You already know that white supremacists don't really feel supreme. If you feel supreme, you don't spend all your time complaining about everyone else. White supremacists are animated not by pride in self (not that pride is a trouble-free sentiment), but by hatred for those who are not white.
This is obvious, but it's not an isolated thing. Black Lives Matter is really about accusing others, particularly the police, of thinking that black lives don't matter. Antifa is about accusing everyone who doesn't agree with leftism of being a fascist, which is rich coming from the people who want to force Christian bakers to bake gay wedding cakes, but I digress.
Contrary to what some would have you believe, hate does not live on one side of the partisan divide in America. Hate has crept alarmingly into the mainstream of American thought precisely because it's doing such a good job of masquerading as love.
If you saw much of the footage from yesterday, you probably saw some of the counterprotesters holding up signs that say "Hate has no home here." That seems like a worthy sentiment. But there's more to it than meets the eye. I see these signs all over my city, in front of people's homes. They want you to know that they are virtuous people who do not hate.
Well. That's a relief. No one should hate. But there's also an implication in the sign, which is that people who do hate are all over the place, and that the owner of the sign disapproves of these haters. Who are the haters supposed to be? It depends who you want them to be. Maybe you think people who believe the biblical view of marriage are haters. Maybe you think people who voted for Donald Trump are haters.
While the sign presumes to say something about you, it's really you saying something about other people. It's you presuming to assert your own moral superiority by pointing your finger at others you deem to be haters, and then letting everyone else know that you are more virtuous than them. "See those haters? I am not like those people. I am better than them."
Everyone involved in yesterday's violence had this in common. Everyone showed up because they were mad at someone else, or blamed someone else for their problems, or ascribed evil motives to someone else. And everyone who showed up yesterday was looking for a fight. This has become a lynchpin of both our political and social culture.
The reason Colin Kaepernick's antics are so objectionable is that he's not just objecting to police brutality where it occurs. No one would have a problem with that. By refusing to stand for the anthem (and the anthem itself I really don't care about), what he's doing is accusing the entire country of approving of widespread, race-motivated police brutality. This is a complete slander. The country at large does not approve of this. The police community at large does not approve of this. But Kaepernick isn't satisfied to object to the wrong itself. He finds it necessary to ascribe evil motives to all kinds of other people who have nothing to do with it. And then when teams don't sign him, his defenders ascribe to them the motive of racism.
This is utter madness, and it's a direct result of our culture's rejection of God.
God's love as taught to us by Jesus Christ doesn't require us all to agree with each other, but it does require us to love each other as human beings rather than assuming that because you disagree you must be evil or a hater. It's so obvious that you shouldn't hate another person because of what they look like, it shouldn't even need to be said. That's what makes these white supremacists so mind-bogglingly repulsive. But you also shouldn't run around calling other people bigoted or sexist or whatever else because you are convinced of certain things, and they are not convinced.
I have several liberal friends who have said an interesting thing to me, and I'm paraphrasing somewhat but they're all variations on the following: We know you well enough to know you're not a racist. We wish others on the right were like that too.
They are! Because you know me personally, you accept that I'm not a racist, but those you don't know personally you assume to be racists just because they think differently than you do. This is every bit as bad as white supremacy. It's just another way of imputing evil to other people with no justification for doing so. Get to know more people who don't think everything you think, and you'll be amazed at what you find.
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This goes for conservatives too. I know a lot of conservatives who assume that every liberal hates this country and hates Christianity. That is not true. I think a lot of liberals have been sold on a notion of what America is like, and they don't like that notion. I think they're wrong about what they believe, but that's not the same thing as hating the country or wanting it destroyed. Most of the liberals I know want the best for people as they understand it. I have issues with their understanding, but that does not give me a right to ascribe evil or hate to them.
God commands us to love our neighbor. Making false accusations against people just because they disagree with you is not loving your neighbor. What happened in Charlottesville yesterday is the result of this thinking taken to its logical extreme. If everyone who disagrees with me is an evil hater, then they're beyond redemption and I might as well go to war with them. What we saw yesterday was an ugly mash-up of people who all think this way. All sides were equally at fault. Everyone there was looking for a fight.
And a lot of other people were sitting back on social media condemning one side or the other. They weren't taking part in the violence, but they were taking part in the ugly practice of ascribing evil motives to people they don't even know, people who are not evil, people who just think differently.
This is what happens when society rejects God, and thinks it can figure out on its own how love should work. You can't do that. You start making your own rules and pretty soon you're going to war against people who made other rules that are different from your own. Charlottesville is a direct result of this. Until we turn back to God, we're going to get a lot more of this, and it's going to get a lot worse.
