The article explores accusations made by the Unionist Government that the Northern Ireland civil rights movement was a front for Republican and Communist subversion. It reveals that Republicans and Communists were centrally involved in the creation of the movement, with the main civil rights organization being the Northern Ireland Civil Rights. George C. Wallace, a presidential candidate and segregationist, denounced the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as a fraud and a communist conspiracy. This led to postwar America’s growing suspicion of government and belief in cover-ups in high places.
The “radical right” believed the civil rights movement to be the US arm of global anti-colonialism. Both movements used loyalty-security programs, investigations, and blacklists to target and punish Communists and their sympathizers in the 1940s and 1950s. Society was known for its opposition to the civil rights movement, its antisemitism, willingness to harass and intimidate political enemies, and for its antisemitism.
Ezra Taft Benson asserted that Martin Luther King was a communist agent, rejecting the movement. In the early 1960s, some conservatives in the USA saw the civil rights movement in a global context. Communists in the US South gradually found themselves involved in the movement, as they supported equal rights for African Americans. Armstrong warned that America was undergoing a Communist infiltration following World War II.
The Communist Party joined with labor and civil rights groups to form the Southern Civil Rights Movement, fighting against racism within the labor movement. As King rose to prominence, he frequently had to defend himself against allegations of being a Communist, though his view that “Communism and Christianity are…
📹 Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson attacked the Civil Rights Movement, “So many freedoms were lost.”
North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, the state’s first Black lieutenant governor and the GOP front-runner for the 2024 …
📹 Political Spectrums Explained — Why is there a left wing and right wing?
Mr. Beat and Mr. Barris explain political spectrums and why the whole left versus right paradigm does more harm than good.
Both sides lump up each other with the extremists, that is why we can’t have proper discussions. Every debate is about beating your opponent rather than finding a common solution. It becomes almost like a rap battle with fans of each side cheering and clapping after their side says something clever. But i guess when there is so much money and corruption involved in politics, it makes it impossible to have a proper debate.
I can’t stand with either because I am always changing my mind due to the new information I learned. I’ll stand with whoever has a better idea of solving problems. For now, I am just going to worry about myself because I can’t trust no one. I can’t trust big government or corporations. Every group has their own special interests. #worryaboutyourself
Mr Beat! I’ve been a big fan and subscriber for about 3 years now. Production quality is booming. I’m so glad to see you’re putting so much effort into the website! Just a side note, my favorite articles have been comparatives, especially the Rwanda Burundi one. I’d love to see more country comparisons. Thanks for all the articles!
Good article, Sir. I call myself an Independent and I’m registered as an Independent to vote. I was raised as a conservative and was a registered Republican for most of my life. I’m 61, now. I read a lot and learned that I was trapped in a political bubble and decided to register as an Independent about 5 years ago. I’ve forced myself to look at things from the other guys point of view and started seeing my views on things change. I’m educating myself on a broader political and social spectrum. perusal your article and another YouTuber’s political educational article from K.B. has helped (IS helping) me grow. I shock myself nowadays because I see myself becoming more Socialist. Yeah, Socialist! With my upbringing, I never thought that this would happen, NEVER! I still have some conservative views, though. I don’t like the term “Centrist” because, as you sort of said here, most of us are all over the the place on the spectrum. As I continue to learn about other topics contained in this subject, my views changes, some. Some of my views have changed widely. My long-time conservative friends say that I’m a radical Liberal now. I just laugh and reply that I’m an ‘independent thinker’ and I refuse to allow myself to be trapped in any political bubble. Thank you, Mr. Beat, for posting this good article on the subject. Side note: I really like what you’re done on the solar front. All the best to you and Mrs. Beat!
There is no such a thing as “the left” and “the right”. Germany has 3 left and 2 (or 3) right-leaning parties. There are many ideas on both sides. And sometimes lables don’t mean anything. Ludwig Erhard was a German Christian Democrat but I’m sure his “Social Market Economy” would be called Socialist by many in the U.S..
There are others problems that I don’t see in the article 1.Volatility of the meaning:if you ask Europeans where is liberalism on the chart they will say on the right but if you ask Americans they will say on the left 2.You ca be a left winger in Saudi Arabia and a die hard right winger in USA at the same tine
What I “love” is that a lot of what makes Democrat and Republican policy wise, (bigger/smaller government, less/more military, higher/lower taxes, social/individual, flexible/non-flexible constitution, etc. respectively) are far from the minds of modern Democrat and Republican and now you’re labeled one side mostly depending on your social political view instead everything together. (Economics, foreign policy, military decisions, AND social political views, etc.) Also, it doesn’t matter what side, pretty much every representative in politics sucks and are only looking out for their own self interests.
I personally like the dichotomy of ‘selectorate theory’ where a position of power or decision-making is based on how much support is needed to enact that power; broad or narrow support, which is respectively about aligning interest with more people or less people. The more people you need, the more your policy needs to satisfy more universal needs; the less people you need, then you need only satisfy those few people and the more you can ignore the rest.
I think an important thing that didn’t get mentioned is, there is a big difference between where peoples’ particular beliefs place them on the spectrum, and that most people have some liberal and some conservative views, AND where a particular form of govt or particular economic system lays on the same spectrum.
The right-left spectrum is relative to the country, period of time and even person – that is why its so good. There is no other term that describes each half of any country’s political spectrum. Liberal-conservative misses out that liberalism is considered conservative in many countries, and conservatism can often be considered centrist. Socialist-capitalist misses out that some countries are various degrees of socialist to begin with, and also lacks any of the other values place on the left-right spectrum. Yes, not everyone fits perfectly on the right or left – but that is why its a “spectrum”.
A major problem with the political axes is that eventually, when add too many, it results in some positions in one axis being implied to be directly connected to another axis even though they aren’t and thus misrepresents them. And if you just simplify it by getting rid of some of the axes, then it becomes inaccurate and difficult for people taking it because it does not take into account many of the nuances people have in their political beliefs. 9Axes and 8Values are great political tests since they separate the axes into different measurements and tell you how much you swing in each axis. They even tell you which political ideologies you most closely identify with.
The paradigm changes by country. In much of Europe I’d be considered a moderate, but here in the US I’m relegated to the far-left. Really, all of us can agree on a lot and we can compromise where we don’t. Everyone should learn as much as they can and challenge their convictions as often as possible, because radicalism and polarization lead to nothing but violence.
“You… with the yellow shirt.” Darn, I’m actually wearing a yellow shirt. Personally, I love 8values and ISideWIth.com. Though, neither are perfect of course. Political charts, in my view, are like maps. Maps are supposed to give you a good representation of the Earth, but can never be perfectly accurate since the Earth is a sphere-like shape. Similarly, political charts may be able to give you a good representation of your political viewpoint, but they can never be perfectly represent what you believe. When I say “Left-Wing” and “Right-Wing,” I usually refer to the definitions which are actually pretty succinctly given by Wikipedia, (opposition to hierarchy and upkeep of social hierarchy respectively), but I can totally see how this is reductive. I think that the way to engage with politics is not to talk solely about ideology, but to put as much if not more emphasis on the actual ideas you hold. Great vid and nice beard!
In politics, the dividing line between Right and Left can be traced back to two obsessions: – the first (the torment of the Right) is a phobia of elements perceived to be incompatible with commonly used models in society – the second (the bane of the Left) is intolerance of models that appear to be imposed by society. In order to capture the meaning of these lines, we need to step back in time and recall the turmoil we experienced early in life as we began the process of blending into society when, as kids, we entered Planet School- or more precisely, Planet Classroom. Right there in the classroom we’ve all had to deal with a “problem kid”: “bad Johnny”- the student with the disrespectful, smug attitude and less than decent grades, the kid in the back that stole your lunch money, the chronic late-comer who seemed to own a single tattered and over-doodled notebook, the bully you best avoided if you didn’t want to find yourself running home bruised and with a ripped school uniform. The hopeless case that once had the nerve to show his privates to the girl in the second row and who always came back from the boys’ room reeking of cigarette smoke. No doubt that “bad Johnny” has raised concerns- more for some than for others- within the classroom/society. However, we can’t forget that other classmate of ours who is at the root of perhaps even more devastating issues- “Peter goody-two-shoes”. He came from a good family, he always sat in the front row, paid attention in class, gave a helping hand to less fortunate people, had good manners, dressed smartly, respected the teachers, sported perfect hairstyles and neatly organized books.
Describe: Left-Wing:freedom,equality,fraternity, rights,progress,reform, Internationalism Right-Wing:authority,hierarchy,order, duty,tradition,reaction,nationalism Far-Right:nazism,fascism ultranationalism,white supremacy Far-Left:communism,socialism, marxism-leninism, marxism-leninism-maoism Others:Center-Right,Center-Left
“We’re all technically ‘left-wing’ here” Yes, anyone who supports liberty, equality, and opposes kings, lords, theocracy and hierarchy, would have been seated on the left. Authoritarianism in this context is a deviation, and represents a change or shift to those who would have been seated of the right. Clearly, this way of understanding ideology and political philosophy is a gross oversimplification. What is unavoidable, some ideologies are irreconcilable and diametrically opposed.
Mr. Beat asks: Is it time to get rid of the terms “left wing” and “right wing?” I agree with Reagan, when he said, “You and I are told increasingly that we have to choose between a left or right, but I would like to suggest that there is no such thing as a left or right. There is only an up or down — up to a man’s age-old dream, the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and order — or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism.” – “A Time for Choosing” Ronald Reagan | October 27, 1964. And I think also that us in America are still having the same essential debate as our Founding Fathers had, and that debate is fundamentally about the primary function and role that government has in our every day life.
Great article. The masses and the media are way too oversimplified in categorizing politics. They amazingly reduce everything to one or the other in a complicated world. There’s a lot of people that align with one or the other in a go team go spirit. It’s not about thoughtful understanding of any given issue, it’s about what team they identify with. Meanwhile the entirety of politics today is way rightward. Centrists are not even minded, they still vote for forever wars, and supporting policies that favor wealth disparity and think they care for the environment but are too worried about corporate profits to make sacrifices that will actually save our environment and resources for our descendants actually liberals are the same. Actual leftists are hard to find.
Better. Political spectrum: Logic of situation – logic of ideology (mercantilism – traditionalism) Progrees – stability Equality – possibility Authoritarianism – Anarchism Democracy – autocracy Direct democracy – meritocracy/elitism/whatever you name it COOL STUFF! FLAVORS: Purism – tolerance to different policies (and it is different from the logic of ideology/circumstance one) Activism/radicalism – how ready to act and possibly sacrifice the people should be (kind of an overlap with the ideology/circumstance logic) Reacrionarism maybe? There also was a very complex one where a position on one scalar changes a the entire meaning/general aspect of a different scalar/the whole spectrum but it was vague and only of a few small ideas so got simplified and morphed to create flavors. It is distinct though. Edit: the logic of ideology/circumstance is techinally between traditional scalar and a flavor
This is very good explained because politics are very complex and you can’t point your finger on it most of the time. I think most people are in the center of it and this is totally normal and its the best way beeing able to discuss about politics. People should evalue both sides and base their political opinions on that because both sides have good and bad values/traditions and arguments. Everything else results in a unnescessary fight which won’t solve the problems but rather create them and keep them existent, at least in my opinion
The problem is we need to class our politicians because it makes it easier to vote for them. If we feel like we are left on the spectrum them we vote for those that we feel are leftist even though they have ideas that are considered rightest. It is hard for people to track all of the politician’s views. We just need to vote for the right person regardless of their party or affiliation.
The most infuriating thing in politics is when people treat “left” as Democrat and “right” as Republican. The casual person who doesn’t know much about politics would take a political compass; land center and think “hey im between democrat and republican” while they are actually left of both of those parties.
I think the whole idea of political spectrum is a ridiculous concept. There is infinite amount of problems and those problems require unique solutions and everyone has their own solutions. I think the whole political spectrum is only and only for teaming up so some people manage to bring people together to use the power of those people for their personal goals.
5:16 what? explain me how anarchists want “more government” and how fascists want “less government” Left: equality Right: hierarchy this is the standard definition, left wing strives to eliminate social hierarchies and institutions it deems coercive or unjust and right wing poses that certain hierarchies are natural and necessary and justifies it on the basis of tradition, natural law, economy, etc. 9:18 political compass is shit, if a fascist did it, they’d probably be considered a centrist
Political discourse these days has devolved from differences of opinion to pure vitriolic hatred of the opposition, to the point that politicians spend little time caring about and working for the people they were elected to supposedly serve. I saw this saying a few years ago and it sums everything up quite succinctly for me. ‘The Left is not right and Right is not wrong.’ Whatever happened to centrist politics?
I literally documented the important takeaways from this article, such as examples of political spectrums and certain time periods that involved important transitions in history regarding political positions, instead of just blatantly perusal it front to back. I find it helpful in my transition towards being an individual who creates rather than consumes. Probably, it can help you become a person who would rather be a producer of something meaningful rather than be a constant consumer… okay bye
Great article displaying the history of the confusing and mostly useless spectrum. Thank you. I am curious as to why, and find it very Interesting how you put authority and hierarchy in the box describing the “right wing” political spectrum and then immediately after that state that the left wing likes bigger government and the right wing wants less government. Seems to me the bigger government would have a hell of a lot more to do with authority and hierarchy, as you stated “top down.” I hold conservative ideals and most of all want more freedoms for people and the government to have less to do with our lives and I think almost every conservative I know feels the same. So I think putting authority and hierarchy as descriptors of right wing is a complete miss-characterization. And again to further that point, if socialist and communists are left wing yet call for the government to enforce those systems…. doesn’t that innately call for some form of authoritarianism? ….which is by nature hierarchical.
Thank you so much. The following confused me so much as left/right to me meant economic policy. I’ve always been so confused when people compare the Nazis with Conservatives. First of all, have you seen Hitler’s social policies? He literally created his party after the Fascists of Italy which was even more socialist than the Nazis.
i think this was one of your poorest vids tbh, and i love your website. This article laid out an incredibly classical liberal economic view of the political spectrum. Your view of the “left” is not at all the actual left wing, rather a modern day bourgeois façade persuading the public that they are acting in the interest of the public.
I have studied Mathematics.On a X-Y graph from the Intersection,ie the centre, you have the right side of the centre,and the left side of the centre.You see this in politics,ie centre right and centre left.In the graph,you have at the Intersection,ie the centre.You have Upper Centre and also Lower Centre.I am sure we have an Upper Centre,and a Lower Centre in politics as well.
I’ve rarely heard my left wing friends talk about “equality”.. They talk more about “equity” and “how the government can fix our problems if they had more of someone else’s money”. It’s interesting how a group who claims to want freedom, thinks that a bigger government will help with that..doesn’t even make logical sense.
The wikipedia definition uses the “those on the right” quote from the French revolution, but those on the right is always the government, in any parliamentary system the government always sits on the right hand side of the house speaker. Right wing is less regulation, left wing is more regulation, far right extremism is anarchy, essentially no government, and very bad. Far left wing extremism is totalitarianism (also known as dictatorial rule, be it a monarchy, socialist dictatorship, or fascist dictatorship) and equally very bad. The trick is finding that right balance of regulation without going too soft or too hard.
I Can see how this is easily overcomplicated. People will elevate topics into the spectrum instead of values and ideals. For many years now, my view is a bit more complex, but it works for me – two axes – one is authoritarian versus libertarian, the other collectivism versus individualism. Now just imagine those axes sit across a dome which reflects how the further you proceed toward the edge, the faster you will become radicalized. Now picture under the dome under each of the four points are springs which represent the values of the individual or group. So under the individualism end, you would have values which represent say the apprehension individualist people have against say collectivism. The value springs provide a reactive effect – particularly from external influences. For example, if you take Weimar germany and the heavy push to collectivism, it railed against the values of many people. Once that pressure was released (brutally in 1933), the dome swung back and went further to the other side of the dome than it might have otherwise. When I picture things this way, you find that the real SOBs in history just use whatever vehicle is available for their ultimate goal of authority – i.e. if the rising power in Russia after the Czars was Authoritarian individualism rather than authoritarian collectivism, then I am sure stalin would probably have been what many would call a fascist. They use the Left Vs Right paradigm to distract from their main ambitions – power. It also gets proven time and time again as powers exert influence on people which often rail against the values the people have.
This watcher is a proud Finnish-born American, but living in lsrael. l rarely term myself “right” or “left,” as in lsrael, “left” has always denoted those who believe in handing over lsraeli land to the Muslims, which l oppose; while today at least, the lsraeli “right” has deteriorated into a gang that hates humanity, and resents the very idea of lsrael being a truly free country. l use the terms “conservative” and “liberal,” which generally confuse lsraelis. l call myself a “conservative”; but clueless Orthodox lsraelis often say that a person like me, who believes in absolute marital freedom and detests the, among the Orthodox at least, prevalent opposition to “miscegenation,” understanding that in a free country, the State, and least of all the religious sects, have no right to dictate to people whom they may marry, cannot be “conservative”; never mind that the whole world, certainly all Americans, would term me “conservative.”
On one side, we’ve got political policy involving absolute control where everyone lives with the same means, on the other we’ve got political policy involving absolute control where everyone lives according to how the leader decides. They’re identical – both have a centralized authority where one authority determines how others live their life. We should have a wing whose radical ideology is absolutely no centralized authority, known as anarchy.
We cannot think about political positions as an exercise In intellectual discussion. Today the issue is the rise and Spector of fascism / authoritarianism. I know both left and right friends who believe in democracy And are willing to fight for its survival so we can continue To openly and freely discuss issues, and not be beholden to despotic leader. That is the reality of todays political spectrum He
To represent a political spectrum I like the political spider diagram the most. Any number of axes can be illustrated in an easy way. Also, it doesn’t focus which side you are on, but rather how important certain views are to you. Also having conflicting views which is part of being human can be visualized. You want a liberal society which operates a restrictive refugee policy but finances an expanded welfare state? Or do you stand for more environmental protection in an open society that enforces the laws? A spider diagram maps this in a simple way and also shows whether in case of doubt you give more weight to one topic or the other.
The problem is that the only way for our 2 party system to change is if the people stood up against it and forced it to change. However, this is highly unlikely as the left and the right have complete control over the flow of information, and the majority of the population choose a side and have no interest in changing the system. The main reason people don’t want to force such a drastic change in the system is because they still are too comfortable with it the way it is. Therefore, it is impossible to be in the middle because there will always be significant peer pressure across the board in all categories from the group majority to choose a side. Although this might be easier to avoid doing when there’s not as much political controversy, when there is more controversy, there is more division and more pressure to choose. Therefore, that makes being independent or anything else impossible in the eyes of the majority and societal pressure will increase along with any continuing political controversy to the point where one will have to choose a side but also maybe even participate in activities they normally otherwise would not, like voting… Politics is simply war by other means. As the stakes increase, so do the consequences and at the end of the day you must chose a side or stay completely silent with your head down and willing to accept whatever the consequences are as a result of the outcome that you did not participate in. So the question is, do you feel lucky, well, do ya.
I agree that where we all stand politically is complicated. The reality is where you stand doesn’t mean you’re going to get what you want out of your political opinions because we generally have only two candidates to vote for… (yes I know there are independents ). So regardless of where we stand we’re simply voting for whichever candidate fits closer to what we’d like from our government.
As someone with some education in political science, here are a couple points that could be added: For a VERY oversompligied basis, just to understand the basic gist of the terms, right wing generally means you tend to prioritize your demographic (religion, occupation, etc, depending on the issue) and believe in personal responsibility, and left wing generally means you don’t tend to prioritize your demographic over others, and you believe in community responsibility. Another point is that these definitions are not concrete across the world. For example, Americans think of Republicans as rignt-wing and Democrats as left-wing. However, this is really only the case in America. Compared to almost anywhere else in the world, Republicans are extreme right and Democrats are center-right. There is no real American left-wing party that has any viability
I am centered that falls slightly to the liberal left. However, I believe that extremes end up in that horse shoe theory. Both extremes are controling in ideas, in stead of finding a balance. Being ethical doesn’t have to be a battle with being empathetic. And that’s why I fall in the middle in politics.
I think the best way to understand ideology is to just ask a party: – how should the future look – how and when are we going to get there – how flexible are different parts of your vision You can’t neatly put that into a graph, at least one of low enough dimension for our human brains to visualize, but I think those questions are what politics are really about.
30 years ago, in Law 12 class, extreme right was anarchy and extreme left was total government control. Everything in between was a degree towards or away from these ideological positions. Also, Nazism was regarded the right of the left wing socialist varieties. The Us was regarded as a center right position, most European countries today Center left. This definition was easy to understand and consistent with contemporary observations
Centrist label to me is more tolerable!!! Even sounds more open to compromise. I have live under both types of government in my country El salvador and honestly both of them have lots of problems and are very corrupt a least in my country, I can only hope that my kid here in the USA have a better experience with his polical choices and government. 🙏🙏🙏
The French National Assembly was originally the Estate General, made up of the Aristocracy, the Church and the Bourgeoisie, who each had the right to veto, but the Aristocracy and the Church always sided together to veto anything the Bourgeoisie put forward as the Aristocracy and the Church were exempt from paying taxes. The Bourgeoisie ended up sitting on the left side of the Assembly and the Aristocracy and Church on the right. So it could be said that the political right are those who hold power and the political Left are those in opposition.
You said that an aspect of the Pournelle chart (which I tend to favor) had as one of its axes “people’s attitudes toward social progress,” but that’s wrong. The two axes are “people’s attitudes toward statism” (that is, government control of human activities), and “people’s attitudes toward rationalism” (that is, the necessity of concrete social planning). The Pournelle Matrix identifies political positions by how they want to make social changes. “Social progress” is not referenced, nor does it need to be universally defined in the Pournelle Matrix. Whatever any group considers “social progress,” the Pournelle Matrix identifies them by how they want to make changes. From that view, it’s interesting which groups become political bedfellows. For instance, even though conservatives always characterized “hippies” as “commie-pinkos,” hippies are actually diametrically opposed to Communists.
Whatever political spectrum, I don’t think people “tend to be in the middle”. I would go so far as to say, the more you have thought about what you believe in, the more you refined your values, the more extreme you become, because you acquire the ability to express and formulate your political thoughts in greater detail, because you realize, through isolated thought or open discussion, what you really believe in. This can be seen as some sort of “political puberty”. People who are “in the middle” are just… well… immature, politically. That doesn’t mean they’re childish (although their political views and their explanations for them often seem like it), they simply haven’t given much thought about it, and probably didn’t need to. This however, is also a big problem when it comes to democracy, as we still let those people vote. Sure, they know how to pay their bills, do their laundry and get to work on time, but we don’t let 13 year olds drive 40 ton semi trucks!
This is a great summary of left vs right politics but that doesn’t begin to explain why we have left wing and right wing parties in the US. Everyone used to be basically centrist and they would choose to vote for the party that best fit their views. Now we have mastered the art of crowd psychology and mass manipulation so that it operates backwards. Now people fit their views to match their party instead of the other way around. We have to start talking about this openly or nothing will change.
Thanks for the article. Allowing individuals and groups to create new definitions of existing words causes some of the confusion. This is evident in your Left-Centrism-Right slide. Specifically, how can you say the Left is for Equality (Egalitarianism), when that phrase includes equal opportunity – a consummate Right position, while the Left is for Equity – everyone gets the same amount of stuff (outcome) irrespective of their time and effort. Similarly, how can the Left be for Liberty and the Right for Authority, when the Left wants to limit the type of car you can drive, what appliances and light bulbs you can buy (in the name of environmentalism), and what schools you can send your kids to, while the Right wants the Liberty to buy what you want and to raise your kids the way you believe is morally correct. It feels like definitions of words are changed to satisfy a group’s political or social agenda. When President Clinton was questioned on his conduct with Monica Lewinski he responded, “It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is”. The meaning of the word “is” has always been clear, at least until Clinton tried to excuse his conduct. It’s only gotten worse since then.
If you ask me, party barriers need to be dissolved. We have spent too long fighting on a “us against them” type of mentality, to divide people into sides is to end diplomacy and rationality. We need to focus on what we all agree on, how we do it is negotiable but we need to figure out how to agree instead of slamming each others beliefs and picking the lesser of two evils. We must redesign to make it so that those most worthy of power should receive it, often those who don’t want to lead should and those who do, shouldn’t.
I agree with some of the comments below & the article as neither party seems to be one most Americans would 100% agree with. I look at each party & its so sad that each has allowed extremists to take over and represent them . Most of us are waiting for those voted in to be brave enough to stop all the fighting and insanity & actually accomplish bipartisan progress moving us forward instead of being the example of “what not to do”.
“Those on the left tend to want MORE government involvement to make society better. They want it more top down, while those on the right tend to want LESS government involvement to make society better. ” It depends on the context. Anarchists are on the far left, and they want no State authority at all. Far right, historically, can favour a very strong authoritarian government (1970s Korea and Taiwan, modern China) or a weak government (modern fascist libertarian in today’s USA). The strong State/weak State is not inherently Left or Right. Equality VS inequality is inherently a LEft/Right thing. There is a podcast called “What is Politics” with an episode called “The Left-Right Political Spectrum is about Class Conflict ” that explains it better than me
I think it’s often ignored how context dependent politics is. For example, I’m an anarchist; I think all forms of authority and submission to authority are inherently evil, except for in the bedroom. Unfortunately, I don’t think a successful anarchist revolution will be possible for a while in places where there is a powerful but “friendly” and democratic state (like in much of Europe). So that’s when I tend to agree more with the radical centrists in terms of the policies I think are feasible. But on the other hand we have corrupt, dysfunctional, and oppressive states, where I think an anarchist revolution is possible (such as with the Zapatistas and the Mexican government). Whatever the case, an anarchist society is the end goal, but what I think should happen in the meantime is completely dependent on the country.
A central point is missing: It was not by random choice, that the royalists sat on the right and the republicans on the left. The right side of a host was always the place of honour at a dinner or wedding and so at the assemblies of medieval empires. Just because the king was supposedly right-handed, like most people, he put his dearest adviser or bishop on his right, to be closer to him, pat his shoulder etc. Thats why the place on the right became the natural place for the most loyal and respected guests… Actually, “right” is in many languages equivalent with – “right”. Right?😂