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If so, why are many people hesitant to condemn the left wing extremism that does exist? Does right wing extremism somehow justify left wing extremism?

kybernetikos 7y ago
I'm afraid I can't answer for 'many people'. But complaining that nebulous groups of people don't condemn things you don't like vociferously enough is rarely a productive direction to take a conversation. It's better to deal with people individually where possible, and easier to find out what people think about concrete examples. But also, yes, I think it's not unreasonable to expect that people might show more outrage for murders than for property damage, even if they disagree with both.
- mcantelon 7y ago
  >But also, yes, I think it's not unreasonable to expect that people might show more outrage for murders than for property damage, even if they disagree with both. I never mentioned property damage. Antifa's violence isn't "property damage". This is the kind of thing I'm talking about: bad faith straw manning to justify ignoring violence by leftists.
  - kybernetikos 7y ago
    The last conversation I was in on this topic was highlighting that the data shows very high numbers of events from some ecological and animal rights groups and considering them as left wing violence, and from that arguing that there was much more left wing violence than right wing violence. Almost all of those events were property damage. This is all in the https://www.start.umd.edu/gtd/ https://www.start.umd.edu/gtd/ dataset. The dataset that I mention above doesn't contain any references to antifa. This is probably because 'antifa' isn't a specific group, but an umbrella term for a number of groups, some of which are entirely nonviolent or target only property. > This is the kind of thing I'm talking about: bad faith straw manning to justify ignoring violence by leftists. This is pretty unfair. I'm not in a position to do anything about any particular act of violence, but there's a strong chance that if you suggest a concrete example to me I'll state that I disagree with it. For example, I don't believe that you should punch people you disagree with in the face, regardless of whether they are fascists or not. You should not be surprised however, that people are more aware of violence resulting in fatalities and more vocal in their condemnation of it than other violence (even other violence that they also disagree with).

kybernetikos 7y ago

I'm afraid I can't answer for 'many people'. But complaining that nebulous groups of people don't condemn things you don't like vociferously enough is rarely a productive direction to take a conversation. It's better to deal with people individually where possible, and easier to find out what people think about concrete examples. But also, yes, I think it's not unreasonable to expect that people might show more outrage for murders than for property damage, even if they disagree with both.

mcantelon 7y ago
>But also, yes, I think it's not unreasonable to expect that people might show more outrage for murders than for property damage, even if they disagree with both. I never mentioned property damage. Antifa's violence isn't "property damage". This is the kind of thing I'm talking about: bad faith straw manning to justify ignoring violence by leftists.
- kybernetikos 7y ago
  The last conversation I was in on this topic was highlighting that the data shows very high numbers of events from some ecological and animal rights groups and considering them as left wing violence, and from that arguing that there was much more left wing violence than right wing violence. Almost all of those events were property damage. This is all in the https://www.start.umd.edu/gtd/ https://www.start.umd.edu/gtd/ dataset. The dataset that I mention above doesn't contain any references to antifa. This is probably because 'antifa' isn't a specific group, but an umbrella term for a number of groups, some of which are entirely nonviolent or target only property. > This is the kind of thing I'm talking about: bad faith straw manning to justify ignoring violence by leftists. This is pretty unfair. I'm not in a position to do anything about any particular act of violence, but there's a strong chance that if you suggest a concrete example to me I'll state that I disagree with it. For example, I don't believe that you should punch people you disagree with in the face, regardless of whether they are fascists or not. You should not be surprised however, that people are more aware of violence resulting in fatalities and more vocal in their condemnation of it than other violence (even other violence that they also disagree with).