Why Is the American Far Right More Violent Than the American Far Left?

[DirkGently]

20. Strange date window. Go back to 1995 & you have Oklahoma City

... the largest domestic terror attack in American history -- 168 killed, plus another 680 injured, by a pair Sovereign Citizen-minded rightwingers.

In 1996, another rightwinger set off a bomb at the Atlanta Olympics, killing 1 and injuring 111. The bomber was a religious fundamentalist who also bombed gay clubs and abortion clinics.

So, first of all, it's more like a couple of hundred people, not a few dozen.

Rightwing domestic terrorism has been with us a long time now, and has far outshadowed the spate of leftwing violence emanating from the protest movements of the 1960s.

Why? A fear of the loss of cultural dominance, and a string of huge losses in social policy, dating back to the Civil War, maybe?

Listen to the current crop of We Hate The Government people, and their grievances all revolve around the idea that something has been taken from them; that it's not "their country" any more.

Compounding that now, though, we have a new, deliberate reinterpretation of the Second Amendment, embraced with religious gusto, that says that the Founding Fathers intended people to carry guns around as a hedge against government intrusion, and that you can never be armed enough to be safe.