What exactly does "left" or "right" mean to you?

[Ned]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi


Fiscal conservatives desire the balancing of the budgets, lowering spending, while avoiding a raise in taxes.

The problem I see with this formulation is that it is mixing fiscal conservatism with social conservatism. I think Dean is a fiscal conservative and social liberal. The two are not necessarily inconsistent.

[Kontiki]

Re: Re: Re: What exactly does "left" or "right" mean to you?

Originally posted by Ned


The military spending divide is driven primarily by the left's lack of concern over threats to the US, particularly communism which is, after all, socialism, and a worldview that emphasizes America as the problem, not the solution.

I don't think I've ever seen such an over-the-top parody of paranoia - not even in Dr. Strangelove!

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Boris:

So why is the pope not leftist politically, while these other folks are?

I don't know where the Pope would be on most political issues, since A) I don't really pay attention to what he says, and B) I don't think he weighs in much on political policy that is totally of secular concern. Regardless, I've known Catholics who go all over the political spectrum, from staunchly right-wing to very left-wing. This would indicate that, as I said, Catholics are not a monolithic voting bloc.

Ted Kennedy's a Catholic, and so is Mel Gibson. How politically in tune do you think they are? It's incredibly simplistic to assume Catholics all share the same political ideology, even prolife ones.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

The overthrow of the monarchy itself wouldn't been so bad, as I've said, if the French stuck to the other traditions they had. They could have survived if they more or less kept the same systems, but taken the King's power and given it to the Parlements or an executive council.

How much power is an absolutist monarch inclined to share?

If the experience of 17th Century Great Britain is anything to go by, precious little- a lesson not lost on the French, since Charles I's wife, Henrietta, was aunt to Louis XIV, and the Stuarts became pensioners and dependants of the French Crown before the Restoration of Charles II and after the Glorious Revolution and the deposition of James II.

Who would willingly keep traditions such as the lettres de cachet, which could and did send people to prison indefinitely without any chance of a hearing or trial?

The arbitrary imposition of taxes (the absolutist monarchy itself broke with tradition by imposing direct taxes on aristocrats for the first time after the Treaty of Aix la Chapelle in 1748)?

The Parlements were not even parliaments in the modern sense of the word, but bodies of people who had bought their positions.

Habit is a great deadener, as Samuel Beckett said, and even conservative critics of the Ancien Regime (such as many of the Philosophes, the economists of the Physiocrats, including Francois Quesnay, doctor to Louis XV) could not penetrate the layers of petrification surrounding the French monarchy. Tradition in 18th Century France was only force of habit elevated to government, inertia relieved only by foreign and domestic crises and the imposition of new taxes.

The lack of any experience of non-monarchical bodies in government, in itself is a fault that can be laid at the door of the French monarchy- effectively a centralized and centralizing body from the time of the minority of Louis XIII, when power was vested in Richelieu's hands, and afterwards in the persons of Mazarin and Louis XIV's mother, before the apotheosis of Louis XIV as le Roi Soleil.

Even the French Roman Catholic Church acted more like a great modern monopoly corporation- a great conservative stifler of social change and innovation.

'L'Etat, c'est moi' means exactly that in pre-Revolutionary French history- the French monarch is the oppressive Leviathan ultimately engendering its own destruction by tenaciously enshrining traditions and habits as articles of faith and government.

[OliverFA]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Left means new, progress. Right means old, anti-progress. All extensions of freedom came because leftists forced rightists to give it up.

Isn´t a bit contradictory that "freedom" comes because someone forces people? Sorry, but I don´t buy it. Freedom cannot be enforced.

[Imran Siddiqui]

How much power is an absolutist monarch inclined to share?

Not saying that an absolutist monarch is willing to share much. Burke was not opposed to overthrowing governments. He was in favor of the American Revolution and Glorious Revolution (as a good Whig). In both 'revolts' the traditions had not been strayed too far from and an argument could be made that in both cases, the government themselves had strayed from their traditions. And, in both cases, it was simply a case of government transforming, most regular people really didn't feel anything buy it, except minor changes.

Burke was a liberal, but one who believed in social order. His founding of modern conservativism (or at least modern American conservativism) is interesting because it is based on liberalism. Gradual change, but change only when it it shown to be a benefit. Don't just change for the sake of changing.

The lack of experience of non-monarchical bodies means the transformation from an absolutist monarchy to a republic should have been a slow gradual process. Remove the King, of course, but gradually phase out old traditions. Don't quit cold turkey. It's kind of like what happened with Russia and capitalism. It should have been a gradual introduction instead of a dunking your head in the tank before you knew how to swim.

Of course the most interesting thing, and why Burke is listened to and read in philosophy classes across the US (at least) is because his "Reflections on the Revolution in France", written in 1790, VERY accurately predicted what was to happen. He predicted a general chaos and a dictator would rise up and take power in that vaccuum. It happened as he said it.