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I'm not sure that many right-leaning people would agree that "the right was about maintaining power and the left was about making the world a better place". Thi

I'm not sure that many right-leaning people would agree that "the right was about maintaining power and the left was about making the world a better place". This is a perspective I see quite often these days, and I'd like to point out that left and right aren't equal to "good and bad". They're merely different perspectives on the best way to structure society - and the left-right spectrum doesn't even make that much sense in the first place, given that (as you've noticed) most left-leaning people hold as much in contention with marxist-leninists as they do with conservatives. So while I think you're right that left and right shift around, I think that's partly because they're fairly nonsense labels in the first place.

andybak 10y ago
I find nothing to disagree with you on, here. I was careful to speak in the past tense about my own views. I still have an innate affinity with the left in an idealized form, but I understand that there is such a thing as an intellectually valid conservative political philosophy based on something more than self-interest. There are scoundrels and there are the righteous (and many of us are a mix of both). Making the world better for everyone in it is the only political aim I can fully support. If we agree on that we still have a very difficult task converting the aim into concrete policy decisions. Spotting scoundrels is sadly another intractable problem.
- jfnixon 10y ago
  Please define "better for everyone" as I think this is the source of much of the liberal/conservative split.
  - battlebot 10y ago
    I fight the left because of Venezuela, Cuba, and every place else where Marxist ideas have infected the minds of the masses to give assent to dictatorship. To me, the left will never conjure anything other than the ideas of misery, starvation, political violence, and destruction of life on a massive scale. The Soviet Union, the gulags, China, North Korea. Not one single success story.
    - andybak 10y ago
      You have a very narrow view of the left. How about civil rights, votes for women, basic protection from horrific working conditions? How about the fight against absolute monarchy. How about the American Constitution and the Founding Fathers? Where does the term 'left' even come from? Who were Thomas Paine and Jefferson inspired by? The long march towards basic decency in western society has been the task of 'the left' since the Enlightenment and maybe before. EDIT: > The Soviet Union, the gulags, China, North Korea. To anyone on the libertarian left these are all abhorrences. I'm much more of a centrist than most who would identify with the left but - unless you swallow the narrative of state socialism whole, it's hard to include these examples in any authentic history of the left. (not that that stopped a large percentage of leftist thinkers defending them way past the point of decency - to their eternal shame. Read up on the split between Sartre and Camus and the split between Orwell and most of the rest of the British left) EDIT 2 > and every place else where Marxist ideas have infected the minds of the masses to give assent to dictatorship Luckily there's no such thing as right-wing dictatorships, eh?

andybak 10y ago

I find nothing to disagree with you on, here. I was careful to speak in the past tense about my own views. I still have an innate affinity with the left in an idealized form, but I understand that there is such a thing as an intellectually valid conservative political philosophy based on something more than self-interest. There are scoundrels and there are the righteous (and many of us are a mix of both). Making the world better for everyone in it is the only political aim I can fully support. If we agree on that we still have a very difficult task converting the aim into concrete policy decisions. Spotting scoundrels is sadly another intractable problem.

jfnixon 10y ago
Please define "better for everyone" as I think this is the source of much of the liberal/conservative split.
- battlebot 10y ago
  I fight the left because of Venezuela, Cuba, and every place else where Marxist ideas have infected the minds of the masses to give assent to dictatorship. To me, the left will never conjure anything other than the ideas of misery, starvation, political violence, and destruction of life on a massive scale. The Soviet Union, the gulags, China, North Korea. Not one single success story.
  - andybak 10y ago
    You have a very narrow view of the left. How about civil rights, votes for women, basic protection from horrific working conditions? How about the fight against absolute monarchy. How about the American Constitution and the Founding Fathers? Where does the term 'left' even come from? Who were Thomas Paine and Jefferson inspired by? The long march towards basic decency in western society has been the task of 'the left' since the Enlightenment and maybe before. EDIT: > The Soviet Union, the gulags, China, North Korea. To anyone on the libertarian left these are all abhorrences. I'm much more of a centrist than most who would identify with the left but - unless you swallow the narrative of state socialism whole, it's hard to include these examples in any authentic history of the left. (not that that stopped a large percentage of leftist thinkers defending them way past the point of decency - to their eternal shame. Read up on the split between Sartre and Camus and the split between Orwell and most of the rest of the British left) EDIT 2 > and every place else where Marxist ideas have infected the minds of the masses to give assent to dictatorship Luckily there's no such thing as right-wing dictatorships, eh?