I don't think anyone on HN is trying to deny or excuse far-left violence. But I do think that they disagree with the way other commenters on this thread have po

I don't think anyone on HN is trying to deny or excuse far-left violence. But I do think that they disagree with the way other commenters on this thread have portrayed it. For example, let's examine the claims made by the person you replied to: > There are parts of this country that are not coming back economically for a decade after what happened. Is this actually true? Can you find a citation saying that these businesses will not "come back" for a decade? Given that recessions, natural disasters, and pandemics cause even more damage, and businesses are able to begin operation usually within a year, I find it hard to believe this specific claim. For example, Axios estimates that damages caused by rioting could be around $2 billion (from the Insurance Information Institute) [1]. Axios also notes that natural disasters such as hurricanes can cause more than $3-$5 billion in damages. Hurricanes also cause their damages in a localized area (as opposed to nationwide rioting), so I would assume that it would be even harder for businesses to recover from hurricane damages. But my impression is that businesses in areas hit by hurricanes tend to recover within a year or two. > And if a right wing group had done 1/10th of what these groups did we would never hear the end of it. Wikipedia says that right wing extremists have killed 114 people since 2001 and injured dozens more [2]. It also claims that one person was killed in a far-left attack. If we consider the monetary value of a human life to be $10 million [3] (let's ignore that assigning monetary values to human lives may be problematic), we find the damages caused by right-wing extremists in the last twenty years in deaths alone has been $1.14 billion. I sincerely doubt that left wing rioting and looting has caused more than $11.4 billion in damages since 2001, so the right wing has done more than a 1/10 of what "the left" has done -- but we aren't "never hearing the end of it." Again, nobody here is saying there is no violence caused by the left. But I am criticizing how other commenters have exaggerated that violence, while ignoring the violence caused by the other side. [1] https://www.axios.com/riots-cost-property-damage-276c9bcc-a455-4067-b06a-66f9db4cea9c.html https://www.axios.com/riots-cost-property-damage-276c9bcc-a4... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-wing_terrorism#Post-2001 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-wing_terrorism#Post-2001 [3] https://www.npr.org/2020/04/23/843310123/how-government-agencies-determine-the-dollar-value-of-human-life https://www.npr.org/2020/04/23/843310123/how-government-agen...