What exactly does "left" or "right" mean to you?

[St Leo]

Originally posted by skywalker
Where, then, would you place a system that focuses on giving benefits based on merit, but has an equal opportunity to show that merit? Where would you place a system that wants to make everyone better, but doesn't care if they're equal?

The Left, because that system would obviously have a strong public education system.

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Japher
Left=Che
Right=Ned

I would like to expand on this and add

Bottom=Slowwhand

[Buck Birdseed]

Ah. Liberals. Definately on the right I'd say- they dress up inequality in facy words but it all boils down to the same thing.

(BTW isn't it fantastic how the word liberal can mean so different things to different people? I saw a lefty poster recently advertising a talk on "George W Bush's Liberal Crusade". I nearly LOLed.)

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by St Leo
The Left, because that system would obviously have a strong public education system.

So I switch back to being on the Left. Hmm....

[Japher]

Left and Right is not based on gross generalizations such as that... It is based on how personal freedoms should be granted and managed. The left want more government interference/control and the right wants less...

[SKILORD]

Let me take a go at it.

Left: Big government. Believe in creating a nation dependant upon inefficient beaurocrats and limping it's way into a grave.

Radical Parties (Communist, Fascist) take full control of the economic output of the nation.

Milder parties (Republican, Democrat) control the populus in less extreme ways (No Gay-marriage Amendment, and Social Security are both examples)

Known Parties

Democratic
Republican
Socialist
Communist
Fascist
etc.

Right: Supporting private control of decisions rather than state. Small government. Basically the ideals that the American Constitution was founded under.

Known Parties

Libertarian

[Agathon]

Skywalker now has the gayest name on Apolyton. Did you lose a bet, Sky?

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Japher
Left and Right is not based on gross generalizations such as that... It is based on how personal freedoms should be granted and managed. The left want more government interference/control and the right wants less...

Always with the proviso that some of the Right want more governmental control, when it comes to things such as sexuality, and a woman's rights over her own reproductive activity.

It's a truism that sexual conservatism has been as big a feature of some of the Right as it has been of some of the Left- Stalin reversed all the sexually radical initiatives of the early days of the Revolution, and neither Mao's China nor Castro's Cuba had particularly enlightened policies as regards private (or public) expressions of sexuality.

As George Orwell so ably demonstrated in '1984', it is important to authoritarian regimes, of whatever shade of political opinion, to control sex and sexuality- hence the emphasis on producing children in Soviet Russia, and 'Kinder Kuche Kirche' in Nazi Germany.

[Japher]

Always with the proviso that some of the Right want more governmental control, when it comes to things such as sexuality, and a woman's rights over her own reproductive activity.

I think that is a very specific point... Yet, it has always been a religious argument for these thing, and religion is dominate by leftist... IMO, right winged ppl are only religious to appeal to voters.

[Ramo]

I'll say that the left/right divide is ultimately a cultural idea rather than centering on specific issues.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Japher


and religion is dominate by leftist... IMO, right winged ppl are only religious to appeal to voters.

On which planet?

The Vatican teamed up with right wing American Protestants and Islamic states to stymie a plan to promote sex education in Africa.

And please- don't pretend that Saudi Arabia, Iran and the Vatican are left wing.

[Bosh]

edit: ooops wrong thread

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by Agathon
It's simpler. It's a conflict of fundamental values. The stuff about governments and policy are just means to an end. That's why both right and left have endorsed statist solutions at one time or another.

In my view the fundamental value of the left is equality: no person's welfare has more moral significance than anyone else's. The resulting political program emphasizes equalizing outcomes as much as practically possible (exceptions can be made when inequalities will lead to the bottom group being better off than they would have been under absolute equality.

For example, public education is a leftist institution because it attempts to give everyone a good education so that they may fairly compete for the more desired positions in society. In the view of the left this is a just and efficient outcome. Just because it preserves equality of opportunity and efficient because (ideally) nothing gets in the way of talent being recognized.

The fundamental value of the right is inequality - the privileging of the welfare of certain groups over that of others. That's why the right will tend to support anything that preserves power, class and privilege and why it is the preferred ideology of the powerful - in our case that usually means inequality of wealth.

Again education is a good example. The right prefer private education over public because it allows wealthy individuals to give their children a competitive advantage and maintain class inequality (they give other reasons, but this is the real one - which parents who send their kids to private school will admit if pressed).

Not even a passable troll.

[SKILORD]

The right is often religious because religion lends itself quite easily to morality which is required for the smaller role of the state which they espouse.

However when they decide that the ends justify the means and that government force (which they otherwise oppose) should be used to enforce the morality which is to be put into place to avoid the government force, they become left wing.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Agathon
Skywalker now has the gayest name on Apolyton. Did you lose a bet, Sky?

No. I just thought it fit

[joncha]

Left and right have nothing to do with the state. Both sides have their fair share of state-fetishists.

As simply as I can put it: Right is pro-business, Left is pro-worker. If you put the needs of corporations above the needs of workers, you're right-wing. If you attempt to balance them equally, you're a centrist. If you put workers first (to any degree) you're on the left.

Everything else is situational.

jon.

[SKILORD]

I don't think so joncha.

No, not at all. In fact that makes no sense since that is only one issue in a whole sea of issues. We can't effectively base our measure of a political party/candidate on their feelings on a single issue. Another thing, both sides of your political spectrum are statist, neither believes in independent action, neither believes in equality (no, not even the centrists) but both believe in large government to serve their masters.

[joncha]

As I said, that's all situational.

Anarchists are on the left. They don't like states. Fascists are on the right, they love states and state-worship.

In the US, both the Democrats and Republicans are right wing, with the Dems being closer to centre not because of the like to use the state more (which they don't... the military is part of the state), but because they are more likely to favour social programs, which are overwhelmingly more useful to working people than they are to business.

[Kuciwalker]

Left and right are all relative to center... thus democrats are left, because they are left of the center. And the US isn't really right-of-center... people only say that because they compare it to Europe. Look at, say, Iran, and the US looks communist.

[joncha]

Originally posted by Kucinich
Left and right are all relative to center... thus democrats are left, because they are left of the center. And the US isn't really right-of-center... people only say that because they compare it to Europe. Look at, say, Iran, and the US looks communist.

That's just an easy way for the Democrats to appear left-wing (and for the Republicans to get away with calling themselves "moderate"). American politics is right of centre. The Democrats wouldn't be seen as "on the left" if it wasn't. The last time the US had a left-wing party of any size electorally was the Socialist Party in the 1920s. Since then, everything to the left of centre has been branded as communist and (during the Cold War) stomped out of existence.

[Kuciwalker]

Right of WHAT center?

[joncha]

Originally posted by Kucinich
Right of WHAT center?

The centre I mentioned a few posts up....

Left=people before profits
Right=business first
Centre=attempt to balance the two

In everywhere put the good ol' US of A, this is pretty well accepted.

[Kuciwalker]

You cannot define entire parties based on ONE issue.

In everywhere put the good ol' US of A, this is pretty well accepted.

By which you mean... Europe.

If you look at a place like Iran, they'd probably have a significantly different definition of "left" and "right"

[St Leo]

Originally posted by Kucinich
Left and right are all relative to center... thus democrats are left, because they are left of the center. And the US isn't really right-of-center... people only say that because they compare it to Europe. Look at, say, Iran, and the US looks communist.

The choice of comparison may depend on one's idea of progress.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by SKILORD
Let me take a go at it.

Left: Big government. Believe in creating a nation dependant upon inefficient beaurocrats and limping it's way into a grave.

Radical Parties (Communist, Fascist) take full control of the economic output of the nation.

Fascist is left? So much for your definition.

[joncha]

Originally posted by Kucinich


You cannot define entire parties based on ONE issue.

Quote:

In everywhere put the good ol' US of A, this is pretty well accepted.

By which you mean... Europe.

If you look at a place like Iran, they'd probably have a significantly different definition of "left" and "right"

Doubtful. Most of the leftists in Iran were killed, imprisoned or forced abroad. What remains are the extreme right and the moderates, and the moderates don't have an easy time of it.

And its not "one" issue: Supporting the haves ('cuz they create the wealth for the rest of society), right-wing. Supporting the have-nots ('cuz they deserve better and besides, the haves have made a mess of things), left-wing.

Otherwise, you have no basis for comparing parties and politics from country to country...

[SKILORD]

Fascists belive in government control and are therefore leftist regimes.

In practice there's little difference between Fascism and Communism.

[joncha]

Originally posted by SKILORD
Fascists belive in government control and are therefore leftist regimes.

In practice there's little difference between Fascism and Communism.

Tell that to the fascists and the communists.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by SKILORD
Fascists belive in government control and are therefore leftist regimes.

In practice there's little difference between Fascism and Communism.

It looks like you have some rather bad misconceptions.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by SKILORD

In practice there's little difference between Fascism and Communism.

That's obviously why Hitler went out of his way to exterminate "Bolshevism".

Fascism is state corporatism with a dash of racism - at least Classic fascism was like that.

Fascism is a right wing ideology - it celebrates inequality by making the foreigner or Jew the "devil" who is naturally unfit for civilization and to be exterminated.

No one has yet disproved my equality criterion.