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Comment by partiallypro | Hacker News Reader

The same reason the Kochs are the boogeymen of the left (not even the far left. Pelosi and others attended a conspiracy movie about the Kochs, and they have been chastised in the Will Ferrel movie "The Campaign." Not to mention how they were accused of things from Maddow & co back in 2009.)

People need a boogeyman because the real world is far too complex to comprehend, so having puppeteering bad guys is easier to deal with than reality of people actually having genuine beliefs that you don't agree with.

There definitely is some Antisemitism, though I don't think that's the main driver, the left also chastises Sheldon Adelson, who is also jewish.

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Except George Soros, and the Koch brothers are absolutely corrupt individuals who exert political influence to insure they don't get in trouble as they incite turmoil (both economic and environmental) around the world for their personal profit. Namely, Koch's being the owners of one of the largest oil companies, and Soros engaging in economic terrorism in south east asia.

This is a false equivalence. The Kochs are blamed by the left for the vast amount they spend in politics, which is something they actually do. The right blames Soros for insanity, like funding a migrant caravan from South American, or for funding crisis actors to pretend school shootings are happening. That's insanity. There's a clear difference here.

The only clear thing is your bias. People on the left also blame Kochs for insane consipiracies and people on the right criticize Soros for the money he spends on politics.

Which you get exposed to depends on your echo chamber. Echo chambers don't share the rational arguments of their opposition because nobody wants to think the outgroup has a point.

I'm always willing to hear outside opinions. I try to consume a variety of news sources. The reason I can so easily cite insanity coming from the right is because a man was moved to kill almost a dozen people just two weeks ago because of his ideas about Soros funding a caravan. That's not really something I picked up "in my echo chamber". Can you point to anything from the left even approaching that kind of level of insanity?

>Can you point to anything from the left even approaching that kind of level of insanity?

Unfortunately their go to right now, and probably for the next x number of years, is the guy who shot up the Republican baseball game. No doubt there are extremists on both sides, one side just seems to have way more

Man shooting up a baseball game of Republican congressmen while screaming "this is for healthcare!"

I'm not saying the there aren't nuts on both sides. Of course there are. This was about conspiracy theories. That some people in government are trying to take away healthcare isn't a conspiracy. That the Koch brothers are funding politicians who are trying to take away healthcare isn't insane.

That George Soros is funding a migrant caravan of invaders is a conspiracy theory. This theory was amplified by both the President and Fox News, so it's hard to claim it's not even a mainstream theory.

I don't know why you'd characterize that shooter as "the right". He really hated Trump. He was a socialist.

There are a lot of these cases, where a violent person is unjustly tagged as "the right".

When someone can't be crammed into that mold, they are dropped from the news. A prime example is the youtube office shooter, who was a female muslim immigrant. As soon as the demographics became clear, the news dropped the story like a hot potato.

Whether or not he hated Trump, he believed that Soros was funding a migrant caravan of invaders, a lie that both Trump and Fox News was pushing constantly, and continued to push even after the shooting. He didn't get those ideas from out of thin air. He got them from the right wing party establishment.

So, I'm curious, who exactly do you think is funding them?

That trip is not free.

Soros certainly has a history of funding exactly that sort of thing. For example, he paid to have boats pick people up right off the coast of Libya and take them to Italy. It would not be the slightest bit surprising for Soros to fund a mob of thousands to invade the USA.

If not Soros, then who? (and who paid that group, and who paid the payers... and does it not lead back to Soros?)

"If not Soros, then who?"

This sounds like if one cannot pinpoint the supposed funder (and prove that they act alone), then you'll feel free to assume it is Soros? This is nonsense.

I mean, if she shot up youtube because she got worked up by another alt-right 4chan conspiracy theory, then you'd have a point. But she wasn't, she was upset youtube wasn't paying her enough.

The point is that any violent person unable to be portrayed as "the right" is quickly dropped by the news. The shooting was on the way to being the big news story of the month... and then suddenly dropped out of the news entirely. This creates a bias in the news: all the memorable violent people are on the right because the non-right ones are dropped from news coverage.

Basically, the news wants an attacker who looks like their stereotype of an NRA member and/or Trump supporter. Anybody else is not deemed newsworthy.

the left also chastises Sheldon Adelson, who is also jewish.

I'm trying to connect this with the words preceding it. Do you think the left chastises Adelson for anti-Semitic reasons?

Apparently, if you decide to oppose someone and that person happens to be Jewish, then yes, you are now anti-semitic.

In some cases, maybe, I do think anti-Semitism is bipartisan. But I don't think it's the driving factor for either the left or right (in the US,) that's more of the fringe. I would be willing to bet most people who know of Soros and don't like him, have no clue he's jewish.

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