Hate is a powerful emotion, as is clear to anyone who listens to political radio programs of any stripe. Freud talked about hate as something older than love, describing it as the narcissistic ego's desire to get rid of stimuli in the external world that cause it pain and dissatisfaction. While that's certainly apart of it, I think it underestimates the power of tradition in instilling the concept of "the other" in people. This, of course, leads to a discussion of hate as an inherent or learned emotion. Either way, there seems to be a bit of dislike pointed in the direction of the new Prius, and Mad_Science took the opportunity to question the rationale of this hate in a Jungian sort of way that avoids a discussion of empiricism.
Seriously, people: WTF? It's just a car. The vast majority of today's cars are transportation appliances. This just so happens to be one with a unique drivetrain and really good mileage. Really, which is the more evil, vile, horrible car: the $25k people mover that gets great mileage, or an over-30k decked out Accord or Camry that does the same thing, but with worse mileage? Don't try to bring up "typical" drivers, because assholes are everywhere.
Somebody has been drinking the haterade.