Why do Americans consider Canada to be a left wing country?

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I wasn't talking about mandating prayer in school. I was talking about "forbidding" kids from praying. Lets say, during the school break, one student wants to pray, and the teachers stop that student from praying. Well, thats denying freedom, is it not.

Teachers already aren't allowed to prevent kids from praying, so while your point isn't wrong it's also kinda irrelevant. They are forbidden from leading prayer, which is reasonable to ensure that the non-participants don't feel coerced into participating.

So no, not allowing teachers to lead pupils in prayer isn't really denying freedom, or at the very least the freedom it secures is more valuable than the freedom it denies.

I heard some cases where students got in trouble for prayer in school. I even read a case where a student got into trouble for saying "bless you" when the other student sneezed. I know that the "bless you" case is one-off, but the cases with actual prayer are more common.

I don't know whether these teachers were against the law in these cases or if the law allowed it though. It could have been that the law have changed over time, or it could have been that different states have different laws. I would have to look into that.

But, even if you are right and there is no law that forbids kids from praying, that doesn't mean that there are no people on the left who want to impose that law. Just like the fact that there is no law against abortion doesn't change the fact that some people on the right want that law there. In order to compare leftists to rightists on any given issue, we have to look at the kinds of laws they "want" rather than the kinds of laws that are already there. Obviously, on any given issue, they can't both have their way at the same time. So, obviosuly, one of them wants a law thats not there yet. But its still legitimate to look at the laws they "want" in order to see what is left and what is right.

I'm American and I don't consider gun restriction a left wing position. Consistent leftists oppose gun control.

Because they're stupid.

This is primarily addressing the bolded, because this is a gross oversimplification of how things work in the real world. Even if left and right blocs often disagree, it doesn't mean every single position they take will be diametrically opposed. There will always be a set of principles they agree on and a portion of those disagreements will be over interpretation and not just pro/anti.

Addressing your post more broadly; your examples sound like examples of teachers overstepping their authority and potentially opening themselves up to disciplinary actions. This isn't limited to left wing teachers and it's even always motivated by what that person might prefer to be the law given that a portion of teachers accept the general idea that they are to provide moral guidance in a similar way to parents and other authority figures in a child's life. Further, not every case (regardless of motives) of this sort of overstepping gets reported, but in socially conservative areas it almost certainly will reflect the community's standards of political correctness. Every year a few activists draw attention to a few examples (again, regardless of motive or ideology), but I wouldn't count on that sampling being reflective of overall trends.

Americans in general support the idea of some form of gun control, they just disagree on what those limitations should be. Even most of the guanoreich won't try to make a case for RPGs or GPMGs, so clearly they accept a general principle that the state is entitled to even if many of them twist themselves in absurd logical knots to deny it sometimes.

Both left and right wing arguments can be made in either direction because ultimately it's not really an issue that aligns with left or right and is more aligned with how much power the state should have. Considering it's also an issue that could be handled differently in different areas (rural areas really don't need the sort of gun control that places with substantially higher population density might seem to), it's also a matter where folks who support decentralized government might disagree with those who support more centralized power, even if they overall seem to have similar ideals in terms of libertarian vs. authoritarian.

ironically, to these ears - "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" sounds more "left-wing," while "peace and order" sounds more "right-wing."

Oh okay, I see.

Well I wonder where I lie on the spectrum from left to right wing then... I am for things like free healthcare and education we have hear in Canada, that was pointed out as left, before... But I also oppose the lack of freedom of speech we have, and oppose the more extreme gun control we have here, which is considered right. So where would those politics fall in then?

Being left on some issues and right on other issues is considered "centrist" or "independent".

I would disagree. I think globalists are the ones who prioritize peace and order over liberty and happiness -- and globalists are on the left.

Anybody who speaks of “globalists” tends to be “right wing”—and sometimes radically so.

I believe in the concept of separate sovereign nations...but I also believe in cooperation between nations, rather than adversarial relationships.

I’m not a “globalist”—but I’m not an isolationist, either.

(Quoting myself from another thread where the term “globalists” came up: the curly brackets {} denote bits I’ve added that were not in the original post)

NB
above I have used three generic political terms: right, centre and left.
I regard centrism as a political direction all of its own, and not a middle ground between left and right: this is mostly me being a history nerd and seeing these things in light of the birth of modern democracy in Europe through the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars.
In that time there were three primary political factions: in France the Monarchists, the Girondins, and the Jacobins... British equivalents being Tories, Whigs and Radicals.
After an extremist faction of Jacobins called “The Mountain” led by Robespierre seized power in France and instituted the Terror with all the mass guillotinings etc the Jacobin/Radical/Left elements were repressed by armed force for half a century. Power being alternately held by various Monarchist/Tory/Right or Girondist/Whig/Centre factions across the continent.
Much has changed since then, and all modern Conservative, Liberal and Socialist parties blend various elements of the original three factions as they have changed, and continue to change, with the times.
The definition of Conservatives (“the right”) as pro-monarchy and pro-state restrictions of citizens was true of Tories and Monarchists in general in 1790, The definition of Liberals (“the centre”) as anti-monarchical and anti-regulation was true of Whigs and Girondins at that time.
In a modern setting all political groupings are in favour of some forms of state action, and against others; in favour of some individual liberties, and against others; in favour of raising some taxes, and against the existence of other taxes etc,etc across every policy area.
It’s the pattern of these pro’s and anti’s that distinguishes them, rather than any one of them being more or less pro-freedom or pro-equality. All modern parties are in favour of both of these: they just conceptualise & define them differently, and they all propagandise that they are the only ones who are real about it and all the others are fakers.

“Globalism,” and the “New World Order” are terms that extreme right-wing types use to justify their isolationism and their fascistic views.

Their definition is not what Karamazov posted.

^ actually I agree with you pretty much entirely on that one.
Globalism & Globalist are almost always used to push dangerous agendas via conspiracy-theories, although here in Britain you do occasionally get very far-left groups using them (I’m pretty sure the SWP use them in their journal, although I haven’t read a copy of that for almost a decade).

New World Order is exclusively far-right lingo here as in the US.

[Edit to add the bit that should have been the main bit of this post] I was attempting to briefly capture how such groups use these terms: but left out which groups use them and why they do so.[/Edit]

Last edited by Karamazov on 08 May 2020, 7:54 am, edited 1 time in total.

But I always interpreted anti-globalists as left-wing...