Talk:Right-wing politics/Archive 19

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Falconclaw has to produce sources to prove bias

First of all. It clearly appears to me that Falconclaw is failing to drop the stick. The real relevant issue addressed in the past was the lack of sources to back up the sentence on the right-wing involving acceptance of hierarchy. Now there are multiple sources that support it, including an academic encyclopedia from my university that defines acceptance of hierarchy as the first and foremost advocacy of the right while egalitarianism is the first and foremost advocacy on the left, and defines the far-left as those who believe that differences between people in social status are a product of their environment thus legitimizing complete egalitarianism, while the far-right believes that differences between people are innate and as such inferior positions of people are the result of innate inferiorityvand superior positions are the result of innate superiority. It goes on to say that regardless of ideology, that when movements gain political power they inevitably become increasingly conservative in their outlook - this is important and I would (since Falconclaw keeps bringing up that the Soviets never achieved their far-left goals in government structure) that even far-left movements like the Bolsheviks in Russia had to adapt to the political environment they inherit - in order to quickly seize and maintain power, the Bolsheviks kept much of the authoritarian structure of the absolute monarchy of Tsarist Russia intact and just replaced the heriditary absolute monarch with a non-heriditary all-powerful General Secretary position under Stalin - the Cheka which later became the KGB - was by in large a successor to the Tsarist Okhrana. Far-right Serb nationalists in the Yugoslav Wars had to initially rely on the steadily collapsing but increasingly Serb-dominated communist single-party state to attempt to deny Croatia the right to secede from Yugoslavia and used the Yugoslav army for campaigns of ethnic cleansing of non-Serbs in Croatia and later Bosnia. Both far-left and far-right tend to be violent because they are extremists - and extremists by their nature are highly hostile to anything that deviates from their point of view and agenda.--R-41 (talk) 22:18, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Second of all. Everyone but the most biased should know by now: far-left and far-right are extremists and it is not a matter of good on one side and evil on the other, or liberty on one side and tyranny on another. Both far-left and far-right movements and governments have committed atrocious crimes. And the half-effort argument that "right = less state and left = more state" is nonsense, there have been absolute monarchists on the right who advocate an all-powerful monarchy with no limits on its power, and there have been anarchists on the left who want to destroy the state. And there have been tyrants like Louis XVI on the right, and Joseph Stalin on the left (I will not get drawn into where fascism stands - all I can say is that indepth study on it shows that it is all over the place - left, right, centre positions on certain things, it is syncretic overall but with a strong far-right stance that believes that superior people have the right to dominate over inferior people). So bearing this in mind, and that there are plenty of quality sources in the intro backing up its sentences, what is it exactly that is so "biased"? Describe exactly which sentences are biased.--R-41 (talk) 22:18, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

If Far-left politics and Far-right politics are equally bad, why does the far Left article sound so much more appealing than the far Right article? My idea is because of a systematic bias in favor of left wing causes. Also, the idea that the Right doesn't generally support less government then the Left is absurd. In fact, I would argue that this is really the best distinction between center-right and center-left; the fact that the former supports less government coercion than the latter. Certainly the center-right, (think Republican Party in the US, Conservative Party in the UK) doesn't particularly support hierarchy. Falconclaw5000 (talk) 09:48, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

I fixed your broken links, above. I hope that is ok with you.

Both of these article strike me as very badly written, but I don't see that one is worse than the other. Your view that the Republican Party and the Conservative Party do not support hierarchy is just that, your view. Standard sources do not share that view with you. Wikipedia is based on standard sources. Rick Norwood (talk) 12:30, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

The article "far left" was largely written by anti-leftist editors who decided that "far left" refers to parties to the left of social democrats and to the right of communists. While the intention was to make these parties look bad by calling them "far left", it is interesting that the effect has been to make the "far left" look relatively moderate. BTW, there is a distinction between center-right and right-wing. TFD (talk) 12:51, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Aristocratic heads on pikes during the Reign of Terror in France. Falconclaw, this is a negative example of far-left's pursuit of equality in practice - killing the upper classes, so do you think the definition of far left as radical egalitarianism still seems biased as "appealing"?

Falconclaw, for your claim that far-left looks "better" then far-right, you being as I presume a right-libertarian should know what far-left "equality" meant in practice by far-left tyrants such as Robespierre, Stalin, and Mao: killing the upper-class people, or people suspected of reactionary counter-revolution. I am more than willing to note that the Reign of Terror of Robespierre, Stalin's mass murder of the middle-class Kulaks, and the Cultural Revolution of Mao are clear examples of far-left-motivated mass murder.--R-41 (talk) 22:31, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

This is covered in the article Mass killings under Communist regimes. Rick Norwood (talk) 14:55, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

R-41, your logic is circular. You first claim legitimacy of the description of right-wing politics being accepting and supportive of social hierarchy. You then claim in your description of fascism that there are tyrants who are right-wing because they support social hierarchy. I'm not making an attack on you. I'm simply trying to explain that what's in question here is whether right-wing can be considered supportive of a social hierarchy at all - not whether certain historical leaders or forms of government can be considered right-wing on the basis of their support for social hierarchy.

Falconclaw5000 and R-41, it seems that there may be a miscommunication at the heart of the disagreement. As the article states, there is a difference in how these ideologies are defined based on the time period to which you are referring. For example, modern American right-wing is different from right-wing in historical or international contexts. I've also noticed that sometimes leaders of countries are referred to as right-wing or left-wing in terms relative to the people of their countries. This discrepancy is noted in the paragraph describing Hayek.

Regardless, stating in the first sentence of the article that right-wing is known by its support of social hierarchy is misleading at best. This wording seems to suggest that developing a social hierarchy within a society is an ultimate goal of right-wing philosophy as opposed to merely a potential outcome. As it is, the wording could be confused with the article on left-wing politics (the introduction of the left-wing article is equally misleading). For example, the stated goal of the left-wing is "social change to create a more egalitarian society." Therefore, there must be a social hierarchy from which social change would progress. So if the right-wing is to oppose the left-wing, how can they both accept the social hierarchy?

The difference is the goals. As R-41 mentioned, the results of some attempts to bring about "social change to create a more egalitarian society" have been quite violent. The reason, though, is related to Falconclaw5000's point: bringing about social change to create a more egalitarian society requires coercion. Coercion requires agents capable of applying that coercion. Thus, the state is formed and expanded. Opposed is the right-wing philosophy which does not dictate forcing conformity but instead embraces individualism, accepting that there are inherent differences among individuals and that outcomes will necessarily vary. Pkclan (talk) 07:31, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

The article says that "right-wing" is used to describe those who support social hierarchy because the sources say that. You would like right-wing to mean support of individualism, but the sources don't say that. In America, liberty and individualism are highly valued, so the right-wing says, "We're for that." So does the left-wing. You can't use as a definition something both sides agree upon. You have to use as a definition something that distinguishes the two sides. Rick Norwood (talk) 19:15, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Pkclan, the logic is not circular if you look at the sources and understand the origins of right-wing politics. The original right in France was not formed merely by individualists, in fact it was formed by multiple groups that were opposed to individualism, such as: proponents of aristocracy (who believed that someone who was born of "noble" birth was automatically superior to people of "lower" origins), the Catholic Church - that has promoted corporatist conception of society as being like an organic body, and absolute monarchists who believed that a King with absolute power was an ideal state. Did a common belief in individualism unite aristocrats, the Catholic Church, and absolute monarchists together in France? I do not see evidence to suggest that. In fact, far-right reactionaries in Europe opposed capitalism when it first arose because capitalism sought the dismantlement of the feudal system and the end of mercantilism that reactionaries supported. As Rick Norwood has said, individualism is part of American political culture - both the mainstream left and the mainstream right in the US claim to support it. In Europe the situation is different, the Catholic religious right in Europe is profoundly different from the right in the US, the Catholic right in Europe emphasizes corporatism over individualism, it has held sympathy with some economic elements on the European left - it supports charity to the poor. The Papacy has however condemned capitalism since the 1890s for self-centredness and both the Catholic left and the Catholic right acknowledge this. But the Catholic right staunchly opposes the mainstream left on social issues such as LGBT issues. Moreover the Catholic far-right in Europe was historically a major movement, whose figures promoted authoritarian religious corporatist government, an example of this is the Spanish Confederation of the Autonomous Right.--R-41 (talk) 02:20, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

I agree that the "Right" in Europe is a different thing than the "Right" in the US. How would you parse the Church's strong opposition to the ideas contained in Hobbes' Leviathan? --Ryan W (talk) 09:09, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

The European religious right opposed Hobbes' work Leviathan because it was largely based upon non-religious justifications for absolute monarchy, although Hobbes did support the Divine Right of Kings. The right is not a homogeneous faction, it is heterogeneous there are multiple sub-factions within the right, just as there are in the left and the centre. The original right in France was founded by a unification of factions that had quarreled with each other in the past - the aristocrats had quarreled with the monarchy over influence over society, the Catholic Church had quarreled with the monarchy over its authority over culture after Church influence became weakened. This weaknening of the Church was caused by the rise of the New Monarchs who were centralizing power, and the Treaty of Westphalia. Wesphalia was adopted after the devastation of Europe from the Thirty Years War - Westphalia changed European diplomacy by emphasizing that state sovereignty was supreme over religious edict, in order to prevent further Catholic versus Protestant religious wars. Note that Hobbes published his very secular work Leviathan in the midst of the English Civil War and in the immediate aftermath of the Thirty Years War and Westphalia. There are divisions on the left as well, for instance there are religious leftists who opposed Karl Marx because of his atheism.--R-41 (talk) 10:35, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

A section that talks about traditional "family values" should be about traditional "Christian family values"

One of the sections in this article talks about traditional "family values" including promotion of marriage between a man and a woman while opposing same-sex marriage, opposing abortion, and opposing euthanasia. First of all these are not universal, but Christian stances. There obviously have been right-wing movements in non-Christian countries, but even if we can assume that these values can be extended to the other two Abrahamic faiths (Judaism and Islam) there still are right-wing movements supported by non-Abrahamic peoples - right-wing groups in Japan and Hindu religious conservatives in India for instance.--R-41 (talk) 22:12, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Environmentalism?

Has a section on the right wing view of the environment been discussed yet? I'm not so sure where to start on that one. Cadiomals (talk) 01:06, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

Try to find reliable sources - but I suspect that there are right-wing people on all sides of environmentalism as a topic, although I also suspect most do not think that the government is the best protector of it. YMMV. Collect (talk) 01:16, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

It depends on how you define environmentalism and it depends on the political cultures of various societies. The European conservative right has historically held a romantic conception of nature and rural life as being ideal while viewing urban and industrial life as morally and physically corrosive. The American neoliberal right for the most part are highly skeptical of environmentalism.--R-41 (talk) 03:41, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

Some right-wing extemists are organic farmers, while Eastern European Communist governments had poor environmental records. In fact, one of the reasons for the emergence of green politics was that neither left nor right cared about the environment. In the European parliament, greens sit between liberals and social democrats. TFD (talk) 04:12, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

I will try to find reliable sources that cover most/all right-wing views on the environment. Usually I would think (American) conservatives have less concern for environmental health, believe man should exploit natural resources, and do not accept global warming, but I realize that throughout various places and time periods those views can vary drastically. It would help if we could find sources encompassing all these views but it will probably be difficult. Cadiomals (talk) 13:26, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

I would suggest you read the ArbCom decisions regarding editing of articles on "Climate Change" etc. before doing much. And I have certainly met "right-wingers" who were zealous recyclers etc., and "left-wingers" who were certainly environmental abusers <g> so trying to make any generalizations is fraught with peril. And where the section has too many internal contradictions, I think such a section would not meet with WP:CONSENSUS. Collect (talk) 13:46, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

I'd suspect those on the American Right are more likely to take a humanocentric view of environmental issues and do cost-benefit analysis while those on the left seem more likely to view nature as a subject as opposed to an object and assign rights to it independent of its value or potential value to human beings. Do you think that that's a fair assessment? --Ryan W (talk) 09:15, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Not really - we are not supposed to interpolate what we think we know into articles, but rather to rely on specific statements made in reliable sources. Many "conservative societies" (that is, ones which resist all change) are, in fact, very attuned to nature, while some modern "true socialist" societies have been highly destructive of nature. Which suggests that your generalization is unlikely to be supported by reliable sources. Cheers. Collect (talk) 11:58, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

The notion of a conservative as someone who resists change is hopelessly contextual, which is why I specified I was discussing America. Also, I'm not asserting that I believe "assigning rights to nature" is synonymous with conservation. Sometimes good intentions have bad or ironic results. If America didn't have intensive agriculture, the population would quickly denude the landscape. Native Americans are sometimes credited with the extinction of various forms of megafauna which were preserved in Europe. Etc. etc. Cheers! --Ryan W (talk) 22:19, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

inequality of what?

The term "inequality" is frequently used without qualification as to the type of equality favored. This might benefit from some form of qualification. Equality in regard to what? For example, many people who would describe themselves as being "on the Right" in 21st century America would favor equality before the law but are less likely to support some government sponsored attempts to create material equality (equality of wealth or equality of outcome.) And in 21st century America, many who consider themselves to be "on the left" have opposed equality before the law in hopes of arriving at a desirable (or more 'equal') material or social outcome. For example; progressive taxation taxes people at different rates and tends to receive greater support from those in America who self-identify as 'left.' Sorry for the lack of citations here, but I'll be more than happy to bring in support for points of contention if it makes a difference. --Ryan W (talk) 08:41, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

There are degrees of equality - the most right-wing would reject even equality before the law. TFD (talk) 14:26, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

There are not just degrees of equality, but also different and distinct types. One type is sometimes sacrificed for the sake of another. The types of 'equality' valued by different portions of the political spectrum are relevant to this page. I agree that the "most right wing" in Europe, as defined by seating during the French revolution, would sacrifice equality before the law. The church's unity with the nobility compelled some who supported the church to also support the nobility. But the spectrum is used differently within the United States (which has no strong history of monarchy and aristocracy, and where the right wing is more strongly associated with the Judeo-Christian tradition than a fused church-state) and it is popular usage which gives terms meaning. Aldous Huxley, for example, was a prominent 20th century self-described leftist who proposed such deliberate stratification. (According to Huxley, Brave New World was not entirely dystopian.) Many US self-described, particularly in the United States, are willing to sacrifice equality before the law in favor of some form of equality of outcomes (wealth disparity, equal gender ratios, etc.) To put this another way; what evidence would disprove the assertion that "the most right wing (In America) would reject equality before the law." If no evidence would disprove this, (either through popular usage of the term or self-identified 'rightists' behaving in ways contrary to this assertion) then the argument is circular. Here is one article discussing the process of blurring the political spectrum as regards America. http://www.progress.org/fold64.htm --Ryan W (talk) 21:53, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

You say that Huxley supported "deliberate stratification", if he did, he shouldn't be associated with the left, the left is based on the ideological promotion of egalitarianism. I have read Brave New World and I can understand that you are not understanding the context what Huxley meant. Huxley means that Brave New World can be considered utopian because the society, in the book, utilizes the narcotic "Soma" to induce an artificial sense of happiness that most of the cloned people regard as a blessing, plus the society has managed to become highly technologically advanced and the people for the most part are at peace (except for those who are exiled). However the society is dystopian to characters who do not fit into the norm of the society - one is a physically-deformed man who was supposed to be upper-class but his deformity causes people to look down on him, another is a man with extremely high intelligence who cannot stand the mediocrity of the society, and the last is a modernist representation of an indigenous person - the indigenous man kills himself when brought to the society because the society's people are so conditioned and artificial that he cannot stand living in it. Note that Huxley's society was a hierarchical consumerist society, and Huxley clearly was showing that what could be a utopia for those who were obedient could be a distopia for those disobedient people who disliked the conditioned and artificial nature of the society.--R-41 (talk) 01:45, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Back to the point however.

Inequality of power and influence and status in society is the issue. In the economy, this inequality involves the share of influence in the economy. The problem here with the perspective in the USA, is that you have to look at the nature of the left-right spectrum in the United States from a perspective that acknowledges the USA's political peculiarities. Though American conservatives today may be reluctant to acknowledge this, the American Revolution and the United States Declaration of Independence served as an inspiration for the left-wing French Revolution. Indeed, one of the Founding Fathers, Thomas Jefferson initially supported the French Revolution, but abandoned support when the violence in France grew out of control. The Declaration od Independence's promise that "all men are created equal" was radical idea at the time considering that aristocracy was strong throughout the world at that time. The French revolutionaries adopted a similar claim, a society based upon "liberty, equality, fraternity". The mainstream American right is individualist and economically libertarian. It openly boasts that people should seek to climb the capitalist "ladder" to higher positions in the economy, and it is disinterested in any significant societal action to reduce the inequality caused by poverty to those deemed able to work. The mainstream American right commonly views many poor people as being poor as the result of bad choices and behaviour in life that they took. The basis of the mainstream American right is that individual rights and responsibilities are key, and for the most part it claims that individuals alone are responsible for building-up their economic well-being, if they fail to do so - that is the result of being irresponsible. The American right commonly views able-bodied people who are unemployed and impoverished as deserving their lower status in society, because they were offered equal opportunity and failed to take advantage of it. At the same time, as I have said, the mainstream American right officially supports equal opportunity - because that is a basis of American constitutional heritage.--R-41 (talk) 01:11, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

As for your claims on people in the American left not supporting equality, I can tell you that there are corrupt people associated with ideologically left-wing movements, and indeed any political movements, who get involved in movements to to gain influence, to siphon off money, or to promote petty crony interests of their clients; that is an issue of corruption, not ideology. Plus the mainstream left in the USA is the centre-left that promotes a significant degree of egalitarianism - but it believes that complete equality of outcome is impossible. The differences from the centre-left and the centre-right in the USA are not as extreme in difference on issues of equal opportunity as media pundits make it out to be, it is the fine details where the differences emerge.--R-41 (talk) 02:04, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

If you want to argue that "liberals" reject some forms of equality that "conservatives" support, then you need a source that says that. TFD (talk) 15:14, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

He only needs to point out that some "liberals" act in a manner suggesting that one group is to get prefewrential treatment over another group to demonstrate his point. It is asinine to require that he show that liberals in general reject what you call "some forms of equality" as you appear to insist above. I would suggest that any "preferential treatment" of any group is pretty clearly not treating all groups equally. YMMV. Cheers. Collect (talk) 15:57, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

We are supposed to rely on interpretations provided by sources. Ryan W. presents the opinion that progressive taxation is an example of inequality before the law. That does not appear to be a standard interpretation. TFD (talk) 16:13, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

We are supposed to rely on what the sources say and not on what any editor asserts to be the WP:TRUTH here. I gave an example - and I note that you have not denied the aptness of the example I posed. Cheers. Collect (talk) 17:30, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

All people in the US are taxed at the same rate on each tax band. There are not separate tax schedules for different classes of people, but the rates are based entirely on income, property and spending. Since you disagree, could you please provide a source that supports your views. TFD (talk) 17:44, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Progressive taxation is designed as a form of egalitarian "social levelling" in welfare states, put simply in theory: a greater sum of money is taxed from the well off to provide to the low-income or poor various goods and services: such as unemployment insurance, socially-financed services that likely would otherwise cost low-income or poor people a significant portion of their financial resources if they had to pay the full cost of expensive services, or public housing for the low-income and poor, etc. Are there inconsistencies and mistakes in a welfare state in regard to equality: yes, corruption and lobbying of groups can cause the system to become warped, but most often the system warps back and forth due to the fact that both left-of-centre and right-of-centre governments take control over welfare, its design and intentions warp over time - the contemporary right-of-centre American conservative-invented, neoliberal version of welfare is nicknamed "workfare" - and it distinguishes between what it calls the "deserving" and "undeserving" poor. Progressive taxation may not be viewed as "fair" by those who do not want their resources taken by the state to assist people they do not know, but we should not confuse an opinion - however well validated - that because progressive taxation is in one's view "unfair" that thereby the left is not egalitarian.--R-41 (talk) 02:17, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Actually progressive income taxation was introduced because it was believed that the marginal utility of each dollar earned declined as one earned more money. Hence everyone is taxed equally on the same bands of income and are taxed more on the higher bands. Income taxation was often introduced to pay for war, not social programs. Social welfare spending otoh is normally funded where possible through regressive (not progressive) taxation, e.g., property taxes and premiums. For employment insurance for example, everyone pays the same rate for coverage. TFD (talk) 09:15, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

An errant claim unless you really think marginal rates significantly over 100% (vide Sweden and its infamous 102% marginal tax rate) are there because the marginal value should become negative at some point. BTW, studies do 'not support your claim that property taxes (which are primarily levied on commercial property as a simple matter of fact) are specifically "regressive" - the fact is that people with more money tend to own more property (amazing?) - in many cases well beyond any "regressive" effect, and the property taxes on commercial propery are not levied on the "poor". And you really should read up on the topic - unemployment compensation rates are not the same for everyone, and since they have a maximum payment, it would be silly to say that "everyone pays the same rate for coverage." Ditto workmen's comp insurance - the rates are not the same for everyone. Cheers. Collect (talk) 12:27, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

(out) See "Regressive Taxes" on page 356 of the textbook, Survey of Economics for an explanation of regressive taxation.[1] Are you presenting your own opinions, or is there an American conservative website you can link to that supports your views? TFD (talk) 13:21, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Sweden's infamous 102% tax is a red herrring, because nobody here (in fact, as far as I know, nobody today) is in favor of that. But most people, from Adam Smith on, think those best able to pay should pay at a higher rate -- except, of course, for the congresscritters who are paid to take care of the super-rich by having them pay at a lower rate. Rick Norwood (talk) 15:50, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

It existed. So much for the claim that there was no deliberate inequality involved -- it most absolutely looks like a "deliberate inequality" from here - unless you wish to agree with TFD that the "marginal value" of money should be less than zero. For someone. As most property tax is on commercial property, the claim about it being so regressive is the red herring -- nationaly only a small percentage is from homeowner property taxes, far less than other sources. This is not, by the way, a "conservative" argument - it is a statistical one, and thus the snide asides from one editor are woefully meaningless. FWIW, Florida has a "homestead exemption" of $25K or more - meaning that, in general, smaller houses may pay zero property tax. It is hard to find that zero is a "regressive" amount, isn't it? A house assessed at $40K (not uncommon) will incur around 10% of the tax that a house valued at $175K incurs Cheers. Collect (talk) 16:00, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

When you cite a phrase, it should be a phrase somebody actually said. Since nobody, at least in this thread, said "no deliberate inequality", it is hard to figure out what you are going on about.Rick Norwood (talk) 20:29, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

I trust folks to actually read the discussion. It is clear that some liberals do not actually believe in equality of all. Is that clear enough? Thus what R-41 wrote was absolutely correct, and what TFD averred to be the WP:TRUTH was not. Cheers. Collect (talk) 20:37, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Interesting points, Collect, but we go with what textbooks say not our personal opinions. BTW, the Sweden government - not liberals. But let's not take this conversation too far off topic. Incidentally, I am interested in the American Right and ask again whether this is something that you invented or if there are actual American conservative websites promoting these views. TFD (talk) 22:08, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

I find your inference grossly insulting. BTW, you are the first person I ever found on Wikipedia or anywhere who considered the Swedish government of that period "not liberal" LOL! Cheers. Collect (talk) 23:36, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Collect: I read the thread. Is the phrase you quoted in some earlier thread? If so, please point it out. Also, I'm at a loss to understand the "inference" you found "insulting". Maybe you wouldn't mind pointing that out, too. Rick Norwood (talk) 01:20, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

The 102% tax rate is from a satirical story, Pomperipossa in Monismania, by a Swedish writer. The governing party of Sweden was socialist, not liberal. Attempts to make regressive taxes less regressive do not turn them into progressive taxes. However I would still like to see a source that says calls property tax progressive. TFD (talk) 03:38, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

That a writer satirized the rate does not affect anything at all. And saying a "socialist" party is in any remote way "right wing" (which was the original claim that you made - that the left is for equality and the right opposes equality, is in the Cloud Cuckoo Land area. BTW, all the refs on the Social Democrats use the term "liberal" in them - so would you kindly show me a ref for your assertion that it is not liberal? Or are you saying one can not be socialist and liberal as your interesting argument? Collect (talk) 11:53, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

Also note that at a 20 mil rate in Florida, a house assessed at $25,000 would pay zero with homsetead, at $50,000 it would pay $500, and one at $200,000 would pay $3,500. An effective rate for poor people of zero, for middle income people of 1% of house price, and for upper income people (with the more expensive houst) 1.75% of the house value. As "homestead" does not apply to commercial property, those taxes are linear. Seems "progressive" to me, unless you think a person should pay property tax on the basis of their income in which case you seem to define tax in a manner which requires that taxes to be progressive therefore must be based on income. I find such silly tautological arguments to be tedious indeed. Cheers. Collect (talk) 12:01, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

The author of Pomperipossa in Monismania created a fictional rate of 102% to satirize high Swedish rates. While it is interesting that Florida tries to reduce the inherent regressiveness of property taxes, it does not mean that they are progressive. Also, you are confusing liberalism and socialism, just as on other articles you confuse liberalism and conservatism. That may be why you think the left-right spectrum is meaningless. But concepts we do not understand are not necessarily meaningless. TFD (talk) 15:44, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

The problem is that it was not a fictional tax rate. That you insist on saying it was fiction is totally worthless when we have news articles about the topic. [2], [3], [4] Ingmar Bergman reportedly hit a 134% marginal tax rate. That you so conveniently find Ingmar Bergman's exile because of the tax rate to be "fictional" I suggest that it was not. Cheers. The US hit a 94% rate IIRC -- do you really feel that such a rate was proper and not directed unequally at any group? Collect (talk) 20:46, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

We are getting off topic. Although there may be different types of equality there are grades as well. The more to the left one goes (for example socialists in Sweden), the more progressive the taxes tend to be. But even on the right, there is some equality even in the flat tax, because high income earners pay more tax than low income earners. TFD (talk) 08:20, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

IOW, you now assert that equality is not equality, that some types of equality are more equality than other types of equality? And a 102% tax rate is simply "progressive" and is not "confiscatory". Interesting. At least you no longer claim the Swedish Social Democrats were not liberal! LOL! Collect (talk) 12:03, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

Collect, all taxes are "confiscatory". Anyway, you appear to not understand the terms liberal, conservative, socialist, progressive, etc., and you are better advised to look them up before discussing them. TFD (talk) 15:46, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

Please note that this pages is not a forum for the general discussion of the topic. Rick Norwood (talk) 20:12, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

Collect: Assuming good faith, that you really do not understand how the phrase "right-wing" is used, here is a quote from a major right-wing writer I think you are familiar with, Clinton Rossiter: "The Right of these freewheeling decades was a genuine Right: it was led by the rich and well-placed; it was skeptical of popular government; it was opposed to all parties, unions, leagues, or other movements that sought to invade its positions of power and profit; it was politically, socially, and culturally anti-radical." Understand? To say someone is "right-wing" means thay favor the power and profit of the rich and well-placed. To say that someone is "left-wing" means they favor parties, unions, and leagues to invade the positions of power and profit, and increase participation in politics by people not rich or well-placed. Yes? Rick Norwood (talk) 15:56, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

The definitions of the "political spectrum" are many and varied depending on place and time, and issue. Your definition of "left-wing" is not always true depending on such factors, and it is the nature of the "spectrum" that it seldom is clear as to who is what. Cheers. Collect (talk) 02:02, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

If you believe that then why do you insist on trying to insert on multiple articles (e.g., Unite Against Fascism, that they are/have been described as "left-wing"? Yet you vehemently objected to including the fact that most academics have grouped the Tea Party Movement within the radical right. If you would accept that we are here to present what mainstream sources say we could avoid a lot of argy bargy. TFD (talk) 02:32, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Since more than a dozen major reliable sources including the AP have used the term, I suggest that a sentence stating that they have used the term is proper - note that I never said we should use Wikipedia's voice to say the UAF is anything at all. And since your stated source said the TPM is NOT "radical right" it seems incredible that you would argue to misquote and misuse that source! And the discussion on that page made your abuse of the source evident. [5] (Some editors argue that Obama was not born in Hawaii, 911 was an inside job, Oswald did not alone, the government is hiding the truth on UFOs and evolution is just a theory. Instead of weighing the evidence and deciding ourselves, we rely on what experts agree upon. Incidentally, you need a source, I do not, since you are trying to add something.) shows your "style" clearly - where you imply that editors who do not agree with your "truth" are birthers, 9/11 conspiracy theorists, etc. I assure you that your position of misusing sources is against policy. Cheers. Collect (talk) 11:58, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Collect: 1) You can't have it both ways. If "left" and "right" are "seldom clear", then they can be used higgledy-piggledy, and you can't argue that this or that group is or isn't left or right. If, as this article assumes, left and right have some meaning, though (how often do we need to say this) not as precise a meaning as, say, up and down, the we should stick to that meaning, and not excuse editing the article based on their essential meaninglessness. 2) TFD, in common with all human beings, is sometimes right and sometimes wrong. That is why we have the rule: no personal attacks. Please stop attacking TFD and try to focus on the subject at hand. TFD, needless to say, should accord you the same respect. Rick Norwood (talk) 12:32, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

I am not trying to have it "both ways". I said that where reliable sources express an opinion, that we can report such opinions, properly sourced. Where the reliable source does not say something (in the case cited - it said the exact and precise opposite of the claim being made) then we can not use a source to say what it does not say. I would trust you would agree that we can not use a source to say what it sdoes not say. Meanwhile, I point out that from place to place, time to time, and issue to issue, the definition of a "left right political spectrum" is now not favoured by scholars. Newspapers are not scholars, and we can trust that they are using terms in opinions which, when expressed as opinion, are usable in encyclopedia articles. And noting that an editor has misused a source is not an "attack" Rick. Calling or implying someone is a "birther" is, however, an attack. Cheers. Collect (talk) 12:49, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

To use an analogy, since people today tend to be taller than then were in 1789, some people who would have been considered tall in 1789 would not longer be considered so today. Similarly relative heights of people differ across ethnic groups. That does not mean that saying someone is taller than someone else means different things depending on "place to place, time to time". What does change is where we draw the line. In France, the arrival of new parties on the left of the chamber changed the composition of the right, as they were joined by orleanists, bonapartists and radicals, facing a new Left made up of Socialists and Communists. But the values separating left and right remained constant - the Left were always committed to greater equality than the Right, even as the enlargement of the Right moderated their position on equality. Incidentally a source that says "most scholars support x, but I support y" is a good source for "most scholars support x" and is not a valid source for "y is true". We need to distinguish between facts, including facts about the degree of acceptance of opinions, and opinions. TFD (talk) 15:19, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

A ridiculous analogy - "height" is a measurable item. "Right wing" can mean "monarchist" or "anti-monarchist", "establishmentarian" or "anti-establishmentarian", "nationalist" or "anti-nationalist", "authoritarian" or "libertarian" etc. "Fre trade" or "protectionist." Favour "Fiat currency" or "specie" etc. Not a matter of "measuring height" as you present. It can represent opposite positions, which is a real problem. And your perverse insistence that a source can be used for what it specifically says is not true is astounding here. Wanna try to get the TPM back into the "radical right" article after your debacle there? LOL! Cheers. Collect (talk) 15:34, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Left-right is a horizontal linear dimension, while height is a vertical linear dimension. The criteria for including information in articles is not whether we happen to agree with them. TFD (talk) 15:58, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

outgroup vs. ingroup identification

"The 'extreme right' is anti-democratic, nationalist, racist, and supports a strong state." Since the word "extreme" as opposed to, say, "far" is inherently POV, it seems worth noting, at the very least, the political identity of those who make such a categorization. I suspect there are few groups which categorize themselves as 'extreme' anything, but I welcome correction on this point. It would be Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view to say "Such and such a group holds that anti-democratic, nationalist and racist groups should be categorized as 'extreme right.'" And then to also include how the so-labeled groups self-identify. --Ryan W (talk) 09:48, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Again the inherent weakness of a "linear left-right political spectrum" is evident, along with the apparent desire of some to add all "bad characteristics" to "right wing" groups in a sort of Mulligan stew. IMO, Wikipedia requires that we source specifically and separately all claims which are comprised from multiple disparate sources, and not catenate them as though all the sources agree on the claims. Especially where many modern scholars view the simplistic spectrum as being problematic - that is, not having the same meaning in different places and times. Cheers. Collect (talk) 12:10, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Please read what it says above that sentence. "Eatwell and O'Sullivan divide the Right into five types: 'reactionary', 'moderate', 'radical', 'extreme', and 'new'". We are allowed to explain the views of the major work that attempts to map the Right and contrary to Collect's claim it is "comprised from multiple disparate sources", it is taken from a single secondary source explaining their concept of the 'extreme right'. TFD (talk) 14:16, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

The entire topic is from disparate sources - and your prior attempts, for example, to label the Tea Party folks as "radical" failed when your own sources contradicted your claim that you knew to be the [[WP:TRUTH|truth\\. Cheers. Collect (talk) 16:35, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

All the sources used to define Eatwell and O'Sullivan's categories all refer to their writing. I did not btw "attempt to label" the Tea Party, merely reported what the source said, "Recent scholarship tends to place the Tea Party Movement within the tradition of the radical right," as first described by Lipset, Bell, Hofstadter, Viereck and others. I would be interested why if the term "right" is meaningless you would be offended that it could be applied to the Tea Party. Incidentally could you explain the relevance of WP:KNOW to this discussion. TFD (talk) 17:44, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

The discussion where you failed to convince anyone else of your "infallibility" <g> is still there. WP:KNOW refers to people making such assumptions as to their own inerrancy. Cheers. Collect (talk) 18:37, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

TFD cited (and quoted) a source. Rick Norwood (talk) 18:52, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, didn't read carefully enough. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wiserd911 (talk • contribs) 21:56, 10 July 2012

The topic is what equality means to the Right

Returning to the subject at hand, what equality means on the left/right political spectrum, I provided a quote, above, of a major conservative American who said that, to him, the Right stands for rule by the rich. People on the Right don't say that much today, but they vote that way. We should also have a quote that shows what the Left means by equality. Here is one from the book "Freedom from Fear" by David M. Kennedy, writing about a 1936 speech by Franklin Roosevelt: "he argued ... that economic inequality made political equality meaningless" This is the essential disagreement between the Right and the Left: can we have political equality when (to quote Roosevelt) "a small group has concentrated into their own hands almost complete control over other people's property". He was talking about the banks, which were foreclosing on millions of mortgages, just as the banks did from 2008 to the present.

In contrast, Richard Pipes, in "Property and Freedom", argues that we must beware of "the threats to freedom implicit in the welfare state's striving for social and economic equality" p. xiv.

On the same page he goes on to express the third view which this article must include: "secondary sources...often disagree among themselves."

I think these three views sum up what the discussion is about, without taking sides.

Rick Norwood (talk) 12:59, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

And again, your desire to oversimplify a complex topic would require a vast leap of faith, indeed. The topic is far to complex to say "Right = rich, unequal, bad" and "Left = everyone else, equal, good" at all. The article should present all views - and (since it is not limited to one place or time) should therefore also deal with the differences from place to place and time to time. Else we do not serve the reader. The article is not "1930's US right-wing politics" - nor is it "French Revolution Right-Wing politics" - and so making gross oversimplifications is errant. Cheers. Collect (talk) 13:08, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Rick Norwood did not add the terms "good" and "bad". Equality and inequality do not translate into good and bad. TFD (talk) 16:05, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

TFD is correct. Social equality as a goal has been denounced by the libertarian right in the United States; for attempting to impose uniformity; for making people lazy and leeching upon society's guarantees of equality. The term "welfare bum" is a common derogatory term used by the American right to refer to a significant number of poor people reliant on welfare, whom the right views as leeching taxpayers' money and thus are undeserving of society's help; amongst other claims. The term "welfare bum" was used by Ronald Reagan when he ran for California governor in 1966, when he said that it was time "to send the welfare bums back to work".--R-41 (talk) 22:16, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Contrariwise - AFAICT libertarians believe is absolute equality - of the right to try, and not absolute equality of results. BTW, Clinton agreed about ending the old welfare system - did that make him a "right-winger"? Collect (talk) 22:30, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Libertarians do not have to be strongly right-wing, libertarianism itself is not connected with the right, but is within the USA's individualist classical liberal cultural traditions. You'd be surprised at the number of people who associate with the libertarian-right in the Conservative Party of Canada that I have run into who have openly prejudicial condescending views about the poor in general. The "welfare bum" analogy is their outlook on many poor people, often without knowing whether those people actually do rely on welfare, and without even knowing or acknowledging the causes of their poverty.--R-41 (talk) 23:38, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Clinton never agreed to "end" the welfare system, he and his wife Hillary Clinton, campaigned on promoting left-leaning health care reform. Clinton had to compromise with the Republican-held Congress led by Newt Gingrich after 1994, Clinton and Gingrich had a vicious fight over welfare issues. If I am not mistaken, I remember that Clinton refused to sign into action the Republican-passed budget of 1994/1995 that demanded large cuts to welfare, resulting in the Republicans refusing to provide funding to government services until the President agreed to welfare cuts. The government was shutdown for a long period of time, until Gingrich yielded somewhat to Clinton and reduced the level of cuts to welfare that he demanded from Clinton, while more cuts were made to other government programs instead. US Presidents aren't that powerful on legislative policies beyond attempting to stir public opinion, Congress hold the levers of power. Clinton's concessions to the Republicans were not popular amongst the political left in the United States. You are technically correct that there were left-wing Americans who perceived Clinton's policies in practice as right-of-centre, they saw him as a sell-out to Gingrich.--R-41 (talk) 23:38, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

The Welfare Reform Act passed by 256 to 170 in the House, 78 to 21 in the Senate. Impossible to just ascribe the passage to the "right wing" at that point. Cheers - but that does not affect my position that assigning any absolute positions to the "right wing" is improper and foolhardy. Collect (talk) 23:57, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

That is because the Republicans made concessions to Clinton. Plus neither party is innocent of corruption - earmarking bills with special projects for individual constituencies is common, many budgets and bills are passed easily because there are so many earmarks for individual Congresspersons' constituencies. The Democrats aren't even that left-wing, they are almost dead-centre overall, contrary to what conservative American media pundits say. An American Democrat overall is more similar to a Canadian Conservative on most policies other than a few welfare policies and their connection with the labour movement, since the Reagan era, Democrat policies seem to always get tamed down in practice to centre-right policies - in order to not alienate business interests. Obama's health care policy is about the same as the Canadian Conservative health care policy. Contrary to nonsense political rhetoric of the Democratic leadership that claims that they are "against" big business interest groups, and also the nonsense of Tea Party people who accuse the Democrats of communism, the Republicans aren't the only party of big business, the Democrats have ties with big business as well - recently more big businesses gave support to the Democrats than they did with the Republicans.--R-41 (talk) 00:02, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Which serves to show that US politics are vastly more centrist than are politics in many other nations. And that the definitions of "left" and "right" used in, say, Russia (is Putin on the left or on the right?) are not really comparable at all to their use in the US, or Europe in general, or in Africa etc. BTW, the welfare reform act of 1996 appears to have been remarkably free of the "earmarks" found in the current health care act. Cheers. Collect (talk) 12:50, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Of course the US is more centrist than other countries. How many other countries have only two major parties? Compare with the recent election in Greece. And yes some parties defy classification on a left-right scale, because left-right is not the only political cleavage dividing political parties. TFD (talk) 13:49, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Collect, what evidence do you have that the Welfare Reform Act had "less" earmarks that Obama's health care act? Is that just your opinion? By looking at the 1994 Congressional election results and comparing them to what you said the vote tally was for the Welfare Reform Act, a grand total of 30 Democrats out of a total of 204 Democrats in the House of Representatives voted alongside the Republicans in supporting the Welfare Reform Act. I assume that a Democrat or two resigned since 1994 before the Republican-pushed Welfare Reform Act was passed, but approximately 30 out of 200, that is a small number.--R-41 (talk) 14:37, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Your personal opinion on the inadequacy of the left-right spectrum is irrelevent, we are not here to divulge in user's opinions on the usefulness left-right spectrum. The left-right spectrum is regularly referred to in American politics. The mainstream American left located in the Democratic Party is noted for its support of greater social welfare as in comparison with the mainstream American right located in the Republican Party that opposes extensive social welfare on the grounds of economic right-libertarianism. And their "left" and "right" for the most part are centre-left and centre-right.--R-41 (talk) 14:37, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

R-41's edit

Essentially, R-41 has written a new article, the biggest change is to remove from the article almost all of the Right's support for religion, which essentially all authors on the subject list as a major characteristic of the Right, and to remove the use of Right-wing to refer to authoritarian governments, which would leave a reader at a loss trying to understand any use of right-wing prior to about 1950. The article as it stands now is a good description of the Libertarian Right, but ignores or minimizes all other uses of the phrase right-wing. I'm tempted to just revert, but will see what others have to say. Rick Norwood (talk) 12:05, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

The problem is that the "religion" part may be found in right wing groups, and also in left wing groups, and also in centrist groups. When a characteristic appears orthogonal to the article, it is not of a heck of a lot of use. Ditto "autoritarianism" which is often found in left wing governmnets, and is often not found in right wing governments. The concept of "authoritarians" is orthogonal to the political spectrum posited here. Cheers. Collect (talk) 13:00, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Every author I can find who has discussed Right-wing politics has mentioned religion as a characteristic of the Right. Since most human beings are religious, of course there are religious people on the Left. But in general right-wing groups support a government based on religion, while left-wing groups support separation of church and state. As I've pointed out before, just because not everyone in a group shares a given belief, there can still be some common ground for identifying a particular group in a particular way. On the subject of authoritarianism, my point is that some right-wing groups are authoritarian. To pretend that all right-wing groups are libertarian is therefore incorrect. Religion is characteristic of the Right. Authoritarianism is common to some right-wing groups and not to others. Rick Norwood (talk) 15:05, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Most right-wingers have some religion -- but so do most left-wingers as well, and most moderates. Thus making the material pretty much useless in the first place. Same for being authoritarian - indeed I know of no authroritarian libertarians, which means that the percentage in the "right wing" is likely smaller than in the "left wing" depending on when and where you make the measurements. Again - making such material useless. Heck, I'd bet that more blue-eyed people are of European descent than of non-European descent - but that does not mean the article on Europeans should say "one defining characteristic is blue eyes." (furnished as a hypothetical case, of course) Cheers. Collect (talk) 17:02, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

We have discussed this at great length, Collect, and in the final analysis, the article must report what major sources say. Rick Norwood (talk) 17:39, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

I do not see that R-41 has done this. It appears that he has removed a lot of unsourced or off-topic material. I suggest Rick Norwood provide a link to the specific edit[s]. I also agree with his removal of material that Collect removed. However, I do object to his removal of the definition of "radical right". It is in the a section that describes the division by Eatwell and O'Sullivan of the right into five varieties. No reason why we should remove one variety while leaving the other four.

Historically the Right supported established religion. Since the priesthood had been selected by God, they had ecclesiastical authority, which liberals rejected. However that does not mean that the Right is necessarily more religious.

TFD (talk) 18:12, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Short of just reverting R-41's edit, it is going to take a lot of time to deal with, since he did not just delete a lot of stuff, he moved stuff around. He made 24 edits in one day, and another editor was also active at the same time. One problem I have with his edit is moving the history section to the end of the article. In most articles similar to this one, the history section is higher up in the text. But, trying to work with what we have, and leaving the possibility of reverting open, here is the first thing I find that he (or byelf2007) deleted.

1. " The meaning of right-wing thus "varies across societies, historical epochs, and political systems and ideologies."" This is referenced, seems important. Why was it deleted?

2. The next deleted paragraph: "The left, right, and center are often associated with socialism, conservatism, and liberalism respectively. Some historians and social scientists seek to reduce political beliefs to class, with left, right, and center politicians representing the working, upper or middle classes. Seymour Martin Lipset for example describes modern political parties as a consequence of "democratic class struggle". Others draw attention to the role which religious, ethnic, and regional differences play in democratic politics." Referenced and important. Why deleted?

3. Next: "Louis Hartz argues that in early United States there were two main opposing political groups, representing industrialists and agriculturalists, the Whigs and Democrats, and since both accepted liberal principles, they were both essentially centrist. Russell Kirk claims that the American War of Independence was a conservative reaction, which sought to uphold traditional English liberties against what they took to be an abuse of power by the monarch. In 1955, Seymour Martin Lipset coined the term radical right to describe those who opposed statist social reforms and foreign interventionism." Referenced and important. It speaks to the current debate over whether the Jeffersonians were liberal or conservative, though a case could be made that it too centered on the US.

4. The same is true of the next long deleted section: "William F. Buckley Jr., who has been called the "intellectual godfather" of the modern conservative movement in America, and who wrote the long-time column On the Right, maintained that conservatism, especially in Anglophone countries, supports individual liberty, free markets, limited government, strong national defense, and traditional moral values. In the first issue of the magazine National Review in 1955, Buckley outlined his political beliefs:

−

“ Among our convictions:

− It is the job of centralized government (in peacetime) to protect its citizens’ lives, liberty and property. All other activities of government tend to diminish freedom and hamper progress. The growth of government (the dominant social feature of this century) must be fought relentlessly. In this great social conflict of the era, we are, without reservations, on the libertarian side.

− The profound crisis of our era is, in essence, the conflict between the Social Engineers, who seek to adjust mankind to conform with scientific utopias, and the disciples of Truth, who defend the organic moral order. We believe that truth is neither arrived at nor illuminated by monitoring election results, binding though these are for other purposes, but by other means, including a study of human experience. On this point we are, without reservations, on the conservative side.

”

5. Next: "Libertarians often reject being described as left or right. Leonard Read claimed that these terms were "authoritarian". According to Harry Browne, "We should never define Libertarian positions in terms coined by liberals or conservatives, nor as some variant of their positions." Walter Block also rejects these labels. Since many authors identify Libertarians as part of the Right, it seems important to show that there are other viewpoints.

6. Next: "Stephen Fisher, in his The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics, asserts that in liberal democracies, the political right opposes socialism and social democracy, and that right-wing parties include philosophies of conservatism, Christian democracy, liberalism, libertarianism and nationalism. He claims that "extreme right parties (have included) elements of racism and fascism" I've omitted the citation, which is clear from the context, because its format breaks the flow. Clearly authoritative and important.

7. Next: "Stanford University economist Thomas Sowell argues that the Right is made up of many different elements that have almost nothing to do with each other besides opposition to the Left: "Perhaps the most fundamental difference between the left and the right is that only the former has even a rough definition. What is called "the right" are simply the various and disparate opponents of the left. These opponents of the left may share no particular principle, much less a common agenda, and they can range from free-market libertarians to advocates of monarchy, theocracy, military dictatorship or innumerable other principles, systems and agendas."" Referenced, authoritative, important. R-41 dismisses Sowell as "And the Sowell quote is poor quality as well." He needs evidence that he is a better judge of that than a Stanford economist. A negative review of Sowell's work in a major academic review journal might serve, but not just a dismissal by R-41 on his own say-so.

8. "The spectrum of right-wing politics ranges from centre-right to far right. By the late 19th century, the French political spectrum classified the center-right as Constitutional Monarchists, Orleanists, and Bonapartists, and the far right as Ultra-Royalists and Legitimists. The centre-right Gaullists in post-World War II France advocated considerable social spending on education and infrastructure development, as well as extensive economic regulation, but limited the wealth redistribution measures characteristic of social democracy.

9. − A definition of the term "centre-right" is necessarily broad and approximate because political terms have varying meanings in different countries. Parties of the centre-right generally support liberal democracy, capitalism, the market economy (albeit with some limited government regulation), private property rights, the existence of the welfare state in some limited form, and opposition to socialism and communism. Such definitions generally include political parties that base their ideology and policies upon conservatism and economic liberalism." This needs a reference, but it is good to get something about the Right in countries other than the US.

10. Next: "The terms 'radical right' and 'far right' have been used by different people in conflicting ways Typical examples of leaders to whom the far right lable is often applied are Francisco Franco in Spain and Augusto Pinochet in Chile. The US Department of Homeland Security defines right-wing extremism as hate groups who target racial, ethnic or religious minorities and may be dedicated to a single issue.</nowiki> The phrase is also used to describe support for ethnic nationalism." referenced, important.

11. Skipping over an unreferenced paragraph, which deserved to be deleted, the next referenced paragraph is: "Religious fundamentalists have often supported the use of political power to enforce their religious beliefs. While traditional right-wing politics supports legal and moral authority over those who would challenge such authority, the "Libertarian Right," in contrast with the religious Right and the nationalist Right, is anti-authoritarian."

12. Next: "Traditionalism was advocated by a group of U.S. university professors (labeled the "New Conservatives" by the popular press) who rejected the notions of individualism, liberalism, modernity, and social progress, and sought instead to promote cultural and educational renewal, and a revived interest in what T. S. Eliot referred to as "the permanent things" (those perennial truths which endure from age to age and those basic institutions that ground society such as the church, the family, the state, and community life.)"

13. Next, unreferenced but easy to reference: "The term "family values" has been used as a buzzword by right-wing parties such as the Republican Party in the United States, the Family First Party in Australia, the Conservative party in the United Kingdom and the Bharatiya Janata Party in India. Right-wing supporters of "family values" may oppose abortion, euthanasia, homosexuality, and adultery."

14+. And at this point there is no need to list what R-41 deletes, because he deletes everything from the section on Nationalism to the end of the article, except for the section on Economics. This is why major edits to important articles should be done slowly, instead of overnight. Can it be that everything in the sections on Nationalism, Populism, Religion, and Anti-communism was bad?

From the economics section he deletes one paragraph: "Reactionary right-wing politics involves the creation or promotion of a social hierarchy. Right-wing politics views social and economic hierarchies as either natural or normal and rejects attempts to remove such hierarchies. For example, right-wing politicians in France during the French Revolution opposed the removal of the monarchy and aristocratic privilege. Traditional rightists were uncomfortable with liberal capitalism. Particularly in continental Europe, many conservatives have been uncomfortable with the impact of capitalism upon culture and traditions. The conservative opposition to the French Revolution, the Enlightenment, and the development of individualistic liberalism as a political theory and as institutionalized social practices sought to retain traditional social hierarchies, practices and institutions. There has also been a conservative protectionist opposition to certain types of international capitalism. There are still right-wing movements, notably American paleoconservatives, that are often in opposition to capitalist ethics and the effects they have on society as a whole, which they see as infringing upon or decaying social traditions or hierarchies that are essential for social order. Conservative authoritarians and those on the far right have supported corporatism."

And two sentences: "The Right often advocates equality of opportunities as an alternative to equality of outcome." and "Western-style corporate capitalism but not full-fledged laissez-faire economics or individual autonomy was adopted by reformist governments in Singapore and Taiwan during a period of authoritarian rule and economic reform. These countries continue to venerate tradition in what has been described an "Asian model" of capitalism."

Rick Norwood (talk) 21:49, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

R-41 said he deleted the first reference because "I looked at this source as it had a link. It is talking about Adorno's Right-wing authoritarianism scale designed to analyze far-right political behaviour, it is not about right-wing politics in general". I agree. Note that the article mentions under "Varieties" that there have been five strands of the Right. Obviously there are differences between these groups but they share the defining characteristic of the Right: opposition to the Left. I disagree with his statement, "Lipset's associations of what constitutes the left, right, and centre are simplistic and flawed."[6] Also I agree that the history section should be higher up. Will reply to your other points as time allows. TFD (talk) 21:29, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

What article would you find the quote relevant for, then? Seems to me it is about the very fact that "right wing" has no perpetual meaning applicable to all places and times. If you feel it is relevant nowhere, then I would certainly take this to RS/N and see how others viewed its relevance. Cheers. Collect (talk) 22:15, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Boring. You continually argue that the terms left and right have no meaning yet argue that some groups or individuals should be called left wing because one or two editorials have called them that. TFD (talk) 05:10, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Please for God's sake read my posts! I have never asserted that any groups should be categorized in Wikipedia's voice as "extreme", "radical" "far" or anything of the sort in any place. You refer here to my position that on the UAF that we could say "The Times has called the group 'left-wing'" (with direct cites to such publications in news articles and not in "editorials") because that would be a statement of "fact" as to ascribing a statement to the source of the statement. And that is proper, which you appear to feel was not acceptable as a proposal. Yet you are willing in multiple cases to call groups "radical right", "far right", "ultra right" and "extreme right" without even ascribing the opinions to those holding them. At this point, your misapprehension of the difference between Wikipedia's voice and properly ascribed opinions is absurd. Cheers. Collect (talk) 11:52, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

The first quote says something that I don't think anyone disagrees with, but it may be said better by other sources. Right now I'm just responding to your (TFD) request for a list of the specific edits in question. Rick Norwood (talk) 21:35, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

So what are we to make of this edit. To his credit, he has removed a lot of duplication. But he has also removed all but one mention of religion, which every major author writing about conservatism mentions as a major part of conservatism. He has removed all reference to anti-communism, which every major author writing about conservatism since World War II considers a major part of conservatism. He has removed all mention of authoritarianism, which every major author writing about conservatism mentions. The only mention of the far-right suggests that the far-right is used exclusively to describe corporatists. And he has removed the entire sections on nationalism and populism, which every major author writing about conservatism mentions. Reading the very short article that remains, it would be easy to conclude that the only use of "right-wing" is to mean support for social classes. In short, it would have been reasonable, and a whole lot easier, to just revert his extreme edit. But rather than do that, I'll start to restore referenced material. Help from other editors is always welcome. Rick Norwood (talk) 22:27, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

R-41 made a number of edits to the article, Rick Norwood and myself responded but R-41 did not. I will therefore restore it to an earlier version and we can discuss changes. TFD (talk) 04:32, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Belchfire. When the edits by R-41 and byelf2007 were first made, it would have been reasonable to revert them just on the grounds that they were too rapid and too drastic. Now, there have been a number of changes to the edited version, and it seems better to move forward than back, leaving out what deserved pruning, restoring referenced material. (If, however, anyone attempts such a rapid and drastic edit in the future, I think reverting will be reasonable.) Rick Norwood (talk) 11:32, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

I have made a response in the section below.--R-41 (talk) 22:43, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Here are my further comments to Rick Norwood. The passage beginning with Hartz could be better explained, perhaps explaining how the terms left and right began to be applied to US politics following the Second World War. Buckley's long quote should not be in the article because it is not specifically about the Right. Libertarianism should be mentioned in the passage about the New Right. Fisher's comments seem important. Sowell's views merely reflect what Fisher said and are therefore redundant. Also, I do not see why his views on the political spectrum should be considered important, since there are no other sources that mention them. The passage on French politics is misleading. In the 19th century the terms left and right, etc., referred to where a group physically sat in the legislature, not where they were on an ideological spectrum. A group that sat on the center left could find itself sitting on the center right following an election, and would then be called the center right. TFD (talk) 17:08, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your helpful input. Rick Norwood (talk) 17:46, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

Restoring referenced material

I have restored (but shortened) the first two deleted paragraphs quoted above, and done a little rearranging, for better flow. I will pause here for comments. Rick Norwood (talk) 12:11, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

I am restoring sections in this order: (i) the reactionary right, which sought a return to aristocracy and established religion; (ii) the moderate right, who sought limited government and distrusted intellectuals; (iii) the radical right, who favored a romantic and aggressive nationalism; (iv) the extreme right, who proposed anti-immigration policies and implicit racism; and (v) the neo-liberal right, who sought to combine a belief in a market economy and economic deregulation with the traditional Right-wing beliefs in patriotism, élitism, and law and order. I restored one, the section on religion, which is extensively referenced but was entirely deleted.

I pause here for comments. Rick Norwood (talk) 21:06, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

It was an American-centric article and bulky with unreferenced statements, before I trimmed it down, it was overemphasizing and exaggerating certain American right-wing political themes; or otherwise ranting about random individual examples like the right-wing in Singapore. It was distorted, unbalanced, incoherent, with no themes. This sentence that Rick referred to: "The Right often advocates equality of opportunities as an alternative to equality of outcome." - it does not represent the historic aristocratic right, nor today's far-right. What common "family values" or religious exist amongst the right? Some have been radical atheist individualists like Ayn Rand. How do Hindu Indian family values relate to Christian American family values? Why are family values automatically right-wing? I am in a family that is left-wing that has family values.--R-41 (talk) 22:14, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

The French Revolution promoted patriotism, why is patriotism automatically right-wing? There is a concept of socialist patriotism in Marxism-Leninism.--R-41 (talk) 22:22, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Wrong. The section "Varieties" is from Eatwell and O'Sullivan, neither of whom are Americans. No one is claiming that they are correct, merely reporting what they said, because right or wrong, their views are widely reported. TFD (talk) 04:48, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

TFD, you just said "Wrong" - stop being so hasty and hostile in your comments. I removed material by Buckley talking about American conservatism that is not about right-wing politics as a whole, amongst other American-centric material. Now, back to what I said above that we have become distracted from. I will repeat: the sentence in the article that said "The Right often advocates equality of opportunities as an alternative to equality of outcome." - it does not represent the historic aristocratic right, nor today's far-right. Secondly, the whole "family values" thing, what common "family values" or religious views exist amongst the right? Some have been radical atheist individualists like Ayn Rand. How do Hindu Indian family values relate to Christian American family values? Why are family values automatically right-wing? I am in a family that is left-wing that has family values.--R-41 (talk) 13:43, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

R-41: I "referred to" the sentence in question as a sentence that was deleted. I did not support the restoration of the sentence, nor did I restore it. The problem I am trying to deal with is that, when you make huge changes to an article, it is hard to sort out the good from the bad. I just listed the changes as a first step toward seeing which were good and which were bad. I think we both want to improve the article, but please, don't change everything overnight. Let's take it one step at a time. In that spirit, please explain why you want the history section far down in the article, when most articles of this type have the history section shortly after the lead?

As for religion, many references have been given showing that people do refer to the religious Right, and call those who want laws enforcing religion "right-wing". You can't just ignore those references. It is how the word is used. You may think all the people who use the word that way are wrong, but Wikipedia relies on references, not on the opinion of editors.

Let me assume good faith and try to explain. The phrase "right-wing" originally was used to indicate support of the monarchy, the aristocracy, and the Roman Catholic church. To some extent, the meaning of the word has changed over time, but it is still often used to describe authoritarians, expecially religions authoritarians. Of course, there have been right-wing atheists and left-wing authoritarians. Pointing that out does not change the way the word is used. You may complain that people are not entirely logical in their use of words, but Wikipedia has to report the world as it is, not as we might wish it to be.

That said, I am not blindly putting back everything you took out. There were plenty of problems with the article, many caused by rapid and enthusiastic edits. So, this time let's go more slowly, and try to get it right.

Rick Norwood (talk) 13:46, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

When you see crap in an article that has been there for too long, there is an option called WP:BOLD. The right-wing has always been about support or acceptance of hierarchies by appealing to natural law or tradition as opposed to the left-wing demanding social equality, that is the left-right dynamic, it can take many localized forms with different cultures (i.e. different in an absolute monarchy than in a parliamentary republic), but that's all it is.--R-41 (talk) 13:47, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

I'm glad you are starting to move more deliberately toward a better article. The sources agree that the basic meaning of right-wing almost always involves some support for social hierarchy, and the left is almost always egalitarian. But the words are also used in other ways which this article cannot ignore. Rick Norwood (talk) 14:11, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

When people say the left is not egalitarian because of Stalin, they are not paying attention to the fact that extremists on the extreme left and the extreme right are fanatic militants and often require repression of opponents. Plus tyrannical people share similar psychological traits regardless of how they view themselves on the political spectrum: they have megalomania, narcissism, and paranoia, that have nothing to do with politics, and everything to do with psychology make the King Louis XVI and Tsar Nicholas II tyrant types of the extreme right and the Joseph Stalin and Pol Pot tyrant types of the extreme left.--R-41 (talk) 17:00, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

I have not noticed any of the editors here saying that the Left is not egalitarian, but for the record I certainly agree with what you wrote. But over in Left-wing we have to acknowledge that the phrase "left-wing" has been often used to describe all communists, just as the term "right-wing" has been often used to describe all racists. We are not here to support one side or the other, but to report how words are used, according to reliable sources. Rick Norwood (talk) 22:18, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

There was some discussion about Stalin some time ago. There are many examples of parties once in power carrying out policy that goes against their core ideology. However, it seems that the Soviet Union was more egalitarian than the preceding or succeeding administrations. That of course is the liberal criticism of socialism, that it destroys incentive, hence the average person is worse off. TFD (talk) 23:06, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

Problematic?

A recent edit included the word "problematic", which I removed because it's not found in the source. I don't see anything in the source that supports it, despite edit comments to the contrary.[7] I'm going to give anyone who wants to include that term a chance to make their case. I'm StillStanding (24/7) (talk) 04:33, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

Good observation. TFD (talk) 04:40, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

A simple read of the source in question explains the difficulty of the usage of the term, notably towards applying it to various groups.   little green rosetta(talk)
central scrutinizer  04:51, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

I can confirm the absence of the term but I can't see the page. Paste the relevant part here. I'm StillStanding (24/7) (talk) 04:55, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

We report what mainstream writers say, that does not mean that we endorse them. If you have sources that criticize their views, then please present them. TFD (talk) 05:01, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

I figure that using Eatwell's exact words should meet with everyone's acceptance, figure his words are less "problematic.' Cheers. Collect (talk) 12:49, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

The document is available on google docs, simply searching by the title alone. I have no idea how ISS can speak to what is in the text without actually seeing the text, unless of course he has "read" the page by other than non-visual means. In any case, I fail to see the issue with the word "problematic" as it is not being attributed to Eatwell. However I have no objections to using a different way to phrase the author's sentiment that the use of the term was difficult.  little green rosetta(talk)
central scrutinizer  15:45, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

I used Amazon, which allowed me to search for that word (and not find it) without being able to see the page. Good tip about using Google Books as well. In any case, there's no reason think this view is notable. I'm StillStanding (24/7) (talk) 22:57, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

I'll kindly ask you never again "comfirm" what is or is not in a source if you have never actually accessed the source in question. That is an aggregious violation of policy as respect to verification. And whether or not the view is "notable" is a cockamamie argument. The source is either reliable or not. Your recent behavior with respect to sourcing is horrendous. I suggest you seek mentoring.   little green rosetta(talk)
central scrutinizer  23:15, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

Byelf2007's edit

Byelf2007 has moved the history section to the bottom of the article, with the claim "this is consistent with the vast majority of similar articles". But Liberalism begins with history, Conservatism begins with history, Left-right politics begins with history, and Left-wing politics did begin with history until Byelf2007 moved history to the bottom there. Please explain your thinking, Byelf2007. Rick Norwood (talk) 21:56, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

Continue to restore deleted sections.

I'm going to go back and number the deleted sections to make it easier to discuss them. Rick Norwood (talk) 15:32, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

The last paragraph of the History section and the first paragraph of the Varieties seem to duplicate each other, though in slightly different words. I wonder if they can be combined. Rick Norwood (talk) 22:35, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Paragraphs 3 and 4 above seem to be too Americentric. Paragraph 5 introduces Libertarianism, and I'm not sure what to do about Libertarianism, which seems to be either both right-wing and left-wing or neither. That is, the Libertarian idea of equal freedom for all sounds egalitarian, but the result, which is that the far end of the bell curve sops up all the money and power, is social hierarchy. Ideas? Rick Norwood (talk) 22:37, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Libertarianism is right-wing and/or conservative. Sometimes they try to distinguish this as fiscal conservatism while denying social conservatism, but that's not exactly correct, either. I'm StillStanding (24/7) (talk) 01:12, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Find reliable sources which cite StillStanding247 as the expert then. Until then, we use sources which meet WP:RS. Sorry. Collect (talk) 01:28, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

We're just chatting. If I wanted to make a specific suggestion for the article, I'd cite a source.[8] I'm StillStanding (24/7) (talk) 02:42, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

I think we should group individual strands of the Right under the five varieties. Libertarianism comes under the new right. TFD (talk) 01:45, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Only one source makes that pentafucrcation -- as it is only one source, we sought not get caughet up in making the article fit his solitary system. Collect (talk) 12:11, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

That's exactly right. I'm StillStanding (24/7) (talk) 02:42, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

I moved item 8 above into the history section, but it turned out to largely duplicate what was already there, so I took it out again. Rick Norwood (talk) 12:07, 26 September 2012 (UTC) I restored 9 and 10 above (in my edit summary I mistakenly called them 8 and 9), and did a slight rewrite to try to make the section read more smoothly. Rick Norwood (talk) 14:27, 27 September 2012 (UTC)