This has always been a topic I've harped on quite a bit because so many people who believe in politics are ensnared in dialectical thinking. I have always said that the left-right paradigm is a joke to divide and conquer people while keeping them in the dark as to how the system really works. To me, the left-right paradigm is a joke because there is really no left or right. Regardless of who is in office, government only becomes bigger and more intrusive with time, with more laws, more bureaucracy, more taxes, more surveillance, more police state, more tyranny, etc. Schools teach from a pretty young age that communism/socialism fall at the far left end of the political spectrum, whereas fascism and Nazism are at the far right end. Yet both resulted in the same centralized control, so how can they be that different when both resulted in enslavement and tyranny by the few over the many? It's no different today, because you have two parties that rely on superficial differences to confuse people, when in reality there is no real difference between the two at all, as both are centralizing power to increase the scope of government. So to all you people who believe in politics.... what does right wing mean, and what does left wing mean? How do the Democrats represent the left wing, while the Republicans represent the right wing, when BOTH seek to increase the power of government for the sake of greater control?
It's very easy to conflate the two dominant political parties in the United States with the concept of left and right. There really is a significant difference between left and right in political beliefs though, the fallacy many people succumb to however is that the parties themselves are divided along the same ideological lines. Both the Republican and Democratic parties are much closer to the political center than they are to either extreme, which is why oftentimes there is a significant overlap between their agendas. However what you have seen in recent years has been a substantial rightward shift in the Republican Party. It's very helpful if you think of the variations in political ideology as more of a continuum than as a straight line. Both directions take different approaches to the way they view the world but as you get farther and farther towards the extreme you start to see things overlap again in favor of extreme authoritarianism. This chart is pretty complex but it really does a great job of outlining the subtle yet significant differences between left and right: courtesy: Drexel Univ (please note the left/liberal side is in red and the right/conservative side is in blue for some reason, helps with the 2x2 chart at the bottom) There really is a difference, I know Libertarians and the Ron Paul crowd like to dismiss left versus right as a construction but there is something to it. The political parties are much closer to each other than they want you to believe this is very true. But if you dismiss the entire concept of the political spectrum outright, it's much easier for people on either extreme to portray themselves as being reasonable. I don't expect the chart I just posted to end the conversation, quite the opposite I expect it to spark some discussion. One thing I would note from the above is that conservatism doesn't necessarily mean religion, but in most cases conservative ethical/moral systems are usually derived from an outside force in some way. Conservative views tend to go along the line of the Calvinist religious philosophy which says that humans are inherently evil and require oversight and authority to behave in constructive ways. Liberalism comes from typically more enlightenment philosophy that in many ways says humans are inherently good and will devise social/political structures that benefit the greater good, and often times rejects religion/sectarianism at least as it applies to politics.
Rat We’ve been through this many times, it’s been explained to you by me and others, stop just pushing your ideology and begin wondering if it actually stands up to scrutiny? * But first a bit of background – Rat used to openly be a right wing libertarian but after finding out that he was unable to address the many criticisms of that position be began claiming he was ‘neither of the right nor the left’ but carried on pushing the same right wing libertarian ideas as before – answering every criticism of it with the cry ‘but I am neither of the right nor the left’ without actually addressing them. He still pushes the same old right wing libertarian ideas and is still unable to address the many criticisms but I believe he’s now claiming he isn’t a right wing libertarian because he doesn’t like money or some such. * It is very difficult to talk of left and right in US politics because it is dominated by two right wing parties one centre right the other further to the right. The two parties excluding any other contenders are full of political factions that drift in and out of power and control. For example in the Republican Party the grouping that was in ascendency was the neo-con faction but it fell from grace during Bush(jr)’s second term. In the vacuum there has been a rearrangement within the Party as seen with the shift toward a more right wing and libertarian stance. So you get a situation were left winger voters hold their nose and vote for a right wing leaning Democrat Party not because they support it but because the alternative is worse. * The Nazis were National Socialists, they claimed to be fighting on behalf of the workers and the people. This is one of their slogans “The big-wigs are living high on the hog, the people are wretched." And they preached against a capitalists system that they claimed was corrupt and dominated by a few. Those ideas were later dropped in favour of more anti-communist rhetoric to gain financial backing from capitalists and industrialists. But it was ‘national’ socialism, it wasn’t about everyone but only about the ‘German’ community, it was a racial ideology with inferior and superior races and it is therefore not surprising to find it was also hierarchical with Hitler at the top of the pyramid. It was about power just as Stalin’s ‘communist’ regime was about power. I think to use either authoritarian regime as example of left or right wing political philosophy is a gross misdirection. * As I say misdirection - authoritarian regimes of any hue are likely to want centralized control – but to say that this means all political ideas inevitably want or desire enslavement and tyranny let alone centralized control is rather silly since it is incredibly simplistic. * As to – I’ve started a new thread.
So you can't answer the question? Not surprised. What makes them "right wing" as opposed to left wing?
Rat Oh and exactly what question am I supposed not to have answered? * It is very difficult to talk of left and right in US politics because it is dominated by two right wing parties one centre right the other further to the right. The two parties excluding any other contenders are full of political factions that drift in and out of power and control. Because both have mainly been following right wing neoliberal ideas. Now it is well known that you seem to think anything to the left of your rather extremist right wing libertarian position is basically socialism but as pointed out to you on several occasions that’s a bit irrational.
Rat Try reading this review of Surrender: How the Clinton Administration Completed the Reagan Revolution - in the socialist Monthly Review. http://monthlyreview.org/2001/04/01/neoliberalism-from-reagan-to-clinton I’d also recommend – A brief history of Neoliberalism by David Harvey Globalisation and its discontents by Joseph Stiglitz The conscience of a liberal by Paul Krugman You could also watch Inside Job a documentary film by Charles H. Ferguson * But think about it Clinton let that arch-neoliberal and right wing libertarian Alan Greenspan carry on in his job and Obama has appointed numerous people from Goldman Sachs who were architects of the neoliberal market model.
Rat I’m sure I’m not the only one that’s noticed you are not answering the questions put to you or addressing the criticisms of your ideas. Why do you need to evade all the time?
I don't even know what neoliberalism is other than the usual big government socialism where the economy is managed and manipulated to serve the interests of the people controlling it while screwing everyone else. To me, it is a diversion from the fact that the Federal Reserve is a private institution that prints money out of nothing, while loaning it to the government at interest. Neoliberals all support this. Neoliberalism is contradictory to anyone that is in favor of reducing the size of government. How are people that support neoliberal policies "right wing" as opposed to left wing? To me, neoliberalism is a product of left wing (BIG GOVERNMENT) politics. People like Alan Greenspan are criminals who work for the Federal Reserve system. It's funny because you call people like Ron Paul a neoliberal, when he is opposed to everything neoliberalism stands for. Neoliberalism is a managed economy that requires big government and bureaucracy. That is totally opposite from what people like Ron Paul are talking about. A free market economy that Paul often speaks of is completely at odds with government-managed neoliberalism. Please do a little better at getting your facts straight.
Both parties espouse capitalism, but both encourage monopolies while always driving up costs either through domestic government programs or wars. So both sides are accomplishing what the powers that be want to accomplish and that is to drive America into complete indebtedness. Thomas Jefferson said, "If the America people ever allow private banks to control the issuance of their currencies, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all their prosperity until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered."
The whole world economy is based on debt....... Our indebtedness is the only way the banks/corporations/governments can continue to grow and they have made substantial quarterly growth mandatory.
