Sixty years ago, a Conservative had a white sidewall haircut, a steady job, and expected the world to be better for his children than it was for him. A Liberal had a beard, went to coffee houses to hear (bad) poetry, and wanted steady improvement in government and society. Sort of like Archie Bunker vs Maynard G. Krebbs, except Maynard wouldn't work to improve anything. He just wanted to smoke some wacky weed and watch the wonderful magically blossom all around him. The Conservative was willing to fight to defend The Constitution and The Bill of Rights, even if he had to kill people who believed those documents applied to individual citizens. His worst nightmare was the idea that change is inevitable. These concepts were vaguely tied to Right-wing and Left-wing political beliefs.

Now, I can't understand half of what I read because of references to right-wing, left-leaning, liberals, and conservatives, and they seem to mean whatever the author wants them to mean, until tomorrow, when they will mean something else. If you want to legislate away the Bill of Rights, are you Conservative or Liberal? If you want to pretend Russia might attack at any minute, are you right or left leaning?

I sincerely don't want a political argument, just some kind of sense of what these words mean in 2017. I don't expect any one person to try to define all 4 of these concepts. I don't even expect two people to agree. We might come to the conclusion that these words have been abused so many times that they don't mean anything. Still, I see them in the alleged News every day. Some people apparently believe they mean something.

 

At the end of the day Left wing & Right wing belong to the same bird in politics (atleast here in Australia) both sides are a disaster.

 

I don't know how it is used today but this is what it means to me:

Right wing
Privatization, less government, lower taxation
Free market, free trade, less government regulation
Let the free market and corporation rule
User pay
Decimate labor unions
Rape, plunder and pillage of the environment for profit
Consumerism, shop till we drop
Big oil, big banks, big guns, big agri, big pharma, all too big to fail
The 1%
Capitalism

Left wing
Public (state) ownership
Higher taxes, basic income, minimum wage
Universal health care, child care, education
Strong labor movement
Strong environmental protection
The 99%
Socialism

 

I never thought I'd say the AL Gore joined the right wing .... Trading in carbon footprint units.

 

I don't know how it is used today but this is what it means to me:

Wow! There are a lot of gray areas in there and some seem contradictory to others in the same category.
Probably brought on by my ignorance of some of the words.
I thought I was going to be defined as, "right wing" until I finished reading the list. Then I thought, "right wing" sounds like, "Republican".
(I used to call my wife, "Republican" because she thought "proper financial management" meant carrying all the debt you can service.)
I think I'm not going to fit neatly in either category.

 

You noticed that I stayed away from conservative vs liberal.
Now you've added a third can of worms: Democrat vs Republican.
(They are all worms to me)

 

Consumerism, shop till we drop

Only if you lack the willpower to not shop till you drop.

 

Wow! There are a lot of gray areas in there and some seem contradictory to others in the same category.
Probably brought on by my ignorance of some of the words.
I thought I was going to be defined as, "right wing" until I finished reading the list. Then I thought, "right wing" sounds like, "Republican".
(I used to call my wife, "Republican" because she thought "proper financial management" meant carrying all the debt you can service.)
I think I'm not going to fit neatly in either category.

I think most people are somewhere in the middle.

 

I think I'm not going to fit neatly in either category.

That's my problem too. On both sides they are all for the parts of the Constitution that suit their ideas. The other parts not so much. While the Constitution has served for so long, some of the things in it don't fit today. We are a different country and in a different time, with things going on that the Framers could not see or even imagine in their day.

 

I guess I'm going to have to say, "dumb it down for me".
How about, "Are Republicans one of the first 4 categories I mentioned?" (Right, left, liberal, or conservative)
Are Democrats the other one?
(It's OK if the answers are, "no".)

I have a vague idea of what a democrat and a republican were 40 years ago. Maybe that's a starting point because that's about all I have to work with.

 

I think that's because it is changing. Used to be it would have been the Dems on the side of bringing back coal jobs or auto jobs (pro union). Not so much anymore.
It would have been the R's in favor of free trade - not any more.
Yet at the far ends things are kind of the same. That's why you see the primaries look so different from the general election. You can't win on either side without the winning of the extreams.

 

Bringing the political parties into it confuses things quite a bit. A political party is a business entity, not a philosophy, that is a moving target and can only be defined at a moment in time, and not real well even then. You can find union guys in the rust belt that are firm Democrats, who share next to nothing with the snowflakes in Oregon that protested how other people voted because they couldn't be bothered to vote themselves. But they can both be "customers" of the Democrat party.

If you believe in the sanctity of the individual, his liberty and freedom, you will tend to be a conservative. If you believe in sacrificing the individual to the greater good of "society", you'll tend to be a liberal.

 

Bringing the political parties into it confuses things quite a bit.

Not for me. That was helpful.

If you believe in the sanctity of the individual, his liberty and freedom, you will tend to be a conservative. If you believe in sacrificing the individual to the greater good of "society", you'll tend to be a liberal.

That's one that had me stumped. I thought it was t'other way around.

OMG. I'm a Libertarian.

 

OMG. I'm a Libertarian.

An awful lot of people are, that don't really know it. I was fortunate to meet a Libertarian when I was in high school and didn't even know there was such a thing. An eye-opening moment back when getting information outside of the mainstream was next to impossible.

 

An awful lot of people are, that don't really know it.

This explains why I have had such a problem trying to fit myself in either of the parties that actually wins elections.
Both of them believe things that I despise.

 

I never thought I'd say the AL Gore joined the right wing .... Trading in carbon footprint units.

Only if you lack the willpower to not shop till you drop.

Your posts are too much insider oriented for me to understand.

 

That's one that had me stumped. I thought it was t'other way around.

It's argued that the importance of the individual grew out of the Judeo-Christian theology. It took a while to get to the Magna Carta, and then to John Locke (the "Father of Liberalism") and other philosophers that influenced the founders of our country to conceive a nation of, by and for the people.

It's ironic that breaking the shackles of monarchies and oppressive government was, at the time, considered a liberal idea whereas now, trying to keep those shackles off is called conservatism and liberalism seeks to put them back on.

 

Ima bout to log-off for a while. I think my video card is taking a dump.

 

Not for me. That was helpful.

That's one that had me stumped. I thought it was t'other way around.

Hmm. me to. Maybe that's the problem.

OMG. I'm a Libertarian.

If you don't want to identify with them you can be a moderate.

 

If you don't want to identify with them you can be a moderate.

My friends have called me a Libertarian. I just didn't know where it fit compared to Ds and Rs.
Apparently it's between them.