“The whole world is festering with unhappy souls. The French hate the Germans. The Germans hate the Poles. Italians hate Yugoslavs; South Africans hate the Dutch. And I don’t like anybody very much.”

These lyrics are from a little ditty popular in the 1960s. A group called the Kingston Trio recorded it along with a bunch of other tunes. It was called “The Merry Minuet,” written by Sheldon Harnick, the same guy who wrote “Fiddler on the Roof.”

A thousand years ago, give or take a few centuries, my college crowd, kids who thought they were so sophisticated, would sit around, pick out three chords on a guitar, and sing these songs. We would laugh and joke about how these groups would hate one another.

Then someone might mention how their parents didn’t like (here you may insert your favorite group) because, well, they didn’t like them.

We would try the latest dance steps, including the Watusi, which I never mastered. Later I learned the Watusi was a real African tribe, the Tutsi. They lived in a place call Rwanda with another group called Hutus. They shared the same language and country. One was tall, the other short. In the 1990s, their hatred of each other broke out, and 800,000 people were massacred.

My parents remembered how the KKK ran Indiana and how they used to parade through the streets striking fear in the hearts of Blacks and Catholics and Jews and others whose parents were born in another land. Here in Maine, the KKK had lots of supporters, too. They focused on the French speakers, the Irish laborers and the, well, you get the idea. What the KKK and their supporters peddled was hate. It was hate of others who they didn’t like, or agree with, or feared.

When we got to high school, we attended sporting events where we cheered for our guys and booed the other side. Much of the hate involved envy as our guys sometimes were bested by the other guys who had more skill, or talent, or smarts. We would pray that the Almighty would smile on our guys and help them overcome the other guys.

Now that I think of it, believers say the Almighty is in charge of our planet and the entire universe. He is a bit busy with other duties, and I doubt he cares if the Boothbay Seahawks even play the game. I am sure he is way too busy to care who wins the SMU-Notre Dame football game.

Did we all grow up hating the evil Nazis? How about the Japanese? The South Koreans or the North Koreans?

I grew up on a street where the Republican precinct committeeman was the lady who lived across the street. Her Democratic counterpart lived a half a block away. As the election season ran around, we would knock on the Republican’s door and collect buttons that said, “I like Ike” or “Ike and Dick are sure to click.” When the yard signs went out, we got creative and filched the Democrat signs and brought them to the Republican official.

Instead of praise, we got the dickens. That little woman chewed us out with a vengeance. That is not how we do it in America, she said. She explained that we respect the other side and treat them properly. We always want to win, but we know that sometimes we lose. If we treat the other side well when we win, maybe they will do the same to us.

I bring these stories up because it looks like our political scene is edging into a dangerous era. Many of us lived through the 1960s. We remember it well. We remember when the Ohio governor praised law and order then sent the National Guard to the Kent State University campus after some students protested against the Vietnam war. For some reason, one of the young troopers got spooked and opened fire. Other soldiers followed suit, and four students were killed.

Last week, in Kenosha, Wisconsin, we saw an armed 17-year-old kid, who thought he was helping the police, get spooked, and kill two men who were protesting police conduct.

Over the weekend, pro-Trump supporters got into a squabble with Portland, Oregon protesters, and someone was shot and killed. I fear we are edging into dangerous territory.

I don’t care which side you favor. I respect your choice and trust you will respect mine. Isn’t it a good time to cool it? On Nov. 3, no matter who comes out on top, the winner will have to live with the loser and vice versa.