10-10-2018, 05:37 PM
(This post was last modified: 10-10-2018, 05:56 PM by Eric the Green.)
(10-10-2018, 02:00 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:(10-10-2018, 01:44 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:(10-10-2018, 12:14 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: The political compass and the Nolan grid pretty well illustrate those two axes; they are equally important.
Well, I for one would rather live under a Republican president than under your typical dictator.
Considering Bush and Trump, there's not much difference. Once the right wing court gets through, the barriers to tyranny here will be gone.
It is a good point, I don't mean to lessen it. It can be confusing. The conservative/right-wing side of the circle seeks to maximize power for a few; the left wing for the many. For Republican or similar conservatives, the society they advocate would be one where a few people have most of the wealth, and most others work hard for little reward and are looked down upon as undeserving. It would also favor the well-established groups in society, and suppress or retard advancement for those out of favor; to make their country great again by keeping others out, and to advance their country over others through war if need be.
So how is that different from state tyranny--- the bottom of the Nolan chart, or upper left on the political compass?
Conservatives are able to use deceptive slogans like the patriotic "make our country great again" and more "freedom" for job creaters that will lift all boats, etc, in order to create a society that benefits only themselves, but this would not be limited to state power, might not involve killing or jailing too many dissidents, although unrest and protest would be put down, labor unions restricted, ethnic and gender groups discriminated against, traditionally-favored religious morality prescriptions enforced, etc.
The bottom of the Nolan chart means state power per se; it might lean to the left as well, in which case any criticism of the regime would be fatal, but business would be more severely restricted than is the case with a right-wing tyranny. There would be more enforced equality, perhaps a more international approach; but it would still be very tyrannical, and the result would be that most people are equally poor, because business is so controlled and stagnant; and culture very stagnant and limited to what is approved by the regime, as would also likely be the case with a right-wing tyranny. Various kinds of supposed leftist elitism and political correctness might also reflect a fall toward state tyranny in the lower left quarter.
It might be that the circle is an ellipse, with the right wing and the bottom closer together, in reality. But since that is not the consensus among those who participate in politics, the lower right quarter is just as big as the lower left quarter. True freedom is only found on the left wing. But again, since most people don't know that, and might never know, or might not be able to handle that much true freedom without abuse, the circle is what it is. On the other hand, since progress has happened over the long term, the meaning of left has gotten further left, relative to actual circumstances. For example, since more kinds of people can vote in America, and more people also have protection there from business practices, than 200 years ago, the meaning of left has shifted left in the USA from what it was in 1818. This in spite of the fact that the meaning of left has also shifted to the right in the USA over the last 40 years, and the meaning of right has also shifted correspondingly right, and is also to the right of most other countries.
It might be that the gap between bottom and top is greater than the gap between left and right, in fact-- since total state tyranny is so much worse than being caught in the oligarchical and narrowly-empowered right wing, or subject to the feared power of the unhinged people on the left. The danger of totalitarian state tyranny at the bottom is greater than the danger of either wing, but so also is the danger of total anarchy at the top, which in fact quickly becomes the former as well.
BUT, the fact remains that most people, in spite of the circle, line up along the right/left axis, according to the empirical results of questionnaires. So, because there are fewer people rising up into the increasing stateless anarchy of libertarian, or falling into the trap of state tyranny, the circle remains what it is.