iamausername

Can someone, as simply as possible, explain what the difference between

left wing, right wing, conservative, liberal, republican, fascism

dumb it all down for me

duck0987

Well the first 4 things mentioned are pretty much describe the 2 sides of the same coin.

From Wikipedia: http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics

"A person who believes in right-wing political ideas often believes in moral and social conservatism, law and order, and religion. A person who believes in left-wing political ideas often believes that the money of a country should be given to the poor people in a country, and that a country's government should not be involved in religion."

Secondly Right-wing is said to be conservative typically this is a Republican point of view, Left-Wing is said to be liberal and a Democrat point of view.

Fascism is a broader term used to describe a totalitarian movement or a government under a dictator controlling, quick example Nazi Germany. This is not to say that fascism includes beliefs of racial inferiority, it is more of an idea of absolute control by a dictator This really doesn't have much bearing on the US political climate other than it is often used by liberals to describe conservatives.

The best thing I can tell you to look at is the "world smallest political Quiz" http://www.theadvocates.org/quiz.html . This will give you some idea where you stand and what ideals fall into each of these areas.

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Willravel

guyy

I don't like the character or the people who pull his strings, but "George Bush" really isn't fascist. In my book, fascism has a mass element that the Bush regime lacks. If you rent "Triumph of the Will" you will see Hitler & the Nazi party presented as both leader/s and emodiment of the German nation. Whether or not the Nazis actually did embody or represent the German nation, i think it's significant that they would pretend to do so. There are no such pretensions in the Bush crowd. There are only condescending, faux-populist gestures like Bush's fake Texas accent and his pre-literate aura.

You see, the German masses were crucial to the Nazi project as cannon fodder, as workers, and as agents in the social reproduction of cannon fodder and workers (mothers, wives). This is why there was an expansion of social welfare during the Nazi years. A similar process unfolded in Japan, but without the dictator.

Contrast this to today's America, where people just don't matter. Workers? They live in China. Health, education, babies, all those are your personal responsibility. The US now has a capital intensive, and out-sourced military, partly because its rulers are afraid a conscript army would revolt like it did in Vietnam. If our GIs can't or won't do it, we'll rent some kids from Uzbekistan or Poland or some place.

Racnad

George Bush is not a fascist and Ron Paul is not a conservative.

In broader terms, a "liberal" is someone who wants to change things, and a "conservative" is someone who want to keep things the way they are. In in the real world, the definitions change over time. For the past few decades, "liberal" means someone who favors higher taxes to support social welfare programs, and that big business is suspect but big governement is good. Governments should not regulate people's private behavoir unless it is seen as discriminatory to disadvantaged groups.

A "conservative" is someone who longs to return to the mythical American culture of the 1950s. Government should regulate private business less and private lives more. In theory, conservatives are all about fiscal responsibility, but George W. was pretty much nullified that.

Ron Paul is a libertarian. They stand for a small governent that taxes very little, the military is for repelling invasions only, and both business and private behavoir are mostly unregulated. This mean legal drugs, legal prostitution and your neighbor can open a bordello/drug market next door to your house.

Fascism are systems where an individuals needs come second to whatever the government determines its needs to be. This would not fly in Amerca anytime soon, and accusing Bush of turning America into a fascist state is like accusing a supermarket of turning everyone in the neighboor into alchoholics because they sell beer.

ASU2003

I think that is taking it a little bit to the extreme...

I'll add some more later.

Here is what I will add. You are correct about small government, lower taxes, and military policy is different from foreign policy. There are problems with libertarianism relating to corporations that would become too powerful in relation to the worker. But that isn't anything new.

The main thing about liberarianism is that you can do whatever you want to do with your life as long as it doesn't hurt anybody else.

If you are in the US, you can watch ABC's 20/20 this week and John Stossel (Libertarian) will be discussing health care with Micheal Moore (Liberal/Socialist). It should be interesting. And I think a mix of libertarian and socialist ideas would make the best health care system.

(socialism = high taxes, but government provides similar level of services to everyone.)

Elphaba

Racnad, I would suggest that the current overt expression of liberalism is quite different than you state. As a whole, they look more like moderate conservatives today and just as dependent on corporate largesse. Your definition of fascism is way off the mark, perhaps because the term is offensive to you? Exchange fascism with corporatism and you have the same political entity.

iamusername, I think you are confused because you are paying attention. There really isn't a dimes worth of difference between our parties until you get to the extremes of each of them.

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Baraka_Guru

As a clarification, fascism doesn't have a monopoly on the employment of totalitarianism. Stalin, for example, wasn't a fascist, though you could say the end result was virtually the same.

And though George W. Bush isn't technically a fascist, he is, at least, a right-wing, intolerant, corporatist leader whose aims include the degradation of balanced power. In other words, he isn't a fascist....yet.

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Racnad

Michael Moore and John Stossel discussing healthcare? I am SO watching that. Thanks for the tip.

I have no idea what a mix of libertarian and socialist ideas on healthcare would look like. Under a libertarian system, people would only get the healthcare they could afford, but without insurance companies insulating the market between medicial providors and consumers, many medical services would be priced much lower so people could afford them, but people with major expensive healthcare needs, such as organ transplants, would be shit out of luck, or they'd have to cash out their retirement accounts.

Are you talking about a national catastrophic health care plan that kicks in after some high dedictable ($10,000 or so)?

You will agree though, that libertarian is NOT the same as conservative. We don't think of conservatives as wanting to legalize marijuana, prostitution and same-sex marriage.

pan6467

I am you want it very simple:

The true GOP platform is allow business to grow by hands off and trusting the corporate world to pay decent wages and police themselves, but government sets some standards. In trusting the corporates, the populace doesn't depend on the government. The GOP believe government's purpose is to enforce laws, keep a strong defense and keep the infrastructure up (maintain roads, etc). They consider education funding a necessary evil. They look to non profits, churches and communities to help each other. They look at taxes as a necessity but that the lower the tax rate the freer corporations will be in investing in their workers.

The Dem platform is that government's sole duty is to provide for the people. They believe that in social programs and spending, will in turn lead to better education, which will lead to better jobs, thus more money earned, and taxes eventually steady out.

Where it gets tough and sticky is that each party has offshoots that radicalize certain ideas, neocons push for more privatizations and no guidelines or a very bare minimum.

Liberals, are more social minded and feel the government needs to make sure everyone is taken care of, and that corporations should be regulated and policed.

What we end up seeing is each faction has a different way of combining all of the above to suit their needs.

In the 60's, we saw the Dems become the party against the war, pro abortion rights, pro women's rights and so on. Basically, socially liberal.

The GOP fought back by becoming the more conservative socially. This appealed to the "Moral Majority" aka the Christian Right.

So there were more wrenches thrown into the works.

Then we reach now.............. Now, we have extremes, we lost sight of what used to be a true middle ground where, while there were differences, both sides truly seemed to have the country's best interests in mind.

Today, however, the gulf is so wide and extreme, that the sides dig in and give in to their extremists because those are the more vocal ones who get you elected or unelected.

Now the political/economical theories Fascism, Communism, Socialism, Capitalism, etc are totally different animals and may start as one or the other but in the end become both political and economical realities.

Fascism, in theory, is where everything is done for the good of the country, corporations remain privately owned so long as they work for the good of the country, however, the past shows that put into effect it leads to Totalitarianism, which leads to Dictatorship. A great example is Hitler.

Communism, in theory, is where everything is shared equally among the people and government owns everything, dishing out what it believes to be fair. This leads to leaders having total power.... total power corrupts totally and leads to Dictatorship. Example of this is the Stalinistic USSR.

Socialism, in theory, is where the government owns a certain amount of every company and thus instead of taxes they just collect profit. This, IMHO, is the best theory, however in practice, once government owns a part, the companies become bogged down with regulations and bureaucracies, thus the industries run in debt, and government has to tax the people more in the long run to pay those debts. This was 60's-80's Western Europe and some countries today.

Capitalism, in theory is where the government has a complete hands off approach and allows businesses to determine wages, rights of workers and so on. In theory it's great, however, greed comes into play with those controlling the businesses and we see mergers, companies undercutting by shipping labor out, etc. This leads to commercialism, where the people are forced to keep buying products in hopes of moving the economy. This is where we are today. We mass consume, but have shipped jobs overseas so that we can keep affording the product so that the economy can move forward. However, once business saturates and hits a certain level of profit, more profit is desired. So jobs go overseas. This leads to people with lower waged jobs, having to live off credit and unable to save.

There's offshoots and combinations that in the past have been used by one country or another... but that's the very basic explanation of it all.

The key is to find the very elusive perfect combination.

Now, because of the way the US is (or was...depending on your viewpoint), we have the best chance of finding the perfect combination because the people have a say in the government, via elections, and every 4 years or so we can vote out one theory and weave in a new one.

Some though, believe that the power has been taken from the people because: 1) elections are determined now by advertising and one needs money to get one's message out.... thus the elite few control the money so the elite few determine the elections........ 2) we have lost our identity we are too fractured and a powerful government is needed to maintain control and keep us afloat......3) the majority are easily swayed and are followers and band wagoners, while policies are made by an elite few who are out to eventually return to a feudal/monarchial society, where very few control all the money and the rest of us are just workers for them.

Me? I believe as long as we have a choice and we have the voices in public.... we control our own destinies. To believe our destinies are already determined by others, gives them far too much power before they have it.

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nonplussed

Left wing and liberal are the same thing. The terms generally mean being open to using the power of the state to do good things for the population -- like reducing unemployment, regulating food safety, or protecting the rights of unpopular minority groups.

Right wing and conservative are the same thing. Since approximately 1980 those terms have also been synonomous with Republican. They generally opposes using the power of the state to do anything beyond defense and infrastructure. It opposes regulations on anything, all forms of taxation, or any deviation from traditional social norms in the belief that society benefits the most from minimal government.

Fascism is a form of government headed by a strong dictator not bound by law or public opinion which generally attempts to enforce strict order on society (as in the book/movie 1984). It is neither liberal nor conservative.

Liberals often accuse conservatives of being fascists but this is not strictly true. True conservatives oppose a strong central government. The charge is often made because of the emphasis that conservatives place on social conformity and public order.