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I can understand Germany's aversion to anything "right-wing", but since they have even more recently dealt with the extreme left of Communism, I'm curious as to

by hvs 15y ago

I can understand Germany's aversion to anything "right-wing", but since they have even more recently dealt with the extreme left of Communism, I'm curious as to how you label your more centrist parties. You are correct that right-wing generally means "conservative" in the U.S., but it can also just mean "fiscally conservative" since libertarians in the U.S. are often painted as "right-wing" even though they are socially-liberal/fiscally-conservative. For the most part, though, right-wing means fiscally and socially conservative.

eru 15y ago
In the German political system the liberal party is the right-most party. But that's because we use the original meaning of liberal. The other parties are social democrats, and christ democrats, greens, and there's the party democratic socialists on the left fringe. In practice, everybody's a social democrat in Germany to one degree or another.
- hvs 15y ago
  I guess that you are raising another important point that "liberal" means different things in Europe and the U.S. "Liberal," in the classical meaning of the term, would most appropriately be applied to libertarians and to the social policies of American liberals. "Liberal" in the U.S. is generally "hands-off" with regard to social policy (many exceptions to that, of course) but tends to believe in having a strong government presence in the economy. It's all a big muddled mess once you really start digging into it. A pretty large number of Americans actually self-identify as "Independent" in elections because they don't want to be associated with either major party (even if they usually vote with only one) and many Americans don't like to be seen as "going with the crowd." My guess is that most Americans are actually pretty similar in their political beliefs, and that what you see from both of the more extreme sides in the news, is actually the exception. But I could be completely wrong on that.

by hvs 15y ago

eru 15y ago

In the German political system the liberal party is the right-most party. But that's because we use the original meaning of liberal. The other parties are social democrats, and christ democrats, greens, and there's the party democratic socialists on the left fringe. In practice, everybody's a social democrat in Germany to one degree or another.

hvs 15y ago
I guess that you are raising another important point that "liberal" means different things in Europe and the U.S. "Liberal," in the classical meaning of the term, would most appropriately be applied to libertarians and to the social policies of American liberals. "Liberal" in the U.S. is generally "hands-off" with regard to social policy (many exceptions to that, of course) but tends to believe in having a strong government presence in the economy. It's all a big muddled mess once you really start digging into it. A pretty large number of Americans actually self-identify as "Independent" in elections because they don't want to be associated with either major party (even if they usually vote with only one) and many Americans don't like to be seen as "going with the crowd." My guess is that most Americans are actually pretty similar in their political beliefs, and that what you see from both of the more extreme sides in the news, is actually the exception. But I could be completely wrong on that.