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An extra axis may be helpful: The Political Compass

So now we define words based on what the crackpots think they mean?

Parent is using a straw man fallacy: setting up a false premise that is easy to knock down with the subsequent argument; banking on others to accept the false premise.

Patriotism and Nationalism (2 different things) often suffer from attempted hijacking by crackpots seeking to redefine them.
For example, in the USA socialism has been misunderstood for over a generation and the crackpot definition is currently mainstream. "Keep the government out of my medicare!" etc.

Besides, this left/right paradigm is for simpletons and the poor reasoning that results aids the political parties. So, the misunderstanding is perpetuated. In addition, many people are willfully ignorant when it comes to politics (there is no stigma of shame like there is with illiteracy.) A far more realistic model is TWO DIMENSIONAL: left/right + top/bottom. Check it out: http://politicalcompass.org/

I reiterate:
So now we define words based on what the crackpots think they mean?

I think you have confused left-wing and right-wing for authoritarian and libertarian.

Think on more than one axis, please.

This "OMG your all communazis/totally fascist corporate slaves man" is getting tedious

Sadly the left-wing gov we have ...

Check your political compass... you can't talk about left/right with without also including the Authoritarian/Libertarian axis. Yeah, it requires slightly more effort than linear left/right thought... probably why you never hear it mentioned when the general population talk politics.

What extraordinary cognitive dissonance.

I think you need to check your political compass: UK Parties 2008

No one who supports state-sponsorship of corporations is right-wing. That's fascism, and it belongs on the left side of the scale as an authoritarian state.

Minor correction, but authoritarianism isn't really a left/right attribute. There are both left-wing authoritarians (Stalin is probably the most famous example) and right-wing authoritarians (there's tons of them these days, with Bush being a prime example). Politcal Compass is a very interesting read.

The democrats in the US are on the right as well, they're just farther left than the republicans. FYI:

politicalcompass.org

This is why I find it so amusing when the hardcore republicans refer to the "extreme left" democrats, which happen to be far to the right of people like myself. I'm down there somewhere near Nader:

http://politicalcompass.org/uselection2008

We're in good company though, we've also got Ghandi, the Dalai Lama, and Mandela:

http://politicalcompass.org/analysis2

The democrats in the US are on the right as well, they're just farther left than the republicans. FYI:

politicalcompass.org

This is why I find it so amusing when the hardcore republicans refer to the "extreme left" democrats, which happen to be far to the right of people like myself. I'm down there somewhere near Nader:

http://politicalcompass.org/uselection2008

We're in good company though, we've also got Ghandi, the Dalai Lama, and Mandela:

http://politicalcompass.org/analysis2

The democrats in the US are on the right as well, they're just farther left than the republicans. FYI:

politicalcompass.org

This is why I find it so amusing when the hardcore republicans refer to the "extreme left" democrats, which happen to be far to the right of people like myself. I'm down there somewhere near Nader:

http://politicalcompass.org/uselection2008

We're in good company though, we've also got Ghandi, the Dalai Lama, and Mandela:

http://politicalcompass.org/analysis2

Ideologically Bush is much closer than Obama with respect to Fascism. Neither are really comparable to Hitler or Mussolini though, of course.

Also, I hope you don't actually think anything on that site you linked is true. It's claims are the same type of scare-mongering as William Ayers, and Obama's birth certificate(implying Obama is a Black Panther and/or Muslim in disguise respectively, same as your link).

Ideologically Bush is much closer than Obama with respect to Fascism. Neither are really comparable to Hitler or Mussolini though, of course.

Also, I hope you don't actually think anything on that site you linked is true. It's claims are the same type of scare-mongering as William Ayers, and Obama's birth certificate(implying Obama is a Black Panther and/or Muslim in disguise respectively, same as your link).

Ideologically Bush is much closer than Obama with respect to Fascism. Neither are really comparable to Hitler or Mussolini though, of course.

Also, I hope you don't actually think anything on that site you linked is true. It's claims are the same type of scare-mongering as William Ayers, and Obama's birth certificate(implying Obama is a Black Panther and/or Muslim in disguise respectively, same as your link).

You and other readers of this thread might be interested in the Political Compass. The thesis is that politics is better described in a two-dimensional space.

I think my point may have missed you: The United States is the country with a "grey area". Politics lies on a line from left to right, just as "grey areas" lie on a line from black to white. Did you mean "colored area", or perhaps "coloured area"?

You failed to get my point that US politics is so polarised that one side cannot even contemplate the views of the other. In British parliament systems an act known as "crossing the floor" used to be commonplace. Crossing the floor was to change allegiance to the other party by literally crossing across the parliament chambers to the other parties bench.

Churchill did this twice in his career, "to rat and then to re-rat" in his words. I cant see Hillary Clinton or Mike Huckabee switching sides once, let alone twice. US Politicians don't seem capable of changing their perceptions, even when confronted with overwhelming evidence and this is often reflected in many "voters" here on ./.

In Australia we have two main political parties, Liberal and Labour. Neither of these parties can be described as "left" or "right" as both have a small segment from both the extreme left and extreme right thus the parties as a whole exists across the entire left/right spectrum. This results in one party making right decisions on one topic (business) and left decisions on a different topic (education).

Also Politics it two dimensional, Socialist (left), Capitalist (right) Authoritarian (up) and Liberal (down). All political entities have an X and a Y coordinate on the political compass.

More people need to stop thinking politics is a one dimensional spectrum. The Political Compass is a decent place to start.

I'll readily admit to weighing in heavily on to side of socialism, but at the same time I'm also weighing in heavily on the side of liberalism. Once you make people give serious thought about the concept of a "liberal commie bastard" you can almost see their heads implode, as they try to console their own ideas of communism (authoritarian socialism) and liberalism.

It is generally considered that they are a slightly left party. By generally, I mean every media source, every political pundit, in fact every source I know.

I am certainly not basing my observations on the interpretations of the media or political pundits. I am making my observations based on policy decisions and on how they vote on legislation. The last term they voted for just about every piece of PM Harpers bills into reality. The Liberals are certainly more left of the Right, but not being extremists does not make them left wing. What the "media" says is useless. They are either beholden to advertisers and ratings or in terms of shows like the 700 Club, by special interest groups. There's an interesting write-up on the so-called "Liberal" magazine Time that says a lot here (ref, http://www.reason.com/news/show/134038.html.

The Liberals certainly have been more "socialist" than the new re-vamped Conservatives and under the reign of Mike Harris in Ontario (I'll mention again that he decimated the economy, the school system, increased taxes while claiming to have decreased taxes [through the process of "downloading" expenses onto the poorer populations of major cities, etc and so on]). The Liberals are just more subtle about these things because they don't want to alienate and potential voters. The Conservatives are more into burning bridges and claiming that people who disagree with their policies are "left wing". Does this sound American to you?

In my own province of Ontario the contemporary "Liberal" government has raised taxes on the poor (largely by increasing cigarette taxes substantially), but in their own words it is for the poor's own good (to suffer); "think of the children...". They have also banned Face Book from being used on government computers. These are just examples of Right Wing behavior, individually they don't add up to much, but all of their practices together add up to patterns of behavior that set them apart from more neutral or truly "Liberal" practices as is known by History and Political Science.

One must also realize that Right and Left are not just distinguished by economic issues, but by social issues as well. I did a journal on this not to long ago (it never ended up getting "published", but it remains as a link that I can reference; http://slashdot.org/~unlametheweak/journal/229887).

It has been disputed by at least one person here, but Political Compass is an excellent and rather neutral Web site that goes more deeply into the Left and Right interpretations. Many people of the Right, Left, and etc that I have talked to here on Slashdot seem to value that Web site as a good resource. You may want to take some time and read the details of it instead of just listing it as biased because I happened to use it as an example (http://www.politicalcompass.org/index). The original like that I gave out pertaining to the Liberals; http://www.politicalcompass.org/canada2008.

It is generally considered that they are a slightly left party. By generally, I mean every media source, every political pundit, in fact every source I know.

I am certainly not basing my observations on the interpretations of the media or political pundits. I am making my observations based on policy decisions and on how they vote on legislation. The last term they voted for just about every piece of PM Harpers bills into reality. The Liberals are certainly more left of the Right, but not being extremists does not make them left wing. What the "media" says is useless. They are either beholden to advertisers and ratings or in terms of shows like the 700 Club, by special interest groups. There's an interesting write-up on the so-called "Liberal" magazine Time that says a lot here (ref, http://www.reason.com/news/show/134038.html.

The Liberals certainly have been more "socialist" than the new re-vamped Conservatives and under the reign of Mike Harris in Ontario (I'll mention again that he decimated the economy, the school system, increased taxes while claiming to have decreased taxes [through the process of "downloading" expenses onto the poorer populations of major cities, etc and so on]). The Liberals are just more subtle about these things because they don't want to alienate and potential voters. The Conservatives are more into burning bridges and claiming that people who disagree with their policies are "left wing". Does this sound American to you?

In my own province of Ontario the contemporary "Liberal" government has raised taxes on the poor (largely by increasing cigarette taxes substantially), but in their own words it is for the poor's own good (to suffer); "think of the children...". They have also banned Face Book from being used on government computers. These are just examples of Right Wing behavior, individually they don't add up to much, but all of their practices together add up to patterns of behavior that set them apart from more neutral or truly "Liberal" practices as is known by History and Political Science.

One must also realize that Right and Left are not just distinguished by economic issues, but by social issues as well. I did a journal on this not to long ago (it never ended up getting "published", but it remains as a link that I can reference; http://slashdot.org/~unlametheweak/journal/229887).

It has been disputed by at least one person here, but Political Compass is an excellent and rather neutral Web site that goes more deeply into the Left and Right interpretations. Many people of the Right, Left, and etc that I have talked to here on Slashdot seem to value that Web site as a good resource. You may want to take some time and read the details of it instead of just listing it as biased because I happened to use it as an example (http://www.politicalcompass.org/index). The original like that I gave out pertaining to the Liberals; http://www.politicalcompass.org/canada2008.

This is so wrong I don't know where to start. First, I'm guessing you're pretty young if you think the Tories have been traditionally strong.

I'll be turning 41 this year; I don't know if you consider this to be "young". I'm not talking about traditions. Though my experiences and time frame reference the period of when Mulroney got into office (the Reagan years for you Americans).

Secondly, the Liberals are not, not have ever been right wing. Secondly, the Liberals are not, not have ever been right wing. They're a pragmatic centrist party.

WRONG! You obviously don't follow politics in Canada. The liberals are the ones who have always supported warrentless wiretaps, American DMCA type legislation, they supported the war on drugs (to be noted, the senate and some people in the legislature are more liberal about marijuana laws). "Traditionally" the Conservatives (and their original name, the Progressive Conservatives) have been more liberal than the Liberal party of Canada in their politics.

Though as an easterner I have no love for them, I would never say the party as a whole is neo-conservative.

They have supported the abolition of universal health care, an expanded War on Drugs, more rampant and fanatical censorship, etc and so on. They have always been Bush and Reagen supporters and have been followers of the American neocon leadership "scene". In my own province of Ontario the neocons raised taxes on the poor and lowered taxes on the rich, and increased the debt substantially while officially claiming that they were reducing it. The Minister of Welfare told poor people to haggle with grocery stores if they can't get enough to eat. The natianal Conservative party wanted our disgraced leader of this disgraced party to follow them into national politics. This is neoconservatism, not centrism.

Though as an easterner I have no love for them, I would never say the party as a whole is neo-conservative.

Your analysis portrays a fairly right wing bent. The NDP has always been left of center, but they have never (not recently, to my knowledge) supported price controls, the government take over of private businesses, etc. Saying the NDP is not near the centre is pretty extremist.

From Political Compass

The Conservative Party's move further towards the Bush-Reagan mix of free market economics with social conservatism makes the somewhat mercurial Liberals look more moderate, despite their own rightward drift.

- Ref., http://www.politicalcompass.org/canada2008 There is an overall historical movement to the neocon Right (as is taking place worldwide). The fascism of democracy is on a constant creep into reality.

It's not as simple as left/right - the division into authoritarian/libertarian is independent of "wingedness". You need something like the Political Compass to see the full picture:

http://www.politicalcompass.org/

That Labour has ceased to represent any sort of left alternative is inseparable from the growing appeal of the BNP's right alternative.

You should clarify what you mean by "left" and "right".

The BNP have left-wing economic policies. They are similar to those of the Green Party, except the BNP add "if you're white" to everything. (So, free university (if you're white), and better public transport, and an emphasis on local manufacturing/consumption, social welfare, NHS, etc).

The BNP has right-wing social policies (freedoms, etc), pretty much the opposite of the Green Party.

You might find this interesting: http://politicalcompass.org/

far to the left of mainstream politics

Obama is still right of center on economic issues, he only seems to be socialist compared to the far-right politicians that we have. Take a look at where some US politicians really are. Anyone that thinks Obama is a socialist doesn't really understand what socialism means. Go to some more centrist countries in Europe and you'll see that socialists there are really socialists, what the US calls liberals are moderate conservatives, and what the US calls conservatives are raving lunatics.

What does socialism have to do with authoritarianism? Just because the communists operated under a banner of socialism, doesn't mean their authoritarian practices had anything to do with it.

See Politcal Compass for more.

(That said, I agree totally with your fears of power grabs by governments around the world, and the need for us to do something about it).

http://www.politicalcompass.org/uselection2008

Indeed.

I prefer the Political Compass. East is "economically conservative", west is "economically liberal", north is "authoritarian", and south is "libertarian".

Ron Paul is south-east, Ralph Nader is south-west, Stalin was north-west, Hitler was pretty much due North, and almost everyone else is somewhere in the middle.

The problem is that the the terms "left" and "right", which properly refer to labor and capital, have been misused to refer to social issues.

Indeed, thus the emerging two-dimensional view of (US, at least) politics, exemplified by the Political Compass. But across most sample charts, you'll note a very strong correlation between the two; it's fairly rare to see someone significantly deviate from the SW-NE line, associating free love with socialism and free markets with authoritarianism. I often find myself on the outside for being strongly anti-authoritarian yet economically centrist -- no major player represents my views.

We shouldn't forget that broadcast media need market share in order to sell ad space, or get donations; they'll tend to naturally stick to what we believe as a whole, regardless of what they personally believe. Small variations (inefficiencies, as it were,) as with any market, will work themselves out given enough time, and we'll have exactly the news we want, regardless of whether or not it's the news we need.

In a global perspective, US democrats and republicans are two peas in a pod -- both parties extremely far to the right, and with very small differences.

Personally, I recommend Political Compass to see how true this is. While I wouldn't say the Democrats are extremely far to the right, they're still generally right of center. They're both in the capitalist-authoritarian area of the map, the Democrats are just a little closer to the center than the Republicans. Unfortunately, since I'm in the socialist-libertarian area, I'm completely disenfranchised in American politics.

AC was talking about traditional conservatives, who were socially conservative, but economically conservative too. Neo-cons are still socially conservative, but economically liberal, so they're happy to expand government spending in order to fund their social desires.

Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich are the only two major presidential candidates from 2008 that I really respect, because they're far less authoritarian than any of the others (Nader wasn't a real contender, IMO -- too many people bitter about 2004).

http://www.politicalcompass.org/uselection2008

I'm a proud member of the center. Where do you fall, honestly?

On economics issues? Mostly in the center. I believe in the free market and think that Government generally does a piss poor job of trying to manage things -- but some regulation is usually called for. The difference between most liberals and myself is that I've been involved in running a business and I can recognize that all regulation imposes a higher cost of doing business. Thus I only support regulation when the net benefit to society is greater than the economic impact of the regulation. As a random example I'm sure that Jiffy Lube could provide cheaper oil changes if they were allowed to dump the used oil in the river -- but few people would advocate that as being a good solution.

On civil liberties I'm a staunch civil libertarian. I believe in all aspects of the Bill of Rights and this places me at odds with both political parties. Democrats on guns and Republicans on wiretapping.

On foreign policy I'm more of a mixed bag. I toy with the idea of wanting to see the United States return to our non-interventionist/non-aligned roots (notice how nobody is flying airplanes into Swiss buildings) but I question if such a thing is feasible in the modern world.

Ever heard of the political compass? It's a as good of an indication of where you lie on the political map as any other. I score a +1.38 on economics and -2.82 on social. I used to score around a -6/-5 before I became a recovering liberal ;)

We must have radically different definitions of right wing.

Indeed, the one-dimensional political map normally used is hopelessly inadequate for even very basic purposes. May I recommend the 2D political compass?

George Bush is NOT on the far right, at least not what the far right used to be. He's invented a whole new category, and moved a bunch of people from the right into that.

Indeed, it's best viewed two-dimensionally. Have you seen the political compass? If not, you should (after taking the test for yourself) look on the /analysis2 page for where they place Bush and the /usprimaries2008 for where they place Obama.

I can't speak to the claim about Obama, I don't know the subtle nuances of the factions on the left. I can say he's against gay marriage, and his health care plan is only about 10% of what a real universal health care plan would be.

For the record, Barack Obama opposed Proposition 8. IIRC he said something to the effect of "I personally believe marriage is between a man and a woman but recognize that it would have been illegal for my mother and father to marry only a decade before and do not support Proposition 8". The "yes on 8" crowd quoted only the first part of his statement and implied something he didn't say.

Left wing does not simply equate with freedom! To say that Stalins rule was authoritarian and thus not left wing is utterly wrong. You can't talk about left and right wing social policy because you are on flimsy ground, they are economic philosophies. When you talk about social policy you talk in terms of authoritarian and libertarian.

The thing is that it is often hard to distinguish economic freedoms from social freedoms in many areas (not all!) so in this sense the left wing policies (economics) lead to authoritarian social stances. This is not a hard rule and certainly the opposite is often true.

ou've taken a multi-dimensional space of possibilities/ideas and projected it one-dimensionally. It's no wonder you miss the bigger picture.

No, actually I am trying to correct your one dimensional "left or right" viewpoint, because this is not how the world is described. Read up on the Political Compass because this is exactly what I am talking about.

You are clearly blinded by ideology, you are obviously taking a stance that 'left wing' = 'good, freedom, liberty etc' and 'right wing' = 'bad, opression, authoritarian etc.' Now I'm sorry mate but I'm not the one here espousing a narrow world view. I'm not even pushing any agenda I'm simply correcting your technical error.

That's why I called it little-L libertarianism. The political philosophy, not the party. What you appear to be describing (small government, low taxes, balanced budget, government staying out of people's lives, etc.) is libertarianism to a T.

Conservatism is economic libertarianism mixed with social authoritarianism. On the social scale, it's characterized by a respect for tradition and current social norms and a desire to shape policy to support and/or propagate those traditions and norms. Libertarianism on the other hand treats social issues the same as economic issues, saying the government should simply stay out of it, while liberalism (in the US definition) is defined by social libertarianism mixed with economic authoritarianism. All to different degrees of course.

The Political Compass is an interesting site.

... to see actual centre left political parties in action running countries you have to look overseas, Canada, Australia, England, etc.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. England certainly doesn't have a party with representation that is centre left, and even in Canada and Australia (NDP and Greens respectively) the parties are by no means major ones and certainly not in government. To really look for a centre left party you need to look to places like Sweden (Social Democrats, the biggest party there although not currently in power), but really, even in Europe there aren't any real centre left parties (let alone proper left wing). http://www.politicalcompass.org/euchart

> It would be if we had a Labour government, but this is NooLabour

This chart nicely summarises the drift of the Labour Party to the authoritarian right:

http://www.politicalcompass.org/images/enPartiesTime.gif

So essentially we now have a replica of the US system of two right-wing parties distinct only in the minds of their supporters.

The problem with the National Journal report is that they don't actually measure liberal -vs- conservative votes. Instead, they measure Democrat -vs- Republican votes. IMHO, this is one of the problems going on today. People assume that anything the Republican party stands for us conservative, even though that is often far from the case.

For some examples, take a look at their 2007 Vote Ratings.

309/S1927 Renew FISA which allows wire tapping
The FISA is an example of an extreme liberal position. It increases government powers and bypasses constitutional protections. Yet the National Journal says voting against that is liberal.

77/SConRes20 Funding for US troops
An example of a liberal foreign policy would be nation building and preeminent attacks (Ironically, in 2000 Bush commented about how nation building is a terrible mistake and the US needs to get out of it). Yet in modern society people assume that anything military = Republican = conservative. But that isn't true. A defensive volunteer-only military is conservative. An aggressive military that invades other nations and rebuilds them is liberal. Yet the National Journal thinks that any vote that is in favor of bigger military = conservative.

In today's society, party affiliation trumps philosophy. Most people pick their party, then follow it no matter what it does. In order to break out of that people need to understand different philosophies without the context of a party. Check out sites like The Political Compass and skim Wikipedia articles on Socialism, Communism, Conservative, Liberal, etc. for details on what these ideas really mean.

I know, bad form replying to myself, but here's the Political Compass for the US elections tomorrow.

If women could not vote, no democrat would have served as president of the United States in the previous 50 years.

Wow, that's odd... in the UK it's the other way around. I heard that if women could not vote, we would not have had a majority Conservative government in the last 50 years. Conservatives are right wing, Labour left wing (very approximately - see this page for a really interesting analysis of the UK's parties, and Labour's movement in the last 35 years). Of course, this is just what I read somewhere, but it was vaguely authorative otherwise I would have dismissed it out of hand. Definitely treat with a pinch of salt, especially since even the best sources rely on exit polls which are never 100% accurate.

From that previous link : Voter turnout is highest when ideological differences are most significant. This helps explain why the voter turnout is lower in the US than in all other western democracies , most of which have a multiplicity of parties and proportional representation. In the UK, voter turnout may continue to fall to US levels. Lowering the voting age isn't likely to excite participation in elections when the choice is less and less to do with a clash of visions than mere managerial competence. And without those traditionally big choices, one might well wonder where this is going to ultimately leave democracy.

uuh.. I think you need to recenter your views here (please humor me).

First off, hollywood and the MAFIAA are not liberals, they're reactionaries or corporatists. They are pretty far to the authoritiarian right. For reference, please see this political compass

Along this compass, newspapers are slightly within the authoritarian side (they are run by large corporations after all), with fox news on the far right, most of the others clustered in the center, and BBC and CBC on the left.

Slashdot, dailykos, moveon, the NDP, and the ACLU would be placed along a range in the libertarian-left quadrant. (moveon, the ACLU, and the EFF are public advocacy groups. Unlike the news, when they sound the alarm the threat is quite real. When they lose the government gains power it shouldn't have, even if cases of abuse of that power are rare)

Radical Communist Left would be the people's republic of china and the castro administration. The only real difference between this and Radical Authoritarian Right (fascism) is who owns the companies. With Communism, the state runs the companies centrally, while fascist regimes are in bed with CEO's, and allow them to run amok.

So far as american politics is concerned, both parties play the public off one another, making them too busy to see how rigged the system is to prevent parties which truly serve the people from arising. Republicans do the scaremongering, democrats have picked up a new gig dispensing "hope", and the bad policies ratchet with every passing election cycle.
(The FEC and the committee overseeing debates are good examples.. equal number republicans and democrats, nader and others never make it into the debates)

From my analysis, corporate conglomerates control enough resources and market power now to rival the power of governments. This is why I don't buy it when ultra-right libertarians and republicans claim the government should just leave them alone. The ideal system would set corporations and governments against one another (smart regulation tied with partial socialization) and toss them in a closet where their thrashing can't hurt the public.

When the actual returns came, the left was shocked. They will be again.

waitaminnit? there's a left-wing candidate?

maybe we all should take a look at the political compass' left/right analysis of the candidates before we start throwing around phrases like "left wing".

bottom line: the american election is a contest between two versions of right-wing politics.

I think a lot of people probably realise that the words "liberal" and "conservative" are rather simplistic labels and don't adequately express their views. The problem is knowing which words to use instead.

This website proposes a two dimension system (Left to Right, and Libertarian to Authoritarian). You can answer a series of questions to see where your ideals fit onto these axes, and there are some really interesting charts showing where various politicians and other famous and infamous people fit.

See http://www.politicalcompass.org/, read the introduction and click the "Take the test" link.

There's a page on the US Presidential Election 2008, here: http://www.politicalcompass.org/uselection2008

I think a lot of people probably realise that the words "liberal" and "conservative" are rather simplistic labels and don't adequately express their views. The problem is knowing which words to use instead.

This website proposes a two dimension system (Left to Right, and Libertarian to Authoritarian). You can answer a series of questions to see where your ideals fit onto these axes, and there are some really interesting charts showing where various politicians and other famous and infamous people fit.

See http://www.politicalcompass.org/, read the introduction and click the "Take the test" link.

There's a page on the US Presidential Election 2008, here: http://www.politicalcompass.org/uselection2008

If you look here and here you will notice that most European countries are not much more economically left than the US Democrat party. The Scandinavian countries are much less authoritarian than either major US party, but on the economical scale, they're not terribly far off for the most part. For some countries the Republican party doesn't appear to be too much further to the right either.

I think that the one major difference is the universal (or social if you prefer) healthcare that exists in most European countries. Beyond that, I don't think that there are any major differences that I can think of off the top of my head, but I'm sure some European slashdot readers could provide a few more examples.

For the most part, things probably aren't that different. I think that the whole thing is just some meme started by Europeans to mock Americans (as though there weren't already enough reasons.) some more. There's certainly a larger difference on the social scale, but that really doesn't have much to do with economically left or right. You could be a completely socialist country or a completely free market country and still legalize prostitution, marijuana, abortions, etc.

If you look here and here you will notice that most European countries are not much more economically left than the US Democrat party. The Scandinavian countries are much less authoritarian than either major US party, but on the economical scale, they're not terribly far off for the most part. For some countries the Republican party doesn't appear to be too much further to the right either.

I think that the one major difference is the universal (or social if you prefer) healthcare that exists in most European countries. Beyond that, I don't think that there are any major differences that I can think of off the top of my head, but I'm sure some European slashdot readers could provide a few more examples.

For the most part, things probably aren't that different. I think that the whole thing is just some meme started by Europeans to mock Americans (as though there weren't already enough reasons.) some more. There's certainly a larger difference on the social scale, but that really doesn't have much to do with economically left or right. You could be a completely socialist country or a completely free market country and still legalize prostitution, marijuana, abortions, etc.

Historically, that _is_ conservative.

Right, but the meanings have changed. After all, we call the left "liberal" when historically they are nothing of the sort.

During the 19th century, classical liberals were most definitely on the left side of the political spectrum. In Europe at least. The migrated to the right side because conservatives died, social democrats took over the left side, and christian parties took over enough social ideas to end up somewhere between those two.

But in the end, the whole left-right thing doesn't work. Christian parties tend to be socially conservative, but economically progressive, liberal parties are economically conservative, but socially progressive, and other parties end up with yet other interesting mixes of ideas.

A two-dimensional Political compass would make a lot more sense.

Far left? I love entertaining revisionism as the next guy, but you sounded like you actually meant that. Wow.

Here's a reminder.

I like to think of left\right issues in purely economic terms; social issues etc. I think of on an authoritarian\libertarian scale. I copied the idea from thePolitical compass.

I'm sure that they're confusing authoritarian with economically right, both of which describe Republicans, but two entirely separate things.

It's entirely possible to be extremely to the economic left and still be every bit if not more authoritarian than the Republican party tends to be. Just look at the USSR under Stalin.

It's also entirely possible to be extremely to the economic right and be very non-authoritarian. Probably the best example of this would be the American Libertarian party which has a strong free market belief as well as a very hands-off approach to government involvement in the personal lives of people.

Check out http://www.politicalcompass.org/ for a better explanation and to see where different political parties from different parts of the world are at. I've found a lot of interesting things on that site. The most interesting to me is that the vast majority of European governments aren't too far off of the US Democratic party, despite what a lot of European posters on /. would argue to the contrary.

Repeat after me boys and girls; Barack Obama is not a Socialist.

(introduced by our country's socialists, I hasten to add, before people start trying to blame the right)

I wish New Labour would stop giving the left a bad name. Check the political compass, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown are about as left wing as Margaret Thatcher.