If nothing else, the political slant of this periodical might be evident by the position of the “origin” of the above chart relative to Obama. Obama’s not an economic centrist and the Democrat party is not right-of-center on much of anything. Makes me wonder if the current ( and Bush-era) state department bureaucracy thinks otherwise.
That graph there is...definitely open to question. Actually I’m familiar with the British conservatives and the cdu and I can’t see the logic behind their relative placement.
This chart is CRAP.
There are only two world views. And not much of a sliding scale on them. Politics and Religion are not grays they are binary. One and zero. On and Off.
Christian world view and ALL that comes from it. Or God hating and all that comes from that. You ARE one or the other. And if you think you are NOT, or think this is wrong or an over simplification, you are God hating.
Now, if we are all God fearing, Christians, we will STILL have issues over which we disagree, but, in the same wisdom of our founders will prayerfully work them out knowing our end goals are the same.
Anything less than this, is utterly absent of this.
Besides having issues with the placement, things are much easier for me to understand with the up-down axis being authoritarianism/free choice (classical liberal or libertarian) and the left/right being social.
There really isn’t much difference between being authoritarian in economic vs. social aspects, because if someone is like that for one, they usually tend to be that way toward the other. Healthcare is a pretty good example of this.
On another point, however, it’s pretty difficult to find a classical liberal in Europe. Perhaps this graph is depicting the various shades of authoritarianism and if so it makes far more sense.
bump, but the argument in this article feels as old as the hills. Of course left and right are not absolute eternal definitions; they are relative to one’s perspective. I remember the people feverishly working on new charts, diagrams, after 1989
So if in Germany, 27 February 1933, the NSDAP was “right” and the KPD was “left” (where Rosa Luxemburg had defected), does that furnish any guidance whatsoever today? Everything depends on circumstances, otherwise there’d be no need to think