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Comment by Reuzel | Hacker News Reader

Good to highlight this. I became aware of the evils of the "alt-right" when they started trolling suicide memorial pages.

This is a similar attack coming from the polar side of the political spectrum. You cannot claim the moral high-ground after this.

If the pro-vaccine left does not distance itself from this ugly evil within their midsts, it should go a similar route as the alt-right did, in the eyes of the public: a terrorist and fascist organization.

Should really make you pause the next time someone on Twitter points to a target and says: do your thing.

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Please don't take HN threads into ideological flamewar. It's exactly the opposite of what we're trying for here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I'm generally sympathetic to arguments using parts of this framework ("be careful with this shit, Left"), but

"the pro-vaccine left [should be seen as] a terrorist and fascist organization"

is insane.

Vaccines are mostly advocated by the technocratic center. There are things to be annoyed at this faction about, but they're not extreme and they're not bad.

Arguably, they're not even especially "left".

And the tribal Democrats who gloat about COVID, while shitty, are not even the dangerous/radical part of that party. They're just the stupid ones, the "football fans".

Yes, they should be told not to act like this. But in the long run they can be ignored.

>You cannot claim the moral high-ground after this.

Who is "you"? An individual decrying the trolling of suicide victims while themselves trolling COVID victims? Then yes, you're right. But "the alt-right" is not a single person, nor is whatever their polar opposite is. This fallacy is at the heart of virtually all political bitterness. I do believe when something horrible happens and is highly correlated with a political group, leaders of that group should denounce it, but when something horrible happens in group A and a similar horrible thing happens in group B, that doesn't inherently mean that anybody is a hypocrite. It just means that horrible people are members of both groups.

You are trying for a false equivalence. What is the "pro-vaccine left?" Is there a "pro JFK Jr. is dead left?" What does that even mean?

This exact rhetoric is something you often hear whenever any sort of left leaning person does anything remotely incriminating. It's really hard to separate the reasonable criticism from the neonazi trolling, which usually leaves one to search for embedded dog whistles. Of which this post has a few. I will leave it up to you if that is something you wish to address.

I'm always suspicious about who is actually making these posts. Surely it is obvious to them that nobody would ever fall for it or treat it in good faith. The only conclusion that seems to make any sense is that the authors are being paid to write these comments.

I think most posts are made by real people that believe they are doing the right thing. Sometimes tragically

> Surely it is obvious to them that nobody would ever fall for it or treat it in good faith.

This says a lot about you, and makes me suspicious about your posts.

You either assume that someone with a different view is lying, that they don't even believe in their own views, because these are obviously wrong.

Or you are unable to treat posts in good faith, suspecting a commercial incentive.

So, you can not contribute anything to this community. If you disagree, it is because you disagree with liars. And who treats something in good faith, when they suspect the other person is not acting in good faith?

Your suspicion should make you conclude that you have nothing of value to contribute and should look for a community where everybody agrees or promises to act in good faith.

> Your suspicion should make you conclude that you have nothing of value to contribute

It is quite rude to tell someone that they have absolutely nothing to add just because they confess they have trouble seeing a benign motivation behind your post.

Clearly they have something to contribute: a viewpoint that is their own, that they are willing to talk about without undue animosity.

Please don't take HN threads further into ideological flamewar. It's exactly the opposite of what we're trying for here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I'll try to be better. This was ill-advised.

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