The Actual Political Spectrum

LeighPatrick.com ^ | April 21, 2014 | LP Sullivan

[Leigh Patrick Sullivan]

We all are familiar with the political spectrum, that hypothetical horizontal line on which we find our ‘point’ – our personal political ideology. The principle is basic: left is liberal, right is conservative.

But while the standard spectrum is still valid as a foundation, in reality it isn’t a flat line at all.

[Future Snake Eater]

For those who are curious.

[Chickensoup]

I am not sure fascism is right wing. Most communists and socialists I see have a fascist quality. Perhaps it is a closed circle at the top with fascism on the cusp between the ideologies.

[dfwgator]

Fascism is Communism with snappier uniforms.

[PapaNew]

Definition of anarchy from Oxford Dictionary: A state of disorder due to absence or nonrecognition of authority

The current regime in Washington DC has rejected the authority of the Constitution and is creating a state of disorder and confusion and is, therefore, anarchic.

I maintain that the point and thrust of the meaning and connotation of "anarchy" is not as much "the absence of law or government" as it is the chaos and confusion which may come from unjust laws and rogue governments. As far as I'm concerned, a free and peaceful society with minimal laws and minimal government is not anarchy. On the other hand, heavy-handed, big government Progressivism and tyranny are anarchy disguised as legitimate authority.

[PapaNew]

The graphic is inverted. Small government and wealth-creating free-market enterprise lifts a society up while big, coercive, poverty-creating government drags a society down.

Otherwise, the graphic is as Reagan said: it's not left or right, it's up or down.

[PapaBear3625]

You are giving the Oxford definition of anarchy.

I am using the operational definition that Left Anarchists seem to actually go by, from observation.

[PapaNew]

To me, the issue of anarchy these days is this: the Left uses "anarchy" to attack those on the Right who want to take down the administrative state and 80% of the $4 trillion government and their unjust and unconstitutional laws. They want to use "anarchy" to apply to those who are against ANY "government" or "law". But my argument is it depends on what KIND of government and what KIND of laws are in play.

Many conservatives need to understand that just because something is called a "law" doesn't make it good, right, or just. Blackstone called an unjust law, "no law." Rebellion against an illegitimate, rogue government and illegitimate, unjust and invalid laws is not anarchy. Rather the rogue government and unjust laws are themselves anarchic and fighting them is a fight against anarchy.

The proof of the pudding is the resulting chaos and confusion of tyranny and rogue governments and laws versus the resulting peace in an open and free society. That confirms what is anarchy & what isn't.

[Phlyer]

Right, and today's "anarchists" are the Progressives.

Sorry, but that's exactly wrong. Today's 'progressives' are collectivists (call them socialist/communist/fascist if you want). The only law they want to overturn is the law that places limits on the Federal government - the US Constitution.

[PapaNew]

The only law they want to overturn

Well, "the only law" they want to overturn and clearly do not recognize just so happens to be the SUPREME LAW OF THE LAND (Art VI, cl 3), the ultimate legal authority of the U.S. That directly falls under the Oxford definition of "anarchy" as

a state of disorder due to absence or nonrecognition of authority,

by both the act of nonrecognition and the ensuing disorder it has caused.

[PapaNew]

That's right, something the Left ignores and some of the Right doesn't always seem to understand.

Any law passed by Congress is subservient to and must be harmonious with the Constitution. If so then the Congressional law is also the Law of the Land. If not, the law is invalid and, as Blackstone said about unjust laws, "no law." I believe it is our right and duty to resit such laws and such governmental acts that clearly and wantonly ignore and violate the Constitution.

[Phlyer]

I don't know why you think the collectivists approach of ignoring one law - which is indeed supposed to be the 'supreme law of the land' but is not supreme over anything if it's ignored - is more relevant than the thousands of new regulations created every year.

We certainly don't have an 'absence' of authority with 160,000 federal agents and every city/state/county having SWAT teams with armored vehicles. They may not be honored by some of us, but if an armored car shows up on the front lawn, most people would "recognize" that power, and while it's fine to say that the Federal government doesn't have the 'authority' to do something, if they have the power and the courts don't rein them in, then the difference is academic until and unless the people themselves reclaim our authority effectively.

I'll hold to my understanding of the political spectrum. When the only law they do away with is the one law that is supposed to limit Federal authority - while simultaneously creating thousands of new laws every year without any vote by elected representatives - it's hardly anarchy. The statist bureaucrats are concentrating power in government hands at the expense of the private citizen - the very opposite of anarchy.