Whose Side are you on? Part 2: Faux Moderates

Often I come across a comment on a social media platform in which it is stated something along the lines of: 'the left are as bad as the right.' Here, what is being asserted is a view that people on the left are just as aggressive and violent as the alt-right and just as extreme.

The authors of such comments therefore position themselves as centrists: as moderate thinkers with sensible, grounded views. However look into their views a little deeper and you and you will almost certainly find deep-seated conservative views and the advocating of hard-right politics: their view is entirely a pro-corporate view (which I describe a little bit here).

There are often two logical flaws in their thinking: they condemn everyone on the left for the actions of a single person or a minority (notice they themselves distinguish themselves from the crimes of the extreme right); and they also assess the situation at hand as if both sides are equal, which they very rarely are.

This is the main problem: they see the left and the right as being on equal footing. They see the minority of left wing voices as having equal footing to the mass of views from the corporate media and they see themselves in the middle as a voice of reason, weighing up the arguments fairly. The authors of these comments are often firmly on the right but do not know it. They might see themselves as centrist but they wholeheartedly put their trust in the corporate media, believing the lies and believing the pro-corporate propaganda. They look for ways to criticise the left merely to uphold corporate hegemony, to maintain a world of inequality and privilege for the few.

As far as I can see, the only difference between the far right and the so-called moderate right is the racial hatred. The far right will advocate the attacking of people they hate while the more moderate right will vote for policies that will allow those people to die anyway, from poverty or a lack of social care, in a country that does not care for them. Apart from that, they all advocate the same bullshit: the oppression of women, oppression of minorities, oppression of the poor, etc.

Often it is asserted that the 'liberal' left are fascist because they argue a point or want a person's voice to be censored, but as this article points out, freedom of speech does not mean any private institution, person or company is obliged to provide a platform for speech they do not agree with. In fact, being forced to do so would itself be a violation of free speech (or at least free expression).

The reason the left get so passionate about hate speech (apart from it being wrong) is because the left has a diminish voice in our largely pro-corporate world. The vast majority of views broadcast are of the right and are in favour of the wealthy and the powerful. They are pro-war and pro-corporate.

It is often frustrating to the left to read or hear the comments of some right wing dupe who is not even aware their opinions are not their own. This is why the left get angry and even insulting and it is this reaction which right wing people often use to label the entire left as rabid extremist thugs – asserting everyone on the left is guilty by association.

This is how the centrist arguments work. And at the heart of this argument is a view to uphold the status quo and to uphold corporate hegemony, because those who use arguments like these are nearly always Tory voters, Trump supporters or just general right wing shits. Because users of these arguments always fail to criticise the excessive wealth, excessive profiteering, the execution of war for profit and our lack of democracy, instead aiming their criticism exclusively on a few left wing upstarts.