Far left - US/UK definition

The left emphasizes the collective over the individual. In extreme form, Communism, as its name implies, is all about the collective.Socialism, even democratic socialism, gives ownership of the economy to the collective through the government.The left favours the concept of the United Nations not as an organzation to establish common interests and maintain diplomacy in favour of war, but as an organization of international rules, even governance.The left is also seen as believing that the social world, and the behaviour of individuals within society, can be perfected through social engineering. Affirmative action programs and lots of government regulation are examples of this.The left emphasizes sub-collectives as well, such as multi-culturalism, whereby the individual is encouraged to identify as much with her sub-group as an indivudal within the nation. Thus, the left considers it important that a Black American have a strong, as opposed to a somewhat, Black identity, that women attach to Feminism, that Hispanics send their children to public schools where they learn in Spanish.The left believes the west discredited itself into the indefinite future through its colonial period,The left believes in moral relativism, whereby no culture or faith is better any other. The left is inclined to take positions of moral equivalence.The left is more likely to weigh more heavily on society's responsibility for criminal behaviour than the individual's.Finally, the left considers war pretty much indefensible under almost all but the most extreme circumstances of defense against unadulterated aggression. It also tends to believe that if one is peaceful, then one is extremely unlikely to face an aggressor.Left wing media supports many of the principles of leftist thinking, including leftist proscriptions for the economy and social engineering, multiculturalism, pacifism, multiculturalism, and in support for the United Nations - even when it betrays little loyalty to western liberal democatic principles. For example, in recent years such brutal dictatorships, as Syria's, have served on the Human Rights Commission. Or the oil for food scandal.In contrast, the right believes more in the individual, that she must be as unfettered as possible in her pursuit of life's goals, and that interference in that leads to the infringement of rights and freedoms, and hinders the economic growth. Of course, the right accepts laws, but wants them kept to a minimum. The right sees the Unitded Nations as useful fro diplomacy and for shared interests, but also sees it as easily dangerous to freedoms when it becomes too strong, when it becomes a forum for world government.The right doesn't believe people or society can be perfected. But it does believe that an emphasis on personal responsibility, and on morals and ethics, all backed up by good legal enforcement, produces the a society with a strong citizenship base.The right might accept social engineering under extreme circumstances, such as temporary affirmative action immediately after the civil rights movement lifted legal dsicrimination against Blacks, but as a rule support the notion of: Equal opportunity, not equal results. even there it is understood that there will always be better and worse people, that some will not be fair to others. while that may be unfortunate, it is best left to moral suasion and a societal value of fairplay, rather than government regulation and quotas and other engineering strategies.The right believes in the melting pot, where every individual's primary identity is as a citizen of a shared nation, not as as a sub-group within the nation. It believes, as a given, that the first obligation of an immigrant who chooses to immigrate, is to want to assimilate, especially for their children to grow up fully assimilated.The right (in western democracies) knows the colonial period is a stain on its record. But it also knows that all nations and civilzations were colonlalists. It also knows that the west was the first civilization in to create full fledged liberal democracy and establish bills of rights. This thinking led the west to be the first civilzation to end slavery.Western conservatives believe there are those who would destroy democracy, no matter how peaceful we are. Hitler and the Nazis, of course, are one example, so were teh Communists, and so are the Islamo-fascists.The right sees that democracy is a superior form of governance, and sees democratic societies as superior to non democratic ones.The extreme left and the extreme right are, in fact, one and the same: Authoritarian. Thus, they are not part of this conversation.

The left has many huge misperceptions about the right, and conflates the religious views of some evangelical conservatives (evangelicals have different views too from one another) with the overall conservative movement.

Roe vs. Wade can also be seen as state rights vs. federal interference, and as the rights of the unborn. Thus, it proves nothing with respect to argument presented.

Guess we'll just have to agree to disagree, since i can't see even eniough agreement on the issue to begin a dialogue.

I forget to address gay rights. Polls show the majority of conservative favour full rights for gays, but does not accept gay marriage.

Both sides believe in the coperative. But the left wants it through regulation and law, through government ownership in the economy, thriough international regulation, adn so on. At its extreme, Communism is the ultimate cooperative.The right believes in the cooperative through moral and ethical behaviour and responsibility, through charity.Take good old fashion barn raisings. The left would say that government assistance might be mandated, that union labour be obligated, that as many safety regulations as possible be proscribed for every conceivable eventuality, and so on. The right would say it's something the community should do on a voluntary cooperative basis.

One point I didn't make strongly enough is this:The right believes in private enterprise, both for pragmatic reasons - it creates the most wealth - and because it is a part of individual freedom. The left is very suspicious of free enterprise, is quick to see large corporations as not a collection of millions of shareholders, but as an ugly, if necessary, behemoth that must be rigidly controlled by government.Of course, all power muct be checked - which is a key aspect of the American constitution. But whereas the right is suspicious of government power - because it creates an inverse of loss of power for the individual, the left relies on government power to feel empowered on an individual basis.

Socialism and Communism are related, in that they both have goverment ownership of teh economy.However, the west created democratic socialism, whereby the government must stand for reelection. thus, when socialism proved a failure, the people overthrew staunchly socialist governments in the 80's. Labour parties revived by becoming much more Capitalist friendly.Communism is also government ownership of the economy, but is also the "dictatorship of teh proletariat." There were no free elections in Communist societies, and rightsd ended being brutally abused.Communists, believign that society could beperfected if only the disbelievers were out of the way, killed tens of millions in the Soviet Union and china and Cambodia and elsewhere. That, they believed, was necessary so they could pursue their perfection of human society.Gone for most of the rest of the day.

There are poor people everywhere , especially in non democracies. But, as you realize, leftist proscriptions have done, if anything, far worse at aleviating poverty than conservative proscriptions. That is, socialism fails miserably, making almost everyone poorer. capitalism makes almsot everyone better off.As for industrial accidents...conservatives do not object to safety standards, as long as they're reasonable and not an excuse for unecessary degrees of government control. For example, consider US states where conservatives are in charge: Do you thye eliminate safety standards? Of course not.

I think you're a closet conservative. All it'll take is for you to realize that the left, as you see it, is actually the right, and vica versa.

In leftist nations, there are still those more powerful and richer. Speaking of canada, who got to go on GG Clarkson's famous international trip at a cost of millions of our tax dollars? All her leftist arts friends.The left believes that by overtaxing the rich, they'll create equality. Instead, they make almost everyone poorer. That is why britain, Sweden and even Canada, reversed increasing socialism in the 80's. The result is that all three saw their economies take off. There is, at this time, an ideological battle between the french and Brits within the EU, the former refuding to follow the lead of the latter, despite that it has long ago passed them in every vital economic measure.

With respect to free enterprise, you argue that:
"yes, and no. it creates the most wealth to a certain point, but free and private enterprise is one of those systems that inherently fails. it encourages mergers and buyouts and monopolies, which actually hamper the system itself, not to mention the economic output."The inherent nature of free enterprise is that some failures are inevitable. When the auto industry arose, most industries related to horses failed. But more jobs and wealth was created anyhow.Monopolies are a problem, and are inherently averse to capitalism. Thus, every capitalist nation has particular laws and regulation to keep that in check. Thus, I agree with you that some order of checks are needed. And thus, even in nations where conservatives are more powerful, like the US, those checks remain.Interestingly, though, as technology advances, many presumed monopolies prove not to be. Take telephone service. Not long ago the US broke up ATT&T. Yet only a few years later cell service became available and would have, in any event, broken that monopoly.I understand your feeling that qualitative social programs are needed. I agree (my career mainly being work with foster children). the problem is that governmetn isn't very good at providing such services, and eneds up protecting itself more from liability as its first order, than actually providing good care. Small example: When I ran group home programs in the 80's, we'd take our kids on cross continent summer trips. I'd teach them to sail and race with me. We plastered the walls with photos of the kids and our trips. We had a great German Shepherd. Now, noneof that is allowed in most jurisdictions, because of liability and confidentiality concerns. ironically, it is the left in the US, at least, that protects the trial lawyers who have made government so fearful.

You wrote: "I cherish individual liberties and freedoms..."That is classical liberalism. taht is the position of today's conservatives, today's liberals having left that behind. Reagan famously answered a question as to why he left the Demcoratic Party thusly: "I didn't leave it, it left me."

Just consider every nation that took a decidely leftward slant. none decreased poverty; not one.

what I said is true. As for saskatchewan, you had a corrupt Conservative Party, that carried out NDP economics, and an NDP that disagreed with the federal NDP on economic matters, being far more conservative than they.