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sundin13 on 15 July 2018
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Aeolus451 said:
sundin13 said:

What are the odds? I don't know.

That said, I did edit my last post and add a bit. To summarize, I said that while it is certainly an assumption, it isn't exactly a very farfetched one given the information we have about what she said. While we don't know if she is right wing herself, we do know that she was espousing rhetoric not far off from what you may here from the extreme right wing. Much crazier assumptions have been made.

However, it doesn't really matter one way or the other whether she is actually right wing herself (again, see my earlier posts).

Racism is not the norm of the right. Any person can be racist regardless of anything. The fact that you're assuming she's right leaning because she acted extremely violent and racist speaks volumes of your integrity.

That isn't really what I said.

First of all, yes, anti-immigrant sentiment is a position that the right has aligned itself with. Further, racism against minorities is far from uncommon in the far (read: far) right. I don't really think there is any arguing either of those two points.

But, I am not arguing that her acting violent puts her on the right. If someone were to bomb a coal plant or attack a fossil fuel exec while shouting "down with fossil fuels", I wouldn't have an issue with individuals labeling them "left wing", because they would be performing violence while repeating the rhetoric of a particular political group. Yes, it is a perversion of the beliefs of that group, but it isn't hard to find the similarities.

And further, I am not actually arguing that she is definitely right-wing. I am saying that she performed actions (or more specifically, "said words") which lead one to that assumption, and I will not act like it is a ridiculous assumption to make, but I don't really think her political affiliation is of any importance to this story.

Again, I'll just copy and paste my earlier post here:

It doesn't really matter if the woman involved is an avid Trump supporter. That isn't really what the cause for concern is surrounding the demonization of immigrants and Hispanics. The issue is that you are creating fear and hatred within the people who continually hear this rhetoric: that these people are criminals, that they are destroying this country, that they don't belong.

It isn't only the ones who stand at Trump rallies who fall victim to this, it is often those who aren't actively involved in politics, who simply hear this rhetoric and don't have that political frame of reference to delve into the truth behind it.

Of course that isn't to say that we have any information that this is certainly due to any Trump effect, however, would it really be so farfetched? Are we really so naive to believe that the most powerful man in the country constantly telling the people how so many of society's ills are caused by immigrants and hispanics, would have no effect over the actions of the populace? The effect of these words is breeding fear and hatred, two very strong catalysts for violence.

I find it somewhat disheartening that, after an action like this, instead of falling to questioning the effect of such rhetoric that the attacker was echoing, we are instead pointing at the race of the attacker and trying to brush it off. That isn't simply pulling the carpet over our own eyes, it is blinding ourselves with the same prejudice we are denying...