The media use the French terms "left wing" and "right wing" to describe all political positions. These labels are useless. The real battle in society is between tyranny and freedom. An amended political spectrum is shown below:
Political spectrums depend upon their axes. Freedom makes life worthwhile, it makes your life your own, personal freedom is measured by the freedom-Tyranny axis and the freedom of nations is measured by the Internationalist-Nationalist axis.
The ellipse marks the political centre ground in the UK. As you can see, the centre is perilously near the boundary between tyranny and freedom, 60 years ago it would have been in the position marked by the "UK Liberal Party" - a party that was the centre party in the UK in those days (not to be confused with the Liberal Democrats).
The main reason that the type of political spectrum shown above is not widely used is that socialists have a big problem with the label "Nationalist Socialism" and reject the idea of freedom. There can be no doubt that Ba'athists and North Koreans are Nationalist Socialists but this puts them in a box with nazis...
The BBC, to be impartial, sits on the boundary between freedom and tyranny. Decent people would keep their distance from tyranny.
In the UK the merger of much of the Liberal Party with the Social Democrats in 1988 led to the disappearance of Liberalism as an ideal from UK politics. Liberals had been instrumental in founding most of the social provision in the UK such as the NHS (Beveridge Report ), Old Age Pensions (1908), unemployment benefits (1911), extended suffrage (1918), and welfare state (1908-1918). These advances are usually claimed as "socialist" by socialists but they were Liberal - you cannot be free if crippled from lack of medical care. Liberalism attempted to maximise social provision whilst preserving freedom, socialism maintains that "if we had absolute power there will be utopia" (ie: tyranny).
Modern tyranny is populated by socialist politics because Marxism is by nature plutocratic - a committee of the "workers" or the "people" appoint themselves to run the state. It is also the case that every tin pot tyrant since the mid twentieth century has realised that they can get the people on their side by promising gifts for the poor, obviously the gifts are seldom if ever delivered. Furthermore, by declaring socialist credentials the tyrant is aligned with other tyrannies and gets military and political support. There is a terrible rogues gallery of socialist, especially Marxist-Leninist tyrants from Lenin onwards
Stalin killed around 10 million people.
Hitler killed about 8 million plus another 20 or 30 million war dead. He was the archetypal nationalist socialist.
Mao Zedong, the last of the Chinese war lords but declared Marxist Leninist. He probably holds the record for worst tyrant of all time having killed about 70 million people.
Mengistu of Ethiopa - about 2 million killed.
Idi Amin During his years in power, Amin shifted in allegiance from being a pro-Western ruler enjoying considerable Israeli support to being backed by Libya's Muammar Gaddafi, the Soviet Union and East Germany. Half a million killed.
Pol Pot he served as the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Kampuchea. From 1976 to 1979. Killed 1-3 million.
Gaddafi was another Nationalist Socialist: "Politically an Arab nationalist and Arab socialist, he formulated his own ideology.."
The Ba'athists are arab socialists - a type of nationalist socialism. They were represented by Assad in Syria and Saddam Hussein in Iraq.
Mussolini was the archetypal fascist. He was an active socialist who founded his own Nationalist Socialist party the Fasci Rivoluzionari d'Azione Internazionalista in 1914.
Socialists are expert at manipulating the media, for instance Oswald Mosley, the leader of the British Fascists, is always portrayed as being "to the right" of the British Tory party but he was actually a member of a Labour Government. Hitler is always portrayed similarly but he based his politics on Mussolini, who was an ardent socialist, and was an ally of Stalin.
Whether Internationalist or Nationalist, extreme socialists are indeed the scum of the earth and have caused as much grief to mankind as the entire history of religions. Socialism has a fatal attraction for young adults, perhaps it is the empty promises of helping the poor and needy that attract the young, perhaps it is because they offer a utopia that is just like school or, more likely, it is because they form gangs and young adults love to be in gangs. Why be an independent Liberal when you could be in a gang fighting capitalists and racists (eg: bullying people)?
Many of the countries in the European Union cluster towards the nationalist side of the chart - they are about to form a megastate.
Link to this article on Twitter using: http://tinyurl.com/cxqytm5
See
The roots of New Labour
Communism and the education system
Communism did not deliver what it promised
Postmodernism-poststructuralism-postmarxism
Nations are the unit of diversity
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| Click on drawing to enlarge |
The ellipse marks the political centre ground in the UK. As you can see, the centre is perilously near the boundary between tyranny and freedom, 60 years ago it would have been in the position marked by the "UK Liberal Party" - a party that was the centre party in the UK in those days (not to be confused with the Liberal Democrats).
The main reason that the type of political spectrum shown above is not widely used is that socialists have a big problem with the label "Nationalist Socialism" and reject the idea of freedom. There can be no doubt that Ba'athists and North Koreans are Nationalist Socialists but this puts them in a box with nazis...
The BBC, to be impartial, sits on the boundary between freedom and tyranny. Decent people would keep their distance from tyranny.
In the UK the merger of much of the Liberal Party with the Social Democrats in 1988 led to the disappearance of Liberalism as an ideal from UK politics. Liberals had been instrumental in founding most of the social provision in the UK such as the NHS (Beveridge Report ), Old Age Pensions (1908), unemployment benefits (1911), extended suffrage (1918), and welfare state (1908-1918). These advances are usually claimed as "socialist" by socialists but they were Liberal - you cannot be free if crippled from lack of medical care. Liberalism attempted to maximise social provision whilst preserving freedom, socialism maintains that "if we had absolute power there will be utopia" (ie: tyranny).
Modern tyranny is populated by socialist politics because Marxism is by nature plutocratic - a committee of the "workers" or the "people" appoint themselves to run the state. It is also the case that every tin pot tyrant since the mid twentieth century has realised that they can get the people on their side by promising gifts for the poor, obviously the gifts are seldom if ever delivered. Furthermore, by declaring socialist credentials the tyrant is aligned with other tyrannies and gets military and political support. There is a terrible rogues gallery of socialist, especially Marxist-Leninist tyrants from Lenin onwards
Stalin killed around 10 million people.
Hitler killed about 8 million plus another 20 or 30 million war dead. He was the archetypal nationalist socialist.
Mao Zedong, the last of the Chinese war lords but declared Marxist Leninist. He probably holds the record for worst tyrant of all time having killed about 70 million people.
Mengistu of Ethiopa - about 2 million killed.
Idi Amin During his years in power, Amin shifted in allegiance from being a pro-Western ruler enjoying considerable Israeli support to being backed by Libya's Muammar Gaddafi, the Soviet Union and East Germany. Half a million killed.
Pol Pot he served as the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Kampuchea. From 1976 to 1979. Killed 1-3 million.
Gaddafi was another Nationalist Socialist: "Politically an Arab nationalist and Arab socialist, he formulated his own ideology.."
The Ba'athists are arab socialists - a type of nationalist socialism. They were represented by Assad in Syria and Saddam Hussein in Iraq.
Mussolini was the archetypal fascist. He was an active socialist who founded his own Nationalist Socialist party the Fasci Rivoluzionari d'Azione Internazionalista in 1914.
Socialists are expert at manipulating the media, for instance Oswald Mosley, the leader of the British Fascists, is always portrayed as being "to the right" of the British Tory party but he was actually a member of a Labour Government. Hitler is always portrayed similarly but he based his politics on Mussolini, who was an ardent socialist, and was an ally of Stalin.
Whether Internationalist or Nationalist, extreme socialists are indeed the scum of the earth and have caused as much grief to mankind as the entire history of religions. Socialism has a fatal attraction for young adults, perhaps it is the empty promises of helping the poor and needy that attract the young, perhaps it is because they offer a utopia that is just like school or, more likely, it is because they form gangs and young adults love to be in gangs. Why be an independent Liberal when you could be in a gang fighting capitalists and racists (eg: bullying people)?
Many of the countries in the European Union cluster towards the nationalist side of the chart - they are about to form a megastate.
Link to this article on Twitter using: http://tinyurl.com/cxqytm5
See
The roots of New Labour
Communism and the education system
Communism did not deliver what it promised
Postmodernism-poststructuralism-postmarxism
Nations are the unit of diversity
Comments
1. Social democracy isn't socialism.
2. North Korea is by all accounts left wing and internationalist.
3. The USA and plutocracy should be on the same dot. Plutocracy shouldn't be in the giant red blob.
4. In general the way left and right are defined here is kinda wierd.
Social democracy is internationalist and respects freedom but is definitely not libertarian so it should be placed more than half way up and to the left on the drawing
North Korea is Nationalist and Tyrannical so sits in the bottom right along with Nazis etc.
The USA has several Parties which are dealt with individually