[Jabba the Nutt]

Left and Right are terms that go back to the French Parliament in the years after Napoleon. At that time, The Left meant Laissez-Faire Liberals, ie libertarians. The Right were the reactionaries, who wanted to re-install the Monarchy and the old feudal regime. They opposed business, they opposed the free market and they opposed free speech.

In the 1840's the socialists insisted on being seated on the left, indeed the far left. They appropriated the moral stature of the pro-freedom folks.

The Left actually smashed any moral compass they had at exactly the time they adopted socialism. Socialism had to enslave people in order for it to work. They always maintained their claim to moral superiority and the Right ceded that claim out of stupidity and cowardice. Gee, that sounds just like Trent Lott. Nothing much as changed.

Ayn Rand was for me the first anti-leftist, who challenged their claim to morality and sought to reclaim morality for the pro-freedom folks. She insisted on the importance of arguing for the morality and not only pragmatically.

[Noumenon]

The Left actually smashed any moral compass they had at exactly the time they adopted socialism. Socialism had to enslave people in order for it to work. They always maintained their claim to moral superiority and the Right ceded that claim out of stupidity and cowardice.

Precisely.