Supple Cow

No, I can easily picture that freedom. It's the one where all the former Nazis get a little more enlightened and choose a less hateful philosophy.

Nice way to shift the perspective of the thread... but I still think it's a valid thing to say I hate somebody for something they CHOOSE to do or think and this separates me from people who hate others for things they have absolutely no control over. You could say that nazis are just too weak as individuals to get over the hatred that's been fed to them, but I think that that kind of change is still possible. Certainly you can see how 'a nazi should try harder not to hate' and 'a black person should try harder not to be black' are not comparable ideas.

I think WK's story is neat and all, but it would be naive to say that that attitude would have the same potentially world-changing effect as, say, a general paradigm change where it's no longer okay among any circle to hate on people for things that are unalterably part of their identity. Here's my general rule of thumb: (1) Is an attitude universally useable, and (2) would universal use probably lead to positive change? The attitude demonstrated in WK's story already fails at the first part of the question, though it may have some superficial success at the second half. Most skinheads certainly wouldn't play football with me.

BUT, that's not to say that it isn't a perfectly desirable attitude to have compared to one where he just throws down with anybody who disagrees with him and it escalates to fisticuffs all willy nilly.