I hate no human being that I know; I’m not good at it. But I have hated labels all of my life; they each teach us who to hate and how to hate what’s behind them.

I have hated them from the minute I recognized them for what they are: poisonous tickets of hatred, a lazy way to die. In the Cabalah, God says humans are the only animals on earth who can think and make moral judgments. The worst sin, he said, was to waste them.

Every label I learn of makes me angry, turns my stomach. They are the fastest road to cruelty and ignorance.

If you follow American history – I am addicted to it – you will read about the America of a people who were one, different in many ways, but of an ordinary mind, one driven by freedom and equality and some shared values and a new kind of patriotism.

Equality, often preached but frequently abandoned, was the glue that held together the greatest experiment in the history of democracy. Our common bond was the idea that we were part of the same thing, despite our many differences.

Politicians were meant to be different elements and pieces in the same union. Liberals were not ‘woke,’ conservatives were not extremists. They were just parts of the same great experiment, whose existence meant working together for the sake of the whole, not the few.

Could Thomas Jefferson have imagined that labels would turn a nation into chaos and fear?

We didn’t need to hate people who differed from the beginning; we just needed to respect their right to be different. It never worked completely, but it was one of the most meaningful ideas in the bloody history of humanity.

We were all in it together, coming together without hesitation when there was trouble or danger. We could argue as much as we wanted, but there was always a time when we stopped and came together. That made us invulnerable in a world of wars and bloodshed.

It would have been treasonous for states or people to be labeled “blue” or
“red.” Or to tell citizens how to raise their children, or even have them.

Until a few years ago, I thought of a “label” as a small piece of paper, fabric, plastic, or similar material attached to an object and giving information about it. That was the first dictionary definition.

The democratic system began to lose its appeal in my eyes when labels started defining people and locking their own ideas into a rigid framework of blind ignorance. No more reasons to think, to use the new tools of separation and hate. Some people felt like us, while others became our enemies, and we became theirs. After all these years, they finally had a label to put on all of us, a guide rail to hatred.

Now, labels have blossomed; they are a divisive method that can tear the country apart. The great critic Harold Bloom taught that labels would tear America apart. He was a prophet.

The minute I put a label on my head or accepted one from someone else, I would stop thinking and react. Nothing leads to hate quicker.

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Birds In Snow

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The only thing I’ve heard from my representatives lately is requests for money, the two new and perhaps most significant labels: the rich and the poor.

The Founders worried that a direct democracy would lead to the tyranny of the majority, resulting in a government that would be too unstable and divisive to protect individual rights. Their solution was to design a constitutional republic with checks and balances, separating powers among different branches, and creating a system with guardrails to moderate the will of the people.

I can only speak for myself. I am not a “blue” or”red” voter, but a voter. I am neither a hater nor a prophet of doom. What I worry about is an avalanche of labels tearing apart a system focused on love, charity, and freedom. I  hope to never live in such a place.

I am not “woke” or “extremist” or “liberal or conservative.” I have voted for Republicans, Democrats, Conservatives, and Liberals. My vote depends on what they are, not the color of their labels. It’s an awful thing to put a label on me or any other person; I won’t do it.

Labels have been used to tear us apart, teach us who to hate, and keep people from thinking independently and separating from one another. We no longer need to talk to or know our neighbors or politicians. We need a label. Us versus them. I hear she was a…

Democrats don’t talk to Republicans any longer, and Republicans don’t speak to democrats, the poor don’t talk to the rich, the rich don’t talk to the poor, so no one talks to anyone, and one label wars with the other, and nothing gets solved or mended.

Labels, once something I used to buy the right milk, are now marks of hatred and contempt, calls to battle.

I know this sounds strange, but it seems to me that labels, more than any one individual, are gnawing our country towards one kind of tyranny after another, much as the Founding Fathers feared.

Imagine a world where there are no “red” or “blue” or”broke” or “bigoted” people, just people who live independently and make their own decisions about voting, privacy, personal choices, and the lives and fates of their own children.

Just people.

Imagine a Christian world that pursues what it was meant to pursue: working hard, keeping faith, staying out of politics, and committing itself to helping the poor and vulnerable.

That’s the country I’d like to return to or rediscover. What kind of a label would people put on Jesus Christ: “nice guy,” “empathetic,” “lover of peace,” “woke?”

It seems to me at times that labels are what made the rich and powerful separate us and divide us, and keep them from buying up our country.

Once we are labeled, we are hated. Once we label ourselves, our souls die, and our independence melts away. We no longer have to think at all or talk to anyone; we are given a simple and free way to know who to hate: everyone who is not like us. Our minds shrink right under our noses; we are manipulated into contempt and cruelty.

I refuse to stick a label on my soul or put one on anyone else. A label means I don’t need to know them, trust them, or live peacefully with them. A label is a free ticket to hate. A label means I’m giving my soul away to someone else.

I think of the Benedictines who viewed Charity as the very heart of religion and the essence of their monastic life, encompassing the welcome of guests, distributing food, and providing hospitality and charity through the acceptance and care of guests, as well as the distribution of food to the needy.

Where has that world gone? I’ve read two books this week on the Benedictines and other prominent saints and rabbis of ancient times.

There is nowhere that I can find a label they put on other human beings; their idea was to accept at least, and possibly love everyone. There were no billionaires and giant corporations – more labels – to absorb all the world’s wealth and influence leaders, kings, and politicians.

They didn’t help blue or red people; they just helped people.

They didn’t even know what a label was. I will never put one on me.