6 ms·

> to bring in some unspecified crimes of the left I realize that a large portion of young social media posters have already forgotten about this. Probably bec

> to bring in some unspecified crimes of the left I realize that a large portion of young social media posters have already forgotten about this. Probably because John Oliver doesn't talk about it, and that's often their primary source of news analysis. But the Majority Whip for the U.S. Congress is STILL in recovery from a mass shooting over two months ago, by a deranged left-wing activist. In Dallas last year, 5 police officers were assassinated and another 9 injured at a BLM protest march (the deadliest incident for U.S. law enforcement since 9/11), by an Army veteran who openly cited racial hatred as his motive. I went to church the following Sunday. I was a member of a Unitarian Universalist congregation, one of the most liberal American sects. The sermon more or less boiled down to, "Meh, they had it coming". I have since left the UU community, after more than a decade of fellowship there. Where is the balancing point, at which you can declare "equivalence"? I don't know, and don't really care. But the narrative that polarization and extremism are entirely one-sided needs to go. As a moderate, BOTH extremes in the U.S. scare the shit out of me right now. I'm a bit sick of being told that I'm "normalizing" awful things by not locking arms with one side, shutting my brain off, and chanting along with the mob. The mob has the intellect, the morality, and the attention span of a goldfish.

throwawaymanbot 9y ago
I would applaud you identifying as a moderate if I didn't read you just mock John Oliver, BLM, and the nut job whom you identified as a "left-wing" activist that shot the Member of Congress. so you are a moderate eh? > The mob has the intellect and the attention span of a goldfish.> This is quite a statement. You so wish this was true. If it was, then you could get away with writing trash opinions pretending to be moderate, while really being nothing of the sort, and people might not notice.
- jpetso 9y ago
  The nut job volunteered for the Sanders campaign and asked if the people he was going to shoot were Democrats or Republicans. You might not identify him as left-wing but he sure as hell did himself. By the same logic, reasonable right-wingers could claim that the white supremacists aren't actually right-wing. That's different than just condemning their actions and calling them nut jobs. It shifts the problem away from people who are in a position to maybe make an impact. Even if it's unlikely that extremists on either side are going to come to their senses, it's much more likely that the whip shooter would engage in conversation someone with a strong left-wing orientation, and that some white supremacists listen to Trump when he uses the right kind of language. If you are part of a political movement, or any group with strong opinions really, it's a moral duty not just to accept that there are people in your group who go too far but also to use your standing to call them out on it. John Oliver has made some excellent commentary, but you can hardly call it balanced. Maybe for good reason, but nonetheless. BLM is awesome and necessary, however they walk a thin line between protesting against oppression and demonizing police, which some take as encouragement for violence. It's a continuing sturggle to to tell people on "your side" that they're wrong and going too far, much harder and more important than to belittle or protest against people that you naturally disagree with.
  - throwawaymanbot 9y ago
    >If you are part of a political movement, or any group with strong opinions really, it's a moral duty not just to accept that there are people in your group who go too far but also to use your standing to call them out on it.< Exactly thats why I'm calling you out on your commentary on this topic. So far you have only mentioned one particular "wing" and remain silent on the rest. Since you are someone from Austria (Supposedly) to use the term "extremists on both sides" to classify anti-nazis/anti-fascists is a real eye opener.
jacquesm 9y ago
> deranged Key word there, also I'm not aware of anybody on the left who even thinks about giving support to that short of action let alone dares to voice it.
- revmoo 9y ago
  Antifa
rjtavares 9y ago
Do you think Trump is comparable to Obama in how he handles these types of incidents?
horusthecat 9y ago
lol "both sides do it". face it, anime nazi gamers get beat up by not just jocks but also skinny vegans now
- sctb 9y ago
  Please comment civilly and substantively here or not at all. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
justin66 9y ago
> But the Majority Whip for the U.S. Congress is STILL in recovery from a mass shooting over two months ago, by a deranged left-wing activist. > As a moderate, BOTH extremes in the U.S. scare the shit out of me right now. This is painfully ridiculous. The lunatic with a rifle is not representative of Sanders or his supporters, or the left in the U.S. I don't think an honest person of any political stripe would listen to Sanders condemnation of the guy and wonder whether he really meant it. The Nazis and the Klan... are the Nazis and the Klan. Murder is what they do, and the best that could possibly have been said about the ones marching the other day was that they were just some kind of weak wannabes, not the real thing. Which would have been a smarter thing to say before they killed somebody at their rally. I just cannot fathom some of the over-intellectualized naivete I'm reading here.
- leesalminen 9y ago
  > The lunatic with a rifle is not representative of Sanders or his supporters And nazis aren't representative of Trump or his supporters. To say otherwise would insinuate that _half the country_ are nazis.
  - fhood 9y ago
    go look up the percentages on ideological crimes in America. You'll find right wing > muslim > left wing
    - leesalminen 9y ago
      That doesn't seem to be entirely true. According to PBS, "far-right extremists tend to be more active in committing homicides, yet Islamist extremists tend to be more deadly." Are we comparing percentage of deaths or number of events? Personally, I think both sides are fueled by religious beliefs. Their hate is cut from the same cloth. [0] http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/analysis-deadly-threat-far-right-extremists-overshadowed-fear-islamic-terrorism/ http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/analysis-deadly-threat-f...
      - 9y ago
jancsika 9y ago
> I was a member of a Unitarian Universalist congregation, one of the most liberal American sects. The sermon more or less boiled down to, "Meh, they had it coming". Who was the speaker of that sermon? I'd love to email them and get the real story, because that smells suspiciously like confirmation bias in your summary.
- dopamean 9y ago
  That would be a very weird email to get out of the blue.
  - jancsika 9y ago
    Weird? For a contentious sermon that allegedly resulted in a person who had been a member for over a decade quitting the church? I doubt it. Anyhow, a UU sermon that is dismissive of terroristic violence is novel enough that requires a citation. In fact the only thing I could say to generalize about the variety of topics I've heard in various UU sermons is that none of them could possibly be characterized with the word "meh" in the summary. If anything it is the "Church of Anti-meh." And I'm not even a member, so I'm sure I've only heard the tip of the iceberg.
- sitkack 9y ago
  I think it was different bias where one paraphrased the past incorrectly, I do it all the time. It was probably more along the lines of, "Making your bed and lying in it" or "When you poke the lion ten times, expect to get bit" When someone trots out crimes of the left, it smells like "and you too!" that somehow the Right, which has the rule of force as their platform gets a pass with 1:100 ratios.

throwawaymanbot 9y ago

I would applaud you identifying as a moderate if I didn't read you just mock John Oliver, BLM, and the nut job whom you identified as a "left-wing" activist that shot the Member of Congress. so you are a moderate eh? > The mob has the intellect and the attention span of a goldfish.> This is quite a statement. You so wish this was true. If it was, then you could get away with writing trash opinions pretending to be moderate, while really being nothing of the sort, and people might not notice.

jpetso 9y ago
The nut job volunteered for the Sanders campaign and asked if the people he was going to shoot were Democrats or Republicans. You might not identify him as left-wing but he sure as hell did himself. By the same logic, reasonable right-wingers could claim that the white supremacists aren't actually right-wing. That's different than just condemning their actions and calling them nut jobs. It shifts the problem away from people who are in a position to maybe make an impact. Even if it's unlikely that extremists on either side are going to come to their senses, it's much more likely that the whip shooter would engage in conversation someone with a strong left-wing orientation, and that some white supremacists listen to Trump when he uses the right kind of language. If you are part of a political movement, or any group with strong opinions really, it's a moral duty not just to accept that there are people in your group who go too far but also to use your standing to call them out on it. John Oliver has made some excellent commentary, but you can hardly call it balanced. Maybe for good reason, but nonetheless. BLM is awesome and necessary, however they walk a thin line between protesting against oppression and demonizing police, which some take as encouragement for violence. It's a continuing sturggle to to tell people on "your side" that they're wrong and going too far, much harder and more important than to belittle or protest against people that you naturally disagree with.
- throwawaymanbot 9y ago
  >If you are part of a political movement, or any group with strong opinions really, it's a moral duty not just to accept that there are people in your group who go too far but also to use your standing to call them out on it.< Exactly thats why I'm calling you out on your commentary on this topic. So far you have only mentioned one particular "wing" and remain silent on the rest. Since you are someone from Austria (Supposedly) to use the term "extremists on both sides" to classify anti-nazis/anti-fascists is a real eye opener.

jacquesm 9y ago

> deranged Key word there, also I'm not aware of anybody on the left who even thinks about giving support to that short of action let alone dares to voice it.

revmoo 9y ago
Antifa

rjtavares 9y ago

Do you think Trump is comparable to Obama in how he handles these types of incidents?

horusthecat 9y ago

lol "both sides do it". face it, anime nazi gamers get beat up by not just jocks but also skinny vegans now

sctb 9y ago
Please comment civilly and substantively here or not at all. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

justin66 9y ago

> But the Majority Whip for the U.S. Congress is STILL in recovery from a mass shooting over two months ago, by a deranged left-wing activist. > As a moderate, BOTH extremes in the U.S. scare the shit out of me right now. This is painfully ridiculous. The lunatic with a rifle is not representative of Sanders or his supporters, or the left in the U.S. I don't think an honest person of any political stripe would listen to Sanders condemnation of the guy and wonder whether he really meant it. The Nazis and the Klan... are the Nazis and the Klan. Murder is what they do, and the best that could possibly have been said about the ones marching the other day was that they were just some kind of weak wannabes, not the real thing. Which would have been a smarter thing to say before they killed somebody at their rally. I just cannot fathom some of the over-intellectualized naivete I'm reading here.

leesalminen 9y ago
> The lunatic with a rifle is not representative of Sanders or his supporters And nazis aren't representative of Trump or his supporters. To say otherwise would insinuate that _half the country_ are nazis.
- fhood 9y ago
  go look up the percentages on ideological crimes in America. You'll find right wing > muslim > left wing
  - leesalminen 9y ago
    That doesn't seem to be entirely true. According to PBS, "far-right extremists tend to be more active in committing homicides, yet Islamist extremists tend to be more deadly." Are we comparing percentage of deaths or number of events? Personally, I think both sides are fueled by religious beliefs. Their hate is cut from the same cloth. [0] http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/analysis-deadly-threat-far-right-extremists-overshadowed-fear-islamic-terrorism/ http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/analysis-deadly-threat-f...
    - 9y ago

jancsika 9y ago

> I was a member of a Unitarian Universalist congregation, one of the most liberal American sects. The sermon more or less boiled down to, "Meh, they had it coming". Who was the speaker of that sermon? I'd love to email them and get the real story, because that smells suspiciously like confirmation bias in your summary.

dopamean 9y ago
That would be a very weird email to get out of the blue.
- jancsika 9y ago
  Weird? For a contentious sermon that allegedly resulted in a person who had been a member for over a decade quitting the church? I doubt it. Anyhow, a UU sermon that is dismissive of terroristic violence is novel enough that requires a citation. In fact the only thing I could say to generalize about the variety of topics I've heard in various UU sermons is that none of them could possibly be characterized with the word "meh" in the summary. If anything it is the "Church of Anti-meh." And I'm not even a member, so I'm sure I've only heard the tip of the iceberg.
sitkack 9y ago
I think it was different bias where one paraphrased the past incorrectly, I do it all the time. It was probably more along the lines of, "Making your bed and lying in it" or "When you poke the lion ten times, expect to get bit" When someone trots out crimes of the left, it smells like "and you too!" that somehow the Right, which has the rule of force as their platform gets a pass with 1:100 ratios.