Hacker News Reader

Comment by pmiller2 | Hacker News Reader

Don't refer to these morons committing violent acts in the name of protest as "alt-left." It does nothing but legitimize them, much as the moniker "alt-right" legitimizes white supremacists.

There is a time and a place for violent protest/revolution, but we're nowhere near there yet.

View on HN

   > much as the moniker "alt-right" legitimizes white 
   > supremacists.

Actually, alt-right was coined as a term to differentiate people who adhere to the traditional republican/libertarian views about personal liberty and small government from the neo-conservatives such as Romney, McCain, Graham, and others who push so strongly for nation-building and big government.

The collection of people that are drawn to the ideal of small-government and liberty is larger than the subset you describe.

Source? The Southern Poverty Law Center says it was coined by Richard Spencer to describe a white nationalist political ideology: https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/ideo...

The Southern Poverty Law Center is notoriously biased [1] against any non-progressive ideology, which includes alt-right and libertarian ideals. If this is indeed their actual opinion, it is wrong. I suspect even they know it is not true. Alt-right traces is lineage back to Ron Paul and the tea-party.

[1] http://www.dailywire.com/news/8967/7-things-you-need-know-ab...

Do you have any sources to back up your claim the the term "Alt-right" can be traced back to Ron Paul and the tea party?

Wikipedia says the first usage of the term "alternative right" was by Paul Gottfried in 2008 (http://forward.com/news/national/348372/meet-the-jewish-pale...)

It also says that the first usage of the contracted form "alt-right" was by Richard Spencer. https://www.adl.org/education/resources/backgrounders/alt-ri... http://www.newyorker.com/news/benjamin-wallace-wells/is-the-... and https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/21/us/alt-right-salutes-dona... quote Spencer as claiming to be the person who coined the term. And there's like a dozen other citations on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alt-right

Where are your sources?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com