US Left monopoly on political violence?

Prefaced by saying I am a registered independent, and I despise the two-party system and have lost faith in both parties.

That said, I observed that while the Left spends the most time accusing the Right of intent to commit violence or topple democracy, it seems to be the Left that engages in more violence and has engaged in more anti-democratic behavior.

Symbolism in politics is very powerful. I have observed that the Left likes to create an idea, especially one that can be summed up by a powerful word or short phrase such as Fascism, Racism, Threat to Democracy, Colonization, Occupation, and so on.

Then once they have imbued the word with such perceived power, they use it to shut down all argument/discussion and justify all manner of behavior. Basically it can all be summarized as, if you want to debate the Left on a factual basis, they will accuse you, or the politician you support, of being a bad person for thinking differently than the Left. Once they have done that, your argument must be de facto lacking merit, by nature of being related to a bad person, or because Left is good and virtuous, and anything counter to them therefore is not.

It results in similar actions by Left as opposed to Right being characterized in markedly different ways. January 6th was an insurrection. When the Left riots, it is to fight injustice. So maybe it is not entirely accurate to say the Left has a monopoly on political violence, but it seems they try to create a monopoly on righteous justification of political violence. They create such a boogeyman caricature of their opponent that anything is justified to stop him, whether it is bogus lawsuits, questionable changes to voting, or the next logical step in the progression, the assassination attempt of the other day. I was appalled to see so many people on social media celebrating the assassination attempt on Trump. What has happened to us? If you are celebrating an assassination attempt, you need to reevaluate your life choices and decision making process.

[image: editor-cdn.torn.com]

Good example of refusing to engage with thought.  No one could possibly in good faith say these things because it is not in lockstep with Leftist doctrine, right? Thank you for proving my point.

"Symbolism in politics is very powerful. I have observed that the Left likes to create an idea, especially one that can be summed up by a powerful word or short phrase such as Fascism, Racism, Threat to Democracy, Colonization, Occupation..."

- The guy who has called half of P&L 'anti-semite' over all of the Israel threads. 

Keep fishing, good sir. 

You can't really say that after Alex jones incited violence on the parents of the victims of sandy hook and the whole January 6th thing. Two of the most precious and fragile things in this country, democracy and the lives of children are put at risk by right wingers. 

There was also a study a couple if years ago that pointed at right wing violence being higher than islamic extremism, which is quite surprising considering the mass media emphasis on the latter. 

Now, if you want to call any of the lawsuits or criminal cases against trump "bogus" then I don't know what to tell you. We have a justice system for a reason, to tell if you are innocent or guilty. And firstly, it takes a lot to even take a case to trial, it's not like these cases just came out of nowhere. And secondly, if he is innocent, the courts usually do a good job of finding out and not applying "bogus" consequences. This is just an attempt to erode our justice system, as was the supreme court decision on the culpability of presidents on official duties. 

Whenever I have spoken of anti-Jewish bias, antisemitism, or Jew-hate, I have given very clear examples and explanation of how it is being employed and why I am highlighting it. But even if your gross generalization was accurate, what does it have to do with my OP here?

Valiant attempt to delegitimize my points by using Left symbolism and word association to cast aspersions on my person. Bonus racial divisiveness award for bringing my ethnicity into it.

You continue proving my points. You are literally doing exactly what I am describing the left as doing.

In regards to antisemitism kanye and candice owens seem to be some of the biggest perpetrators. And in terms of on torn, there are right wingers that hate jews like Magical_Toaster [3218279] seems to be one of the biggest proponents of that, but tbf I have been steering clear of the palestine israel threads because of the amount of propaganda involved. 

I just don't see how you can call antisemitism something exclusively found on the left when the most malicious antisemites are on the right

You feeling extra victimised today or something? I'm just pointing out your hypocrisy, and by extension showing that the tactics you're fake outraged by aren't just used by leftists.

And where did I mention your ethnicity? I don't even know what it is. 

What exactly makes you think I'm a leftist by the way? Is it only the left that are capable of pointing out your blatant use of the political climate for the purpose of karma farming? 

Alex Jones, definitely a bad guy. Maybe it is my own bias and preconceptions speaking, but I get the impression that violence enacted by members of the Left tends to be more sanctioned and justified by the Left as a whole, and also more widespread and premeditated, while on the right it is more the product of fringes and outliers.

I think it is very clear that the justice system is being used as a tool to impede Trump's election. If Donald Trump was not running for president, these cases would not have been brought at this time and in this manner. The RE valuation cases in particular are a joke. I have been a lifelong left-leaning independent, and that case in particular turned me away from the democratic party. We are talking about a Democratic Party who says Trump is trying to destroy democracy, and then uses anti-democratic means to stop him. 

Yes, it is your own bias and you are most certainly not left leaning. I don't know why you feel the need to pose as something you are most certainly not.

You are right about Kanye and Magical_Toaster. I'm not really familiar with Candice Owens.

There are some fringe antisemites on the Right, but I feel like certain antisemitic sentiment is becoming more doctrinal on the Left. I never said it was exclusively on the Left now.

I am more interested in how the Left sanctions violence when performed by the Left, sort of like claiming their self-awarded moral high ground gives them the sole right to violence.

So why use the word "monopoly"? It's not accurate, according to you, and it's silly.

You accused me of accusing half the forums of being antisemitic as some sort of bizarre counter to my OP. Saying that you didn't specifically identify me as a Jew is splitting hairs. It is still a worthless straw-man argument.

i don't care if you self-identify as a Leftist, just pointing out that your tactics here are exactly what  my OP is about. Yet you keep trying to distract by turning this into a referendum on my character. Try to engage with ideas, or don't bother engaging at all. 

Anyone who wants to farm karma in P&L is in the wrong place. If you want karma, go make memes in faction discussion.

Fair enough. 

I used it to express the idea that the Left seeks to be the movement that is just and virtuous when using political violence, not to say that the right does not engage in political violence at all. Seeing the celebration of the Trump assassination attempt has been insane. And beyond the violence alone, it seems that the left tries to establish this paradigm where any disagreement with the Left can only be chalked up to a moral failing on the part of the disagreeing person.

But I am not attached to the word "monopoly."

We don’t have a two party system. We have two party voters. This results in an unofficial two party monopoly. It’s a self inflicted wound. 

I can’t think of anyone more intent on use of violence to silence political opposition than antifa. The irony implicit in their name is priceless. There are others of course. You’ll see them burning, looting, and destroying in the name of “justice”. 

I have to say, I’m not a Biden fan, nor a Trump fan, but I do like to give credit where it is due. Biden has been a stand up guy with this. He reached out to trump. He spoke against this event as a violation of American ideals and democracy, and he ordered an investigation into how the shooter managed to commit the act. He’s handled it well given the complication of being the president but also political opponent. 

Well they are… they like to use symbols too. Like the swastika. 

It's strange that you point at the last for the trump shooting when the guy that did it was registered as a republican, but yeah, it's fair to say there was celebration of it on the left. 

I watched biden's response and it was a relief to see him condemn the attack, I doubt trump would've done that had it been biden who was shot. 

There was also another attempted assassination 4 years ago against Mike pence by trump so the question really is, what if it were the other way? I doubt right wingers would've felt any sympathy for biden and I doubt biden would've started chanting "fight, fight, fight", which seems to be a desire for some sort of revenge. 

Idk, the whole trump assassination attempt is a strange situation and I'm kind of surprised it didn't happen earlier

I don’t think you should bring magical_toaster into it. He’s a travelling buffoon who exists solely to give all the village idiots their legally required lunch breaks. 

As far as malicious antisemites, look no further than the myriad on the left, even here on torn, who expect the Jews to be shot at, shelled, have rockets and missiles shot at them, and not be allowed to take action to prevent it. P&L is absolutely thick with them. 

edit - One of the malicious antisemites has weighed in. Definitely one of the variety who feels it is wrong for Israel to use any method of shooting back, leaving their only option to passively die at the hands of the Palestinians.

Jtester disliked your post

He's a filthy antisemite is what he is. He also seems to love any sort of genocide against jews and seems to have some deep hate for the left. The guy is a textbook nazi, probably should be a reason for me not to mention his name, the little cretin, but I felt like this was the time to dog on one of the most detestable people I've ever debated with, and that says a lot, I mean a LOT. 

We can go back and forth with examples but I'm more interested in conceptual than anecdotal. it seems to me (and like I said, could be my bias or the fact that I associate with more people on the left than the right, or my curated news feeds or w/e) that the Left puts a lot more effort into legitimizing their violence, and into framing any disagreement with them on policy into some sort of moral failing.