A story:
“Imagine going to your doctor, and the first words out of his mouth are, ‘You again. I hate you.’ You are shocked, since you didn’t have a negative experience with the doctor. What was his problem? You ask your doctor what’s wrong, and he tells you,
“I just don’t like you.” He doesn’t look at you or treat you. On the way out he throws a patient guide at you, hitting the small of your back painfully. You are shocked that a doctor would assault you like that for no reason. It’s so far out of any ordinary behavior. You ask:
“Why did you just throw a book at me?”
Your doctor says:
“I just don’t like you.”
You go away, perplexed. What the hell just happened? What did you do wrong?
On your way out of his office you notice a picture of someone who looks just like you on the front page of a magazine with the title: “This guy sucks!” You look at it. In the article, it talks about how you’re a terrible person and everything you do is so negative. It includes lies about your wife and your marriage. There isn’t a single positive statement in the entire article.
What just happened?
This scenario is the consequence of allowing hate speech and domestic extremism to target decision makers, cities, workplaces, families, doctors, and homes. There’s not much you can do about it. What are you supposed to do when someone pushes their hate speech and domestic extremism in front of the eyes of people who are supposed to care for you?
The best you can do is to set up a joint task force to identify the source of the hate speech and domestic extremism and figure out how you can stop it before it gets you killed. It might be too late. After all, a jihadist with a gun who was going to go do some terrorism might have the same doctor, end up in the same waiting room, read the same magazine, and the next time that he sees you he could think “You! You’re the guy I hate! I hate you!” and kill you instead of whatever he was going to do.
- Hate speech and domestic extremism gets people killed.
A better alternative
Imagine everyone gets a free publication about the power of love instead, with a great outcome for everyone.
