What is a leftist?

[mujahid]

I was watching a documentary on Che Guevara and thought I would ask a couple questions.

What is a leftist? And what is a rightist (if that is the correct term)?

[RedAnarchist]

Welcome to the forum.

They are quite broad terms. I suppose if I had to simplify it -

Leftism - advocation of civil rights and regulating the economy. This is the side more likely to be internationalist, secular, pro-abortion, pro-gay rights, pro-womens rights etc. From the centre leftwards I would put them like this -

Liberal
Social Democrat
Socialist
Marxist (Communism)
Anarchism

Although remember that this is very simplified.

Rightism - they are more restrictive with civil rights, but prefer more economic freedoms. They are also more likely to be very nationalistic, and some are rascists.

From the cntre rightwards -

Liberal
Neo-Liberal]
Neo-Conservative
Paleo-Conservative
Fascism
Neo-Nazism
Conservative

[mujahid]

Thank you for the welcome. So, I assume that leftists, maybe even rightists do not believe in God?

[RedAnarchist]

Many leftists and some rightists do not believe in god. The right tends to be more traditionalist, so will be more religious, whilst the left is more progressive, so tends to consider religion less important.

[rouchambeau]

The terms come out of a schism in the French parliament a few centuries ago. Those who supported the king were seated to his right. Those who were disagreeing with some of his actions were seated to his left. Hence, you had the conservative elements on the right, while you had on the left the more liberal bourgeois types. That's just the origin of the terms.

Really, I don't believe in the left or the right. I think it's a poor way to categorize political points of view. By grouping the many ideologies of "the left" together, it makes it look like there is some substantial tenet common in all of them that allows us to put them together. Sure, pretty much everyone on the left is pro-choice, pro-immigration, etc. But why lump people together based on particular issues? Shouldn't we take into consideration larger issues like, say, capitalism?

[/rant]

[Zero]

How can you possibly place a Neo-Conservative more towards the center than a Paleo-Conservative?

[Floyce White]

I explained the terms "left" and "right" in my third post at Revleft (http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=42555&st=4).

[Kwisatz Haderach]

What is a leftist? Well, the term "leftist" means different things to different people. It does not have any inherent meaning. People like to think of politics in terms of "left versus right" because they like to think of politics in terms of "us versus them"; they identify either the left or the right with "us", and then identify the other side with "them".

The way we use the term "leftist" here at revleft.com, it usually means something along the lines of "a person who believes in the fundamental equality of all human beings and who wishes to create a new kind of society that abolishes private property over the means of production".

[Lenin II]

Originally posted by [email protected] 31, 2007 11:05 pm
Thank you for the welcome. So, I assume that leftists, maybe even rightists do not believe in God?
It depends. Some Anarchists might believe in God. Most Marxists don't, although the two are not mutually exclusive. A lot of the members of the far-right hate Jesus because he was a Jew. :D

[RGacky3]

Pretty much the terms liberal, conservative, leftist rightist, are subjective based on the political/social atmosphere.

[RedAnarchist]

Originally posted by [email protected] 02, 2007 08:49 pm
How can you possibly place a Neo-Conservative more towards the center than a Paleo-Conservative?
I dunno, I didn't actually look them up - I assumed "paleo" was more reactionary than "neo".

[Lenin II]

Leftist, Republican/Capitalist edition:
Anyone who doesn't support the privitization of welfare, the official adoption of Christian law by the U.S. government, the outsourcing of jobs for huge corporate tax breaks, drilling in wildlife preserves for crude oil, a constitutional amendment to outlaw gay marriage, preemptive wars based on sloppy intelligence, or the election of a criminally incompetant failure of a businessman who talks to god on a daily basis as President.