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Comment by BurningFrog | Hacker News Reader

The interesting part is not why these people do this, but why they are winning.

This is the most interesting part of the whole phenomenon. I think the answer is that everyone is scared to confront them. The modus operandi of this movement is to personally attack the character of anyone who disagrees with them. They've toppled university presidents, CEOs, and politicians. They got Rolling Stone to publish a completely unsubstantiated article falsely accusing a bunch of young men of a vicious gang rape. No one wants to be next.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rules_for_Radicals

Wow thank you for this link.

Its interesting to see where these horrible tactics come from.

It certainly frightening to see things like rule 13 “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions.

This is horrifying to see codified, and what I assume being practiced on purpose, like what those yale students did to their professor, or at least tried too.

Yep once you know "the rules" you can easily analyze all these protests or incidents.

I am strangely relieved that their perception of power is this basic:

“Power is not only what you have, but what the enemy thinks you have.” Power is derived from 2 main sources – money and people. “Have-Nots” must build power from flesh and blood.

I think they're winning because the overall premise is just correct. Black death and torture is one of the most serious moral issues the U.S. faces today.

There are some people with poor impulse control who get in the news a lot. The opposition promotes the hell out of those people (as we are doing right now) in order to try to discredit the leaders. The fact that the movement is still winning despite the countercampaign is because so many of the other people in the movement are extraordinary, grounded people speaking for truth.

Generational poverty and crime are definitely serious issues, but that's not the movement's "overall premise". The movement's philosophical underpinning is a complete abdication of personal agency and responsibility. They perceive themselves to be part of a powerless and oppressed group (which is false, especially for some of these 'victims' that are Ivy League students with many open doors). To support that, they've built a revisionist narrative of Western civilization, espoused in works like "A People's History of the United States", that centers on oppression of these out-groups and on the evils on capitalism. They have a paranoid sense that everything is an act of oppression, see "microaggressions" and "cultural appropriation". They are hostile to freedom because their goals of changing how individuals relate to each other socially cannot be achieved without coercion.

Freedom is not their goal, the goal is equality of outcome.

You are accurately characterizing a subset of behaviors but I don't think they are characteristic of the movement's day to day operations.

>I think the answer is that everyone is scared to confront them.

Yep. They're winning because people are too afraid to confront them. And people are too afraid to confront them because this is what happens when you confront them...

At Work: They complained to HR that you sexually harass them. You get fired.

As an Administrator at Universities, Schools: They accused you of being racist, and you get fired.

As a Student at Campus: They and their 100 mob of students surround you. They are clearly angry. 100 people. Surrounded you. Angry. Anything goes. You will obviously have to apologize for having a different view than them, if you want to get out of there in one piece.

Online: They accuse you of doxxing them. The mods bans you.

And so on and so on...

Because certain parts of the media have a disturbing attachment to such beliefs (despite their jobs being closely tied to freedom of speech and expression) and these types appealed to their views perfectly. Perhaps because of a certain 'holier than thou' attitude towards the general public.

It might also be because for an authority figure, this sort of thing is a great distraction. It takes the focus away from wealth inequality and corporatism and aims it at other normal people with the 'wrong' opinions.

Just look at this very forum anytime anyone mentions maybe just maybe some self-proclaimed feminists do more harm than good.

Because until recently no one has had the balls to stand up to sjw/radfem kids. What worries me the most is that in the process of fixing this social misalignment the far right could gain ground. Which is replacing one evil with the other...

Looks like they are winning on university campuses, and there is a counter-movement led by Trump appealing to non-college-educated whites. Many of the people supporting Trump cite "saying things other people aren't willing to say" as their reason for supporting him.

These seem to be the two extremes driving political discourse in the USA right now.

The "Oh My God We Must Punish You for Saying Anything We Suspect of Maybe Possibly Being Construed by Some as Racist/Sexist" crowd, and "I'm Going to Say Racist/Sexist Things Constantly, and You Can't Stop Me" crowd.

They're winning because, while their tactics can be terrible, immature, and oppressive, their moral thrust is correct. Most women and minorities do face obstacles in American society--even today--that most white men don't. This is evidenced in a wide variety of population statistics, at confidence levels that would be high enough to make headlines if they were risks in a medical study.

I don't see how getting an administrator, who support a women's right to freedom of speech, freedom of expression (the ability to wear a nurse outfit for Halloween, the ability to wear a Native American outfit for Halloween, since she loves Native Americans). I don't see how getting an administrator, who support a women's right to freedom of speech and freedom of expression, fired is going to help women become less oppressed.

Because everybody is too afraid to confront them.

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