>In a message dated 3/24/2004 12:41:20 AM Pacific Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: >This may seem uneducated of me - but I here you all saying "i'm right of centre", "he's left", "left winged", "right winged" etc, can someone please explain to me just what these terms mean?
>tia, tan. It's confusing, admittedly. Basically, there are those pro-change and those anti-change. Those on the right, conservatives, as the name implies, usually want to maintain the status quo. Those on the left, or liberals, who now call themselves progressives, usually want change. And when we talk about change we are usually talking about social change. But not always, it may also be changing laws about the environment or other things. A vast oversimplification, naturally. What changes and how quick, that is the matter of debate and the very core of American politics. We are a big country, a huge country, and within the parameters of left and right, progressive and conservative, is a whole range of opinions. One thing Americans do love is debating and arguing politics. The ones that pay any attention at all, that is, as tons of Americans do not vote and tons of Americans (some who vote and some who don't) don't pay much attention to politics at all. But of those of us who do pay some attention, among those, lot of us exercise our right to freedom of speech and get into flame wars as a result. It can be fun. Or it can be aggravating. A lot depends on one's attitude and one's maturity and one's realization that probably debating is no way to change someone else's already-made-up mind. Personally, I find more scary people on the right (Christian conservatives such Pat Robertson and his ilk), than I do on the left (pro-environmentalists/free traders such Ralph Nader and his ilk). But that is me. HTH, Marnie aka Doe (Just adding to the left/right confusion.)
