Rectification of Names 2: Left and Right

‘Left’ and ‘Right’ are often used to describe political positions. Those on the Left call anything they dislike ‘far-right’. (They never call any one ‘right’.) To reclaim ‘Left’ and ‘Right’ as useful political designations, let’s review some history.

In Western culture ‘right’ has long been favored and ‘left’ disfavored. In Latin ‘left’ and ‘right’ are ‘sinister’ and ‘dexter’, giving English ‘sinister’ and ‘dexterous’. In French ‘left’ and ‘right’ are ‘gauche’ and ‘droit’, giving English ‘gauche’ and ‘adroit’. In the parable of the Sheep and the Goats, the blessed sheep are on the Lord’s right hand and the condemned goats are on the Lord’s left hand.

This parable led to today’s left-wingers calling themselves ‘leftists’, rather than taking the rhetorical high ground of calling themselves ‘Right’.

In 1789 the king of France, needing money, convened the Estates General. This representative assembly could raise taxes. The assembly had three parts called estates. The first estate was the clergy. The second estate was the nobility. And the third estate was the commoners. As the press was covering all the estates and part of none of them, the press started calling itself and being referred to as the Fourth Estate.

When the Estates General convened, those members intent on rebellion purposely sat to the left of the presiding officer. These rebellious members were intentionally identifying themselves with the condemned goats in the parable of the Sheep and the Goats.

The leftist idea of rebellion continued through Karl Marx declaring “religion is the opiate of the masses” to Lenin creating a godless Socialist state. Stalin allied with follow Socialist, Hitler. Later in the Second World War, Churchill reminded Stalin that the Nazi bombing of Britain had been fueled by oil supplied to Nazi Germany by the Soviet Union. When Hitler betrayed Stalin and invaded the Soviet Union, Stalin, needing to distinguish his Socialism from Hitler’s, declared Hitler and Nazism to be ‘right-wing’.

Left and Right are two ends of a spectrum. The more to the Left, an ideology the more it values the collective over the individual. while the more to the Right an ideology, the more it values the individual over the collective. From Left to Right: SOCIALISM (As Ronald Reagan noted “Socialism only works in two places: Heaven where they don't need it and hell where they already have it.”), COMMUNISM (Russian Socialism, the State owns everything), NAZISM (German Socialism, a left-wing ideology), FASCISM (private ownership, but the State directs everything), DEMOCRAT (private property is tolerated, but more government is better.) REPUBLICAN (“Government is not reason, it is not eloquence,—it is force! Like fire, it is a dangerous servant, and a fearful master.” George Washington), LIBERTARIANISM (Someone has to enforce contracts), ANARCHY (“The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.” Thucydides).

On the Left/Right scale, REPUBLICAN is middle of the road; ANARCHY is the true Far-Right.

Dr. Peter Theron has a PhD in mathematics and taught math for forty years. In his six Congressional campaigns he created over 140 radio ads.