[ClearCase_guy]

I think you are too invested in certain word choices.
I also think it odd that on an American Conservative forum you continually point out that the American right has somehow failed to understand itself because it has misunderstood European definitions.

I try not to use "Left: and "Right" all that much because these disagreements always crop up and they are tiresome.

It seems to me that the spectrum is really Collectivist vs Individualist. Mussolini identified himself as a Collectivist. He focused on the group, on society, on the state.
Lenin, Trotsky, Hitler, and Obama have all focused on the group, on society, on the state.

Our Founding Fathers declared some individual rights to be inalienable and they wrote a Constitution designed to protect individuals from the over-reaching power of Government.

America was not intended to be a Collectivist society, but it has become one.

[ek_hornbeck]

I try not to use "Left: and "Right" all that much because these disagreements always crop up and they are tiresome. It seems to me that the spectrum is really Collectivist vs Individualist. Mussolini identified himself as a Collectivist.

The reason people focus on these definitions is because you have authors like Goldberg making absurd statements like "Hitler and Mussolini were leftists because they were anti-individualistic collectivists." The military is by its very nature anti-individualist and collectivist. Does this make all militaries, including our own, inherently "left-wing?"

Fascist movements basically took the collectivism inherent to military organization and expanded it to encompass the entire organization of the state and society. Now, there are good reasons to say that this is not a desirable state of affairs here or anywhere else, but to call their movements "leftist" or "liberal" on these grounds is ridiculous.