Far left - US/UK definition

As I said, it is not an "inverse loss of power for the individual" but an equalizatation of power for all individuals.The rich and powerful have more individual freedom than the poor and weak. Donald Trump can fly his private jet anywhere in the world - I have to fly Air Canada."Government regulation" is an attempt to keep the gap from getting too big.

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People who think they have all the answers usually don't understand the questions.

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. while the anti-corporatists (aka environmentalists) tend to be a litte nuts, the point is somewhat true. we do need some checks.the trick is to find a healthy balance. this is why i've come to describe myself as a moderate. i'm suspicious of government -- but my ideas are usually liberal. i want less government power, a conservative position, but i also want better social programs. which i'm not totally sure you can even have together.

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אָרַח

Hello again, Faith.

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I don't expect a list to be definitive, simply a way of making clear to people exactly what we are referring to when we call something right or leftist. What I think is NOT useful is broad definitions, such as "liberals care about people" and "conservatives are racists."

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I agree that such broad definitions are not useful, especially since they either tend to be caricatures or worded in such a way as to be misleading. But that is why a longer discussion is useful in beginning to understand these matters. The different positions and opinions on various matters are not simple divided into "left" and "right" at random; a set of positions that are grouped together as "left" because of some sort of coherent point of view that is shared by most people labeled as "leftists", and similarly for right wing opinions. One can give, I suppose, a brief meaning of this leftist point of view, as well as the right wing one, but a deeper understanding of what it really means would require a more sophisticated conversation than merely trading sound bites.-

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Why individuals hold the views they do isn't of much interest to me either, at least in this context.

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A pity. I am very interested in what people think and why. That is the primary reason I take part in these discussion boards.--

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A dominant stance critical of the war in Iraq is certainly one indicator of a liberal/leftist frame of reference from my point of view; likewise a dominant stance critical of Israel.

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I agree that these are good indicators of whether one is on the "left" or "right". But clearly these are not a definition of what it means to be on the left. In fact, there are a few on the left who would disagree with these points, as well as a few on the right who share these criticisms, so there must be some deeper point of view or ideology that marks one as "left" or "right", even if the particular individual will interpret it differently when it comes to real world events.-- You state:

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This impression of yours is in fact exactly why it would be good to try to be more specific.

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Which may, in fact, be a good way to start the conversation if you are interested. I can give you my definition of "right" and let you respond to it, or I can give you my definition of "left" and allow you to respond to that. Or you can give me your definition of one or both of these terms, to which I will respond. Whichever way you feel more confortable.

All I know about Ted Turner is that he colourized the movies. Could you give some examples of his left-leaning pronouncements, etc.?

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People who think they have all the answers usually don't understand the questions.

Your statement that the right just indiscriminately labels everything they disagree with as liberal or leftist didn't hold out much hope that you expect to find any coherent point of view in it. Heck, my ambitions for this topic don't rise anywhere near the level of seeking "a deeper understanding" - I'd be content if bobbins just knew what Steve meant by calling the Guardian leftist instead of getting outraged that he sees it that way, or Steve could see why bobbins doesn't. A modest objective and not too unrealistic I would think, except, well, look at how the thread is going. It's the usual wild collection of fragmented thoughts with some taking issue with this or that, with no organization and no sense of direction.Except that I still want a lot more specificity and examples, I think Canadian Steve's definitions are good, at least in the sense that they fit pretty well with my views, which is no doubt because he's also a conservative and we do share a coherent worldview, but his opponents are taking issue with various items in the usual argumentative way without bothering to try to understand what he means, even in order just to make their own view clearer, and this is where things start getting confused and I lose interest. I said "in this context," meaning it isn't what I thought this topic was about. It isn't going to be very illuminating to know WHY any given person is a liberal or conservative until we know what we mean by the terms in the first place. This thread wasn't about setting definitions in concrete, as I understood it, but about trying to reach some clarity about differences of viewpoint, particularly differences between US and UK notions of what "left" and "right" mean and specifically in relation to the Guardian and the BBC. So far nobody's addressed that. CS appears to be aiming to establish a broad definition, and that's fine since he's offering many criteria, but I'm not sure it's going to get at much about the original topic. Seems more likely to me that few of us are COMPLETELY leftist or rightist but have some views more typically shared by the opposite position. In other words the labels left and right belong to ideas, rather than people, although in casual conversation we label people with them. The trouble is that this thread is barreling right along and may in fact reach "witching hour" before bobbins even returns to note that it's taken off. I'm already discouraged with the apparent lack of interest of so many in clarifying anything.HOWEVER, if the thread is still here and you're still around I might be willing to take you up on the proposal later. It might in fact be illuminating, but I'm not up to it at the moment, having confined myself to trying to be a traffic cop here, yet finding myself roadkill in the intersection already.

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The trouble is that this thread is barreling right along and may in fact reach "witching hour" before bobbins even returns to note that it's taken off. I'm already discouraged with the apparent lack of interest of so many in clarifying anything.

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This is why I singled you out for a conversation -- any serious discussion will have to involve ignoring most of the other, er, "contributions" being made and focus mainly on one or two individuals with whom one wants to communicate. I am willing and capable of ignoring everyone else in this thread if they prove to be a distraction.A pity, though, that you are not up to it yet. I'll keep checking this thread to see if you've changed your mind (or if anyone else is interested in a more enlightening conversation that is currently occurring) -- or to see if you decide to start a new thread.

Which is why I asked for examples of Ted Turner's leftist leanings.

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People who think they have all the answers usually don't understand the questions.

I couldn't agree more. We're talking about two different things here: first about how we categorize people's political beliefs, and second about biases in the media. I'm only going to talk about the former here.We have to decide what is left, right and centre before we can say where people fit on this scale. Most sociologists and political scientists reject a straightforward linear left-right continuum. I have heard people talk instead about a horse-shoe shaped continuum, where people on the far left are eerily close to people on the far-right. A popular view since the sixties and seventies representing political attitudes toward the economy (i.e. collectivism (left) versus individualism (right)) and there is a second scale representing political attitudes towards the legitimacy of social activities (i.e. permissive, individual choice (permissive) versus authoritarian, social control (authoritarian)).This kind of system permits us to distinguish between leftists like Stalin (left economically, authoritarian socially) and Trotsky (left economically, permissive socially); between people like Thatcher (right economically, authoritarian socially) and the right wing libertarians of the US (right economically, permissive socially).There is a nice website explaining some of these concepts at The Political Compass. You can take a (slightly silly) test to decide where you fit on the two dimensions. I came out at the extreme left libertarian position; which means that i'm basically far-left whichever way you measure it. Hooray!Mick

I've been trying to stay out of the debate, Ringo, because I don't feel equipped for it, as I've said. I am hoping others with clearer views on the subject will sort out all the categories. I was simply adding my subjective two cents' worth into the stew.But here are some googled sources that show Turner's anti-Israel, anti-Christianity, anti-FoxNews, pro-UN positions:And by the way -- ALERT FOR BOBBINS -- The Guardian is identified as a leftist newspaper by Fox News. So here's a starting point for defining it as less than leftist from some other point of view. This message has been edited by Faith, 07-23-2005 05:10 PM

do i need to even make an argument here?

I've taken that test before, a couple years ago. The first time I came out in the Gandhi quadrant but very close to the center on both axes, within the first square to the left and three to the south as I recall. This time I came out in the Thatcher quadrant 2.63 right and 2.56 up. At least twenty questions on that test I could easily answer the opposite of what I did answer. Today I'm in a Thatchery mood I guess, but I could just as easily be in a Gandhi-ish mood or even over in the right libertarian quadrant.I suppose the items on that test could be used as a starting point for some criteria, although I think Canadian Steve is doing a better job of that kind of categorization.

The idea is to illuminate the criteria by which the positions are determined, not chortle smugly away at predictable viewpoints. What is it about the Guardian that Fox identifies as leftist? And why according to bobbins' point of view, or your own, is it not all that leftist and what might be an example of something farther left?

but fox is so easy to chortle away smugly at. let's reverse the question. what is it about fox that makes it identify everything else as leftist? if everything is left of something, what might we infer logically about its position? i'm not sure how exactly far left the gaurdian is, because i don't read it. they strike me as a moderate, though, somewhere in the middle. but let's look at some of the stuff that's actually pretty far left and easily identifiable.would we agree that this is a good deal further left?unlike most of the right, i've been to my share of protests and rallies. i've met and talked to rabid environmentalist hippies who smell. i've seen the rags that get passed around, and read a few of them. there's a lot further on the left end of the spectrum. but the radical right has only one view: left of us. and nearly everyone is. it's almost elitists, actually.for instance, you called the supreme court leftist. the supreme court had (and likely will continue to have) 5 conservatives and 4 liberals, and it's likely to continue it's surrent mode of judicial restraint -- which is conservative. it might be "left of you" but it's not "left." it's still over the line that divides right and left.

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אָרַח

Thanks for the information, Faith.If I may remind you, Bobbins started the topic by asking what is considered "far left" in the US and why the Manchester Guardian would be considered "far left".I suggested that media owners are more likely to be right-wing, because of their economic status. You countered that Ted Turner is both very rich and very left-wing. Which is why I asked you to clarify what about him is left-wing. I think that is very much on topic (and a very unusual place for me to be ).If you want to stay out of a discussion, maybe you should stay out at the beginning instead of the middle. -------------I don't know much about Fox News, either. (You Americans are soooo parochial, aren't you? ) But, as far as I can tell, it's just the right-wing calling the center "left-wing". I see nothing "outrageous" in your references to Turner, and not much that is even "left-leaning".

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People who think they have all the answers usually don't understand the questions.

Hi, Ringo.Ted Turner is considered "liberal" here in the US, and as an American left-winger I will agree that he seems to be a liberal. Since liberals are considered part of the "left", that will make him a left-leaning.But perhaps we have a different characterization of what is "left". If we just say that "left" and "right" should be measured with respect to the average opinion in the society, then, compared to the average American, Ted Turner is probably rather centrist rather than left.But if "left" means something in terms of motivations and beliefs, then it may be appropriate to label Turner as "left".