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Comment by brobdingnagians | Hacker News Reader

Errrhm, all the "protected classes" tend to come from the left wing ideologies. Sure, the right isn't what it used to be with Jeffersonian liberalism and free speech, but that quote could easily be interpreted to be about modern left by simply replacing "Conservatism" with "Liberalism'.

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'The right' as a term literally comes from supporters of the nobility and the king, the ultimate representation of someone who is protected but not bound by the law.

The term “right” comes from the delegates seating in the French National Assembly during the revolution. Both the Left (Jacobins) and the Right (Girondists) voted together to behead the King and dispense with all noble priveledges and titles.

These people wanted to return to an aristocracy according to wikipedias history section of right wing, so his point stands I think.

But I'm not knowledgeable about history, so do elaborate if you know details please.

Girondists? Aristocracy?! No way. There were many royalists in France, but none in the National Assembly.

The Girondists were considered right only because Jacobins were super left and ended up killing thousands of priests, what few nobles they could still find, tens of thousands of suspected royalists in mass executions, and eventually the Girondists themselves too for being too soft. The Girondists went to the guillotine singing The Marseilles! Certainly not the royalists that lot.

I recommend the “Revolutions” podcast - about 30 hours worth of the French Revolution is better than any movie.

Also the history of revolutions is very educational in this day and age. I for one hope we will never experience anything like it.

They supported the French king against violent revolutionaries who executed him, imposed arbitrary cultural changes such as abandoning the calendar, and undertook a series of mass executions and purges until they were finally brought under control by Napoleon.

That doesn't seem to be what the quote is focused on though, where most efforts around "protected classes" come from. I think it does a rather good job highlighting it's point about conservative central hyperfocus on the supremacy of an in-group. Seems to be a pretty strong candidate for an underlying proposition at least, given some of the imagery we've seen over the past days.

What left wing ideologies would that be?

the Frankfurt school and critical theorists probably.

> […] all the "protected classes" tend to come from the left wing ideologies.

You don’t know what the term “protected class” means, and you should probably stop using it.

“Woman” isn’t a protected class, “sex” is. “Christian” isn’t a protected class, “religion” is.

To be fair, not all protected classes are symmetric:

Veteran status and age over 40 are notable examples; you are absolutely permitted to discriminate against non-veterans and against people under 40.

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