Mekon wrote:

Han wrote



What's "IR"?

Industrial relations, the relationship between workers and employees.

In Holland also, the liberals are really the main conservative party,
but here in the US, most Republicans are further to the right.

I think Hitler and Mussolini would be all that is further to the right
than the Republicans, huh?

Now, now! That is going a little too far. The current dictatorship is
making "mistakes", but that comaprison is out of line, IMO.

I should have been clearer.

I didn't mean to compare them, just place them on a political
continuum. I think it is hard to find a political system further to the
right than the US unless it is a military dictatorship. I know it isnt
and I am not saying the US is one, but it is to the right of most.

Mekon

I think your comparison of left and right is skewed. Stalin, Pol Pot,
Mao, and even Hitler (who was a socialist of sorts) were all to the left of
the political spectrum in that they stood for government control of any and
all sources of production and distribution as well as control of peoples'
lives and livelihoods. The political left falls into the same category,
advocating strong government involvement in all manners of affairs from
abrogating property rights to controlling health care to the point of
defining what kind, if any cars people can or should be driving.

The political right, to which some Republicans are associated (it is
questionable that Olympia Snow, Lincoln Chaffee and the like would fall
into this realm) is on the opposite end of the spectrum in that it stands
for limited government and maximum individual control. Thus property rights
and the rights of people to make their own choices, and to the maximum
extent possible control the most of the fruits of their labor would fall
into the political right. Government's primary duty is securing the
border, assuring national security, and guarding against a tyranny of the
majority or allowing too much power in the hands of too few by making sure
that the laws of the land apply to all. Hardly the realm of Hitler or
Mussolini. The political left has appropriated those figures as examples
of the "right" when in actuality they were equivalently left as their
darlings from the USSR or Red China.
--
If you're going to be dumb, you better be tough