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Comment by 11thEarlOfMar | Hacker News Reader

It was inconceivable to me even one year ago that American citizens could be beaten in public for supporting the president.

This is not rational in any explanation.

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Downvoters: describe your rational explanation for beating an American citizen in public because they support the president.

I will explain. Hackernews is a leftist ideological echo chamber. If you scroll through this thread you’ll notice downvoted posts don’t even get a good reply as to why they’re wrong.

The down-voters are hurt and clueless.

It's a strawman. There isn't some rash of unprovoked public beatings of people because they happen to be Trump supporters.

Watch the video. The first assault is mild. The student punched in the face could have knocked teeth out:

https://wjla.com/news/nation-world/rising-political-tension

Punched in the face for wearing a hat in Russian. The assailant couldn't read it, but attacked once the wearer told him the translation:

https://www.thedailybeast.com/man-beaten-up-in-california-re...

And here is seven pages of a Political Violence Report, official congressional record:

https://docs.house.gov/meetings/JU/JU00/20190409/109266/HHRG...

Here are three more, including an 81 year-old man:

https://www.bostonherald.com/2019/02/28/maga-hat-wearing-vic...

This was a serious beating, an art gallery owner:

https://abcnews.go.com/US/york-city-gallery-owner-attacked-w...

Citing the Berkeley assault, this guy wrote and app to help conservatives find safe places to dine out:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/03/11/need-safe...

This is attempted murder:

https://abcnews.go.com/US/man-arrested-allegedly-driving-van...

I'm not saying it doesn't exist, but it's not new or significant. It isn't some unique phenomenon to this time and this political orientation. And people downvoted that comment not because they support political violence, but because centrism is perceived as a cop-out, as just an implicit support for the status quo.

Regarding the 7 page listing of more than 200 various acts of political violence, including attempted murder, against conservative politicians;

I searched for the same document produced during the Obama administration and could not find one. From that I infer that during his administration, neither conservative nor liberal politicians saw political violence as enough of a concern to list it and enter into the permanent record of the United States Congress.

Political violence and oppression was one of the primary motivators for the United States to seek independence from England. We are going backwards.

Could you link to what you’re talking about?

Parent's insightful comments about the risk for expressing even centrist views. He implies he was shunned. 'Conservatives' risk physical harm for revealing their political leanings:

>I had pretty unpleasant pushbacks during lunch breaks and then I stopped discussing things all together.

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