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Reading about syndicalism and industrial democracy, the utopians (including utopian capitalists like Robert Owen and later the Amana Cooperative), it was easy to understand their attempts at devising a better way to organize society. Since then, over all, I have as much "sympathy" for the left as for the right, knowing that the very dichotomy is just a floating abstraction hovering over a stolen concept. It is nonsense.
It is better not to organize society at all, a radical idea from the liberal F. A Hayek who organized the Mount Pelerin Society.
The right wing is all about family as the basis for society. Conservatives wring their hands over "single mothers" and "broken homes." They have not gotten past "Church-Children-Kitchen" of 100 years ago with men trudging off to work and women "in charge of the house."
I think that it is interesting that Nancy Pelosi and Michele Bachmann both support the President and the NSA in the current imbroglio. This is just another indication of the left-right conservative-liberal dichotomy losing whatever little meaning it might have had.
I was completely confused by the suggested re-definitions of left and right. To my mind, left should be all about freedom, idealistically anarchist communes, etc. The center is as the chart shows, "modern progressivism, conservativism", etc. The right would be a moralizing gov't that wants to control everyone in an endless search for evildoers. This reflects my leftwing bias. I wouldn't actually use my suggestion of left=freedom any more than I would use the right=freedom.
We have to be honest about our biases.
"Social liberal, fiscal conservative" has become almost a tired cliche. This is a wonderful thing! It means the time is ripe for policies that move toward individual freedom.
The "problem" (if it is a problem) with this attempt at a solution is that it still leaves you burdened to define your terms. That in itself is fine at a social meetup or something where you can explain what you mean to an audience that cares.
Today, I suggested to my wife that the nation is becoming unzipped even faster than we feared. When I said, "The Snowden Affair is costing Obama his left wing" she did not need to ask me if I meant the fascists because fascism is just a variant of socialist rights-violation.
So, if you were in a social mnixing group gathering and you said that Ayn Rand is in the liberal tradition (per Jennifer Burns), you might have some explaining to do. That gives you the floor, perhaps. But no one is going home to redraw all the political charts.
The Nolan Chart as the "World's Smallest Political Quiz" is 40 years old and has changed several times over the decades. I liked the one that used Foreign Affairs and Domestic Affairs to see who wants to be left alone themselves while insisting that other people farther away be bothered instead.
Our gadfly Darren called it a catechism. I appreciate both his comment and the fact that in any discussion it is best that the discussants identify the issues and define their terms. The canonical works of Ayn Rand facilitate that.