[CS-FSLUG] Left, Right; Up, Down?

[Ed Hurst]

For your amusement, some basic political theory.
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It's Not Simply Left and Right


The bane of our existence in government today is that we are stuck with
two parties. Worse, these two parties are very similar, but propagandize
about how deep their "differences" are. There are a raft of so-called
"third party" groups, the largest of which are the Libertarian and Green
parties. These are seldom taken seriously, because the two main parties
have near absolute control over the process. All discussion and debate
takes place within the framework they have promoted.

That we have such a designation as "left" and "right" arises from a
time when one particular national legislative body would seat
themselves in the chamber by party affiliation. From where the speaker
stood, to his right was a more or less conservative party, and to his
left was a liberal one. Since that time, the designation has stuck.
This tends to simplify the debate, and voters will see themselves
indentified either left or right, and often a mixture of positions
based on the particular issue at hand.

Wiser heads know that within either of our two parties, there are a
large number of people who could easily fit with the opposition, but
keep their affiliation for various reasons. At odd points in our US
national history, factions within a given party have hijacked the
leadership and changed things. At one time in our history, the
Democrats were regarded as conservative, and the Republicans as
progressive. To add more to the confusion, some particular issues
really are not a matter of conservative or liberal. An example would be
immigration. To be open or closed is not simply a matter of liberal or
conservative. There may be several different categories of reasons to
resist open borders, and it is the cause of resistance that falls left
or right, not the resistance itself.

Finally, many issues are not simply left or right, because there is at
least two different scales: fiscal and social. By rights, there ought to
be four distinct parties at a minimum. However, the powers that be will
never allow this to be widely recognized so long as they exercise
control over the process and means of information. It's not a conspiracy
theory to realize that a select group run the show in our nation. They
are the governing elite, and they will work to prevent anyone seeing the
whole story. That's what governments do.

While the issues are far more complex than just fiscal or social, or
mixtures of both, let us examine things from this perspective. To take
this first step away from a false dichotomy will open the doors to an
even deeper understanding later, should the reader choose to pursue it.
Consider two crossing scales of liberty and freedom. One scale measures
social freedom or personal/individual liberties, if you will ("civil
liberties" has been too twisted by propaganda to be useful). On a
separate scale, we will measure fiscal freedom, or personal/individual
economic liberties. We will represent these combined scales as a
Cartesian coordinate system. We will lable the two scales of freedom
PERSONAL and ECONOMIC.



                     PERSONAL | (more)
                              |
                              |
        Liberal/              |
        Socialist             |        Libertarian
                              |
                              |
ECONOMIC                     |
------------------------------------------------------------
(less)                       |                       (more)
                              |
                              |
       Populist/              |        Conservative
       Fascist/               |
       Communist              |
                              | (less)



You will see that I have placed some popular designations within this
grid to indicate something of their essential nature, in terms of what
sort of controls these philosophies seek to assert over citizens.
Nothing here is meant to disparage any particular group, but merely
recognize their tendencies. Theoretically, one may justly decide that a
certain amount of regulation is necessary to provide a disincentive to
those who flout the rules of common sense, who are willing to prey on
the rest of society. The debate becomes a matter of how much relative
control we desire to hand over to governing authorities. At which point
is the proper to balance between freedom and control?

Let's start with Libertarian philosophy. In general, it favors maximum
liberty in both scales. In its extreme form, we would call it "anarchy."
Lest the reader become confused, we use the word academically, simply
meaning "no organized government" as opposed to the popular meaning,
which is roughly the same as "chaos" -- doing without a formal
government is not automatically chaotic. Libertarians would prefer to
allow folks to choose for themselves whatever they wish, as long as they
recognize they must moderate their actions and choices to avoid
infringing the same freedom of choice for others.

While the term "conservative" means holding onto the good we have had
in the past, it has taken on a distinctive flavor, so that we
capitalize the word to represent a currently recognized philosophy
(which in Europe has always been called "Liberal"). This Conservative
philosophy offers maximum economic freedom, a bulwark of defense for
private property. However, it is less concerned with personal
liberties. Today's Conservatives are willing to tell you how you should
behave in your personal life in order to maintain a nice, orderly
society.

The modern American meaning of "Liberal" is to assert control over
economic activity, while giving less concern to individual behavior
having no economic impact. Thus, for example, human sexual perversion
is openly tolerated, but taxed and regulated if it goes commercial.
This is easily identified with the general meaning of "socialist" --
the government owns (or tightly controls) the means of economic
productivity.

Our last group goes by many names, and these are often misused for
propaganda purposes. To exercise government control over nearly every
aspect of human activity is pleasant only to the governing elite and to
those who fear their own shadow. Populism is a philosophy that attaches
a distinct moral quality to every human activity, and seeks to regulate
based on a model of what is normative. It is based more or less on the
majority rule of what is "good" and "bad." Fascist philosophy seeks the
greater good of the nation, and while promoting a moral argument, is
less concerned with hearing from the population, and more concerned
with manipulating it. Communism goes Socialism one better, by adding an
element of economic control down the lowest level, by telling you what
is the right thing to desire, and thus what you will purchase or sell.
Everything is centrally controlled. All three claim to operate on
behalf of the greater good of all.

While this is yet rather simplistic, it should provide a better
understanding of how we are governed, and what are you options. Now you
know the rest of the story.

-- 
Ed Hurst
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Software Freedom Day - 28 August 2004
Got freedom?
http://www.softwarefreedomday.org/
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