On 11/11/2004 8:54 AM, I believe that Net Llama! wrote:
On Thu, 11 Nov 2004, Collins Richey wrote:
On Thu, 11 Nov 2004 12:29:50 +0100, Roger Oberholtzer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
On Thu, 2004-11-11 at 10:41, James McDonald wrote:
What does it mean to be "left wing" or "right wing" has anyone got a non satirical explanation.
Sort of (*):
left-wing = liberal = Democrat/Labour = progressive = 'for the worker'
right-ring = conservative = Republican/Tory = reactionary = 'for the rich guy'
(*) As you can see, this is a very sloppy way to describe things. But I think this is a 'classical' grouping of these terms. Life is not so neat.
I keep hearing these terms and because I am non-political have no idea what they mean?
I suspect many non non-political folk are in the same situation.
It's a little deeper than that. The terms "for the worker" and "for the rich guy" are purely stereotypes. The essential difference is this.
The leftist believes that government should play a big role in our lives - providing benefits and controlling many aspects of our life using any funds that can be ripped off from the rest of us (high taxes). There is a strong preponderence of leftist thinking in large metropolitan areas and in the universities where the proponents believe that they know better than the rest of us by virtue of their great intellect. Many of these same leftists believe in the communist dictum that religion is the opiate of the people and that it should be suppressed wherever you find it. Many of these same leftists believe that patriotism is a relic of the past and that government should be controled by international consortiums (e.g. the UN).
The conservative believes that government should be restricted to the roles designed in the constitution (small government), that the individual is responsible for his own life, and that we know better how to spend our money than the government does (low taxes). There is a strong preponderence of conservative thinking in rural and suburban areas. Many of the most religious people are conservatives, and some of these also have the belief that they know better than the rest of us. Most conservatives are patriots for there country and have no desire to see their country under the control of international consortiums.
Needless to say, there are many gradations of thought in between these two poles. In the US, at least, there has been a gradual shift over the past decades toward conservative thinking and, at the same time, a growth in the more radical fringes of the left and the right.
Collins forget the footnote where he should have stated that he, himself, is a conservative, and hence his few of anyone who is not a conservative is heavily biased, and not quite accurate.
Yet your view of conservatives is not biased? Why didn't you chastize Roger for his biased explanation of left wing and right wing? His was equally, if not more, biased than Collins'.
Cripes, we can't even agree on what left wing and right wing mean...
Tim
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