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Comment by esbranson | Hacker News Reader

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"The other side are where all of the bad guys and crazy violent lunatics are. The side I align with is the only sensible one; we would never do anything like that."

This sort of thinking causes extremism and division. It only perpetuates more of the thing you don't want!

It's also empirically not true: there are crazy people on both sides, but most people are pretty reasonable. If you treat them as if they are, despite your differences, they won't feel so alienated and perhaps you can both have a productive conversation. Both sides views are then likely to soften, and you can maybe even start working together.

This is about propaganda regimes, as much as about whataboutisms. Both sides paint the other as violent. Which is more believable. Sad as though the answer may be.

Nope. Both sides are not equivalent. The political right, in the U.S., has been significantly more violent than the political left for quite some time. And it’s not even close. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9335287/

> We included individuals whose public exposure occurred between 1948 and 2018.

The times they are a-changin'.

Show some data!

Here’s a report on political terrorism up to 2025: https://www.csis.org/analysis/left-wing-terrorism-and-politi...

I encourage anyone reading to look at the charts. There’s a single clearly anomalous data point with significantly reduced violence for “right terrorists” and significantly high number for “left” in 2025. It is the only year in any chart where left violence exceeds (or even comes near to) right.

It’d be extremely silly to infer some trend from this one anomaly.

Does it really matter who is more violent? The fact of the matter is both sides do have a nonzero amount of crazy/violent people and both sides could treat the other with more respect instead of furthering division.

You will notice I never said that both sides have the same amount of violence (since I don't think that that's actually relevant), so you are responding to a point I never made to begin with.

Vending machines and guns both kill people, so we should expend equal effort addressing the problems with both. Do I have that right?

This obsession with just pretending the two sides are mirror images, who simply need respect each other more is just lazy thinking. Interrogate what the contemporary American right values and believes. It is deep seated resentment (urban elites!), hate (owning the libs), bigotry (mass deportations now!), all wrapped up in a victimhood (white replacement theory) / inferiority complex. It should surprise exactly no one that the statistics are what they are.

The left’s biggest problem is people find them annoying for suggesting others could be more empathetic or do better at being inclusive. These two camps are just nowhere near comparable.

To address an issue, you first must understand it. I very much believe what the right values informs why they’re violent. These values and beliefs need to be shamed into oblivion. Diversity is a strength! Expertise is valuable! People should have freedom to live their lives so long as they don’t harm others! People who believe otherwise should tremble with embarrassment to say so.

Well, I guess you'll always live in a land of division and spite, always angry yourself, and the "others" always angry back at you, squabbling forever while things slowly get worse. I hope you enjoy the bed you've made for yourself.

Is this why shop owners board their windows and doors up every time there’s an [insert left wing cause] protest in their area? I haven’t kept up but was Charlie Kirk’s assassin a left or right winger, or one of those horseshoe fellas.

Are you trying to make a point? Go ahead and make it. Or are you one of those “just asking questions” types?

I’m one of the types who can parse observable reality and notice that businesses don’t board up when democrats win elections. They do it when the other guy wins. The claim that the “right wing”, such as it exists as a cohesive entity, is uniquely responsible for political violence today is an absurd claim on its face because I could look out my window on my commute and simply notice who was doing the violence. Or, in the case of Charlie Kirk, who was doing the assassinating.

Most people who are paying attention are way past left vs. right.

Yet the difference remains, as does its decisiveness.

Could you explain?

The left right spectrum refers to representation in legislatures, a physical seating chart if you will, even in the US Electoral College. There is a reason to keep some people more physically separated, learned over time by civil institutions. These organizations, that exist in a left-right spectrum context, are the rulers, decisively in republics. Independently and regardless of where the electors or anyone else are. There is always a left-right spectrum even if not party-based.

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