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Comment by ebcode | Hacker News Reader

>Trump is an ideological figure with very few actual political views. His popularity is due almost entirely to his cultivation of American hate.

I think this is spot on. If someone says something hateful, and I retweet it, am I not also saying something hateful? Say I don't retweet the actual comment, but instead respond w/ "Have some money." Is that not still an endorsement of the hateful speech?

Ultimately, I think we can view hatred as a kind of ignorance and fearfulness of the unknown, and therefore as a kind of stupidity.

It logically follows that endorsing a stupid candidate is itself a form of stupidity.

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I'm not sure your conception of "hatred" would cover all the bases to your satisfaction.

For example, most people (perhaps including you) feel hatred to many of Hitler's actions during WWII. But I doubt people feel that way due to ignorance or fear of the unknown.

Anger is an emotion I try to avoid entirely. If I could only choose one word to describe my feelings toward Hitler, it would be "pity".

I'm not saying anger is never warranted, but holding onto those feelings and acting on them usually just brings more pain into the world. I'd like to think that The Allies won the second World War not for their hatred of Hitler, but rather for their love of humanity. But maybe I'm being naive.

“Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.” -- Mark Twain

Your definition of "hateful" can differ from mine.

Fair enough, but that only goes so far. The usefulness of language depends on there being commonly held definitions between the speakers. If I said, "your definition of 'broom' can differ from mine", things would start to fall apart pretty quickly.

Now that our (US) government is in the business of defining our words for us (eg, "terrorist", "hate speech"), I think it would be wise for us commoners to start working out amongst ourselves what we want these words to actually mean so that we can agree on their definitions.

My current definition of "hateful" would be anything that points to some "other" as "less than".

What's your definition?

The word hate is no longer useful, because it's become a shorthand pejorative to be wielded by the Left. Don't like Obama, you hate black people, don't like Hillary you hate women, etc.

Well, when a person says "I don't give a damn about diversity" - for me it's far from "hate speech". Or when Trump insults some journalist, it's stupid and childish, but it's just an insult, not hate speech. And the fact that the journalist is a woman, doesn't make him "sexist".

My definition of hate speech is when Trump says "hey, {black people,white people,men,women,gays} are garbage, they shouldn't have rights, and I don't want them to exist".

Does he say that?

Of course he doesn't say that. Or at least he hasn't yet (that we know of).

I can see that my definition of "hate speech" is much, much broader than yours, however. So it will only be a time-sink for us to try to come to any agreement in the immediate future.

That said, I appreciate your response and will give it some thought.

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