COMPLETE VANITY -- How did Dem's get the "left" and the Pubs get the "right"?

none ^ | tonight | me

[Alas Babylon!]

Maladroit. In Latin it literally means a "bad right".

Contemporary speech has it as inept or clumsy.

I bring this up only because I'm left-handed. I hate LEFTISTS, though.

[fourdeuce82d]

how gauche of you...if you were more dexterous, a little more adroit, you would not have posted that... *grin*

[Criminal Number 18F]

In the assembly that was created after King Louis XVI

Actually, Louis called the assembly. The Estates General had not been called in years. Once called, they would not disband, and defied Louis. But in the beginning -- May 1789 -- his head was still atop him. See the link I posted above.

Two points for knowing it was the Estates General though. You were within a few months of when Louis lost his throne, anyway. But he kept his head until 1793.

Here is a tale of the execution, as told by an eyewitness and friend to the unfortunate king.

d.o.l.

Criminal Number 18F

[El Sordo]

And that lasted about a week.....

[Congressman Billybob]

Good evening, friend,

I should have figured that you'd know these terms derive from where people sat on a French tennis court in the 18th century.

Billybob

[PatrickHenry]

It goes back to the early days of the French Revolution. The conservative royalists who wanted to keep the monarchy in some form or another sat on the right side of the assembly, while the radicals who wanted to do away with the king sat on the left.

Correct. A few posts after yours got it correct also. The Oxford English Dictionary says the first use of the terms "left" and "right" in a political sense was by Carlyle in his history of the French Revolution. He described the assembly. From the speaker's viewpoint, the royalists, including the aristocracy and the established (tax supported) church sat on the right. To the left were the socialists.

In the US, technically, we have no "right" as that term was originally used. But we sure do have a left.

[Maccabee]

Then, early in this century, "progressives" chose to identify themselves as leftists. As communism began to more openly permeate "progessive" circles in politics, Anti-Communists chose to Identify themselves with the right.

[lowbridge]

COMPLETE VANITY -- How did Dem's get the "left" and the Pubs get the "right"?

Because "pubs" are never wrong, and the Dems had to take whatever word was left over.

[sergeantdave]

When God created man, He did it pieces at a time. First the feet, then legs, arms, head.

Now he had to fill all these bodies with brains, which were piled in a basket at his feet. He picked up the basket of brains, leaned to the right and dumped the brains into all the people standing there, waiting for brains.

Then the people who were standing to God's left said, "Hey, whatta 'bout us?" So God looked in the basket and all that remained were squashed brains that had been sitting on the bottom of the basket and little bits of brains and other amorphous grey matter.

"Here," He said to the other people, "you can have what's left."

Hope this helps.

[jocon307]

"...while those who wanted to preserve moral decay would be conservative. Can be confuzzling."

And this was EXACTLY what happened after the fall of the Soviet Union. All the die-hard commies in the gov't (the Duma I think you say) were IMMEDIATLEY referred to as "conservatives" by the NY Times and that ilk, while the new more pro democracy types were suddenly "Liberals"

There was some comment on it at the time. In the long ago days before the internet, and all.....This!

[185JHP]

It has to do with the "left-hand path." What has that bunch done lately that doesn't comport well with the Latin word for "left"?

[MayDay72]

'In the US, technically, we have no "right" as that term was originally used. But we sure do have a left.' -PatrickHenry

...I'm not sure if this is completely true...My understanding is that these original 'leftists' were true 'anti-statist'...That is to say, they opposed the monarchy because the King represented the 'state'...And they wanted to empower the 'bourgeoisie' [i.e. 'middle'/'merchant' classes] and favored 'laissez-faire' policies [i.e. 'free markets'/'capitalism']...They were similar in philosophy to the 'founding fathers' in the U.S. [Jefferson, Washington, etc.] as well as the 'Levelers' in the U.K. [as well as the 'Whigs' later in both the U.S. and the U.K.]...

...From this perspective the so-called 'liberals' [socialists] are actually right-wing [statists] and the consevatives might actually be closer to the original definition of 'leftists' [pro-individual and anti-statism]...

[inquest]

Now here's the next (and I think more interesting) question: when did these terms start getting used here in America? The letters of the Founders make no reference to the left/right dichotomy (which shouldn't be surprising), and I don't think the terms come up much in any of the major political controversies of the 19th century in America. So when and how did they start becoming part of our political vocabulary?