L'Emmerdeur wrote:Forty Two wrote:And what makes it worse is when they try to justify their ridiculous violence as good because they are the righteous fighting against Nazis, white nationalists and Trump supporters.
Why does that make it worse?
It turns their movement from a political position to a religion. They are no different than "....onward Christian soldiers...marching as to war...with the cross of Jesus, going on before!"
They clothe themselves in (self)righteousness, declare themselves to hold the true morality, and then grant themselves not just the right, but the moral duty, to violently suppress heretics and infidels.
They have lost the ability to view individual rights in any objective sense. To them, not everyone has the same rights. THEY determine who has greater rights to express their opinions and views peaceably. If they think an idea is dangerous, or hateful, or "anti immigrant" or racist or xenophobic, or homophobic, or trans phobic, or any other phobic, then they grant themselves carte blanche to violently suppress the idea. They've come up with a moral claim to doing so.
It makes it worse, because not only do they do it -- but they do it because they think they are doing what is right and good and moral when they pepper spray a girl in a Trump hat in the face, when they punch a "white nationalist" (alleged) who is committing the offense of talking to a reporter, or when they dump piss on people who are peacefully walking in the street. It's one thing to do those things despite knowing it's wrong to do so. It's quite another to do those things and truly believe that one is doing right.
It usually takes religion to make good people do evil things. However, we can add Progressive Leftism to Steven Weinberg's quote. “With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil - that takes religion.” We should just as "...or Progressive Leftism" to that quote, because they seem to be able to turn thuggery and unprovoked assault and battery into a moral virtue.
“When I was in college, I took a terrorism class. ... The thing that was interesting in the class was every time the professor said ‘Al Qaeda’ his shoulders went up, But you know, it is that you don’t say ‘America’ with an intensity, you don’t say ‘England’ with the intensity. You don’t say ‘the army’ with the intensity,” she continued. “... But you say these names [Al Qaeda] because you want that word to carry weight. You want it to be something.” - Ilhan Omar