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Comment by thrance | Hacker News Reader

Can confirm, this is nothing but more scaremongering from right-wing rags: Le Figaro and Le Parisien, both owned by right-wing oligarchs (Dassault and Arnault respectively) trying to fuel this climate of fear to further their economic interests by getting a right-wing demagogue elected. Both papers are caught lying all the time, like Fox News. You shouldn't be taking this seriously.

What you should take seriously though, is this amping up of right-wing populist rhetoric, manufacturing a mass hysteria about crime (when it's at its lowest point in decades) that is then used to justify increasingly authoritarian policies.

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Don't get trapped by right or left they are all owned by oligarchs trying to push or pull the public towards some agenda that benefits them, sometimes other oligarchs but rarely you.

The crime is down stat is a political stat that doesn't tell you are safer. It could mean police are not going after small crimes or people just stop reporting them or they are classified differently. It could say money spent on law enforcement is working and more is needed. On the other hand it could say community outreach and educational coapaigns are working. Many previous crimes reported thats changing with a more racially diverse force.

It tells you whatever you want to believe.

I don't know of any left-wing oligarchs. That almost sounds like an oxymoron. Don't get trapped in bothsideism or enlightened centrism, one sides is that much more aggressive with the lies and hate.

As for the crime stat, you can always control for such things, to an extent. If we can't trust the official statistics office, then what should we base our policies off? Vibes? There are certainly things to improve with how the stats are collected and used, but you can't just go around telling everyone they're useless and providing no alternatives.

Forgive me if I'm working but I thought all the socialist/communist/marxist country leaders and their friends were left oligarchs by definition?

No, they're dictators. And I don't know of many of them owning TV channels or newspapers in France, which is what we were talking about. There is no left-wing oligarch, because this is nonsensical. You can't have billionaires spending millions into influencing public opinion towards aggressive wealth redistribution. Those people don't exist.

You just have bureaucrats and politicians doing that instead, securing their comfy jobs and reelection.

The equation is simple: tax one productive member of society 1000 euros - lose 1 vote. Redistribute 100 euro each - win 5 votes. The rest goes towards various government programs implemented by companies owned by friends that can redirect pay the profit in offshore accounts of relatives of said politician.

There were no socialist/communist/marxist countries, but there were dictatorships that pretended to be socialist/communist/marxist. Kinda like Hitler did, actually.

Keep in mind, until the "liberals" create a proper state that isn't easily capitulated to the far right fear, the risk of these rags becoming defacto, and these threats becoming policy, like they did in America, it's a legitimate threat.

It's just not today, but tomorrow.

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