Difference between left and right?

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Come on guys the OP specifically said that he doesn't wanna hear about which side you think is better.

That would classify you as "left-of-centre". Conservative Democrat is a new one, I've never heard anyone say that lol.

Anyways, Orwell's explanation is the least biased one here but I just wanted to say that all these things both sides are associated with aren't necessarily congruent with the fundamental political views. There's a lot of history and culture mixed into it. You don't have to believe in God or be religious to believe in minimizing the size of the government and putting personal responsibility over social responsibility. The reason conservatives are usually Christian is because historically the US came to be a very Christian nation and Christianity is congruent with an internal locus of control. Although you'll hear a lot of talk about small government from conservatives, the fact that the religious right are usually in favour of the government enforcing their social and moral values is more historical and cultural than fundamentally political.

If you wanna know what it all boils down to without all this cultural and historical stuff in the mix, the right wing has an internal locus of control and the left wing has an external locus of control. This is why the right wing is individualist while the left wing is collectivist. Everything boils down to the locus of control.

There actually is a pretty large caucus of conservative Democrats who call themselves the "Blue Dogs," and they come largely from the tradition of "Dixiecrats" who were conservative Democrats before the most recent political realignments and never switched over to the modern conservative party (GOP). Now, a "conservative Democrat" is usually someone who is economically liberal (eg pro-union, pro-social safety net) but socially conservative (pro-life, anti-gay, pro-military). Depending on which specific stances are actually farther right and which ones are more to the left, "conservative Democrat" could have a misleading connotation. A conservative Democrat would typically be a populist (essentially the opposite of a libertarian) and may have a lot in common with some members of the neo-conservative movement.


Right, there are all sorts of weird historical and cultural reasons for why specific policy positions have grown associated with one side or the other, which is why I tried to break it down somewhat into different categories. On the surface, it seems a bit odd that liberals support more government in economics, but distrust government elsewhere, while the reverse is true for conservatives, but once you consider the broad coalitions that formed behind each party, with each sub-unit of a coalition pushing for a specific issue, it makes a bit more sense.


This is essentially what I meant saying that liberals will assume situational factors predominate, and conservatives assume intrinsic factors dominate. Now, I am not really ready to make the leap to saying that conservatives are individualist while liberals are collectivist- this is true on certain issues, but it does not seem to be true across the board. Libertarians are the one group in American politics that I think can legitimately claim the "individualist" title, and while they often agree with the right on economic issues, they will more commonly agree with the left on social issues.

I don't think it's fair to say that the left values collectivism the same way the right values individualism. The left simply have a slightly broader definition of liberty than the right. The libertarian right values individual freedom over coercion as a kind of axiomatic moral value from which all policy should derive. The left also values individual freedom but also sees things like equality of opportunity, and alleviation of unnecessary deprivation/suffering as additional elements of liberty (which applies to individuals, not just "collectives"). Contrary to what the right will say, progressives do not value social collectivism as an end in-and-of-itself. We only look to collective solutions when it is clear that non-collective measures will not address a problem.

Oh alright so a Conservative Democrat is fiscally conservative and socially liberal. And yes I basically said the same thing you said about internal and external locus of control, so it's not to correct anyone but just a different way of saying it. And yeah I agree libertarians have a more internal locus of control than conservatives since they're for small government socially and fiscally.

I wasn't talking about liberty dude. The left is for social responsibility while the right is for personal responsibility. The left aims to guarantee an equal opportunity and an equal outcome while the right only aims to guarantee an equal opportunity. And keep the bias outta this thread, we can talk about "alleviation of unnecessary deprivation/suffering" in another thread.

LMAO

Dude, TMI.

You can't claim to be unbiased when you miss-represent what progressives believe. We don't believe in equal outcome. We also aren't "collectivists". That's people on the right putting a pejorative on the left.

I didn't say whether collectivism is a good or bad thing, so don't assume I mean it as an insult just cuz others might. That's for the OP to decide, not for me to impose. And no the left doesn't value collectivism per se, but it's congruent with social responsibility and an external locus of control.

And yes a lot of left wing policies aim to not only give equal opportunity, but ensure an equal outcome. Affirmative action is an example of this. No child left behind is another example. Although that's a policy implemented by Bush, neocons are more relaxed about a welfare state than other types of conservatives and it is a socially liberal policy.

I don't purposely misrepresent things, so keep in mind it's not "Either you're individualist or collectivist". It's that you lean more towards collectivism if you're on the left and you lean more towards individualism if you're on the right. Frankly I dunno what the hell Fascism is supposed to be since it seems to be the worst of both worlds, but anarchism is far right for sure.

The left funds all the projects that actually build up infrastructure while the right takes credit for the improvements seen and cutting off funding for maintenance ("cutting spending").

Other way around, actually. Some of them may also call themselves fiscal conservatives, but the main thing is usually that they are Democrats who oppose gay marriage and abortion.


Well, not everyone on the right supports equality of opportunity, and most on the left do not support equality of outcome, so this seems like an incorrect generalization. The difference here is how much each side believes needs to be done to reach a desirable level of equality. Liberals value equality more highly, and so ensuring equal opportunity is a higher priority.

But this can sort of tie in to the internal/external locus of control. A liberal will look at underperforming inner-city students (and their subsequent poor life outcomes) and conclude that disparities in outcome are a result of disparities in opportunity (liberals tend to have more of an assumption that people are actually fundamentally the same) while conservatives are more likely to think there is something wrong with those people, and that is why they can not or do not escape the cycle of poverty. To a conservative, disparate results mean one person failed to make the most of the hand they were dealt, while to a liberal it may just mean they got dealt a crappy hand. Don't confuse that with liberals wanting to enforce equality of outcome- with most liberals, they believe that outcomes will usually end up more or less equal if the opportunities are there, so they see huge differences in outcome as a symptom of inequality of opportunity.


Fascism is considered by all mainstream scholars to be a movement of the right- but remember, it is an exreme fringe belief, analogous to socialism on the left. Fascism ties in a little bit more coherently with the social conservative views and with neoconservative ideals of nationalism and aggressive foreign policy, but you have to take all those right-wing views to an extreme point before you begin to approach fascism. Anarchism is, traditionally, a movement of the left (Communists are one type of anarchist) but the anarcho-capitalists created one right-wing branch of anarchism.

That's true. And in the case of some very ignorant right wingers, they blame liberals for policies created by right wing presidents. I have gotten into arguments with people who unfortunately have been misled into thinking that the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are somehow Obama's doing... All in all the entire system, left & right, is flawed, and would probably disgust George Washington or Thomas Jefferson.

Of which, cutting the spending eventually results in massive failure of the infrastructure...which was seen throughout Bush's tenure but he never was pressed on it because he was spending money like crazy on wars and "keeping the homeland safe"...unless you regularly cross over bridges or live in areas that require upgrades and maintenance for inclimate weather.

The community reinvestment act was created by Liberals, it lead to the Housing Bubble. George W. Bush tried to fix it in 2003. Republicans in the Senate tried to fix it at least 3 times that I can recall and were stonewalled by the Democrats. But in your world Conservatives are to blame for everything and that makes absolutely no sense.

Yes, in part I am going on the stereotypes, the common perceptions, because the political coalitions we know as the Left and the Right are coalitions of interests. Labor unions are a traditional constituency of the Democratic Party, and management has typically gone with the Republicans; this has changed somewhat more recently as some businesses promote more liberal causes while others remain conservative and unions themselves become less and less commonplace. Politicians reach across the aisle by building good will with politicians on the other side but also by exploiting these internal divisions; for example, various churches and evangelical groups came out in favor of Net Neutrality, breaking with their erstwhile conservative allies. Organized labor sometimes breaks from progressives over certain environmental issues.

Unfortunately, by the time someone gets into politics far enough to have a shot at an office the eggs of ideals and principles have usually been pushed out of the nest by the starling of need to win.

Which makes NON stereoptypical categorization of the pols - as opposed to the voter base, which is not directly accessible except in the voting booth where no cvs are attached - rather difficult.