Only a fool tries to draw a distinction between hooded thugs that advocate violence against people they disagree with. Unfortunately there are people openly calling (and committing) violence from all across the political spectrum.
https://www.halseynews.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/antifa...
Maybe Berkeley? The Portland riots? That was frightening behavior.
You mean Antifa? Those aren't leftists, those are anarchists. They believe that government is incapable of protecting against fascism, and are instead committing vigilante violence. This doesn't represent the "left", who would instead fight fascism through constitutional and judicial protections.
They only thing Antifa has in common with the left, is they both hate fascism. But they have completely different views on the role of government.
Antifa isn't all anarchists, those that are are mostly specifically anarchocommunists, and anarchocommunists are emphatically leftists.
Perhaps I should have been more specific, and clarify that the antifa values, goals, and belief systems (thank you for the term) anarchocommunisism is completely incompatible with the democratic-social capitalist hybrid model espoused by the contemporary American political left.
You mean they attack the right. It's right there in the name, Anti-Fascists!
The enemy of my enemy isn't necessarily my friend. They aren't out there advocating transgender rights or arguing for paid family leave. They are there to clash with Nazis.
https://redyouthuk.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/may-day-2012-...
America has a history of white supremacy, and so Americans are rightly very concerned about its reemergence into the mainstream. The extreme left does not have white supremacist tendencies; the extreme right does.
If the extreme left were trolling across the Internet at the scale the extreme right does, and if this leftist trolling were leading distraught men into plowing cars into crowds of fellow citizens, we would rightly be more concerned about extreme-left Internet groups. But today, it is the extreme right that does this, not the extreme left. Far-right would-be terrorists are of greater concern and numbers than their far-left counterparts.
The far-left does have fascist tendencies -- I went to UC Berkeley, I've seen it first-hand -- but it simply isn't at the scale the far-right is currently at. This difference of scale is very relevant, and is part of what escalates society's response to the threat.
But I do agree with your sub-point that there's an asymmetry between reactions to Stalin and Hitler. There's probably some historical explanation; disgust toward historical figures is a socially acquired reaction. Excluding countries with special relationships to these men (i.e. Germany, Russia), it would make more sense to treat both with equal disdain and mockery.
In the 2017 EU Terrorism Report [1] - The EU being where I'm based and as such where I have most experience in these matters - done by Europol it is shown that the "left" is a much bigger threat than the "right", with 27 terror attacks executed by "left-wing" terrorists versus 1 attack by "right-wing" terrorists. As an aside, "nationalist" groups are responsible for 99 attacks. Islamic terrorists are responsible for the majority of deadly attacks (135 out of 142 were killed by jihadis).
As to what concerns the amount of "trolling" (in which I include breaking in to sites and downloading their data for later perusal, defacing sites, DDoS-attacking sites and similar actions) done on the 'net I'd say that, at least in Europe, the "left" is far more active than the "right", partly due to the fact that the "left" is better organised. One of the reasons for their better organisation is that "left-wing" organisations are given far more leeway than "right-wing" organisations, something which is related to the difference in reactions to "left-wing" icons (both the older ones - Lenin, Stalin, Mao et al - as well as the newer versions - Castro, Chavez, etc) versus "right-wing" icons (mostly Hitler and those around him). Public support for the latter is a punishable offence in some countries and frowned upon in most. Public support for the former is no problem whatsoever and done quite openly. I've never seen people carrying banners with the portrait of Hitler, I've seen plenty carrying portraits of Marx/Lenin/Stalin and Mao. I've seen banners telling us to follow the good example set by Chavez in Venezuela. I've seen a book fair which has "Lenin's corner" as a regular feature. Not some niche left-wing book fair either, the biggest one in the country and the focal point for the cultural intelligentsia.
Could you imagine a book fair having "Hitler's corner"?
[1] https://www.europol.europa.eu/newsroom/news/2017-eu-terroris...
A mass murderer is a mass murderer, regardless what they say they are. Hell, Hitler said he was forming a socialist worker's party, which sounds a lot like a dictatorship of the proletariat. It sounds like the left. Why aren't we saying that Hitler is "extreme left" just like Stalin?
There's something different between the political speech I grew up with in Mexico and what I hear now. Pretty much every Mexican distrusts the government, it's widely acknowledged that all politicians are corrupt, because we see corruption in the police force as a routine, daily thing, and we draw our team lines differently: the government versus the people. Not left vs right, but those with power versus those without. El pueblo unido jamás será vencido; no pasarán; these are our slogans.
There's something weird and pernicious about the way this left-vs-right discourse is unfolding in the English internet, and I see it leaking into other places. I don't like this game where the goal is to find how the opposite side is totally equal to this side and we have to tally the score to see who is more extreme.
However, I feel you're missing the point when discussing censorship.
If censorship is to be justly applied, there must be some objective measure of what is offensive - which then must be applied equally regardless of political alignment. This is definitely not happening at the moment.
Personally, I think a better perspective is to reduce and/or avoid censorship altogether, especially as far as internet infrastructure is concerned. Corporate entities shouldn't be enforcing the views of their stakeholders on the individual.
Free speech is free speech, even if I don't like what you're saying.
Yes! Systems ought to be designed such that censorship is impossible. Not just that we won't censor because we're so liberal and all. No, just plain uncensorable by design.
Edit: language
Where do you live that you see people marching in the street waving flags of communist dictatorships and ranting against immigrants and... whatever the leftist version of anti-Semitism is... maybe... anti-vaccination? (that's sorta equally irrational)
In America, the "bourgeois" is usually called "The American Dream". Most Americans idealize the middle class income and middle-class lifestyle and middle-class families and middle-class values. Ranting against that is usually a non-starter.
> my wife's parents suffered greatly in China by having their property taken from them
Many people were killed in China, of starvation, political punishment, etc. It should be an object lesson to the world, don't turn your government over to a corrupt dictatorship, even if they promise you communism.
Ranting about the Jews is a non-starter, too, but neo-nazis manage. How much respect do you think the hard left has for the "American Dream"?
> It should be an object lesson to the world, don't turn your government over to a corrupt dictatorship, even if they promise you communism.
"Hey, let's turn over our country to a corrupt dictatorship", said nobody. The fact that communist flags are regularly flown at leftist protests should be a tremendous national scandal and embarrassment, with our media educating the populace on the horrors of communism. They should be no more tolerated than swastika flags.
I don't know what the "hard left" is, but I know that teachers, labor unions, and local political leaders are all about jobs and wages.
> The fact that communist flags are regularly flown at leftist protests should be a tremendous national scandal and embarrassment, with our media educating the populace on the horrors of communism.
Look at Boston. Tens of thousands of people marched. There was one guy with some socialist literature, and a couple guys who were anti-GMO food, and then someone trying to sell you a copy of his music CD. But the overwhelming majority stood for free speech, representative democracy, and equal protection under the law.
But let's face it, you can walk into any Starbucks in Boston and find one crazy person there too.
When Mao's government began, it was very far from a corrupt dictatorship. I've actually never seen anyone say Mao was corrupt, personally, and it's arguable that the thousands of years of Chinese history prior to Mao had been corrupt dictatorships.
Happens in Berkeley on a weekly basis, dude. Maybe more often that that -- I don't live there, but I've seen plenty of pictures of people marching with communist flags, etc.
Of course, t-shirts of Che Guevara are everywhere.
"Thinking about the incident in which somebody attacked or threatened you in a way that frightened you because you are Jewish – who did this to you?"
The answers are, to some, surprising. There are 7 countries listed (Belgium, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Sweden and the UK). In only one those countries (Hungary) "right-wing" political views played a majority role. In two countries (Hungary and Germany) "right-wing" political views were a bigger threat than "left-wing" views. In three countries (France, Sweden and the UK) "left-wing" political views were a bigger threat than "right-wing" views. In one country (Italy) they are identical threats.
Less surprising is that the biggest threat overall is neither "left-wing" nor "right-wing": in five out of seven countries (Belgium, France, Germany, Sweden and the UK) "muslim-extremist" views were the biggest threat factor, usually by a very large margin. The lowest threat came from those with "christian-extremist" views, only in one country (Hungary) were these a bigger threat that those with "muslim-extremist" views.
[1] http://www.jpr.org.uk/documents/JPR_2017._Different_Antisemi...
And if you want to see Communist flags, go to any Bay Area protest. There's always Communist hangers-on in attendance.
That's funny, someone should tell that to המחנה הציוני
It's anti-semitism. That's shared on the left and right, unfortunately. The left couches it in pro-palestinian and anti-israeli rhetoric, but it's mostly just plain old anti-semitism.
And as far as the marching in the street waving communist dictatorship flags, I've seen that about a half-dozen times, mostly in DC. It definitely happens.
I believe that's just anti-Semetism.
https://jewishjournal.org/2017/07/13/anti-semitism-and-anti-...
>whatever the leftist version of anti-Semitism is...
Like the others said, it's just anti-Semitism. National Bolshevik Party is a good example.
Can I ask what websites/pages you are speaking of specifically? I think any group promoting genocide should be removed and haven't seen any liberal equivalents of the daily stormer.
Reddit r/socialism and r/Anarchism are very pro violence against anybody who is not far left.
They support violence against the people who are supporting our current "Capitalist regime".
As they like to say "the liberals get the bullet too".
This is my perception of the current situation, definitely could be helped by a fact check of FBI or other law enforcement stats, though.