Witch hunts are witch hunts, no matter who is in charge or what the reason is. If it's attacking someone with no evidence, if it's destroying lives either reputationally or by literal execution, if it's about vengeance rather than justice, it doesn't matter if it's by a right-wing fascist mob, or a group of liberal feminists who don't realize the mistake they are making.

The modern Me Too movement has devolved into being just like the Salem witch trials, like McCarthyism, like anti-Islamic xenophobia, like the Satanic Panic. Allegations are taken to mean the same as proof, no one waits to hear the other side, they are simply given a social media lynching and declared to be a monster. Shoot first, ask questions later.

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We saw this song and dance before in the '80s. The McMartin Preschool case, and so many other copycat cases like it, acting like every daycare worker was a Satanist pedophile. So many lives ruined, not just the accused, but the children made to accuse, as they were conditioned and brainwashed into believing that these events happened, to have memories implanted in them that feel real. So much devastation in its wake.

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After all, I'm all too aware of the dangers of false accusations and convictions. Sacco and Vanzetti. The Scottsboro Boys. The Exonerated Five. The West Memphis Three. The Norfolk Four. Leonard Peltier. Mumia Abu-Jamal. Kelly Michaels. The Amirault family. I would rather see ten guilty persons go free than one innocent person be imprisoned.

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That is not so different than seeing Communists in every corner of America, of believing that every Muslim or Arab is a terrorist, that every Jew is a Zionist colonialist, that gays will "recruit children," or that every trans person is danger and a threat to "real people." Because it is all born of the same impulses and triggers: hyperemotionalism, acting on impulse, wanting to lash out at someone no matter who, being quick to anger and slow to calm down, unable to admit to a mistake.

The form may be different, but make no mistake. Left-wing witch hunts are just as real as right-wing ones.