Love Speech

“That’s what he preaches…love,” Telfair Alley remarked and looked dead at his interviewer.

“What is ‘love speech’ to you?”

“It’s dangerous. Probably more so than hate speech. It has a thrust to it. It punctuates through the soul and commands the reader or listener to challenge their prejudices, odiousness, and contempt. Love speech has brought the demise of many leaders. If they had spoken of hate speech, they would’ve been able to live their lives, flourishing and full. Instead, for the most part, they received a bullet to thank them for their love speech. While I feel that hate speech and love speech should not be censored by the government, I do think that hate speech should most certainly not be a criminal offense.”

“Why not?” TV interviewer Walla Guthry asked.

“If it’s not fraud or threats, then hate speech should be permitted and examined and even championed. Name all those figures who spoke hatred. And I mean hate as opposed to evil. They lived great lives. They saw their expiration date far from their birthdate.”

“Yes, but you must account for the bits of rage and acts of violence and suicides that have arisen due to such hate speech….” Walla pointed out.

“Again, what is yelling fire in a crowded theater and there is none? That’s fraud. What is saying I’m going to bomb your building but a threat and inciting to violence? Hate speech is beautiful and that distinction must be made to prolong the ever expanding freedoms that were once eroding. With hate, you get the cool, unvarnished truth whether you want to admit it or not.”

Walla sipped from her mug and turned to the camera. “We’ll be right back with Mr. Telfair Ally after this break.” She turned to her guest.

“This is good. The audience senses that my questions were not asked in advance. They know that we’re firing back,” she popped her fingers against her thumbs in a rapid action.

“I mean every word,” Alley said.

“And we’re back with Mr. Alley. Now, with love speech, where do you think it will go?”

“That all depends…there are different types of love. Phileo- is the love of a friend; eros is the love of a romantic partner; and the most evil of them all is agape which is the love for anyone for anything without conditions. It was the love of Jesus of Nazareth. And we all know what happened to him because of his love speech.”

“And what are the types of hate?”

“Currently defined, they are biases against nonessentials found in groups. That constitutes a ‘hate crime.’

“Is there such a thing as a love crime?”

“Only if you’re doing it wrong,” Alley grinned. The audience snickered.

Walla switched gears. “So you think that all hate crimes should be taken off the books?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“It is a sad state of affairs that we live in where an individual crime is associated with a particular group or collective. A black attacking woman may in her mind consider a white woman to be a target worthy of gunning down…but does that make every black woman vicious? Does that make every white person a victim because of such a circumstance? I’d like to think not.”

“So you say that, “Love speech is the loaded gun pointed directly at the temple with the finger on the trigger,’ in your book Moving the Immovable. Is there God’s hate or God’s love?”

“There is no God to begin. The ancient scrolls written by men “inspired” by the unknown and unknowable only felt their way through the entire set of books, lost and still intact. If there were a God he would be a ‘loving’ God who sends fire and brimstone, allows curses upon faithful servants, and suggests that you sacrifice your highest values to just see how high your faith runs. If you call that love, then I would take hate on any day.”

“You’ve mentioned the evolution of hate with the advent of the book you subscribe to called Objective Hate. Would you care to explain further?”

“Absolutely. According to Troi “Star” Torain, Objective Hate is ‘The total belief in one’s self with the full understanding of man’s true nature.” What that means is that we’re all hateful on some level against something or someone. Or many things or many other people. As we have risen from the swamps, the caves, and the jungles, we have advanced technologically while spirits have been stunted not by greed but by the tainted batch of love speech.”

“That will do it for tonight’s program, I thank my guest Mr. Alley for his time. The book, again, is called Moving the Immovable. Thank you sir.”

“Thank you,” Alley replied.