[jackbob]

I don't know what a "pretty big warm fuzzy for the left" is. But I found your dissection of my left/right, choice of words, quite accurate. I purposefully chose to give that view, as I believe it also to be quite accurate. Having said that, I also say that their are otherways of presenting the contrast, which just as accurately shade the right in a slightly better light. But that would be preaching to the choir.

As I see it, the right in America has as an equally distorted view of the left, as the left has of the right. The conscious center encourages those distorted views on both sides. I do not believe the left is capable of opening its eyes as quickly as much of the right can. So in the short term, I expect clearer vision from the right than I do from the left.

As far as Brad Pitt goes I think it was him I saw in the movie "Titanic" and another movie about two German mountain climbers escaping British internment and living in Tibet during WWII. I'll agree, both movies presented a full leftwing cultural view of realty.

As far as leftist governments go, I find the entire idea a contradiction in terms. There is, as I see it, no such thing as a leftist government. There are conservative right, moderate right, and ultra right governments. The latter, depending on the type, may also be considered a pseudo-left government.

Over all, I agree with every word you wrote, except that bit about "fuzzy" whatever. On which I claim ignorance as my defense.

Thanks for an interesting counter reply.

[Yardstick]

By "you've got a pretty big warm fuzzy for the left", I meant "you're pretty fond of the left". It's related to that phrase, "a warm and fuzzy fealing", which has been shortened to "warm fuzzy". If you see a baby playing happily with a puppy, you might say "aw, isn't that cute -- seeing them playing together gives me a warm fuzzy." I don't know, maybe it's a regional thing. Sorry if it was confusing.

It sounds like your left/right scale has anarchy on the left and totalitarianism on the right. Your right/left axis is analogous the statist/non-statist axis that some of the new political-spectrum charts show -- like the one associated with the Are-you-a-Libertarian? quiz. If this is the case, then I can see why you've cast the left in a favorable light.

I think the statist/non-statist gradient is the clearest, in that it has clearly definable end points, but it seems to me that there are some other ways to differentiate right from left that feel intuitively correct but are harder to quantify and capture more of the conventional flavor of the two camps. You could use relativist/absolutist, secular/Christian, feminine/masculine, integrative/separative, internationalist/nationalist, and intuitive/concrete.

Then again, maybe these distinctions are arbitrary and useless. This left/right stuff is tricky. Modern leftists are statists for sure, yet the end result of Marx's vision of communism is anarchy, so which "left" do you choose? I guess I come back to the idea that only the statist/non-statist axis has any real meaning.

Brad Pitt has been in a bunch of movies recently, but the only one I can think of right now is Fight Club. He usually plays guys that are charming and heroic but also iconoclastic, somewhat self-destructive, and very willing to take "undue risks" and to horrify reactionary rightist squares who just aren't hip to chaos.

One quick question for you: who makes up the "conscious center" that you mentioned?