The basic Idea is that Left-Right is far too simplistic a yardstick to judge political philosophies. It uses a two dimensional representation like this:
The social scale roughly measures commitment to individual rights. Both opposition to the war on drugs AND opposition to gun control would rate as "social liberal" positions because they support individual rights over "the good of society" (I put that in qoutes for a reason - everyone has their own definition what "good for society" means and all authoritarians use it as their justification). The Economic scale rates the degree of freedom for businesses and also reflects taxation policy. Note that this reflects feelings towards established business AND entreprenuers - so support for removing bearucratic regulation from big corporations AND removing tax breaks and "corporate welfare" from those same businesses would BOTH be examples of Economic Liberalism.
On this scale you would rate a libertarian as a strong Economic AND Social liberal. A Stalinist would be a strong Social AND Economic Authoritarian. A socialist would tend to be an Economic Authoritarian and Social Liberal. A conservative tends to be a Social Authoritarian and Economic Liberal.
Note that these are scales - not absolutes. Stalin was an extreme Social Authoritarian because he believed that it was OK to starve 20 million people to death to advance his agenda. Someone who supports the war on drugs, opposes the Gay Rights agenda, and thinks the government should do more to support traditional families, is a Moderate Social Authoritarian. It's important to pay attentention to distinctions and not fall into the fanatic's trap of labeling everybody as the most extreme example.
By this chart; Hitler would be near the middle economically (strong regulations of business, but no direct nationalizations), and etremely strong Social authoritarian. He and Stalin would have gotten along famously if they avoided economics.
It should be noted that most of the people on this forum tend to be somewhat Economically Liberal. They range the gamut from fairly Socially Liberal (the libertarians everyone loves to pick on) to Moderately Social Authoritarian (the guys most likely to flame me). The "Liberals" most likely to be maligned here are Economic and Social Authoritarians. They not only hate freedom for business, they hate diversity of opinion (read:"freedom") and seek to stamp it out with their PC speech codes and manditory "sensitivity training". All for "the good of society", of course.
Finally; That I not be accused of throwing mud from the sidelines without revealing my own opinions, here is how I rate:
I am fairly strongly Econmically Liberal with a strong bias towards entreprenuerial "rights" over corporate "rights" (which always seem to boil down to the "right" to protect themselves from competetion). I'm also moderately Social Liberal and describe myself as, "a consevative with libertarian sympathies". It wouldn't be wrong to say "moderate libertarian" except that online the term seems to be an oxymoron.
It should be noted that most of the people on this forum tend to be somewhat Economically Liberal. They range the gamut from fairly Socially Liberal (the libertarians everyone loves to pick on) to Moderately Social Authoritarian (the guys most likely to flame me).
Yeah, I've found this marriage of convience on the social axis working together on the economic side quite interesting. I'm sure it happens on the left too. On the one side maybe it's actually a positive sign that the country has agreed on a level of social authority, and that the only fights left are on economic issues. I worry however that while Americans are divided on economics, the government is gobling up more and more authority on the social side especially in the face of terrorism. I've seen posts here indicating that some of the non-bushbots here have similar worries.
The "Liberals" most likely to be maligned here are Economic and Social Authoritarians.
Yeah, I can understand that. I just wish they wouldn't assume one based on the other though. Not everyone that supports public schools has a picture of Mao or Stalin on his wall.
Sure I'll rate myself too. I'm pretty social liberal like you. I believe that the first obligation of a goverment is to protect individual freedoms. Without those the economics will deteriorate anyway.
On the economic scale I'm kind of pragmatic. I tend to think unregulated captialism can do bad things and that there is a responsiblity of the people to elect officials to set up rules to make markets fair as well as free. I think there are some things the public sector can do better than the private, but the majority of the economy should be private. I respect for example Germans giving everyone the right to health care, as long as the system works. I repect initiatives to privatize goverment industries as long as they work afterwards. I hope nobody takes this the wrong way: I view those who would privatize everything with about the same skepticism I would those who wanted to nationalise everything.