Friday, November 16, 2018

Understanding Left and Right

We will never be able to solve our problems in America until the Left and the Right understand each other, accept those differences and work to find solutions. This is more productive than trying to change each other - or worse - demonize each other.

Here is a basic primer of the differences.

The Left

  • Rights are man-made
  • Morality is subjective
  • Look to the future for guidance
  • Past and present evil 
  • Must move toward utopian future
  • Man is inherently good, social constructs are bad and must be changed
  • Individuals are the center of society
  • The collective is the source of education
  • Equality means all should be the same.
  • The government should erradicate society's inequities
  • Centralized power is progress
  • Knowledge and wisdom are based on theory (and "scientific" studies)
  • American founders were evil hypocrites
  • US Constitution is out-dated and irrelevant
  • US Constitution should be changed through activist judges
The Right

  • Rights are God-given
  • Morality is objective
  • Look to the past for guidance
  • The past was good 
  • Must avoid dystopian future
  • Man is inherently bad, must be checked by laws and religion
  • Family is the central unit of society
  • Parents are the source of education
  • Equality means equal under the law
  • Religion and charities should ease society's inequities
  • Centralized power must be checked
  • Knowledge and wisdom are based on experience (and historical studies)
  • American founders were good men
  • US Constitution was inspired and must  be restored
  • US Constitution should only be changed through the amendment process

I love how Paul Jossey frames the right in his Federalist article:

The right consists of free-market capitalists, who think the individual is the primary political unit, believes in property rights, and are generally distrustful of government by unaccountable agencies and government solutions to social problems. They view family and civil institutions, such as church, as needed checks on state power. 
These people don’t think government should force a business to provide employee birth control or think law should coerce bakers to make cakes against their conscience. They think the solution to bad speech is more speech, and the solution to gun violence is more guns. 

In the graph below, the reason why the Libertarian groups are further right than the Republican groups are because they advocate total freedom, including moral freedom. They advocate the legalization of drugs, prostitution and other social issues. Republican groups agree on fiscal freedom but draw the line at legalizing immoral practices.

Who is right?

Libertarians have solid arguments but we are seeing the results of this failed experiment in the states that legalized marijuana lately. Rather than legalizing it for pharmaceutical research, so they can develop controlled doses for the various illnesses, it is legal for anyone and everyone to self medicate. Of course, people with no medical problems are eager to get there hands on it for recreation. And they easily do. We are already seeing an increase in DUIs and lowered productivity. Not to mention people moving out of those states to find a more moral state to live in.

I think it is because the majority of the Republican groups are God fearing people. They try to live a higher law of morality. These people don't need laws because their faith enforces those "laws" through a desire to fit in and do what is right. But they take umbrage over people flaunting these laws of God. They can see that the more people shun these laws the weaker our society becomes. So, naturally they will side with laws that curtail that.

The Libertarian groups are a strange hybrid of the left (morally) and the right (fiscally). However, they fall on the side of Liberty more strongly than Tyranny so they are definitely considered right wing however wrong their ideas are. The classic example of too much of a good thing no longer being a good thing. We need some laws and some order to really enjoy freedom. Total freedom would be chaos.


Nazis on the left? That is an idea that is steadily gaining momentum. Dinesh D'Souza has rightly exposed the Left's rewriting of history in order to smear the right with Nazism when it was originally a Marxist ideology in his book, The Big Lie: Exposing the Nazi Roots of the American Left

Paul Jossey also pointed out that "We can find clues to Hitler’s practical stance on economic questions from the writings of his confidant, Otto Wagener. In texts only translated in the 1980s, Wagener explains that Hitler saw the Russian experiment as right in spirit and wrong in execution. Removing production from the industrial class had spewed unnecessary blood. Industrialists could be controlled and used without slowing the economy or impeding social progress. His task was to convert socialists without killing the entrepreneur and managerial classes."

What about the Alt-Right?

The American Alt-Right might as well be a left wing hate group, because they espouse views more commonly held by left wing political groups. Maybe, that is what the "alt" means. Not right. Or opposite of right. Look at Michael Knowles' explanation in his video, "What Is the Alt-Right?"  Or Dinesh D'Souza's interview of Richard Spencer, the head of the "alt-right" movement.


Note that Spencer doesn't believe in God given rights and that we get rights by being part of the community. That is the Left's viewpoint. And he likes Andrew Jackson over Ronald Reagan? Wow! That is a dead giveaway to his basic ideals. Yeah, pick the president who founded the Democratic party and was for slavery and Indian removal.

It is almost like the alt-right is really just trying to resurrect the original Democratic Party complete with their Klu Klux Klan. It's the party that more closely resembles every form of tyranny from the beginning of time. The people who are comfortable in the Democrat Party today would be in favor of monarchy, oligarchy, communism, fascism and Nazism in previous eras. It's obvious they fall for governments that wield absolute power and demand that citizens be a contributing part of the government's vision of how we should think and act.

I also leave out the traditional notion of Anarchy on the right. Anarchy in it's purest, theoretical form would mean complete Liberty, or no government. But the term Anarchy today is more of a method rather than a state of things. Anarchy is used by all radical groups to destroy the current state of affairs in order to implement their desired form of government or culture. So Anarchy no longer means "no government" but rather chaos and destruction.


Many people would put Anarchy on the far right or replace the word "liberty" in my image above with anarchy. But I disagree. Anarchy is immoral or amoral and sits outside the line because it is more of a phony tactic and can be used by anyone to disrupt society. Even on the far right, near the liberty end, there are still laws. It is the law that ensures liberty for all. Anarchy violently removes liberty for all. If people were naturally good, then we would have no need for society and laws. People would govern themselves and always do the right thing, but they don't. So we need laws.

There are two mistakes when applying the terms Right and Left, as well as, Liberal and Conservative. And those are 1) thinking the meaning has remained constant through the centuries and 2) lumping the American experience with the European one.


In order to understand this, you need to understand the concept of the "Long Nineteenth Century." Wikipedia says, "The long nineteenth century is a term for the 125-year period comprising the years 1789 through 1914. It was coined by Russian writer Ilya Ehrenburg and British Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm. The term refers to the notion that the period reflects a progression of ideas which are characteristic to an understanding of the 19th century in Europe."

This period saw the decline of monarchy and the rise of republicanism and socialism. The "conservatives" during this period where pro-monarchy so they can not be compared to conservatives of today, who revere the radical-for-their-time founding fathers. By the end of the long century, there were no more "conservatives" of this type. All were enamored by political Darwinism and Marxism. So most politically-minded people were part of one or another warring faction of socialism. 


In America, this included the Progressive Republicans and various avowed Socialists. The latter were aligned with French Socialism or Soviet Marxism. 

The Democratic Party were the most conservative. Using the definition of "conservative" being someone who resists change. The Democrats of the early 20th century wanted to preserve the Jim Crow laws and segregation. They believed in social Darwinism but did not trust in a natural social evolution. Instead, they actively fought to make whites superior and blacks inferior. 

This was driven part by their jealousy of the progress of American blacks. In only one generation from the end of slavery, and in spite of being segregated, the black communities had achieved a remarkable level of success and wealth. They were faithful church goers and enjoyed nuclear families.  There were many strong male role models ranging from ordinary fathers to capable political leaders, doctors, lawyers, merchants, and entrepeneurs. The black community's wealth was growing by leaps and bounds. 


[Side note: my grandfather was a traveling mens clothing salesman. He noticed that blacks were coming into wealth but could not put that money into better homes in better neighborhoods because of segregation. So they developed a habit of spending money on clothes and cars. One extreme example of this was when he showed his fabric swatches to a black gentleman who was not impressed by his array of low to high quality fabrics. My grandfather realized that he was fixated on the price rather than the quality of his fabrics. So he told the gentleman that his best samples were in the car. He went to the car, rearranged his best fabric samples, then returned and doubled their prices. The man was happy and chose one for a suit.]


Southern white Democrats wanted to end that prosperity. So, back to reason number one. You can't lump today's conservatives with the conservatives of the early 1900s. They are entirely different people with different worldviews, in spite of today's conservatives being demonized and accused falsely as racists. Conservatives today agree with the Martin Luther King, Jr. and his comment, "I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."

And for reason number two. You can not compare today's conservatives with the conservatives of Europe. The politics of Europe has been based on dying monarchies and the rise of socialism and republicanism. The Left and Right of the National Assembly in Revolutionary France are not remotely like the left and right in America today. Even today, the left and right in Europe don't share everything with the left and right in America.






Further reading: