I agree, but I would suggest you use the same logic about labelling anyone in any part of the political spectrum then. Using terms such as "the left" might seem less antagonistic than calling someone a "fascist" yet come across just as harshly when read / heard by someone who hears "the left" preached in the 2 minutes hate of their preferred news source.

Yeah but nobody here said "you can't talk with leftists, they're all extremists and closed-minded."

edit: At least nobody I've seen yet. People are probably gonna say it (this goes for any "it" as conversation length grows), but I'd expect it to be downvoted.

Indeed the assertion can be construed as part of the label itself. What I'm saying is that just because a person uses a label without additional assertions, there are many blanks filled in by the reader / listener based on their own daily inputs.

So regardless of the HN crowd's restraint when using labels, the labels themselves can carry unintended implications.

People have been real happy to say "extreme left and extreme right" and yet mysteriously seem to have no idea who the extreme left actually is.

Fascist is not just "extreme right" it's a specific political ideology or goal. The extreme left is therefore ???

Because while the US certainly has a small following of communists like how every country has a small following of everything, they're certainly not the group which attempted to seize the Capitol building on January 6.