I suppose it’s healthiest for a community to forgive and forget, but this Fox News story got me thinking — is there really no place on the spectrum of human emotion for hatred?

Charles Carl Roberts IV murdered innocent schoolchildren, yet “dozens of Amish neighbors came out Saturday to mourn the quiet milkman.”

Though hate gets a lot of bad press, being linked to racism and prejudice (”hate crimes”) and getting worked in to lots of catchy slogans (where I went to college it was “no place for hate”), that deepest, darkest emotion of ours really does serve a purpose. Sometimes it’s necessary to make an example of someone (a murderer or rapist sentenced to life in prison) or dissociate from them (an abusive husband left). It’s hard to do either without hate.

This isn’t necessarily a criticism of this particular community — nothing they can do will bring the children back — but I don’t think people should reflexively look up to the Amish for this attitude, either,

Robert VerBruggen blogs at http://robertsrationale.blogspot.com.

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