Mis•an•thro•py – a word that you don’t hear much these days – or at least I haven’t heard it used a lot. Misanthropy is, of course, the general hatred, distrust or disdain of the human species or human nature. This is actually a branch of philosophy that has significant currency, having ensnared no less figures in the philosophical world as Arthur Schopenhauer (an early influence on Friedrich Nietzsche) and Martin Heidegger, the infamous Nazi philosopher who supported Hitler and who was also an influence on Herbert Marcuse, a prominent member of the communist Frankfurt School and preeminent theorist of the New Left and the student movements of Germany, France, and the US. Between 1943 and 1950.

These connections are interesting in that they establish a certain continuity between misanthropic thought and the various collectivist and communist movements in America and around the world.

One has to wonder how the environmental, animal rights and abortion movements (there are many others) are not recognized for their well-documented dislike of humans and their activities.

How else can we explain the common ideas in these groups that the world would be better off without people? This quote was pulled from an environmental site where they were actually debating voluntary human extinction:

“I often think, that given that our small, insignificant ball of rock is perhaps one of only a handful of planets out there with the environmental conditions, and solar stability in the universe to allow the evolution of sentient, intelligent life, it makes it perhaps one of the most valuable things in existence. Frankly, given our rote mismanagement of the planet, and our complete disregard for our place in nature (thanks in no small part to the ‘man is higher than nature’ belief posited by Judo-Christian-Islamic faiths) I believe that the world, and every animal on it would be significantly better off without humans.”

It isn’t from anyone famous but it is pretty typical of what was found there.

How about animal rights? Have we not seen the Endangered Species Act used to hurt humans for some pretty dubious efforts to “save” a minnow, a mouse or a bird?
Here’s a little taste from the website of the Animal Liberation Front:

“When asked, if forced to choose been rescuing a human being or a mouse from a house fire, which would he elect to save, Australian philosopher Peter Singer responded that he would–without hesitation–retrieve the human….

Anyone familiar with Singer’s writings and theories upon ethics, especially those focusing upon animal rights in relation to human action, will indubitably find the philosopher’s sentiments suspicious at best…his reply becomes moot in the wake of the earnest pursuit of objective reasoning, reasoning whose one of many purposes is to eschew contemporary influence and expectations in hopes of deriving a basis by which to determine what society is to deem right or wrong. It is with this that I cite Singer’s logistics and conclusion to be erroneous.

…Furthermore, Singer’s declaration that because an animal cannot fathom its own mortality (implicit in his premise concerning an animal’s propensity for temporal abstraction) is arbitrary, to say nothing of suspect. In short, I propose–not that Singer was responding as he knew he should–but, unabashedly, that his conclusion was incorrect and that the mouse is incontrovertibly the sound choice in respect to the proposed scenario.”

How about abortion? Just a clump of cells, right? Just like a tumor. Common arguments to attempt to ignore the fact that we are all clumps of cells, so the argument is WHEN these clumps of cells become a human…but this is a spurious argument – it is like arguing if it is legal to kill someone when the reach 60 but not at 59. Bill Clinton’s crack Surgeon General, Jocelyn Elders exemplified this position when she said “We really need to get over this love affair with the fetus and start worrying about children.”

Some link abortion with a Malthusian concern for population control but the moment that elective abortion became legal, it became more about a complete lack of respect of human life, relegating it to the realm of misanthropy.

The Democratic Party is made up of these people. These three groups – environmentalists, animal rights folks and the pro-abortion cabal are all significant contributors of money, votes and influence to the election of Democrat candidates. Pretty scary when you start connecting the dots that lead from misanthropy to communism to the Democrat Party.

Either the Democrats agree with these misanthropic movements that humans are worthless or they are cynical and serial abusers of the trust of these people in their quest for power, which makes them hypocrites.

Isn’t it interesting how the Democrats are able to thread the needle to stay between the secular humanists and those who hate the human race? They are masters at lying just enough to keep all these disconnected, disparate groups fooled just enough to build a power base.

A choice between hypocrisy and misanthropy isn’t really much of a choice, now is it?