Topic: Can someone please explain "right", "left", "far-left", "far-right" etc whatnot? (Read 278 times)

According to my own definition? This doesn't make any sense to me. Maybe you got those terms mixed up?

And what does "not driven by any sort of ideology, or ideological spectrum" means?
What are every tax that's used to build for common good, or worker's rights a result of then? Why do they even exist if not because of ideology? Even if a country would be ran by companies without any any restricting laws, it would be considered as ideology. And parties are supposed to be representations of ideologies.

Sure, based on certain attributes, you can create any sort of grouping. But under your definition here, in the USA, the Republican party is mostly "leftist" these days. And Democrats are often "conservative" (viz. their support of Ukraine or opposing Trump's corruption).

Most modern governments are not driven by any sort of ideology, or ideological spectrum, so if you want to understand what is really going on, it's best not to use big buckets like "left" and "right" because it will give you invalid results.

These terms have lost their meaning. So has "liberal" and "conservative". Don't use them unless you want to be confused.

In the US at least, just stick with "Democrat" and "Republican". Both of those groupings are a hodgepodge of ideological leanings that change almost hourly sometimes, but at least that means something in the real world in terms of the laws we're all going to have to follow.

While it is a spectrum, those words still hold meaning in any country that has a working democratic government, because they basically still are grouping same values as they did in france where it started.

But here you underscore the futility of using the "left right spectrum" to understanding politics. It simply doesn't work these days. Trump has shown he will support absolutely anything if it means getting elected, even if it's an anathema to so-called "conservatives" or those on the political "right".

As I said in my original reply to this question: do not use "left" and "right". These terms are old and outdated, and will only confuse people.

Hold on, putin isn't left or right, he is outside of political spectrum. Even if he once was part of a country that called itself communist, there's nothing left of that expect corruption.

-cut-
Trump is a good example of horseshoe theory because Trump likes Putin, who's a Russian communist, surveillance state fan and "far-left" dictator.

Define it for yourself:

https://www.politicalcompass.org/test/en

So, "left" is like more progressive and into social equality, while "right" is more about limited government and traditional stuff. "Far-left" goes really extreme on change, often with socialist ideas, and "far-right" is super conservative and might be into nationalism.
Learning these political terms can give you a handle on different views, but what really matters is what you personally believe in. You don't have to squeeze into one box. People use labels to talk about politics, but keep in mind, these tags are like big stickers that don't show all the details of what someone really thinks. What's important is you are doing your research and youre not into fake news.

Not a problem! this is actually quite interesting for me

Imagine there is a straight line or a spectrum, let us say that liberalism would be in the middle this signifies balance between the left and the right as we know liberalism values equality of power for both the government and the people hence why it would be the balanced part of our spectrum 50/50 in a way

Now in our right would be the pro-government most of the power is held by the government like i said this is the spectrum so you could be in the right spectrum but this does not mean that all power is held by the government or just one entity however being far-right there would probably be totalitarianism wherein one person just decides everything that is to decide in a country

Now in the left of course would be the complete opposite this would be the anti-government the farther in the left you are, the radical you can consider yourself to be this spectrum holds political theories or values so if one says they are an extreme leftist then they are most likely talking about political ideology that does not really believe in the government’s power

The police "violently impose" when they enforce the law. I vote for their being the police to enforce laws, so indirectly I am "violently imposing" my viewpoint here.

I would also go to war to violently to impose my country's commitment to democracy, for instance, so we can all vote whether to have Obamacare or make abortion illegal or whatever.

My point is simply that "violently imposing your viewpoint" is something everybody does, so it's not very useful to call that "extremism"...

I think the example would be right if you would be willing to violently impose your views on others on that topic. You do not need to as probably most people in your country are ok with private property.

Obamacare was not violently imposed nor opponents were classed (not name-called, but classed) as enemies , it is a decision of a democratic majority. If there is a massive abortion ban "imposed" by a majority, you may disagree, but it is not extremism. Note that is imposed on "God's word" - one of the tell tale signs of "not open to discussion", but it is not violently imposed and the enemies are not "to be killed" or sent to "ghettos".

Look for violence or vilification of the opponents, that is usually a must.

But that definition of "extreme" doesn't tell you what you need to do.

And as far as that definition goes, I'll plug in one of my "extreme" beliefs: that we should punish stealing.

a) I'm not open to discuss this. If we let thieves go unpunished, we'll have rampant crime, and I don't want that.

b) If the majority of Americans suddenly thought stealing was okay, then I would do everything I could to stop that, so..

c) Yes, I call people who think stealing is okay... all kinds of mean things  .

Obviously I'm inventing a simplified example here, but I think you get the idea.

So for me, "extreme" doesn't actually tell you anything useful, except to point out where somebody sits in the current political spectrum within their political party.

You can also try to point at "extreme" policies, which wouldn't be defined on any kind of spectrum, but rather as a measurement of the aggregate change to all Americans (in our case). For instance, Obamacare was "extreme" because it changed pretty much everybody's health care insurance in the US, and just about all Americans have heath care--and the change to people's lives was significant in many cases. On the other side are the Republican crackdowns on abortion, which is a very big change to people's lifestyles and health. You can call both of these policies "extreme" in that sense.

With that definition you can grade the two political parties, overall, by the amount of change they each will make to the country, and you can call the one that will pass bigger changes for more people a more "extreme" party. But obviously that gets into a deep partisan discussion...