On March 7th, 2008 at 9:50 pm, JohnHolliday said:

The problem with liberals is that they think socialism is on the far left of the political spectrum and Nazism is on the far right, with democracy in the middle.

It’s not what’s left and right, it’s zero government versus total government. Socialism, Nazism, Theocracies, Monarchies, and to a lesser extent, Democracies, are forms of total governmental control.

Liberals just don’t understand. The collective good is enhanced when the individual is free and the economy is not managed. Everyone prospers.

Or, maybe they do know this and just want that iron-fisted governmental control. Hmmmm?

Oh, it looks like I have to fight the same battle here I’ve had to fight elsewhere on the Internet.

The difference between “Rightwing” and “Leftwing” is not “zero government vs. total government”, or “liberty vs. tyranny.” It’s about something alluded to in the terms, “conservative” and “liberal”: What direction do we take? It’s about “tradition vs. innovation,” “nature vs. nurture”, “creation vs. evolution,” “realism vs. idealism.”

The Left looks to make something of people and society they have never been and can never be. The Right looks to uphold what generally is or has been, and possibly make it what it used to be.

The original “Right-Left” distinction, in the French Parliament, involved people who wanted little or no change in government (Right) vs. those who wanted major and quick change (Left). In that case, it was the Right wanting to retain a powerful monarch (strong government) vs. the Left wanting a less-powerful, frankly freer government (weaker government).

John Kennedy made the point that often the extremes look more like each other than they do the center. This is very valid. There are liberal pro-lifers, who extend civil rights protections to “unborn-Americans”, and conservative “anti-war” types who extend nationalism into non-interventionism/isolationism (Ron Paul).

Nazism is Rightwing because it focused on upholding traditional things–national greatness, racial concerns, the family, a certain deific religiosity, militarism, and such. It pictures a world with distinctions. Communism is Leftwing because it ideologically focuses on breaking down each of those. It looks to the “stateless utopia,” a world without distinctions.

Nazism is reactionary, in that the Nazis looked at the liberalization in the German Weimar Republic and the threat from Communism, and responded by going back hard the other way. In doing so, though, they took with them some of the techniques and appearances of the Left–a certain collectivism, a certain populist idealism (every German received a two-week paid vacation). But it applied these things with an ideological eye toward traditional things, like material gain and national greatness for the sake of national greatness. Mussolini started out as a Leftist Socialist, but made his move to the Right based on his nationalism triggering a “reaction” against the (Leftist) Socialists opposing Italian involvement in WW1. He even referred to members of his movement as “soldiers of the Right.” People need to give up freedom not to to equalize all peoples, ways, etc., but rather to exalt their own people, way, etc.

Communism, on the other hand, will use nation-states and military establishments, as well as ideas of nationalism and racial concerns. But it is not for those matters’ own sake, but rather with the eye toward their eventual abolition. They seek to nurture and evolve humanity toward a time when no government or religion will be necessary, when all will fall in line with a “stateless utopia”. People need to give up freedom not to exalt their own people, way, etc., but rather to equalize all peoples, ways, etc.

Hitler and Tojo looked to empires of thousands of years. Communism looks to no empires at all.

Notice I said “Communism,” not “Stalin” or “Mao”. When examining the Right-Left distinction, it is important to remember that it is an issue of the ideology’s aims, not the aims of its professed adherents. That is a weakness of the Left (and liberalism). it professes a wonderful, selfless, no-distinction approach without personal gain, but the natural inclinations of humans get in the way. Stalin sought personal power and some ethnic agendas, and Ho Chi Minh actually had some nationalist desires, and to some degree tried to use Communism/Leftism to accomplish them. Nonetheless, the stated ideology was one which ultimately rejects such things. (This is, in fact, why Communism will never succeed: The human factor gets in the way.)

Think of the difference this way: It’s the difference between National Socialism and International Socialism. Nationalism is simply the upholding of the traditional, natural (and some would say, divinely-intended) familial and cultural distinctions. “Internationalism” is simply, in its ideologically-stated conclusion, the breakdown of those very distinctions.

Ask yourself: When does the Left focus on things like gender, race, religion, national status, etc.? It is ONLY when doing so will break down the “traditional” (at least, in their view, “traditional”) order: Leadership by the male, White, Christian/Judeo-Christian, American/Western types. Please, remember their phrase, “traditionally-oppressed peoples.” Their aim is give those people special consideration to equalize their status vis a vis the (I guess you would call them) “traditionally oppressing people(s).” Instead of giving special advantages to the ones who allegedly have traditionally had them, they give special advantages to the ones who allegedly never had them. The aim is eliminate the distinctions by making them of no impact at any level. Today we call it, Affirmative Action.

Conservatism is actually rather moderate/centrist (though definitely with an eye to the Right) on the universal scale. It doesn’t usually go extreme on matters, and really doesn’t lend itself to much overt activism. It’s hard to get excited about conserving the status quo. One can become defensive against moves to either direction, but it’s difficult to “spread same-o same-o”.

The Left/liberal press calls mainstream Conservatives, the “extreme Right.” BThis is of course in part to brand them as extreme and in the same league with the Nazis in people’s eyes. But there is one element of truth to their statement: It reflects how far to the Left America has slid. When Tammy Bruce can be an openly lesbian pro-choicer and yet be “Rightwing,” things have definitely moved left from the 1950s. In this immediate, current context, the “center” is made up of McCain and Lieberman, and indeed, the “far Right” is the Malkins, Limbaughs, etc.

Of course, many here will argue with me. But be aware, it makes us on the Right look dumb to try to twist the definition used in political science in order to shove people you don’t like into the other side. This is what definitions like the one from the comment I quoted do. They are contrived with a set end-result, and seek a construct by which all they perceive as good is on their end, and all they perceive as bad is on the other.

Both sides do it. Recently I had a young, fairly reasonable but politically still-learning liberal suggest Communism shouldn’t be considered Leftwing, because both it and Nazism call for dictatorship. (And just for the record, that liberal is a soldier in the U.S. Army.) I explained to him just what I just explained to you.

I’m not sure he accepted it either. But in that case and in this case here on this site, I have done what I can.

Really disproves the myth that we are dour, humorless and rigid.

The Right can do satire as good as John Stewart and the Onion!

“We can’t expect the American People to jump from Capitalism to Communism, but we can assist their elected leaders in giving them small doses of Socialism, until they awaken one day to find that they have Communism.” – Nikita Khrushchev

The sad thing is the dems are doing it without any assistance. Socialism is a slippery slope based on compassion for the less fortunate.

At least McCain didn’t show on the list. So he’s not a socialist after all. He only enjoys working with them and attaching his name to their bills.

On March 8th, 2008 at 12:14 am, live to tell said:

He does ???

http://www.rightontheright.com/node/3409

For $19.99 I’ll sell you the Brooklyn Bridge.

http://www.rightontheright.com/node/3409

#5..

it’s a control thing..