Another thing, John. It is facile to assume that being a "leftist" automatically means that one wants to give freedom, equality, and civil rights to all people. There have been some extremely authoritarian and oppressive leftists in the history of the world. Authoritarian and oppressive people are found on both the Left and the Right.

Yes, yes, yawn. Everything is a circle and opposites end up right next to each other. This is really basic stuff, and doesn't, of course, represent anything about what I think, or what I (or anyone else) generally means when they talk about someone being on the political left. But you know that. You always throw out this sort of silly misdirection when you can't think of anything real to say.

If I were putting as much energy into trying to prove that his opinions are "bad" and therefore that HE is "bad"...if I were doing that, which is what you and Don are doing, then I doubt I'd have much attention or energy left to understand his reasoning...

Earth to Little Hawk: I suspect that Ake has some very positive things about him, but on this topic his opinions ARE bad. He wants to deny civil rights to a group of people. By any ethical standard that makes any sense, this is bad. He has, so far, failed to come up with any reasons that stand up to any logical or factual analysis, despite repeated requests that he do so. You saying that I think this means he is bad in general or ALL bad is disingenuous and, dare I say it, an example of lazy thinking.