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Comment by josteink | Hacker News Reader

> Imagine if more consumers and advertisers start enjoying consuming and being associated with malevolent, hateful, and violence-inducing speech.

> Many in the 1930s-40s enjoyed the hateful caricatures of Jews that the Nazis produced in their propaganda, and hateful people also buy refrigerators and sneakers today.

I may be sidetracking the conversation here, but I must admit I find it fascinating how “hatefulness” online is almost always assumed to be right-wing extremism.

Have everyone forgotten the BLM and Antifa riots going on for months where innocent people had their property, livelihood and in some cases even their lives taken?

That was fully encouraged and endorsed by the left, en masse, and especially so on Twitter.

Was that not “hate”? If not, what is?

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I heard somebody got fired by Antifa because they had a second job with BLM. Both organizations really micromanage people. I think we should start holding the leadership accountable.

I can’t quite put my finger on why, but I find this comment rather funny.

I aim to please.

Can you show me where the left was, en masse, supporting people having their livelihood and lives taken? Which prominent members of the left were cheering on killing? Biden? Bernie? Hell, was it Internet personalities like Vaush? I didn't see that at all.

Can you show me the same for the right? Not some misinformation spin (the hate/division parent is talking about), an actual en masse cheering of killing people from the right?

Why is what BLM and antifa always excused? Why can’t you condemn it so we can fix the country? Some of us are over the left v right politics and want the left to realize their problems so we can all move on.

I suspect you may be less over the left v. right split than you think you are. The person I was replying to was making specific claims about what folk on the left were doing, en masse. I asked to see it. The person making it "v. right" is you (and him).

Convenient way to remove yourself there. No you made it left v right as well.

So how come BLM and Antifas actions are not condemned by the left?

They are, often but “the left” is not one organized group of people.

This is actually a fundamental problem with discourse that I don’t know how to solve. There is a reasonable moderate left that struggles with these kind of issues, and its pretty large. Most maybe even!

Why is it you’re acting like there’s only one “left voice”? There will always be communists and SJW’s free speech doesn’t work if you act like the extreme voices are the mainstream or only voices of value.

> They are, often but “the left” is not one organized group of people. This is actually a fundamental problem with discourse that I don’t know how to solve. There is a reasonable moderate left that struggles with these kind of issues, and its pretty large. Most maybe even!

I actually completely agree with this.

> Why is it you’re acting like there’s only one “left voice”? There will always be communists and SJW’s free speech doesn’t work if you act like the extreme voices are the mainstream or only voices of value.

Because increasingly they look more and more aligned. And regardless if personal beliefs, the non-extremist still vote on the same lines as the extremists. That’s why we’re coming up on a recession now.

You are correct. There is no difference between oppressing people, and fighting against oppression. Nazis are the same as anti-Nazis, racists are the same as anti-racists. Remember when India rebelled and cast out the British? Literally no difference between the two sides. Racist police versus civil rights marchers in the 1960s? Hey, both sides were mad. Totally the same.

It may be obvious, but just in case it isn't: Everyone think they are fighting the good fight. Nobody sets out to be evil. Liberals thinks they are fighting for positive change. Conservatives wants to preserve what they think is good.

Ofcourse the people burning the city down and looting think they are doing the right thing, or at least doing it for the right reasons. Ofcourse the black people "taking the streets back" feel entitled to it, after whatever backstory there was.

But during the Antifa and BLM riots, actual businesses, owned by innocents bystanders got ruined. Innocent people got murdered. There were real tragedies to real people, mostly white.

When that gets cheered on at social media-sites like twitter (or live on CNN!), it's hard to frame it as anything except hate against white people.

Maybe they thought they were fighting oppression. But at the same time they were oppressing. They became what they claimed to fight.

Who are to say they are better than the people they claimed to be fighting, which didn't burn down cities, didn't kill innocent civilians?

The ends does not justify the means. Not in a lawful society at least. These were hateful acts. EOT.

I think it's perfectly reasonable to rank acts by the threat they post to the Republic. The left wing riots you speak of were a problem in few very limited locations (parts of a few cities). They didn't threaten to end democracy. Major parts of the Republican party are actively trying to bring American democracy to a close. It's hard to see the benefit of both-siding in the presence of that threat.

Government fetishism. The threat they "post" to some abstract concept like "the republic" is not more important than the threat they pose to their fellow man.

I'm not taking trying to take any absolute sides. Even the best of people will do bad things. You can find dirt on anyone, if you like.

What I was originally responding to was the fear of twitter allowing hateful speech, which ofcourse had to be right-wing "hateful" speech.

My comment was more directed towards how I found that (default) assumption weird, since I see tons and tons of clearly hateful content and attitudes from all sides of the political spectrum online and in social media.

When I see people complaining about all that "hateful" speech online from one end of the political spectrum, I have a hard time seeing that as something else but denial about the hateful speech their side of the political spectrum themselves are promoting, or worse deliberately ignoring.

The fact that you find someone else's opinion disagreeable, distasteful or "hateful" is not a blanket-license for you yourself to act disagreeable, distasteful or "hateful" in response. It's a chance for you to be a better person.

If you want to fix our divided world, you need to show people there's a middle way, and you do that by calling out bullshit on both sides.

It's easy to say "I'm not trying to take any sides" but way harder to practice. For example, repeating the same rhetoric used by the hateful right-wing groups, while having to repeatedly put "hateful" in quotes, as if those groups aren't hateful or something, is taking a side.

It’s also very hard to convince the left they have a hate problem as well. Read your comment again, you’re claiming that hate only comes from one side. Republicans have been called Nazis, facists, ultra mega MAGA, uneducated, all to sow hate against them. Are literally all republicans Nazis? Or facists? Or is the left being extreme and spreading hate?

The Republican leaders of this country literally encouraged (and in some cases abetted) a coup attempt lead by white nationalists on Jan 6th.

And they are upset that they are called uh, names.

I get what you're saying: name-calling is mean. It can deepen divides. I've been called names before. It felt bad.

No, this is also misinformation. This is the story the left wants to push, but no republicans wanted Jan 6 to happen.

Yes they’re names, does this mean the position of the left that speech can be hateful is invalid?

Read my comment again. I claimed no such thing.

You actually did, the hateful rhetoric from the right tells all anybody needs to know. If you think hateful rhetoric comes from the right then you are the problem.

> Major parts of the Republican party are actively trying to bring American democracy to a close.

NO! This is extremely dangerous misinformation. Nobody on the right is trying to end democracy. This is a lie started by the left media in order to convince the left to get out and vote. If you keep spreading this misinformation, you will likely push people on the left to violence.

Nobody tried to "bring American democracy to a close", that's a lie.

Which cities did BLM protestors burn down? What crime did George Floyd commit that merited his public execution? Or Breonna Taylor, who was shot by police while sleeping? What was she guilty of?

BLM protestors looted and rioted many cities. It was all over the news. They even took control of a police station and part of a town. It’s concerning you’ve forgotten this portion of our history.

George Floyd’s killer was found guilty and sentenced. Does that mean nothing?

Breonna Taylor was with someone that shot at police. It’s unfortunate what happened but perhaps one shouldn’t associate with people doing such things if they want to avoid these situations.

>>BLM protestors looted and rioted many cities. It was all over the news.

Sure, which cities did they burn down? The person I replied to made a specific claim I was asking about. You don't seem to be able to list them, either, despite them being all over the news.

>George Floyd’s killer was found guilty and sentenced... Breonna Taylor was with someone that shot at police.

And? The comment I was replying to said that the people BLM claimed to be fighting hadn't killed any innocent people. What was George Floyd's killer convicted for then? What did Breonna Taylor do that left her guilty?

I understand that situations are more complicated than what they end up reduced down to. But op made specific, false claims.

> which cities did they burn down?

Is it conceivable that perhaps the statement employed hyperbole to make a point and was not literal?

Your hairsplitting between "burning cities down" and arson misses the point completely.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_arson_damage_during_th...

https://www.yahoo.com/video/rioters-set-fire-federal-courtho...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violence_and_controversies_dur...

No one "burned down cities" and the vast majority of protests in the BLM movement were peaceful. In some cases, property damage and at least one actual murder were traced back to right-wing provocateurs, as well. You have to take that into account when framing things this way.

The damage from the riots is estimated in 1-2 billion of dollars. Nice for you to handwave it as "in some cases, property damage" and the classic "fiery, but mostly peaceful" of course. For some people who lived through it and witnessed it, however, it sounds like nothing but apology for lawlessness and wanton destruction. When you will ask yourself "why politics is so polarized in the uS" - that's why. When people hear that for you burning down their business, or trashing their car, or making their city unsafe and unlivable is just "mostly peaceful and some cases of property damage and actually it's probably all right-winger's doing anyway" - they would not trust another word coming from you, ever. Because if we can't agree on something as basic as "arson and mayhem is bad", then there's nothing for us to agree on.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_arson_damage_during_th...

https://www.yahoo.com/video/rioters-set-fire-federal-courtho...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violence_and_controversies_dur...

    Maybe they thought they were fighting 
    oppression. But at the same time they 
    were oppressing. They became what they 
    claimed to fight.

I see your misunderstanding. You're misunderstanding the terminology. Oppression doesn't simply mean "being mean to people" or "hurting people."

Oppression involves systemic power. Control of the courts, the justice system, the police, the government, of business. Some or all of the above.

Some protestors acted badly! They were wrong! I agree with you! But that is not the same as oppression.

I think (and sincerely hope) that you forgot to include the "/s"

No he's thinks it's some edgy, never heard of stuff and he's made some compelling argument.

Their comment history doesn't demonstrate trolling or false equivalency making, so by principle of charity I will believe it's sarcasm, until proven otherwise.

But such equivalencies appear to be an idea you've promoted though, if I'm reading your past comments correctly.

Also, give Azamat a hug for me. I miss that guy.

Indeed, yes. It was sarcasm/parody. I felt it insulting to include the /s but may have been wrong.

I realize it's not HN-appropriate, but once in a while I break down and make fun of those who see no difference between oppression and fighting against the oppression (or fundamentally don't understand the difference between "being mean" and "systemic oppression")

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