Condemn radical hate

This paper’s columnist Bradley R. Gitz and I generally have such disparate opinions and worldview that I never anticipated agreeing with him about anything significant. However, he surprised me on Sept. 4 with his description and analysis of the alt-right neo-Nazis and the alt-left Antifa thugs. He basically concluded, correctly, that it doesn’t much matter whom such radicals hate, and the groups are perhaps more similar than different.

There were many things that happened in Charlottesville that should shock and sadden any American. The most evil was the attack on apparently peaceful anti-Nazi demonstrators, resulting in the death of one young woman and injuries to other demonstrators.

Ranking way up there for me on the shock-and-awe scale was the revelation that there are leftist thugs who call themselves “Antifa” and advocate violence against the right. I thought POTUS was coining a new term and trying to justify the alt-right by claiming there was an equally bad “alt-left.”

One of my go-to retorts when discussing demonstrators was that it was the right wing which espouses violence and shoots its perceived enemies at abortion clinics or Islamic mosques. I thought leftist folks were peaceful and never advocated violence.

How sorry I am to realize that’s not true. How sad I am that some who claim an ideology similar to mine are just as evil as some on the other side.

My thanks to Professor Gitz for his thoughtful analysis. May we all avoid and condemn the radical haters on both ends of the continuum. VICKI FEWELL

Sherwood