The 'defining Left and Right' thread

Hi All,

I am only starting this thread to prevent the NBN thread being derailed, and because someone asked to debate my definition of the spectrum.

As I said in that thread, my current working model of 'Left and Right', as derived from what is popularly declared to be left and right in today's culture, is as follows:
The Right are those beliefs consistent with humans increasing their position. That is to say, 'pro-life' in the basic biological sense.
The Left are those beliefs consistent with humans decreasing their position. That is to say, 'pro-death' in the basic sense.

tothemax6 said:

Hi All,

I am only starting this thread to prevent the NBN thread being derailed, ...

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The NBN thread ... too big to fail! Hee Hee

burglar said:

The NBN thread ... too big to fail! Hee Hee

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The NBN thread??? What do ttm6's long winded posts have to do with the NBN thread.:dunno: And to be truthful I don't want to know, unless it's a very concise answer.

tothemax6,

In your second post in this thread I have no idea who is saying what as quotes have not been correctly attributed.

In your third post you have incorrrectly attributed statements to Julia that she did not make by including them in quote tags labelled "Julia".

Could you please repost one or the other of these posts with the appropriate corrections and I will then remove them both.

Thanks!

Calliope said:

The NBN thread??? What do ttm6's long winded posts have to do with the NBN thread.:dunno: And to be truthful I don't want to know, unless it's a very concise answer.

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nil

PS. I like 'ttm6'.
ttm6

Joe Blow said:

tothemax6,

In your second post in this thread I have no idea who is saying what as quotes have not been correctly attributed.

In your third post you have incorrrectly attributed statements to Julia that she did not make by including them in quote tags labelled "Julia".

Could you please repost one or the other of these posts with the appropriate corrections and I will then remove them both.

Thanks!

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Hi Joe,
I will edit the posts detailing the speakers of each statement. I didn't really know how to move a post over to a new thread.
Cheers, ttm6

burglar said:

The NBN thread ... too big to fail! Hee Hee

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Thanks for that one, burglar

From Julia in NBN thread:

ttm6: The Right are those beliefs consistent with humans increasing their position. That is to say, 'pro-life' in the basic biological sense.
julia: Why do you say this? e.g. I'm probably slightly to the right of centre in a material and personal responsibility sense, but am pro abortion and pro euthanasia.

ttm6: The Left are those beliefs consistent with humans decreasing their position. That is to say, 'pro-death' in the basic sense.
If you'd like me to detail why this is, I can, but the post will be long and non-NBN related .
julia: Why not start a separate thread for this debate which would be interesting?

ttm6: The issue is that you are trying to define a group of beliefs according to 'left and right' - whereas this is impossible.
julia: Exactly so, as I've pointed out above.

ttm6: An isolated belief can be characterized, for example 'offensive speech should be banned' is clearly Left,
julia: I wouldn't say this is clearly Left at all.

ttm6: 'all property should be private' is clearly Right.
julia: Yep, no argument there but someone else may have a different view.


ttm6: However if a (confused) person holds both of these beliefs, he can only be graded on the spectrum.
Libertarians, for instance (which I believe is more or less the same as a classical liberal), hold beliefs on both sides (although mostly on the right). Regarding them being 'social left', not necessarily. Typically on immigration, left.
julia: Probably disagree here.

ttm6: On abortion, divided. On race/class/gender, right (no affirmative action, no quotas, no disparity targeting privileges)
julia: This should go to the mostly Right convention of personal choice, personal responsibility, but I acknowledge the pro abortion lobby is more often considered Right.

ttm6: On social conventions, to be logically consistent with 'liberty' they are mostly left (gay marriage fine, incest fine, polygamy fine, public nudity fine etc). On freedom of speech and action, right (full free speech, all non-rights-violating actions fine).
julia: Far be it from me to defend the ultra Left but I think to attribute to them that all the above practices are 'fine' is a step too far.
I can't think of anyone I know who would consider either incest or polygamy fine.

julia: So all up, it doesn't seem either reasonable or practicable to attribute any specific characteristics to the political "Left" or "Right". Most of us are a fairly healthy mixture of both. "

julia said:

I wouldn't say this is clearly Left at all.

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It has been the position of the Left for quite some time, as evidenced by their 'hate-speech' laws, anti-discrimination laws etc. The Right are usually heard stating that they consider 'freedom of speech' to be the ideal.

julia said:

Yep, no argument there but someone else may have a different view.

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But since 'Left and Right' are actually only directional terms, applied to politics, their meaning can only be set by the 'popular stance' on what is Left and Right. I.e. the most common and prevailing opinion on the meaning of the words in the political sense.

julia said:

Probably disagree here.

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The stance of libertarians on immigration is usually a "free-for-all, no border" type stance. This stems from their belief that others do not have the right to prevent peoples free passage (since this is force, violation of rights etc). The Left hold this stance, due to the effect such a policy has - total dissolution of nations, races, cultures etc, maximization of localized demographic heterogeneity - hence necessitating adoption of the Lefts 'we are all the same, we are all equal' policy to maintain some form of social cohesion.

julia said:

This should go to the mostly Right convention of personal choice, personal responsibility, but I acknowledge the pro abortion lobby is more often considered Right.

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Anti-abortion is popularly considered right-wing. Pro-choice is popularly considered left-wing. This aligns with the respective groups other policies. The right are pro-traditional-family, pro individual rights, and the left are pro-increasing women's power etc (feminism).

julia said:

Far be it from me to defend the ultra Left but I think to attribute to them that all the above practices are 'fine' is a step too far.
I can't think of anyone I know who would consider either incest or polygamy fine.

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To be consistent, the Left agrees that these practices are all fine. The Right is pro 'traditional, natural' relationships, and against recognizing other forms of relationships as acceptable. The Left is pro gay marriage, and the reasons they state for gay marriage being acceptable apply equally to the other mentioned social relationships.

julia said:

So all up, it doesn't seem either reasonable or practicable to attribute any specific characteristics to the political "Left" or "Right". Most of us are a fairly healthy mixture of both. "

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Well, what is 'healthy' is an entirely different topic .

Tothemax, I haven't anything further to say. To be honest, I just don't find aligning any particular ideology specifically with a Left or Right political philosophy either useful or reasonable.

PS Joe has prepared a useful thread on using the quote tags. This probably contains advice which will allow you to be a bit clearer about who said what.

Julia said:

Tothemax, I haven't anything further to say. To be honest, I just don't find aligning any particular ideology specifically with a Left or Right political philosophy either useful or reasonable.

PS Joe has prepared a useful thread on using the quote tags. This probably contains advice which will allow you to be a bit clearer about who said what.

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Oh OK, it was you who requested I started a new thread for it though.

To this end:
Joe Blow,
You are welcome to erase this thread,
Regards, ttm6

This is about as good a debate as asking:

"Who is the current government?"
1) Greens
2) Labor

matty77 said:

This is about as good a debate as asking:

"Who is the current government?"
1) Greens
2) Labor

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Exactly. This thread is pointless. The debate on the Left and Right in politics has been done to death on this forum and gone nowhere, for the simple reason that we all hold differing views on what these concepts mean to us, and no argument will change this.