Left just as bad as right in terms of discrimination?

[TheSocialistMetalhead]

So, I recently got into an argument with some libertarian or a fairly extreme liberal (in the traditional sense, not the American one) who claimed the way the left looks at the rich and 'demonises' them is just as bad as the way the right and especially the extreme right looks down on people with other cultures or a different ethnic background.

This is a very flawed argument and I pointed out why I thought it was but it got me wondering. How would you guys have responded?

I apologise if the title is somewhat misleading.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

When rich people are being bombed and beaten in the streets and dying because of the police, the healthcare system etc. all being biased against them, then he will have a point.

Honestly, though, I don't think the left is necessarily "better", it's just that, well, there's a war, and the left is on the side of the workers and the oppressed. And that's us, most of us at least.

[Redistribute the Rep]

One is attacking hierarchy, the other is supporting it

[Maraam]

The point is that discrimination isn't just 'being mean to people', and that being mean to people isn't deontologically wrong. When these people (i.e. the bourgeoisie) are actively involved in the oppression of an entire class of people, then active attempts to fight back against them are justified. The problem with capitalism isn't that the bourgeoisie/rich are 'looking down' and demonizing the working class, it's that by virtue of their simple existence they're extracting their surplus labour from them and causing various horrifying things to happen to them. They're just not comparable things, and usually arguments like this come from people who don't even follow them, they're just trying to justify their own biases and oppressive behaviour.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

The fact that one has a natural right to their riches while another has a natural right to their poverty is discrimination itself.

[Brandon's Impotent Rage]

For the record, I do not hate someone simply because they have wealth. Wealth is, sadly, a necessity for survival in Capitalism, and having wealth by itself does not constitute any kind of 'evil' (for lack of a better word).

It's how that wealth is obtained, and how it is used, that I object to.

[Redistribute the Rep]

http://www.revleft.com/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=9474&stc=1&d=1402096113

[exeexe]

When you are exploiting the working class you can decide not to exploit the working class anymore.
When you are black you cant decide to be another color.
When you are an immigrant fleeing from horrible conditions in the homecountry you cant decide that now everything should be fine in the homecountry.
And if you believe being a jew is a racial thing like some people does, then you cant even decide whether to be a jew or not.

If they are nationalist in the sense they think immigrants can be in the country but has to follow the national code then at this point it should not be an option to have conversations with them anymore. They have picked side.

[Ocean Seal]

"bad" is pretty normative, the ruling class and working class are enemies of course the right and the ruling class discriminate against the oppressed, and we aren't 'better' we represent those who they trod over. If that means rising up and protecting our revolution against them.

[Wuggums47]

But the rich are in the wrong. They wouldn't be demonized if they weren't oppressive. What they are saying is sort of like saying putting criminals in prison is anti criminal discrimination.