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Comment by SwellJoe | Hacker News Reader

I said "more terrorist attacks", which is accurate. I didn't make any claims about how deadly those terrorist attacks were. That Neo-Nazis aren't always good at terrorism is hardly a ringing endorsement or a thing to hold up as proof that we shouldn't be dealing with Neo-Nazi groups as terrorist organizations.

Then again, the Oklahoma City bombing was the deadliest terror attack on US soil in our lifetimes prior to 9/11, and was committed by a right wing extremist. It is sort of arbitrary to draw the line at 9/11 (though maybe reasonable since it was such a devastating attack, and kinda blows the curve for any sort of accounting of other kinds of terror).

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Generally we discard 9/11 from such discussions as it blows death toll comparisons out the window. Going post 9/11 stays both relevant to current times and removes the absolute worst events in both cases (Ok city, and 9/11).

Doing comparisons without these cases we get similar numbers for both factions within some wide margin of error. Looking at this from a per capita perspective though we have Muslim Americans that make up around 1% of the population by my googling having a similar terrorism death toll as the 32% of the population that is right wing white Americans (white Americans being 64% of the population. This would make that faction 32 times more dangerous per capita than the white right wing.

I don't know that it's fair to place Neo-Nazis in the same set as moderate Republicans (i.e. all "right wing" people in the US). I feel like there's a particular kind of person that joins extremist organizations and commits terrorist acts, and Muslim extremists have more in common with Neo-Nazi terrorists than they do with moderate Muslims. Likewise, I suspect (hope) moderate Republicans have more in common with moderate Muslims than they do with right wing extremists.

But, the way so many have jumped to defend Neo-Nazis or redirect blame for their violence has me pretty shook. I don't really know how to process someone looking at Charlottesville and saying, "it's the fault of the left". It doesn't even make sense, much less help the nation heal, and a lot of people with a lot of influence are doing it.

It's pretty much terrifying that we have a president that is among the ranks of Neo-Nazi apologists, and that a large percentage of GOP leadership has said nothing. Maybe I'm giving moderate Republicans too much credit. Neo-Nazi leaders certainly feel vindicated by what's been coming out of a lot of mainstream Republican talking heads lately.

> Then again, the Oklahoma City bombing was the deadliest terror attack on US soil in our lifetimes prior to 9/11, and was committed by a right wing extremist.

Timothy McVeigh? Why do you consider him right-wing?

Because everybody else did, including Timothy McVeigh.

Some quotes:

"McVeigh was reprimanded by the military for purchasing a "White Power" T-shirt at a Ku Klux Klan protest"

"he spoke daily to his co-worker Carl Lebron, Jr. about his loathing for government. Deciding that the Buffalo area was too liberal, he left his job and began driving around the country, seeking out his old friends from the Army."

A letter he wrote to a newspaper:

"Taxes are a joke. Regardless of what a political candidate "promises," they will increase. More taxes are always the answer to government mismanagement. They mess up. We suffer. Taxes are reaching cataclysmic levels, with no slowdown in sight. [...] Is a Civil War Imminent? Do we have to shed blood to reform the current system? I hope it doesn't come to that. But it might."

"McVeigh introduced his sister to anti-government literature"

"For the five months following the Waco siege, McVeigh worked at gun shows and handed out free cards printed up with Lon Horiuchi's name and address, "in the hope that somebody in the Patriot movement would assassinate the sharpshooter." (Note "Patriot movement" was the way right wing extremist groups were re-branded in the 90s, just as alt-right and some other names have been used since.)

He made his meager living selling copies of The Turner Diaries (a novel that fantasizes about an armed revolution against the US government, and genocide of blacks, Jews, and gays: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Turner_Diaries) among other right wing literature at gun shows.

I don't see how he can be considered anything but right wing, and pretty extreme right wing, at that.

Source for all of the above: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_McVeigh

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