Misusing terms like that makes it harder to have a meaningful conversation about political beliefs. Someone might say "I'm not conservative, I'm liberal". But t

Misusing terms like that makes it harder to have a meaningful conversation about political beliefs. Someone might say "I'm not conservative, I'm liberal". But that is nonsensical. Liberal and conservative are on different spectrums. It would be like saying "I don't like white things, I like sweet things". The color/light spectrum is different from the taste spectrum, and vanilla ice cream is both white and sweet. Someone can be liberal and conservative. The three political spectrums are: - Progressive <-> Conservative - Liberal <-> Fascist (Authoritarian) - Left-wing <-> Right-wing Progressive is someone who pushes are for change, major change, and rapid change. Conservative is someone who likes things how they are, wants to make changes slowly and carefully. People can be progressive on some topics (like pushing for civil rights), and conservative on others (like being careful about changing fiscal policy). But lots of people will default to one or the other. Liberal is to allow, a true liberal would allow things they disagree with. A fascist (authoritarian) forces everyone to be like them, and passes laws to force everyone to do as they believe. Left-wing and right-wing is less a spectrum and more clustering of ideologies. Left-wing ideologies generally favor the community as a whole over the individual, and support those with less power or who are less well off. That results in things like pro environment, minority rights, and social welfare. Internationally left-wing could include going to war overseas to protect people from oppression and powerful aggressors. Right-wing ideologies tend to favor the individual and those in power, more everyone for themselves. This could mean freedom to make individual choices that hurt the environment, pro big business, lack of social services. In the extreme it can be racism against minorities. Internationally it could result in isolationist policies. I think if people actually understand the terms, and they are well defined, people can thinks about how they as an individual feel. And maybe that can help us break away from the two-party fighting we have now. I think if people actually analyze there beliefs, they may come to better understand themselves, and people can better understand each other. For example I think some people that call themselves "Progressive Liberals" will find out they they are "Progressive Left-wing Fascist", and some people who call themselves "Conservative" will find that they are "Conservative Left-wing Liberals".