IF THEY DO IT TO THE EXTREMISTS, THEY DO IT TO US | 2002-02-02
In the real world, the right uses "Communist" as a way to scare leftists, and the left uses "anaziwhowantstokillsixmillionjews!" to scare rightists. The right uses the Communist label as an excuse to deny liberals their rights and leftists use "racist" and "Nazi!" to shout down all opposition in exactly the same way.
The difference is that the left defends the rights of the extreme left and the right wants to lead the liberal lynch mob against extremists on the right.
This is one reason the leftists are winning. They know that the right would like them to spend all their time denying that they're Communists. Rightists would love it if leftists agreed that all Communists are fair game and that the far left has no rights.
They would love it because we all know that if the extreme left has no rights, you can cripple the rest of the left by saying they are extremists. If that happened, leftists would spend all their time the way rightists do, groveling whenever the other side calls them extremists.
But the left is winning because it isn't made up of the kind of moral cowards and morons who lead the right.
And the right is losing because it is stupid and cowardly.
If you are going to have any rights, you will have to defend the rights of people you don't approve of. It's risky, it's costly, and it's scary, especially when the other side controls the media and can spin it their own way. But the left did it when the right controlled the media, and the liberals' rights are more than safe today because they did.