[marron]

The Right-Left model of politics does not apply to classic liberals, who in the US context consist of conservatives and libertarians.

With NAZIs and Fascists on the Right, and Communists on the Left, classic liberals simply are not part of that continuum. The association of conservatives with the totalitarian right is no more accurate that to associate them with the totalitarian left. US conservatives and libertarians are not totalitarians. We do not fall within that model.

References to conservatives as being "rightist" are simply intended to place an erroneous picture in the mind of the unthinking and unwary. US conservatives are not "right wing". They are not part of the totalitarian continuum.

US liberals, better described as socialists, on the other hand, do fit within that model. Whether they are closer to left or the right depends on the day and the issue, but to the extent that they employ collectivist solutions to social problems, and problems of governance, they clearly are part of the totalitarian model.

[Grut]

US conservatives are not "right wing". They are not part of the totalitarian continuum.

Well, I agree, but there are those who call themselves 'conservative' who really get off on the idea of government beating up on people they dislike but are too cowardly to beat up on themselves; or who want the government to implement a 'Christian' society, or to forcefully bring back a 'Norman Rockwell' America that never existed in the first place.

These folks, with their authoritarian visions of government force as good, incline to totalitarianism. The conservative movement harms itself by tolerating their misuse of our word.

[HighWheeler]

"With NAZIs and Fascists on the Right,..."

Well, the Nazi's and Fascists were on the left. These Socialists stood just to the right of communism.

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"[Adolf Hitler on Nazism and socialism:] "Each activity and each need of the individual will thereby be regulated by the party as the representative of the general good. There will be no license, no free space, in which the individual belongs to himself. This is Socialism--not such trifles as the private possession of the means of production. Of what importance is that if I range men firmly within a discipline they cannot escape? Let them then own land or factories as much as they please. The decisive factor is that the State, through the party, is supreme over them, regardless whether they are owners or workers. All that, you see, is unessential. Our Socialism goes far deeper."

"Why need we trouble to socialize banks and factories? We socialize human beings."

Adolf Hitler to Hermann Rauschning, quoted in The Ominous Parallels, by Leonard Peikoff C. 1982

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Any Questions?