Joseph Sobran once wrote, " it more benefits the political left to couch all discussions of political issues in terms of right/left".

At the time I read that, I did not fully grasp the meaning. But as the years have passed, I think the Professor Sobran may have hit on one of the most important issues of our time.

Newton Minnow and Marshall McLuhan warned that the "medium was the message" in the early days of broadcast T.V. advertising. Wall Street and Madison Avenue have formed a sort of unholy alliance with government wherein now the perception is the reality for millions of people who either don't have the education or the time or both to understand the vital political issues of today.

For a lot of good reasons, leftists want to make every political discussion about right vs. left. I won't go into those reasons here in any depth. For anyone who is interested, they can check out Joseph Sobran's writings for themselves.

Suffice to say that the key reason leftists try to make politics about parties and ideologies and not issues is that they want to keep the focus of people on their emotions and biases, not on rational discussion of substantive issues of facts, figures, logic and reason.  In a nutshell, it's because leftists are very good at manipulating and exploiting people's emotions and not very good at all at appealing to their intellects (rationality).

It is a testament to Sobran's penetrating insight that he deduced this decades before the psychological methodology of the far left was actually formulated consciously by them. I think it's clear however that in recent times, the far left has consciously realized that there is a massive and growing constituency of voters who are feeling-centered in how they make important decisions. The far left has decided that they wanted to concentrate on the constituency and make it their core and in this they have largely succeeded.

It seems to me that Sobran understood this because he had studied and knew people intimately all his life and deduced the truth long before scientific study or psychological theory caughtup with him. Possibly he had also read CG Jung, whose work includes classifying people's personalities according to the degree to which they are feeling-centered or thinking-centered in their decision-making and value judgments.

Taking Sobran's advice, I think it is  high time that people understand that one major reason that right/left paradigms are not good, is that they are inaccurate in how they portray the real world and the far left uses this to confuse people and push them into emotionalism, which is their comfort zone. 

In the beginning, the right/left paradigm arose out of the French monarchy. In the meetings of French government, traditionally the aristocrats, land-owners, clergy (representatives of the Pope, etc.), and nobles sat to the right of the Monarch's throne.  The representatives of and petitioners for the interests of the Commoners, peasants and "lower echelons" of society were allocated space to the left of the throne.

A more realistic view of government is one presented in a very informative video on YouTube titled "The Difference Between a Republic and a Democracy". You will know you have the correct video if the first sentence is, "when Benjamin Franklin emerged from the Constitutional Congress vote ratifying the U.S. Constitution, a woman asked him, "Sir, what have you given us?"

Franklin replied, "A republic madam! If you can keep it."

This video explains the difference between the two basic forms of government and how one of the key distinctions between a pure democracy and a republic is that the latter places limitations on government power through the Rule of Law.  In a nutshell, pure democracy is Rule by the Majority of People and republicanism is Rule by the Laws drafted by and endorsed by the majority of the people.

A more accurate spectrum of government would not be right or left, but in magnitude of total absence of government on one side and absolute totalitarian control by government on the other.  The reason that republicanism is seen as superior to pure democracy is that pure democracy in its more virulent forms can be little more than mob rule. A majority of those who vote decide to do something and they do it – even if that decision is to murder some minority faction. This is in fact exactly what happened after the French Revolution in their infamous Reign of Terror, where the People of France decided that they would round up the aristocrats, clergy, land owners and nobles and guillotine them. What they did was lawful because they were acting as a pure democracy. In a republic, murder would be outlawed and therefore, regardless of what the majority might have wanted, until they changed the laws forbidding murder, they would not be allowed to round up people and execute them, regardless of how the People voted.
   
So it would be smart to absolutely discard any terminology of right and left and replace it with a description which is more aligned with notions of "non-existent to absolute government". In today's political environment, most leftists would far more accurately be defined as Statists and "socialists" than liberals since the term "liberal" originally referred to association with Classical Liberalism (now far more closely aligned with contemporary conservatism than with the ideology of self-described liberals).

To truly understand the contemporary political spectrum, one must also understand the term Classical Liberalism as distinct from "social liberalism" or "modern liberalism" or "progressivism".

If one established a spectrum of government which has anarchy (absence of government) on the left end and absolute totalitarian tyranny on the other, modern leftists, along with revolutionary socialists  democratic socialists (like Bernie Sanders), Communists, quasi / hybrid-Communists (like the Mainland Chinese), ecoparanoids, theofascists and war-lord- controlled states (like Burma) would all be far to the right of self-described "right wingers" (conservatives) of today.

Quote from: Late-For-Lunch on May 05, 2016, 12:17:49 PM
Joseph Sobran once wrote, " it more benefits the political left to couch all discussions of political issues in terms of right/left".

At the time I read that, I did not fully grasp the meaning. But as the years have passed, I think the Professor Sobran may have hit on one of the most important issues of our time.

Newton Minnow and Marshall McLuhan warned that the "medium was the message" in the early days of broadcast T.V. advertising. Wall Street and Madison Avenue have formed a sort of unholy alliance with government wherein now the perception is the reality for millions of people who either don't have the education or the time or both to understand the vital political issues of today.

For a lot of good reasons, leftists want to make every political discussion about right vs. left. I won't go into those reasons here in any depth. For anyone who is interested, they can check out Joseph Sobran's writings for themselves.

Suffice to say that the key reason leftists try to make politics about parties and ideologies and not issues is that they want to keep the focus of people on their emotions and biases, not on rational discussion of substantive issues of facts, figures, logic and reason.  In a nutshell, it's because leftists are very good at manipulating and exploiting people's emotions and not very good at all at appealing to their intellects (rationality).

It is a testament to Sobran's penetrating insight that he deduced this decades before the psychological methodology of the far left was actually formulated consciously by them. I think it's clear however that in recent times, the far left has consciously realized that there is a massive and growing constituency of voters who are feeling-centered in how they make important decisions. The far left has decided that they wanted to concentrate on the constituency and make it their core and in this they have largely succeeded.

It seems to me that Sobran understood this because he had studied and knew people intimately all his life and deduced the truth long before scientific study or psychological theory caughtup with him. Possibly he had also read CG Jung, whose work includes classifying people's personalities according to the degree to which they are feeling-centered or thinking-centered in their decision-making and value judgments.

Taking Sobran's advice, I think it is  high time that people understand that one major reason that right/left paradigms are not good, is that they are inaccurate in how they portray the real world and the far left uses this to confuse people and push them into emotionalism, which is their comfort zone. 

In the beginning, the right/left paradigm arose out of the French monarchy. In the meetings of French government, traditionally the aristocrats, land-owners, clergy (representatives of the Pope, etc.), and nobles sat to the right of the Monarch's throne.  The representatives of and petitioners for the interests of the Commoners, peasants and "lower echelons" of society were allocated space to the left of the throne.

A more realistic view of government is one presented in a very informative video on YouTube titled "The Difference Between a Republic and a Democracy". You will know you have the correct video if the first sentence is, "when Benjamin Franklin emerged from the Constitutional Congress vote ratifying the U.S. Constitution, a woman asked him, "Sir, what have you given us?"

Franklin replied, "A republic madam! If you can keep it."

This video explains the difference between the two basic forms of government and how one of the key distinctions between a pure democracy and a republic is that the latter places limitations on government power through the Rule of Law.  In a nutshell, pure democracy is Rule by the Majority of People and republicanism is Rule by the Laws drafted by and endorsed by the majority of the people.

A more accurate spectrum of government would not be right or left, but in magnitude of total absence of government on one side and absolute totalitarian control by government on the other.  The reason that republicanism is seen as superior to pure democracy is that pure democracy in its more virulent forms can be little more than mob rule. A majority of those who vote decide to do something and they do it – even if that decision is to murder some minority faction. This is in fact exactly what happened after the French Revolution in their infamous Reign of Terror, where the People of France decided that they would round up the aristocrats, clergy, land owners and nobles and guillotine them. What they did was lawful because they were acting as a pure democracy. In a republic, murder would be outlawed and therefore, regardless of what the majority might have wanted, until they changed the laws forbidding murder, they would not be allowed to round up people and execute them, regardless of how the People voted.
   
So it would be smart to absolutely discard any terminology of right and left and replace it with a description which is more aligned with notions of "non-existent to absolute government". In today's political environment, most leftists would far more accurately be defined as Statists and "socialists" than liberals since the term "liberal" originally referred to association with Classical Liberalism (now far more closely aligned with contemporary conservatism than with the ideology of self-described liberals).

To truly understand the contemporary political spectrum, one must also understand the term Classical Liberalism as distinct from "social liberalism" or "modern liberalism" or "progressivism".

If one established a spectrum of government which has anarchy (absence of government) on the left end and absolute totalitarian tyranny on the other, modern leftists, along with revolutionary socialists  democratic socialists (like Bernie Sanders), Communists, quasi / hybrid-Communists (like the Mainland Chinese), ecoparanoids, theofascists and war-lord- controlled states (like Burma) would all be far to the right of self-described "right wingers" (conservatives) of today.

You should understand most people do not like reading long winded post.  After the first two or three paragraph most just move on. 

Quote from: walkstall on May 05, 2016, 01:21:23 PM

You should understand most people do not like reading long winded post.  After the first two or three paragraph most just move on.

Thank you Walks.

OK, I finally tackled a few paragraphs and conclude you're advocating putting the Genie back in the bottle?
Identifying and Labeling the enemy is important in a war. Hindsight being 20/20, not allowing the left to politicize every aspect of life would have been an amazing trick to pull off.

Trying to undue that today is a fools errand, a complete and total waste of time, instead we need to focus on taking back the education system and teach the difference in right and left wrong.

Quote from: Solar on May 06, 2016, 05:58:30 AM
OK, I finally tackled a few paragraphs and conclude you're advocating putting the Genie back in the bottle?
Identifying and Labeling the enemy is important in a war. Hindsight being 20/20, not allowing the left to politicize every aspect of life would have been an amazing trick to pull off.

Trying to undue that today is a fools errand, a complete and total waste of time, instead we need to focus on taking back the education system and teach the difference in right and left wrong.

Some things I'd like to hear conservative politicians say:

This is not a right/left issue. It's a right/wrong issue.

Right and left is an idea that is left over from the French monarchy. It's outdated. It should be "left out" of any serious political discussion. Conservatives and other normal people believe in limited government - that used to be a left-wing idea -"libertarian". Now the only politicians who advocate for limited or reducing government are Republicans or non-aligned conservatives. Reduced, limited government is as American as apple pie.

Most people have no idea what Republican means! I'll tell you what it means! It means "the belief that nobody has the right to bully anyone by ignoring the Rule of Law. It means nobody's Constitutional rights will be trampled by political extremists. Republican means Rule by the People's Laws, not by special interests, monomaniacal thuggish leaders, legal tricksters or brutal demagogues."

I think it's clear that many so-called Republicans don't have the slightest idea why Republicanism is so vitally important or how it is so vastly superior to pure democracy. Ann Coulter gets it with her explorations of Mob Rule, but few others seem to.