[epicureanideal]

I wonder, why is the focus always on Nazis and not on say, Communists who also have a history of creating violence, death, and destruction? Why do we not equally focus on shutting down voices calling for enforcing absolute economic equality, or dividing people up into classes? Why is free speech less important in only one of these cases?

[learnhistoryyo]

Because there are no modern Nazis, so they're a perfect straw man / boogeyman.

But most Western countries still have actual, real communist parties so you can't paint completely crazy pictures of them, because their members will simply raise their hand and say "no we're not like that at all".

[int_19h]

There are people who literally call themselves Nazis, and parties that literally have "national socialist" in the name.

[jacquesm]

Usually because the participants in these debates are not from countries where communism is right now a major issue. Though if that were the case I'm pretty sure they'd be worried about that too. And the two are not necessarily mutually exclusive either.

[epicureanideal]

There seem to be more people calling themselves communists and supporting communist ideas in the USA, than there are who promote violence toward minorities. And I do mean actual or very-near communists, not people who want a social safety net and health care.

Although of course, attempts are made to associate broader and broader statements with extremism, such that even having an immigration policy at all is interpreted as racism, so the number of supposed racists is dramatically inflated.

If the right similarly broadened it’s interpretation of statements, 80-90% of the country could be claimed to be communists, for supporting the most minimal state assistance of the poor, which almost everyone does support at some level.

[jacquesm]

> There seem to be more people calling themselves communists and supporting communist ideas in the USA, than there are who promote violence toward minorities.

Citation badly needed. Really.