolerance. We need to demand that our politicians create policies that foster understanding so that it is easy to accept those that are “different” from us into our communities. We need to teach our children about the world’s many different cultures and people. We need to travel beyond the borders of the U.S. because, in the words of Mark Twain: “travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness.” Instead of wasting energy on divisiveness, we need to focus on bringing people together. Instead of being bound together by intolerance, let’s be united in tolerance, acceptance, respect and understanding.

After all, we are all human beings sharing one planet together, so let’s make an effort to get along.

Read more of Nick:

• Presedential Election Prediction
• Complacency
• The Plague
• Government: Friend or Foe