[ExI] Be nice to leftists

[Jukka Liukkonen]

2014-06-06 22:09 GMT+03:00 Tara Maya <tara at taramayastales.com>:
>
> On Jun 2, 2014, at 2:54 AM, Jukka Liukkonen <jukka.liukkonen at iki.fi>
> wrote:
>
> The left wing is a very broad term, which includes everyone from marxists
> to anarchists, but most are mild social democrats or a bit more
> ecologically oriented green leftists. Like wise, the right wing includes
> anything from Pinochet to Obama and from Hitler to conservative christian
> fundamentalists. Many people thoughts are leaning to the left, despite they
> don't really acknowledge it. Perhaps, because those who disagree with
> leftist values are so keen on discrediting and pushing false information
> about the other side.
>
> This is why I don't much care for the terms "left" and "right."  Any
> category that includes Pinochet, Obama, Hitler is useless.
>

If you wish to classify the political ideologies properly, Pinochet, Obama
and Hitler have to be placed *somewhere* on the political spectrum. The
classification system is useless, if it is unable to classify some of the
most known world leaders.


I didn't want to make it too complicated, but another factor you may wish
to add to this is the liberal-authoritarian axis. Those who are familiar to
the american political rhetorics may have learnt a bit different use for
these words, but don't let that confuse you.



Basically *being liberal means* a great deal of personal freedoms, less
control and more mutual trust, less state or corporate interventions and
questioning and hindering the power of the political, the corporate and the
religious leaders.


*Motto for liberals could be "Do what ever you want, but don't stop the
others from doing that, too."*



What comes to *the authoritarian* end, they tend trust the institutions and
value traditions and traditional views. The leaders have great deal of
power and the power is not expected to be questioned. The more
authoritarian the society is, the less  there is room for the free speech
or e.g. sexual identity expression. The authoritarians want to have their
citizens controlled more strictly, and they require obedience to the
system.


*Authoritarian motto could be "Obedience, control and powerful leader."*



These are just quick definitions and you may find more definitions in the
Wikipedia. The liberal-authoritarian axis combined with left-right axis
gives more accurate picture of the political ideologies. Of course, no
political ideology is purely left or right or liberal or authoritarian.
Most are somewhere in between.


You can find out your position on the political map with such websites as
politicalcompass.org


I highly recommend it!





>
> Far more important is those that support democracy versus those that
> don't. Those that don't are so outside my value system that I have little
> to say to them. Those that do, ah, that is where the argument is. I might
> say to that person, "We both want a fair, free and prosperous society, now
> what does the evidence show us is the best way to achieve that?"
>

There are so many different kind of democracy models... Not all democratic
countries are free, fair or prosperous.



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