Could 2012 be the year??

Well, 2011 was quite the year on many levels, but the most striking characteristic of the year for me was the blatant vitriol, the self-consuming hatred that we saw in so many ways this past year.

In part, this lack of human empathy was a continued reaction to the wars in the Middle East, the 9/11 tragedy (yes, a decade old but not going away quickly) and the election – in 2008 – of the first African-American president.

Yet it was also fueled by culture moves – primarily in the arena of gays rights – and the ever-earlier race to replace the current president. The first Republican presidential caucus isn’t for another two days, but Mitt Romney has been running for pretty much the last three or four years, and we’ve had a half-dozen or so televised Republican presidential debates already. Yowza! That’s a lot of airtime for a lot of crazy talk, and most stepped up and gave it his/her best shot.

What follows, in an absolutely random order, are some examples of the Year of Hate that I hope we’ve left behind.

• Presidential candidates endorse racial profiling: At a nationally televised presidential debate, Rick Santorum says one of the ways to keep the country safer would be to racially profile airline passengers – to more easily identify those who may want to cause us harm. He is seconded by Herman Cain, still a candidate at this time (Cain termed it “targeted identification”). First of all, racial profiling tramples all over the civil liberties Santorum and others – me included – hold so dear. Second, when’s the last time you heard an African-American male – Cain – support racial profiling? It’s an unfortunate reality that there are still instances of young male drivers being pulled over for, basically, “driving while black/Hispanic.” It’s not right; it happens; we should deplore such. Not encourage same.
• Herman Cain says banning mosques is an American right: His rationale?
  

  Herman Cain [again, speaking as a Republican presidential candidate in July, 2011] said Sunday that Americans should be able to ban Muslims from building mosques in their communities.

  “Our Constitution guarantees the separation of church and state,” Cain said in an interview with Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday.” “Islam combines church and state.”

  Yes, in some countries Islam is both church and state, but here in the US, we still have our constitutional state, and a mosque doesn’t break that.

  And every religion has a “state” of sorts, laws that reach beyond the faith itself. Why not allow the ban of Catholic churches, which have Papal Law?

• Immigrants are evil: Laws in states such as Arizona and Alabama have had chilling effects on these states. The basic premise is to arrest a foreign/illegal-looking individual (how does one ascertain that??) who does not have papers on them proving they are actually citizens. I couldn’t do that, and I’m a second-generation American. Not too worried about this personally, but what if my last name was Rodriquez?

  These laws can also have unintended consequences, such as when a Mercedes-Benz executive was arrested in Alabama. The German executive, in the state to visit a plant it has in the state, couldn’t prove he wasn’t there illegally. So much for fostering an open trade partnership. Oops.

  Now, I’m not meaning to ignore or minimize the huge issue of illegal immigration in the US. It’s a very serious problem that has no easy answers. I’m just pointing out that some of the solutions offered thus far appear to be willing to trample on citizens’ rights, and that’s not going to help anyone in the long run.

• Gay-bashing is still in style: With the threat of the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) for the military, there were cries from conservatives that it would basically implode the military. Now that DADT is officially off the books – and the military keeps doing what the military does, are there any apologies? Nah.

  And Rick Santorum has been saying (I can’t find a link) that, as president, he’d reinstate DADT because “homosexuality is a sin.” For the sake of argument, let’s say it is a sin, at least as in defined in the bible. How does DADT make that homosexual soldier less of a sinner? Basically, DADT asks homosexual soldiers to pretty much lie about their sexual preference. Isn’t lying a sin, as well?

• Gay bashing, part deux – gays can’t marry: Michele Bachmann, running as a Republican presidential candidate, answered a question about gay marriage by saying gays can marry – but only to people of the opposite sex. Okey-dokey!

  And Texas Governor Rick Perry has – again, as a Republican presidential candidate – signed a pledge to support a constitutional amendment that would define marriage as between a man and a woman. Michele Bachmann, Mitt Romney and others have signed the pledge, as well. Here are my questions:

  1. I thought Republicans were for limited federal government. Doesn’t this proposed amendment seem to be a federal overreach?
  2. I thought most conservatives consider marriage a “sacred” (i.e. faith-endorsed) endeavor. If some faith denies a church marriage to a gay couple, I don’t agree with them, but that’s the church’s business. But if you have to get the legal document – a marriage license – from the state, not allowing gays to marry (with a justice of the peace, for example) seems to be discriminatory.
• Yes, we have an African-American president: Let the slurs begin. To be fair, the slurs and racist pictures/cartoons sprung up once Obama (the candidate) first gained traction in the 2008 election, but it’s still going on. I’m not going to point to any of them, but a recent Facebook post by a sick individual called for the assassination of the president and his family, and worded in a very racist manner. Unsavory stuff.

  Come on people – we’re a century beyond the Civil War, almost 50 years beyond the Civil Rights Act and 60+ years beyond Jackie Robinson’s Major League debut.

That’s just a small sampling of the hate I heard/read/saw this year. I think the normal reasons are behind it:

• The proliferation of 24-hour news, blogs and so on demands the beast be fed at an ever-increasing rate. Measured thought is sometimes not an option/used.
• We still have a disturbing number of bigoted/narrow-minded individuals in America.

Here’s to hoping we turn down the volume on the hate in 2012.