Defining Left & Right in Politics

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Check with Chip. Brought to you by Operation
Blue Dot Red, turning the Blue Dot Red one podcast
at a time to day. I want to make sure
we're all on the same page when we use the
terms left and right in politics, especially where fascism is concerned.
In your mind's eye, draw a horizontal line that will

(00:21):
be our political spectrum. At the extreme right edge of
that spectrum is no government. At the extreme left edge
is total government. Back to the right edge the right
wing out there on the far right is the anarchist.
The anarchist wants no government at all. The sovereignty of

(00:42):
the individual is supreme. Now come in off the edge
a little to the left. The next stage is libertarian.
The libertarian is willing to allow a minimal degree of government,
but only enough to keep basic social order. Keep moving left.
We're still well to the right of center on our

(01:03):
spectrum when we hit reactionary. The reactionary is more accepting
of government, but still wants it limited and thinks change
has gone too far too fast. The reactionary wants to
restore a previous standard under which government had less control
over individuals and society. The next stage, as we move

(01:25):
left toward the middle of the spectrum is conservative. The
conservative shares the reactionary's concern about change and keeping government limited,
but is not necessarily calling for a return to a
previous standard. The conservative's goal is to establish a properly
ordered status quo and conservate. Keep moving to the left,

(01:48):
and now we arrive at the middle of the spectrum,
where we find the moderate. The moderate is more willing
to accept change, including growth and government. Now we move
left of center and arrive at liberal. The liberal wants
significant change and wants to use expanded government to accomplish it.

(02:08):
Keep moving left and we next hit progressive. The progressive
wants significant change and believes government led by an elite
bureaucracy not subject to majority rule, is the main engine
of progress for society. As we move to the far left,
we arrive at radical, where you find the socialist. Radical

(02:31):
comes from the Latin word for roots. The radical wants
to rip out the existing order by the roots and
completely remake society with government controlling the economy. An anarchist
could be considered an advocate of radical change to society,
but anarchists have high regard for individuals and their personal rights.

(02:53):
That's why the anarchist is way out on the far
right wing. As you move left on the spectrum, there
is more willingness to override individual rights, especially property rights,
to accomplish whatever government thinks is best for society. Now
we push all the way to the left edge of
the spectrum, the left wing, where we find the statist.

(03:18):
The statist sees the state as all powerful. The ultimate
purpose of the national government is complete control of the people.
This also is called totalitarianism, total control of individuals and
society by government. The individual exists to serve the state,
not himself, his family, or his God. Communists say they

(03:43):
envision a utopia in which, according to Karl Marx, the
state withers away and individuals enjoy true freedom. But the
historical record shows that inhabitants of communist states have been
some of the most oppressed and terrorized people on the planet,
with the oppression and terror coming from their own governments. Fascism, authoritarianism, dictatorship, monarchy,

(04:11):
and other forms of small group or individual rule often
are wrongly defined as right wing. It comes from the
French Revolution. Supporters of monarchy and the existing order sat
on the right side of the legislative chamber while revolutionaries
sat on the left. You may get pushback on this

(04:31):
from people you consider very smart about politics, or from
people who consider themselves very smart about politics. That's okay.
Calmly explain that where French politicians happen to sit in
the seventeen eighties does not truly determine left and right
in politics. What truly defines left and right is individual

(04:55):
liberty versus control by a national or imperial government. Some
monarchies have shared ruling power with other people and groups. However,
monarchies and other systems that put all sovereignty into a
single person or small group belong on the left wing
because they eliminate individual rights and the democratic process and

(05:18):
demand obedience to the ruling person or group. The truth
is the left can't handle the truth. The Nazis were
fellow leftists. Like today's left, the Nazis wanted a big
national government that dominated the life of the nation. The
Nazis called themselves the National Socialist German Workers Party. The

(05:42):
term Nazi Nazi came from the party name in German
Na from national and Zi from the German spelling of Sozialists.
The Nazis were proud leftist totalitarians. In a babylon Be video,
a modern American leftist goes back in time to kill Hitler.

(06:06):
Hitler pacifies the would be assassin by pointing out their
shared values. You believe in socialism, me too. You hate Jews,
me too. You want to take away citizens guns, me too.
You believe in eugenics an abortion, me too. You believe

(06:26):
in political violence to shut down speech critical to your
positions and force everyone to conform to your ideas. Me too.
But we are nice to day's lefties, wine not like
those nasty Nazis. Tell that to people punched in the
face and told they are going to hell by leftists

(06:47):
for wearing a Make America Great Again hat or displaying
a Trump sign. But the Nazis fought communists in Germany
and abroad, the left argues, so they were right wingers. No,
Nazis and communists were rival leftists. There were rival factions
within Nazism, rival leftist factions fought each other in revolutionary Russia.

(07:12):
Leftists fight each other just as viciously as they fight
the rest of the political spectrum. The left also says
the Nazis were right wing because they allowed private businesses
to operate. It is true that the Nazis deviated from
socialism to some degree in managing the economy. They took
a fascist approach to build economic strength. The government partnered

(07:37):
with big business rather than take it over, but it
was a one sided partnership. Businesses were allowed to prosper
if they did what they were told and helped the
Nazis build their war machine and toutalitarian police state. The
left calls fascist whatever it does not like. Conservative Republicans

(07:58):
are called right wing fascists. That is an oxymoron. The
terms right wing and fascist are contradictory and mutually exclusive.
The term fascism, fascism fascism was coined to nineteen nineteen
by socialist activist and future Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. It

(08:24):
comes from the Latin word for a bundle of wooden rods.
A bundle of rods, often with an axe head affixed
to it, was used in ancient Rome as a symbol
of ruling authority. Mussolini invoked that legacy by resurrecting that
symbol and proudly calling his regime fascist. The core idea

(08:44):
of fascism is that a single rod can be broken easily,
but many rods bundled tightly together are unbreakable. Mussolini bundled
Italians into one monolithic mass, serving the national government within
the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.

(09:05):
That was the motto of Ilducce the Leader. Did Mussolini
want to go back to the good old days of
Roman dictatorship as a modern Caesar? Isn't that a right
wing reactionary approach? Not if it grabs all political power
for the ruler and extinguishes the democratic rights of the

(09:26):
people and their civic institutions, as the dictatorship of Julius
Caesar did to the Senate and people of Rome. It's
also not a right wing operation if you club people
over the head to make it happen. Mussolini, like his
ally Hitler, was a left wing totalitarian thug. Change, including

(09:46):
going back to a previous standard, must be voluntary to
be of the right. The right respects individual thought and
freedom and believes someone must be persuaded to change. There
are people or groups who consider themselves rightest or are
perceived by the world as rightist, that use violence occasionally.

(10:08):
A segregationist who wants to undo civil rights laws, a
pro lifer who wants to stop abortion, or a Trump
supporter who wants to undo an election result resorts to
violence and is roundly condemned by the right. Meanwhile, in
twenty sixteen, a torrent of leftist verbal and physical abuse

(10:30):
was unleashed on all things Trump, Republican, and conservative, reaching
a riotous crescendo in twenty twenty, with virtually no condemnation
by the left. Voices on the left were more likely
to downplay or even justify the violence. If change is coerced,
it is of the left, be it socialist, communist, Marxist, Stalinist, Maoist, fascist, autocratic, authoritarian, monarchical,

(10:57):
or whatever name it is called. Who use brute force
to bully others into submission are on the left side
of the political spectrum. Violent agitators in America today, calling
themselves anti fascists antifa, are the very definition of fascism.

(11:17):
They are just like Mussolini's black Shirts and Hitler's brown Shirts,
political street gangs that attacked opponents and terrorize the entire population.
Got it. Fascism and other forms of violent political coercion
are of the left. That's enough political science for today.

(11:38):
If you want more, detail and examples. To clarify these points,
go to fix it Now chip dot com for my books,
fix it Now Chip dot com. Let's check with Chip.
I'm Chip Maxwell. Thank you for listening.