Thoughts on rioting in Portland, Oregon

On Saturday a conservative news corespondent, Andy Ngo, was assaulted covering an "Antifa" counter-protest against "The Proud Boys".

I put these groups in quotes, because neither have any central authorities, and really it's up to whatever any individual movement-affiliated groups, or individuals, are choosing to do. And both are likely highly divorced from what their founders intended.

Mr Ngo ended up in hospital with a reported brain hemorrhage. His crime? Being in the wrong place at the wrong time, with a history of (not particularly extreme) opinions that protestors did not like.

I'm pretty left-wing. I always have been, and I always be. I'm a fan of Bernie, Warren, Gabbard, and Yang - and no fan of any conservative politicians, or any of the Democratic centrists (Biden, Hillary, etc). The problem is, very few people with a strong perspective are capable of considering situations fairly, staying proportional, acknowledging the important points from the other side, and giving equal coverage and criticism to problems coming from their side of the political spectrum.

I listen to a wide spectrum of political content because the bias is so extreme. Of the many I listen to, Secular Talk and Phil DeFranco are the only ones that come to mind who are very intellectually honest

Violence = Bad

It saddens me when I see fellow leftists thinking violence is okay.

Here are 5 reasons violence is a terrible idea:

1) Hurting people should be a last resort: it's immoral on face value.

2) Even if you think it is justified, it is the old testament that talks about "an eye for an eye" while it is Gandhi who said, "An eye for the eye and the world will go blind" - I don't think principled leftists are going to prefer the old testament over Gandhi.

3) You have no right to be judge, jury, and executioner - we have a justice system (with advocates) for a reason - and as imperfect as it is, it is better than mob rule or anarchy.

4) You're setting a precedent. Don't you realize that those on the far-right are far more adept at using cruelty and violence than you are?

5) You will turn everyone against you. The likes of Fox News or Stefan Molyneux will eat it up and draw people in to their side.

Obviously self-defense would be an exceptional situation, but your response needs to be proportional. And by the way, no words are not to be considered violence in this kind of a situation.

Drawing equivalencies

Now, onto criticizing the right. We will often see people talking about how Antifa are the real fascists, based on their behavior. While I agree some of the reported behavior is what I would expect to see from fascists, there is no moral equivalency. You have to consider both intent and long-term goals.

Antifa are trying to avoid tyranny of the majority over the minority (minorities). With the far right on the other hand, your lucky if they 'only' want mass deportations - slavery and genocide is often on the cards for them.

Now, many of Antifa may well be on the communist side of things. I don't want to go down a rabbit hole here of discussing the outlook for communism, the morality of extreme redistribution, and the morality of long-term outcomes as compared to original intent. I'll just say that even if many members of Antifa are communists, and their ideas are terrible, any moral judgement is a lot harder to make than of fascism.

Conservative <> Fascist

I'm sorry, but there is a big difference between someone acknowledging that integrating immigrant communities from very different cultures may have difficulties, to someone advocating for mass deportations of Jews (if they're lucky). There is a big difference from someone seeing large social change as fraught with difficulty and opposing it, and someone who thinks their ethnic group should have supreme authority over others. And frankly there's a big difference between someone being callous and having a limited sphere of empathy, to someone advocating violence.

Sometimes conservatives are right. And even if they're not right (which is most of the time in my view), being instinctively against change can not be equated to a desire for tyrannical oppression. What we need to is engage with conservative ideas - fighting them when they are wrong, and taking on board criticism when they are right. I'd much rather have progressive proposals that are well thought through, than proposals based only on empathy that are doomed to explode in everyone's face. For example, Germany has all kinds of programs for integrating the migrants that they let in in recent years - yes there have been some terrorism incidents from migrants, but overall Germany has actually benefited from the migration by putting proper processes into place that take conservative concerns into account (as have the migrants).

To be clear, I am not discounting that there is a real problem with fascism in the United States. It's incredibly common to see terrible people getting excited about the idea of shooting people they don't like. We need to be eternally vigilant against fascism.

No civil war

I have lived in the US for a year, and I have yet to see a single radical leftist or fascist causing violence in the streets. We're certainly in the middle of a cultural clash between those focused on personal responsibility, and progressivism, but we have been for many years and the death toll is well under 100 (*). This is not a civil war.

* I'm not counting those lives who would be saved if culture changed, or progressive policies like universal healthcare were adopted. As important as that is, that's not the kind of thing you can fairly include in the death count of a civil war.

Conclusion

It's very important for political movements to self-police, to prevent them running out of control and creating tyranny. History has shown that happening again and again.

To this end, I repudiate the behavior of "Antifa" members who would do violent acts against people they disagree with - and I strongly encourage fellow leftists to do the same, to fight bad ideas with good ideas, to promote better culture, to peacefully demonstrate, and to use the full set of comedic tools (satire etc) to totally shame idiots on the right.