SDMB has been saturated with talk of domestic unrest in the U.S. lately and who is responsible for the more heinous aspects. Claims get brought up with little to no evidence and I’d like to open an inquiry to delve deeper.
It seems uncontroversial in this two year span data indicates there have been more murders, often terroristic, committed by Americans driven by right wing ideology and motives than by other ideologies and motives.
My question is: haven’t such motivated acts of unrequited non-lethal violence against other humans been committed more by left wingers and Antifa than right wingers in those two years by a good margin? Now it is not that I primarily classify Antifa’s mission left wing. When push comes to shove, I would say they have more commonality with the known extremism from the left.
I guess it also depends on your definition. Punching someone at a march is not hte same thing as gunning down a church.
I have no idea how much violence antifa engages in or how much rises to the level of terrorism. Nor do I know how much of their behavior is provoked vs unprovoked. Or how much that matters. I’ve seen videos on youtube of antifa engaging in both offensive and defensive violence.
Keep in mind that Islamic terrorism is also right wing terrorism. Its just right wing terrorism coming from a different culture. But the MO is the same. A bunch of people who feel they are the purest, most superior group feel their way of life is under attack from multiculturalism and outsiders. They try to deal with this threat by creating a pure ethnostate using violent, authoritarian means, curtailing civil/human rights and reverting to an age when their culture was great.
So if you add in Islamic terrorism and white domestic terrorism and lump both under right wing terror, the vast majority of terror is right wing.
So, only non-lethal violence, and only unrequited. If someone, drives a car into a crowd resulting in a homicide, that’s lethal, so disregard. If someone shoots a bunch of people at a synagogue, that’s lethal disregard. We’re only talking about someone getting sucker-punched by a leftist, who then runs away before they can be identified and prosecuted?
If a person beats up someone because of their race, sexual orientation, etc., should this be included or not included in your calculations?
Seems like it should. If someone is counted as a right-wing extremist because they shoot up a church, seems like a right winger who attacks someone for being different than them should also count. But for some reason, I get the feeling that you would discount these types of assaults…
Seems to me no matter the ideology you’re going to find a similar small percentage with a proclivity for violence. Since it really is a human trait , not bound by political lines.
Depending on your definition ,somewhere In the 9-20 percent range from either side endorse violence.
Actual hate crimes are easy to classify, politically motivated crimes are not so much.
The framing of the OP really invites a lot if anecdotal ly based answers so I doubt this is going produce much in the way of supported facts either way.
I disagree. There is left wing violence, and depending on the time and place the level of left wing violence can be pretty severe (Russia under the Czar for example, FARC in Columbia, etc). But in the modern US, it seems right wing violence is more common. The vast majority of terror attacks in the modern US are either from right wing whites or right wing muslims.
I live near Seattle and every time there is a march or a protest, it seems like the anarchists/whoever (typically dressed in dark clothes with their faces hidden) show up and destroy property and generally create chaos (I’m still unclear on their goals, probably just people that like to break stuff).
In that case if we are only looking at the last couple years;
Referring to 1992 to 2017;
Left Wing terrorists killed only 23 people in terrorist attacks during this time, about 0.7% of the total number of murders, but 13 since the beginning of 2016. Nationalist and Right Wing terrorists have only killed five since then, including Charlottesville.
Extreme islamists do seem to be the most effective killers though, regardless of the year.
17-18 though which the OP is questioning, looks like we’re in very small numbers from any ideology, especially looking at numbers of attacks rather than numbers of victims.
Despite an increase in left motivated attacks that makes the last few years equal the number in more than the previous decade.
They call themselves anarchists, but it is not like no one has ever used an unfitting name for themselves (or for others). They are more nihilist opportunists who express no particular polarity but just show up for the disorder.
Not by any of his intended targets. Law enforcement eventually caught up with the bike lock guy in California too, but that wasn’t any of his intended victims “requiting” his attacks. In Hodgkinson’s case, law enforcement just caught up with him much more quickly, thankfully.
That’s how I see it too. Extreme right-wingers and extreme left-wingers are equal in hatefulness, nastiness, and violence, but the extreme right-wingers have better aim. Probably because they have more experience with guns. Lefties like Floyd Lee Corkins just don’t seem very good at planning this stuff.
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