Conservative Democrat attends Jewish holiday party in BLACKFACE "basketball player" costume.

[patrice]

31. Do you know what frequency distributions are in basic descriptive statistics? Are you saying there

is 0 probability that what calls itself "the Left" (especially in an anonymous environment like the internet) has any extremist traits in any degree whatsoever, and that there is 0 probability that any of said traits could produce what at least appears to be, or could outright actually be, intolerance toward different others, and that there is 0 probability that those intolerant behaviors could be dysfunctional for themselves and/or for those different others in any way? Or are you saying that none of that matters?

Is it good for people to just stand by while the truth is accidentally or intentionally obfuscated? Isn't that called Plausible Deniability? If it's only one or a few hurting or handicapping others, accidentally or intentionally, is that okay if the doers are wearing the right label? belong to the right power clique? I know there isn't that much that most of us can do to change others, because they must change themselves, but that doesn't mean that we should accept taboos that amount to "see no evil, hear no evil, say no evil" and presto-chango everything is okay. The opposite of such social taboo-observance is called a "peace check" in some affinity cohorts, but such honest reality testing behaviors also have their places in many other kinds of collective endeavors, such as quality assurance, professional de-briefings, and any other effort to break group-think. Am I supposed to believe that what calls itself "the Left" engages so honestly and completely in this kind of self-reality testing and, hence, has no mis-understandings or negative intent of the same type as that characterized in OP, simply because someone says it is "the Left"? Believe it or not, I actually have seen real reasons in the real world that justify these questions.

Sorry about all of the questions, though, I'm struggling with why it appears that you don't understand the assumptions behind false dichotomies like "Left" good, Right bad, so all we have to do is divide up in our respective camps, whether they are actually authentically one's affinity group or not, and problems solved. It's such an obvious oversimplification of real flesh and blood and extremely complex humans; it's disrespectful of their humanity.

If you really care what my frame of reference is here, I'd like to suggest readings in cognitive development and including the biology of behavior, but a more specific reference for an applied form of those phenomena can be seen dating from Aristotle's Lyceum, through J.J. Rousseau's Emil, and can be seen in the learning theories of John Dewey and, most particularly in Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed especially in his references to what he called praxis, which is grounded in just being aware of how one internalizes the oppressor.