24/06/2025

Stop the Hate: A Moral Imperative. They sow the wind and reap the whirlwind

The Bible contains universally applicable moral maxims of formidable contemporaneity. Thousands of years have not diminished the empirical wisdom of its sayings. In the Old Testament, specifically in the book of the prophet Hosea 8:14, a moral aphorism is recorded that has transcended time to become part of the classical popular proverbs.

In other words: "you will reap what you sow." It means that the nature of your actions will result in similar reactions of greater magnitude.

Those who hate another person will receive an even graver hatred in return.

From a social perspective, it is our leaders who, with the tone and manners they exhibit in their daily behavior, determine the tone of our interactions.

Political activity has a natural propensity to develop through an agonistic lens. Agonistic means involving struggle, combat. There is often passion and fierceness in public debate, which filters down to the rest of society. This is why it is reasonable to demand from our statesmen a greater dose of sanity and the use of civilized manners. Good manners are not a sign of weakness, but merely the elementary application of rules of coexistence and basic education.

Yet, around the world, there has been, over the past decade, a deepening and fierce trend towards brutality and profound disdain for those with differing ideas.

Bad taste and vulgarity have become the usual mechanisms of communication. There is almost a sort of glorification of verbal cruelty. Argument has died; only insult and disqualification remain as methods of refutation.

To make matters worse, political groups with extreme ideologies, once considered marginal, have appropriated the discourse of Hate, finding in it the suitable path to power.

This has allowed bizarre individuals, with absurdly violent messages and no respect whatsoever for objective truth, to ascend to the highest positions of power in many countries.

Naturally, such rulers inevitably lead their nations to a state of permanent external belligerence and internal social conflict.

The perception of the emergence of this social phenomenon moved me to write "Hitler, a collective sin," in which I tried to decipher the social reasons that led the world to one of humanity's greatest tragedies. 

Today I observe, with anguish, the reappearance on the geopolitical scene of forces similar to those I studied in my novel.

With enormous concern, I perceive globally the coexistence of two malignant trends pushing us to the brink:

1. The agony of liberal democracy.
2. The global proliferation of increasingly serious military conflicts.

Liberal Democracy is the system, albeit imperfect, that most guaranteed the survival of dissent, the necessity of seeking consensus, and respect for minority rights. Its agony implies the restoration of increasingly autocratic regimes with the consequent trampling of individual freedoms.

The country that most strongly represented or tried to represent the intrinsic values of liberal democracy was the United States of America.

Donald Trump is an extravagant figure who has begun a dangerously visible trajectory towards the annihilation of democratic values in his country.

Extreme contradictions converge in his person, painfully real. His disrespect for institutions was evident when he encouraged and explicitly incited the attack on the Capitol by his most violent and maladjusted supporters.

Trump returned to power with renewed vehemence. The deliberate deepening of the polarization in society was accentuated through the exacerbation of hate speech. He decided to govern bypassing Congress through abusive use of "Executive Orders," signing 143 in just his first 100 days. His policies against immigrants were so arbitrary that they caused serious disturbances, which he proceeded to repress brutally, unilaterally deploying federal forces to the state of California.

A federal agent deliberately shot an Australian journalist covering the events.

Then, on June 12, Democratic Senator Alex Padilla was pushed, thrown face down, and handcuffed for questioning Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem during a press conference.

A few days later, a horrifying incident occurred. An armed man arrived in the early morning at Senator John Hoffman’s home in Minnesota and shot him and his wife, leaving them seriously injured. He continued his bloody rampage to the home of Democratic Representative Melissa Hortman, killing her and her husband Mark.

On June 16, the Democratic candidate for mayor of New York City was violently arrested by federal forces while trying to accompany an immigrant in court.

Even more ridiculous is the case of the poor Chilean woman detained on suspicion of illegal immigration and abruptly separated from her minor daughter.

A complete madness unleashed in the country that proclaims itself the chief defender of civil liberties!

These events sparked massive protests throughout the United States against Trump and his administration. Prestigious universities such as Harvard echoed the protests and became targets of direct federal government attacks.

The internal situation in the United States is a severe social tension that Trump attempts to quell through displays of brute force. No one knows for sure how far the conflict may escalate.

Returning to the principle stated at the beginning of this text: hatred is being sown, and these winds of rage will likely return as bloody social storms of unpredictable magnitude.

In my aforementioned novel, I describe the military parade the Führer gave himself on April 20, 1939, for his fiftieth birthday. A display of mysticism, military technology, and power, it glorified the leader and exalted Force. Tragically, it was also the prelude to World War II with its grim toll of over sixty million civilian and military deaths.

Donald Trump, like all of his kind, is an admirer of militarism and decided to gift himself a military parade for his seventy-ninth birthday, filled with all possible pomp, citing the celebration of the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army.

This sparked furious protests in many states, with demonstrators carrying signs reading "No Kings." Opponents claim the president exhibits monarchical tendencies and disrespects the Constitution.

In the United States, the use of hatred as an electoral tool has already led to murders like those in Minnesota.

Liberal democracy is agonizing in the face of these would-be autocrats who take new steps every day towards more extreme positions and unhesitatingly abuse state power to forcibly impose their radical ideologies.

But the exercise of violence does not remain within national borders. Internationally, there is an increasingly worrying military escalation, as conflict hypotheses are becoming reality. The world is at war, with nations led by fundamentalist leaders.

War is no longer a threat; it is a concrete fact, increasingly imminent both in time and geography. The only loud voice was that of Francis, the Pope of the poor, who spoke of a Third World War "in pieces" and demanded united efforts to secure peace in the world. His death has left a chilling silence, and the war champions now revel shamelessly.

The hatred sown strikes us with ferocity.

Paraphrasing Immanuel Kant, we must affirm that, in times of rage, the importance of acting according to the moral mandate of a categorical imperative demanding an end to hatred among human beings resurfaces forcefully.

If we do not stop this madness of celebrating hatred, the personal and social consequences could be disastrous.

Each of us, in our own sphere of influence, however large or small, should make a personal effort to spread the importance of dialogue, respect for differing opinions, and the imperative need to eradicate hatred, whose visible verbal manifestations are merely the sinister prelude to more explicit violence.

Our country is a caricatured reflection of global events.

The "Manual of Serial Haters" has also been wildly successful in Argentina, where insults and contempt for others are applauded as intellectual feats rather than vulgarities soaked in mediocrity.

There is a predisposition for the shameless display of hatred and prejudice. Neither death nor illness hinders the spread of hatred’s poisonous venom through social media. The more vile the insult, the more it is celebrated by the followers of the disrespectful speaker.

Apologizing for an outburst is seen as an unacceptable sign of weakness. Only the strong have a place in this world of violent outcasts empowered by contemporary discourse.

This whirlwind of fury and resentment, fueled by technology and media, has already brought Argentina to the brink of assassination. They attempted to murder Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner. Such an act should have prompted unanimous condemnation. Yet so much accumulated hatred led some to lament the failed assassination attempt. Unbelievable, abhorrent, but true.

To make matters worse, the most grotesque embodiment of hatred today is the very President of Argentina.

Javier Milei makes insult his modus operandi. Every one of his statements seeks to wound friend and foe alike with the greatest malice possible. Like his North American counterpart, he fears neither ridicule nor lies. The only thing he fears is appearing weak. And he raises the stakes daily with growing fury. He turns his back on a Parliament he despises, attacks freedom of expression in which he does not believe, and humiliates anyone within his reach. It is the contained revenge of the "weird kid," victim of old grievances, who now punishes insatiably. If a twelve-year-old autistic child crosses his path, there will be no moral limit to unleash presidential wrath.

While claiming there is no money for retirees or for Garrahan Hospital, he spends fortunes on espionage and technocratic arsenals against his adversaries. Intelligence services are almost the sole beneficiaries of successive budget increases. The president’s momentum extends to granting more powers to intelligence and all security forces.

The libertarian wants unrestricted control over all instruments to persecute real and imagined enemies. Journalist Hugo Alconada Mon has already exposed a systematic plan to influence public opinion, including spying on opponents. Alconada Mon himself faced threats and hacking attempts as retaliation for exposing the plan devised by national intelligence. Now it seems the Federal Police has also been given free rein.

By Decree No. 383/2025, the Federal Police has been authorized to conduct "cyber-patrols" and even carry out preventive arrests, almost based on "appearance," without prior judicial intervention.

The decree is shamefully unconstitutional and poses a phenomenal civic danger. Like a bad American movie, we are told that this aims to create an "Argentine FBI." I am astonished by such barbarity. The FBI itself is not an institution worthy of praise per se. Edgar Hoover left a dark legacy of unchecked and malicious power that even presidents could not restrain. And now they want to hand such tools to a Security Minister who sees nothing wrong with shooting a photographer in the head or firing eleven times in public, killing a child.

The National Intelligence Plan denounced by Alconada Mon and Decree No. 383/2025 represent a serious threat to democracy and a coercive tool against citizens that no political force should tolerate. Journalists, often the first victims of state persecution, should be especially alarmed.

Why this flurry of measures to reinforce a police state?

Simply because the hate disseminated from power structures is encountering resistance. For now, these manifest as underground or peaceful acts, but social tension is rising.

Retirees are at the forefront of growing marginalized sectors. They march every Wednesday, refusing to resign themselves to cruel deprivation. Teachers, public universities, hospitals, laid-off workers, persecuted scientists, collapsing regional economies like yerba in Misiones or sugar and lemon in Tucuman—all contribute to a dangerous breeding ground. Contained violence may erupt at any moment. A significant sector of the population has been cornered to the brink of despair.

To make matters worse, in a judicial maneuver bizarrely preannounced by media with clear ties to the judiciary, the most important opposition leader has been sentenced to prison and politically banned. Massive crowds marched peacefully in solidarity, flooding major Argentine cities and filling the iconic Plaza de Mayo. The main opposition force, previously in disarray, now unifies behind the unjust detention of its key leader.

These are intolerable conditions of social explosiveness that bode ill. There were public shaming incidents (escraches) targeting one of the Supreme Court justices and the ultra pro-government national deputy José Luis Espert. I consider all such actions reprehensible, even if the target is deeply disagreeable and violent.

Violence begets violence—a well-grounded assertion. The violence generated clearly originates with the highest authorities of the National State. Yet nothing justifies responding with violence.

We who aspire to embody rational and peaceful values have the duty to call for nonviolent protest.

I must confess, however, that for once, I would like to see the violent ones lower the tone of their hate-filled discourse. A moment of contrition that need not mean abandoning their ideas or flags, but merely relinquishing the hateful path they are dragging us down.

It would be beautiful, though unlikely, to see Javier Milei embrace one of those he calls "fucking leftists," in a show of Argentine unity. It would be wonderful for him to realize, from his newly professed Jewish faith, that such language led to the Holocaust. It would be extraordinary if Milei called for national reconciliation and peaceful coexistence among differing viewpoints. It would be remarkable if there were apologies for repeated insults and if the armies of trolls and serial haters were reprimanded instead of celebrated for their vile outbursts.

But instead of dreaming impossible dreams, let us start at home by building the moral imperative to stop the hate, dissipate the fury, and attempt through peace and democracy to change the foundations of a society determined to throw itself off a cliff.

After all, after every storm, comes calm; and the optimists always believe that, in the end, love is stronger.

Sisto Terán Nougués is a lawyer who has practiced in various areas of law, combining his legal work with a distinguished career in Argentina’s public service and in territorial development and sustainability projects.