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

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Far & hard left factions tend to be against the “capitalist world market”*, but in favour of finding different forms of international co-operation. Also tend to see various international forums as veiled forms of American imperialism.
Far & hard right factions tend to dislike the same things, but claim that they’re secretive fronts for far-left tyranny that’s going to be imposed any day now.

Would you like your conspiracy theory seasoned with salt or pepper today Madame?
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*Marx’s phrase.

Canada has government run medicine. Ergo a big part of the economy is run by the govt. Ergo Canada is more socialistic than the US. And socialism is left.

Other issues too, but medicine is the main one.

To put it another way: what constitutes conservative and liberal varies from country to country, and era to era. But we Americans traditionally have one major party that is slightly right of center (GOP)and one that is slightly left of center (Dems). But if you judge Canada by American standards (ie make believe that Canada is an American state) then Canada would be run along lines that are far to the left of the Democrat party. Far more socialistic than LBJ or FDR or Obama or any Democrat who actually got into the White House would do things even if unfettered by congress. Only recently has a wing of the Dems opened up (AOC, Bernie) that propose things that would be considered normal and middle of the road in Canada but are so far left even by American Democrat standards that they are considered "socialist" and radicals. Ergo middle of the road in Canada is more socialistic than the more socialistic of the two major American parties. Ergo Canada (by American notions of what is left and right) would be far left. Ergo Americans you encounter on the Web are correct in classifying Canada as far left by their own American standards of what that means.

Just a linguistic curiosity, then:
Globalists are left-wing but anti-globalists are even more left-wing

Well... as I attempted to allude to, and Kraftie pointed out: there is no such thing as “globalism” or any such people as “globalists”. They’re agit-prop terms used by various extremist groups (right wing in the US, from what you say left wing in Poland and both right and left wing in the UK) to further their conspiratorial narratives by pretending that all the public, private and charitable factions of opinion, interest and conviction involved in the process of attempting to maximise the ambit of prosperity, freedom and the rule of law are secretly involved in some kind of duplicitous scam to impose a totalitarian global government.

You don't have to believe in conspiracy theories in order to believe in globalization. Here are the facts, neither of which are conspiracy theories:

Fact 1: There has always been some level of cooperation between countries.

Fact 2: The level of cooperation between countries is different at different times.

The logical consequence of "fact 2" is that, at a given time, the level of cooperation can either increase or decrease. If it happens to increase, it is called globalization.

Another logical consequence of "fact 2". Some people want more cooperation other people want less. So put their preferences on a bell curve. Take the people at the end of bell curve that want more cooperation, call them globalists.

Well I guess they usually modify that term and apply it to people in power. But still. Look at people in power and put them on a bell curve and do the same thing.

Now here is a statement that is no longer a definition, but you will still "probably" agree with it. After 911 people want more cooperation than before. The kind of surveilence measures they were proposing on response to 911 are the kind they would have regarded as unthinkable before, and these measures often push things in globalization direction.

But here is where a conspiracy theory starts. Some conspiracy theorists claim that 911 was in some way orchestrated by US government in order to justify their "response" to it. But you don't have to believe in this conspiracy theory in order to still say that their response is excessive and call the people in favor of it "globalists". It's true that people who do believe in that conspiracy theory use the term globalist, but then don't have to monopolize that term.

And that was just one example of it. There are many conspiracy theories and most of them use the term "globalist". But they don't have to monopolize the term. I, personally, think most conspiracy theories are wrong yet I also think globalists are a danger.

And, last but not least, as you saw in contrast between 1 and 2, there are many "levels" of cooperation. So I never said I was against "all" cooperation. Some cooperation is good. What I am against is the way it increases which means that in the future it can get to unthinkable proportions. Now, "unthinkable proportions" bit is where conspiracy theories would come. But I don't have to believe in conspiracy theories in order to worry about it. One doesn't have to believe in conspiracy theory of 911 in order to say that the world after 911 is very different than before.

Let's put it this way. I don't believe in 911 conspiracy theory. I believe in conventional narrative. However, I feel like everything changed for the worse after 911 so I want to go back to where we were before 911. Before 911 there was still some cooperation between countries, so this means that I feel that some cooperation is good. But, at the same time, there was less cooperation than now. So that makes me anti-globalist. Not in a sense that I want to destroy all cooperation but in a sense that I want to decrease it.

I guess going back to pre-911 is a bit of an understatement, since I also wish there was no NATO and UN. But how about going to before world war 2. Back then there was no NATO and UN either, yet we still had other forms of cooperation, the good ones.

But I guess going to pre-1939 is a bit too much to ask. But if we could go back to the 90s (and still have NATO and UN) I would be happy if I was promised we would stay there. The main reason that I don't like NATO and UN is that they get more and more controlling as time goes. And you don't have to believe in conspiracy theories to say this. Conspiracy theories are wild speculations as to "how" it happens. But what I am doing is acknowledging "what" is happening. The scary part is "what", not "how".

Last edited by QFT on 08 May 2020, 11:34 am, edited 1 time in total.

That's not true. Conservatives are in favor of free market which means capitalism as opposed to monarchy. Also like I pointed our in my other replies, in some areas left wants less government while in other areas right wants less government, yet monarchy implies more government all across the board.

Maybe what you are alluding to is that terms changed. I heard that what they used to call liberals in the past is what they call libertarians nowdays. So since libertarians want less government, that means that -- I'm the past -- liberals wanted more government. But in order not to be misled by it, just think of other words that changed their meaning. Like the word "gay" in the past used to mean "happy" while today it means "homosexual". So maybe the meaning of the words "liberal" and "conservative" also changed in huge way.

I explicitly stated that the meaning and usage of the terms, and the policies of groups associated with them have changed since then, and continue to do so: I was attempting to explain why you have pro-monarchy and pro-established churches in the definition.
Incidentally, the UK conservatives are both pro-market and pro-monarchy... the market position won out in the C19th, became tradition and the monarchy endured the changes.

Liberals started out getting rid of ancient medieval restrictions on trade and industry, then gradually switched to wanting new, different regulations when the result wasn’t what they expected.

Socialism arose out of despair of modern market systems ever fulfilling the promises that their original advocates (liberals of the C17th) made.

A lot of pro-market liberals joined conservative parties to build a bigger coalition against socialism, which is how pro-market values became part of conservatism.

Monarchism and Establishmentarianism were never parts of American conservatism, because America as a sovereign state has never had either: this is a factor which makes American conservatism distinct from European conservatism.

Oh okay, it's just that when I read what left wing is, the definitions that come up are that left is about freedom and equality, where as socialism, seems more right wing to me, because socialism, is about government having more control and more restrictions. I just don't see socialism, fitting the left wing's idea of freedom.

By the same logic Canadians (and most international standards) consider many Americans slightly radical. There isn't much middle ground or cooperation between the parties. A lot of us and them, rather than we. And it's encouraged for some reason.

Oh okay well by radical, do you mean more left, or would that be more right?

Like I said before, I don't think left is about freedom and equality. I think it is about freedom in "some" areas and more restrictions in "other" areas. The reason the leftists "say" they are in favor of more freedom is that they "rationalize" the areas where they are in favor of less freedom. Basically they say that they are pro-gay so they support freedom, but the fact that they want more gun restrictions doesn't count since its just about safety. Similarly, the right wing would say that they don't want to have gun restrictions so they support freedom, while the fact that they oppose homosexuality doesn't count since its just them upholding basic moral principles. So people on the left say left wants more freedom while people on the right say right wants more freedom.

I agree with you, however, that left shouldn't be equated with socialism. The "kind" of freedom left promotes includes homosexuality, and Soviet Union opposed it. The way I would describe Soviet Union is that they are on the left when it comes to guns (they oppose guns, just like people on the left do) and they are on the right when it comes to homosexuality (they oppose homosexuality, just like people on the right do). So they are neither left nor right. Canada, however, is on the left since Canada supports homosexuality. So I would group Canada together with American left, and I would put Soviet socialists in a totally different category.

In this particular case, she meant right. Since Canada is to the left of US, then US is to the right of Canada. So the way Canadians regard Americans is radical right, just like the way Americans regard Canadians is radical left.

In general, the word radical can be used for both left and right though.

You kinda lost me here.

A "radical" is an extremist. Usually the word is applied to leftwing, Marxist influenced, extremist, but the word is applied to both ends of the spectrum. There are libertarian extremists, and alt right etc. So if the extremist of which you speak is a KuKluxKlanner, say, then you have to specify by saying "right wing extremist" so folks don't think that the guy is A Commie Pinko. But radical can be an extremist of any ideology. The word comes from mathematics. The square root symbol:that wiggly symbol you put over the number 36 before you write " equals six", is called the "radical" symbol because it means that you are going for the "root" of the number. A political "radical" wants to change something fundamental about the "root" of society. To uproot stuff.

I don't know how Americans are more radical than before. Maybe you mean "Americans are more contentious" than before, and more contentious than Canadians are. We certainly have become more that way in recent years, and we may well be becoming more that way than folks in other countries. And we are more polarized, or seem to be more, polarized in recent years than before ( ie going to the extremes, and less cooperation between parties and creeds than before). I sorta thought that that was a thing in Europe too (more Xenophobia, more nationalism, and more pushback against xenophobia and against nationalism). Though Canadians don't seem to be any more polarized than they ever were.

Americans likely consider almost all countries in the developed world left wing in comparison with America which is as a whole more conservative than the western world as a whole.

The term "radical" means "very far away from the norm". Now the question is, what do you regard the norm to be? So Canada is far away from American norm -- thats why Canada is radical from American point of view. At the same time, America is far away from Canadian norm, thats why America is radical from Canadian point of view.

Oh okay, well I've always thought of the US as more left than Canada, because they seem to have more freedoms, like less gun control, and more freedom of speech, and the left is about freedom, or so they say. So I thought that therefore, the US was more left than Canada.