Talk:Right-wing politics/Archive 14

Is the Tea Party Right-Wing?
Because it is obviously populist and anti-elitist.

But I thought right wing meant pro-elitist!

Even though Goldman Sachs gave much more money to Obama than to John McCain in 2008. Is Obama really right wing? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Falconclaw5000 (talk • contribs) 21:12, 27 January 2012 (UTC)


 * The Tea Party describe themselves as right wing and so does everybody else I am aware of. They come from the right and they continue its traditions, albeit with some odd twists. I don't see anybody arguing that they are not right-wing. We could hardly state otherwise without sources. I fear you are dangling a red herring in front of our noses.
 * They undoubtedly use anti-elitist rhetoric however that does not make them objectively anti-elitist. It is not for Wikipedia to judge their sincerity however there are enough precedents for movements that use anti-elitist rhetoric turning out to be deeply elitist once they gain power, either replacing one elite with another more to their liking, or simply continuing the status-quo once it is no longer politically advantageous to attack it, that we can't describe parties solely in their chosen terminology. For somebody who is cynical of the Tea Party they could be perceived as the very model of an elitist organisation. For others, presumably such as yourself, they will seem to be the exact opposite. Either way, that doesn't help us.
 * I am certainly not suggesting that we should treat the Tea Party with more cynicism than other political movements. All I am is pointing out is that political history is full of organisations that turned not to be what they said they were and that we should not be taking any political organisation's self-descriptions at face value if they are widely contested. Let us not forget that North Korea effectively has a hereditary monarchy that still calls itself Communist. (Now there is a real dilemma for those having trouble describing things as left or right wing ;-) ) We should report how organisation's describe themselves and also report how they are perceived externally, particularly by those doing their best to be rigorous and impartial, i.e. academics. That is how we get the whole picture. --DanielRigal (talk) 22:22, 27 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Could you please explain what changes you wish to make to the article and provide sources. This is not a discussion forum for the Tea Party.  TFD (talk) 23:32, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

What is going on here (and in many other articles in Wikipedia) is an attempt to change the meaning of words. The elite historically are the upper class. And the main thrust of the tea-party is tax cuts for the upper class. Tea-party memebers are, overwhelmingly, older, financially well-off, white people, in short members of the privileged class. (Please note, and this is a mistake several people have made on this Talk page, this is not the same as saying most old, financially well-off white people are tea-party members.) The Tea Party describe themselves as a "grass roots" movement. Others describe them as "astorturf". When the Tea Party uses the word "elite" the meaning is hard to determine, but it seems to mean "rich people who are not members of the Tea Party". By their definition, I doubt very much that they would consider Rupurt Murdoch part of "the elite", though he certainly is elite in the standard meaning of the word. Rick Norwood (talk) 13:25, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
 * The Tea Party is against the Washington elite; not only against the left and the Democrats, but also against the Republican establishment. Indeed, in the last mid-term election in  a number of states, Tea Party candidates stood against established GOP candidates, and in some cases unseated them. The word 'elite' has many meanings and I won't attempt to define it here. They are not of course against every member of the elite, just like Bolshviks were not against  every single member of the upper class. They are not against the rich, they are against the Washington establishment and big government. I am sorry I don't currently have time to provide sources, but hopefully will find the time later. Overall, this is a complex and controversial subject, and, as with any controversial subject, we should refrain from stating opinions as facts and presenting them in Wikipedia's voice, unless there is a demonstrable and overwhelming consensus of reliable sources. It is much better to attribute every such statement to specific sources. - BorisG (talk) 13:40, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

I totally agree about the need for sources. The trouble with that is that, according to the Tea Party, any source that does not agree with them is tainted by left-wing bias. To say that the Tea Party opposes "the elite" and to define "the elite" as the Washington power structure, only says that people who are out of power oppose those who are in power. That doesn't distinguish the Tea Party from any other movement. The question is what the Tea Party would do if they became the power structure. Experience suggests they would then hold onto power by the same means that other movements have held onto power.

What do the media mean when they call the Tea Party right-wing? It may be just a knee-jerk label for anyone who runs on the Republican ticket. But I do note that most Tea Party members are old, white, and well-off. They say they are for "small government" but many oppose cuts to defense and favor "big government" laws to protect them against "foreigners", in which they often include Black Americans, Moslem Americans, and Hispanic Americans. They say the are for "tax cuts", but many opposed Obama's extension of the working class tax cuts. In short, as TFD points out, there is a large disconnect between their rhetoric and the programs they vote for and against. Rick Norwood (talk) 14:08, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
 * No. It is common for an 'opposition party' to condemn the rival (governing) party, but not the entire establishment, including their own party. Mitt Romney is not in power either but he does not play the anti-elitist card. There is an obvious discontent in middle America about cosy Beltway politics of both parties, and this discontent is manifested in, and/or exploited by, protest movements like The Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street. Both are anti-establishment movements. - BorisG (talk) 15:35, 28 January 2012 (UTC)


 * I have not read any articles explaining why the Tea Party is considered right-wing, although sources place them in the tradition of right-wing populism or the American radical right. See for example The radical right or The politics of unreason: right wing extremism in America, 1790-1970 for an explanaqtion of the placement on the left-right spectrum for the radical right.  These groups are considered right-wing because they support existing power structures and oppose socialists, etc., who would overthrow them.  Ultimately they usually support the traditional Right (e.g., the Republican Party), and marxist and progressive historiography saw them as merely fronts for the traditional Right.  Lipset, in his article "Fascism - Left, Right and Center", once claimed that they were part of the political center, because they were essentially middle class and described them as "liberalism gone sour".  Nonetheless, as explained the only definition of the Right is opposition to the Left, so finding examples of where the Right acts atypically does not challenge that.  TFD (talk) 20:29, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Here's the thing.
People are acting like saying right-wing politics involves support for heirarchy, is pejorative. That fact is support for heirarchy is still essential to many right-wing movements involving American libertarians and conservatives. You really think that the Republican party and the Tea party are anti-hierarchy? Of course not. They all believe that social classes are nessecary and that people must work their way up them if they want to be successful and rail against attempts to redistribution wealth and such. Gary Hull of the Ayn Rand Institute even states; "Talent and ability create inequality... To rectify this supposed injustice, we are told to sacrifice the able to the unable. Egalitarianism demands the punishment and envy of anyone who is better than someone else at anything." LittleJerry (talk) 03:04, 29 January 2012 (UTC)


 * The first sentence of the above is unreadable. And the quote from Gary Hall does not express support for a hierarchy or social clases. They believe in inequality based on talent and hard work, not hereditary classes, Ivy Leage fratenrnities or old boys netowrks. At least in theory. - BorisG (talk) 03:28, 29 January 2012 (UTC)


 * And since when does supporting hierarchy mean only supporting these things? LittleJerry (talk) 03:46, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I am not sure what you are getting at. Are you suggesting inequality and hierarchy are the same thing? I am not sure there is any political movement that is against inqequality based on talent and hard work. Not even socialists. Maybe Khmer Rouge. And please revise your first sentence, it is very confusing. Maybe also your section heading. - BorisG (talk) 05:08, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Liberalism is generally considered to be the Center. (See for example Lipset's essay on Fascism mentioned above.)  Their position on hierarchy may not be belief in fraternities but then they are not as hostile as Communists would be.  Notice that Rand and is listed as one of the liberal thinkers on the International's website.  So is Sowell btw.  I suppose the problem is how much of the Center one decides to include in the Right.  TFD (talk) 05:42, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
 * TFD, this is a good comment. However for reasons that are hard to determine, in politics economic liberals often blend with social conservatives, putting them squarely on the right (e.g., The Tea Party). I say 'in politics' because among thinkers, people who are both economic and social liberals are not uncommon, although one or the other may still dominate. - BorisG (talk) 06:31, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
 * he reason is that they united in opposition to the Left. (Incidentally, at my first university, if students joined fraternities, they would be expelled.)  TFD (talk) 06:58, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
 * My point is, conservatives in America believe that most people at the top of the social ladder deserve their position while leftists believe that any difference in talents should not translate into heirarchal power. LittleJerry (talk) 14:06, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't think either of these two assertions is accurate. - BorisG (talk) 15:00, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Them you don't know much about American conservatism. LittleJerry (talk) 15:18, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Also, I'm removing the part about social conservatism and a hawkish foreign policy because it seems they were added without regard to whether the sources (1-6) support them. LittleJerry (talk) 15:18, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

The political term "Right-Wing" originated in France during the French Revolution (the terms "Right" and "Left" have a deeper metaphysical meaning [if you trace the etymology] but it is best to keep things simple for the hard of understanding]) and it meant those who sought to preserve the institutions of the Ancien Regime i.e. the [hierachical] feudal system. Right-Wing has now migrated to mean what conservative means in the Anglosphere (i.e. a conservative form of pro-modernity i.e. post 1688 reformism which is pro-capitalist, pro-pluralist, and pro-nationalist but anti-socialist, anti-Statist, and anti-internationalist e.g. EU and UN). It was objected that this latter meaning is much more widespread (particularly in English speaking countries) than the earlier "throne and altar" [hierachical] meaning of Right-Wing, and that this should be reflected in the entry. This was the reason for the change.

(ERIDU-DREAMING (talk) 15:40, 29 January 2012 (UTC)).


 * Actually the term right-wing as a reference to political ideology originated in the early 20th century. (See Michel Gauchet, "Left and Right".)  They entered the English language in 1906, when the "left-wing" Labour Party became a major force.  But the widespread use of the term right-wing in the U.K. probably only goes back to the Thatcher era, and certainly was never used in 1688.  TFD (talk) 15:54, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

The political term "Right-Wing" originated in France during the French Revolution. It was not used much in the Anglosphere until the C20th. France is a country in Europe. They speak French. The French term (which was translated into English as "Right Wing") was not much used in England until the C20th. When it began to be used in England, it was not only used in the sense of those who wished to return us to the [hierarchical] values and institutions of the Middle Ages (the earlier French meaning) it also was also applied to those who supported the values of the British Conservative Party. British "Conservatism" (since Burke) sought to preserve (to conserve) the political changes that had taken place in the 1688 revolution. These changes included limiting the power of the monarch, and upholding various liberties such as religious toleration, property rights, and freedom of speech. This conservative tradition was a different political tradition from the French conservative political tradition. The political epithet "Right-Wing" therefore took on an additional meaning in the United Kingdom. It meant the sort of views you expect to find advocated by supporters of the Conservative Party. Margaret Thatcher was a Conservative Party Prime Minister.

As for the USA. I saw a video (on You Tube) the other day where a Republican supporter espousing very similar values (indeed I seem to recall in another videos he explicitly mentions his agreement with the values of Margaret Thatcher) to the British Conservative Party describes himself as "Right-Wing". It therefore seems that "Right-Wing" has much the same meaning in the USA as it has in the UK - namely free market, small State, social conservative.

Here is the video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=x-oS4WLui3Q

ERIDU-DREAMING (talk) 16:48, 29 January 2012 (UTC)


 * What's the point? The first sentence does not say "right-wing" means anti-free speech, anti-religious liberties, ect. Just that it supports or accepts a hierarchical social order. It can be aristocracy or capitalism. LittleJerry (talk) 17:38, 29 January 2012 (UTC)


 * You got your history mixed up. In the Estates General, the supporters of the King sat on the right, but the idea that the term right-wing referred to a specific ideology or group of ideologies originated in the 20th century.  I provided a source for that.  And no English people rarely used the term right-wing to describe themselves, only to describe foreigners.  What are your sources for the use of the term right-wing?  TFD (talk) 17:49, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Source [1] states this. LittleJerry (talk) 18:24, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

I supplied the original definition of "Right Wing" on Wikipedia, so of course ("Little Jerry") I understand your point that a hierarchical social order justified by an appeal to natural law DOES NOT in itself imply support for the hierarchical feudal order of the "Ancien Regime". As an American a [hierarchical] feudal conception of "natural law" is so alien to you, that you automatically supply a meritocratic interpretation of "hierarchical order". Indeed a meritocratic vision of society, which seeks to promote freedom (from the State) is what people generally mean these days when they use the phrase "Right-Wing".

It was pointed out to me however that this current meaning (which is not its original meaning) should be brought out much more clearly i.e. that when a Republican President in the USA (for example) is described as Right-Wing it means the PRECISE OPPOSITE of somebody who is a monarchist who believes (via an appeal to natural law) that ideally there should be a hierarchical feudal social order sustained by an appeal to inherited social privileges. To spell it out. When that epithet is used it means somebody who is seeking to decrease the power of the State, and INCREASE the freedom of individuals (whatever their birth) to make their own choices. It means ENDORSING free markets not opposing them.

Of course (as you point out) it is possible to interpret "social order justified by an appeal to natural law" in this way, but given that this sentence has these precisely opposite meanings, it was suggested that this divergence in interpretation should be spelt out much more clearly, at the very beginning of the article. By returning it to its original wording (my original wording I should say - although I did not supply the crappy Lefty references [if it is a crappy Leftist secondary source these are generally supplied by The Four Deuces -]) you are not (as you seem to think) improving the article, you are simply returning it back to the ambiguity which led to the article being modified (not by me) in order that it may articulate (much more clearly) the contrasting contemporary meanings of the phrase "Right-Wing".

ERIDU-DREAMING (talk) 18:59, 29 January 2012 (UTC)


 * ERIDU-DREAMING, I only supply sources that are published by neutral academic publishers. I pay no attention to whether writers are left or right, but whether the publishers are reliable.  Facts are neither left nor right, only opinions are.  TFD (talk) 19:17, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Edit War
LittleGerry and ERIDU-DREAMING, you are involved in an edit war. Please stop now. If you don't, both will be reported and sanctioned. - BorisG (talk) 16:28, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
 * No need to discuss this here. I got it. Danger High voltage! 16:38, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes, User Danger High Voltage has already told me off.

ERIDU-DREAMING (talk) 17:00, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

The Theory of Two Truths
In the Reanissance, science and the Roman Catholic Church came into conflict, and so philosophers, to save themselves from being burned at the stake, developed the theory of two truths. There was one lesser scientific truth (the earth went around the sun) and there was a higher religious truth (the sun went around the earth).

In this article, we seem to have a modern theory of two truths. There is one scientific truth (right-wing politics favors the upper class) and a higher conservative truth (right-wing politics favors freedom). Since the conservative truth is the higher truth, and nobody could possibly honestly believe that the Right favors the upper class, any book that says the Right favors the upper class is guilty of left-wing bias and should be disallowed.

In short, to argue the point with people who believe in the conservative gospel is as futile as trying to argue with a devout Catholic in 1543 about whether the earth goes around the sun.

However, Wikipedia favors academic authors (the lame-stream elite who actually know something about their subject matter, which automatically disqualifies them from having a non-biased opinion). I suggest people who reject acadmic authors who disagree with them might be happier editing Conservapedia.

Rick Norwood (talk) 14:09, 30 January 2012 (UTC)


 * An essay for userspace - but of no value on this talk page other than to assert that you know the truth.  Cheers - but I find it non-utile here other than as an essay. Collect (talk) 14:13, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

The purpose of my "essay" to the editing of this article is that the article needs to state accurately what right-wing means. According to many standard reference works, and virtually all academic writing, right-wing means support for an authoritarian ruler, an established church, and a rigid class structure. I am trying to understand why we have editors who claim it means the exact opposite. Maybe you can clear things up for me, Collect, if you would explain who decided to adopt a phrase with one meaning and give it the opposite meaning, and when they did this, and why. Rick Norwood (talk) 15:49, 30 January 2012 (UTC)


 * And other good sources do not so state, and, in fact, many state that the use of a linear political spectrum has major problems intrinsically, including the fact that it is not the same for all countries and all eras at all.   The strawman argument accusing me of assigning any term an "opposite meaning" is of zero value, by the way.   Cheers. Collect (talk) 15:57, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

1) Everyone I know agrees that a linear political spectrum has major problems. What has that to do with the subject of this discussion? 2) I didn't accuse you of anything. It was ERIDU-DREAMING who claimed that right-wing means favoring freedom. 3) You didn't answer my question? Rick Norwood (talk) 16:16, 30 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Since you accept the problems with the linear spectrum, you must clearly understand that any simple definition of a group is also problematic, and asserting further that the group "favours the upper class" is not going to fly as any sort of absolute claim at all. Even when claimed to be "scientific truth."  Nor that a group always "favours freedom."  Collect (talk) 16:45, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

A classic example of why you should not contribute to any political article on Wikipedia Rick Norwood. Ignorance and bigotry from start to finish!

First off "Scholars have yet to discover anyone in the Middle Ages who subscribed to the 'doctrine of the double truth' (Grant 1996 pp.76-78), even though Bishop Tempier makes that claim. It seems that "The bishop and his theological advisors were upset by the boldness with which the natural philosophers were using reason to analyse all sorts of questions. The natural philosophers seem to have set no limits to their spirit of inquiry." (Grant 2004 pp.183-4)

Secondly, it was a couple of hundred later before Copernicus was even born, never mind the heliocentric account was being attacked by the Catholic Church. What was at issue in 1277 was whether or not Aristotle should be used as an authority, given that some of his claims (such as the eternity of the universe) conflicted with the Bible.

Thirdly, it is not a "scientific fact" that the "Right" are opposed to freedom, are opposed to free markets, are opposed to reducing the size of government. It is no more a "scientific fact" than the claim that they are opposed to property rights, low taxation, and freedom of speech.

If you pick the most Right-Wing Republican Presidental candidate in the USA (the only country you seem to know anything about) in recent times, Barry Goldwater, tell me the place where he opposes social mobility, tell me the place where he attacks the free market, tell me the place where he rejects freedom of religion.

Fourthly, I do not know what university you teach at, but if you seriously believe that everything that is written by an academic, and published by an academic press, is ipso facto true, you ought to be stripped of your tenure.

(ERIDU-DREAMING (talk) 17:12, 30 January 2012 (UTC)).

Collect: Words have meaning. Meaning is defined by dictionaries and other reference books. Like left and right, tall and short are not absolutes, but if a tall people's club announces that from now on, short means tall, there is a problem. If it is impossible to assign any meaning to "right-wing", the article should say so. If it is possible, the article should say what that meaning is. If the meaning has changed, the article should say when and why.

ERIDU-DREAMING: 1) Insults do not advance arguments, 2) I could cite references for the Theory of Two Truths, but it would take us far afield. The point is that conservatives seem to hold a Theory of Two Truths and reject standard sources. They often indulge in circular reasoning, which takes the form: this book supports my cause, therefore my cause is right, and the book is correct because it supports my cause. That book opposes my cause, therefore it is wrong, because everybody who disagrees with me is wrong. Such arguments do not advance the discussion. 3) The question at hand is not one of "scientific fact" but of the meaning of words. From the time of the French revolution, right-wing was used to describe people who supported authoritarian rule.  Why now choose it as a way to describe anti-authoritarian rule?  Who made that choice, when, and why?  4) The conservatism of Barry Goldwater, a man I respected even when I disagreed with him, is a far cry from modern Conservatism. Goldwater was called "right-wing" primarily for his anti-communism, not for his religious or social views. Come to think of it, this may be at least the beginning of the answer to my question. Hitler was called "right-wing" because of his authoritarian views. Hitler was strongly anti-communist. The phrase may have been transferred to all anti-communists in an effort to tar them with the Hitler brush. Then, to attack social conservatives, they were called right-wing, and they embraced the term, just as the Know-Nothing Party embraced their name, which began as an insult. 4) Once again, insults do not advance arguments. Neither does black-and-white thinking.  Your comment suggests that if academics are not always right, they have no value at all.  Wikipedia policy says otherwise. Rick Norwood (talk) 20:45, 30 January 2012 (UTC)


 * The term never had a single unambiguous meaning after it was first applied to French seating arrangements.  It is nonsensical to equate the problems of the "linear political spectrum" with the simplistic "short" and "tall."   And is not just a "change" in meaning - the term means vastly different things in different countries and at different times.  And, yes, in many cases the various meanings are antithetical to each other.  Cheers - but please calm down before making really strange equivalences in arguemnts! Collect (talk) 20:58, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Klaus von Beyme observed that most political parties could be arranged along a left-right spectrum: communist, socialist, ecological, liberal, christian democrat, conservative and "extreme right" (i.e., neofascist, rw nationalist and rw populist).  This was based on how both the individual groups and the public saw the relative positions.  I am well aware that linear regression analysis of the policies of these groups would not provide a straight line, because there are qualitative differences between each group and a range of attitudes within each one, which changes over time.  If, Collect, you have evidence that Von Beyme's postiioning has been debunked, then please provide it.  TFD (talk) 21:15, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
 * And the multitiude who find the "linear spectrum" too simplistic, inapplicable, and not easily used in different countries and different eras? Thay are chopped liver because you know that the term has precisely one eternal and exact meaning that you know to be the WP:TRUTH?  Hubris, anyone?  BTW, I do not recall that von Jeyme is a political science example of omniscience and infallibility -- and all the rest who see the issue as complex (including Rich Norwood above) are examples of absolute errancy.  Cheers. Collect (talk) 21:20, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Even writers who add a second or even nth dimensions to the spectrum do so in addition to the left-right axis. In any case, you should write to the European Parliament and its member parties and tell them they got their seating all wrong and straighten 'em out.  TFD (talk) 23:25, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Eh? Seems to me that the Nolan system (one of many proposed) specifically decries "left" and "right" in favor of orthogonal principles.   As for seating arrangements - for a long time the Democrats in Congress were on the right sometimes, and on the left other times. Labour in the UK has been on the right, andon the left.  And you think the European seating arrangements are how to categorize partis? Odd. Collect (talk) 23:48, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
 * In case you were unaware, the origin of the terms "left" and "right" derive from the French assembly of 1789, when supporters of the king sat on the right and his opponents on the left. The British Parliament and American Congress pre-date 1789 and never adopted their seating arrangement.  The Nolan Chart also has a left-right axis.  TFD (talk) 00:17, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Um -- are you seriously trying to pretend I do not know the origin? Sorry - talking down to editors is quite inane.  And the "seating chart" is not a valid system for categorizing modern parties.   Even for the EU.  Really.  Collect (talk) 00:30, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
 * "The Members of the European Parliament sit in political groups – they are not organised by nationality, but by political affiliation. There are currently 7 political groups in the European Parliament.... The places assigned to Members in the Chamber are decided by political affiliation, from left to right, by agreement with the group chairmen." (European Parliament website)  TFD (talk) 00:57, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Here's the Actual Thing
Left wing movements, such as communism, can be said to the most pro-elitist and hierarchical. The Soviet Union had much more hierarchy than the United States. The members of the political class had all the power and wealth, and had full say over who joined their ranks. The rich in America do not have such an advantage.

The definition of the word right wing has changed. It used to mean in favor of hierarchy. Today, in the strictest sense, it refers to positions supporting less government involvement in the economy, which often leads to more social mobility and more equality. Falconclaw5000 (talk) 20:18, 31 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Everybody is entitled to their own opinions but please stop inserting unreferenced material into the article. This risks becoming disruptive.
 * Also, please take care not to double the size of the article when editing. I am sure that wasn't intentional but it makes it very hard keep track of what is going on. --DanielRigal (talk) 20:45, 31 January 2012 (UTC)


 * I removed your completely POV edits. Contrasting the USSR and rich people in the US is about as fair as contasting right-wing dictators and American civil rights activists. The ultimate goal of the USSR was to create an egalitarian society. Also hardcore leftists do not believe in social mobility because they don't believe that there should even be a social ladder in the first place. LittleJerry (talk) 20:50, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

I was contrasting the government of the USSR with the government of the United States. Why was the bias tag removed in the first place? It is abundantly clear that the article, as originally written, is leftist and anti-right wing. My remarks just leveled the playing field. Falconclaw5000 (talk) 01:20, 1 February 2012 (UTC)


 * If you want to edit Wikipedia, Falconclaw5000, you need sources, not opinions. Also, you will probably be more successful with small edits than with large edits.  Rick Norwood (talk) 13:20, 1 February 2012 (UTC)


 * And why should the Manifesto be used as a source? It is reliable for the views of that particular conservative group but not as a general defintion for right-wing. LittleJerry (talk) 13:44, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

New Edits
The edits made by me are supported by the second source, which discussed the Conservative Manifesto. Falconclaw5000 (talk) 03:56, 1 February 2012 (UTC)


 * You are placing too much emphasis on Sowell's work, which is not part of his academic writing. Also, the "Conservative Manifesto" was not called that.  The name was chosen retrospectively by a "left-wing" writer in 1965.  TFD (talk) 04:46, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Who cares that the Conservative Manifesto wasn't called that at the time? It was still a right-wing manifesto. Falconclaw5000 (talk) 05:37, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

After giving up on his claim that to be on the Right is to be a Fascist (and in good Stalinist fashion attempting to silence any opposing view by making false accusations, deleting my contributions, and then trying to get me banned) THE FOUR DEUCES is now refusing to accept that Right-Wing has the contemporary meaning [in addition to its earlier meaning] of somebody who is a free market/small State conservative.

Since this usage is obvious to anybody who knows anything about contemporary politics (as has been pointed out to him several times) THE FOUR DEUCES either has little knowledge of the topic of Right-Wing politics [which is a possibility given some of his absurd and inaccurate assertions about the topic] or he is determined to subvert the article for his own political ends. In either case his contributions to this particular article decrease rather increase its quality.

ERIDU-DREAMING (talk) 05:31, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Falconclaw5000, the epithet "Right-Wing" is still sometimes used in its earlier meaning i.e. the later meaning has not replaced but supplemented the earlier meaning. This is why your changes are not quite correct. The Thomas Sowell reference is very relevant. It brings out the fact that there is more than one meaning. I liked your William F. Buckley Jr quotation, but as you can see it is best not to put anything too positive about the Right in this article otherwise the Left will not like it. You just have to settle for deleting "The Right eat babies for breakfast" by trying to make the article as politically neutral as possible i.e. "The Right [it is claimed] eat babies for breakfast, but this is disputed".

ERIDU-DREAMING (talk) 05:46, 1 February 2012 (UTC)


 * I think a good edit to this article could be made on the subject of when, and why, and how the meaning of right-wing has changed, at various times and in various countries. Such an edit would, of course, have to be sourced, not original research, but there must be sources out there.  It is true that some Libertarians (right-Libertarians?) now use right-wing in the sense that ERIDU_DREAMING uses it, and the article should say that, and does.  I think most "right-Libertarians" are in the US, so it should not be asserted that this is an international usage.  But a much more common usage of "right-wing" is to mean "anti-communist", and anti-communist movements have often been as authoritarian as their communist counterparts.  The second most common usage of right-wing, at least in the US, is Fundamentalist Christian, and Christian fundamentalism is often highly authoritarian.  In the European press I hear right-wing most often used to mean anti-immigrant, and most politicians who run on an anti-immigrant ticket are highly authoritarian.  Right-wing is also used to mean anti-union.  That's more of a mixed bag, as both unions and union-busters have used thugs to get their way.  The use of right-wing to describe right-Libertarians is a minor use.  Ron Paul, the most visible Libertarian, has only minority support from the Republican Party, and is often attacked by the American Right.  Google "Ron Paul right wing" and you will find more articles about the Right attacking Ron Paul than you will articles describing Ron Paul as right-wing.  In fact, given that right-wing is almost always used in a derogitory sense, I do not understand your eagerness, ERIDU-DREAMING, to have it apply to Libertarianism.  It is tempting, and I think justified, to revert edits that are strongly POV, but I will at least try to move forward instead of back.  Whether or not this is possible will depend on how strongly editors push minority viewpoints, but reverting to the last stable version is always an option if the unsourced opinions continue.  A note on the use of sources: "right-wing" and "conservative" are similar but not identical.  One difference is that people favoring small government are called "conservative" much more often than they are called "right-wing".  The use of "right-wing" to mean "Republican" is only used to describe the United States Republican Party, not Republicanism generally.  In any case, it is a neologism. Rick Norwood (talk) 13:35, 1 February 2012 (UTC)


 * "I think a good edit to this article could be made on the subject of when, and why, and how the meaning of right-wing has changed"


 * I agree. The trouble is that every time somebody makes this attempt you, and my old friend THE FOUR DEUCES, reverse it, claiming that it was not been "properly" discussed on the talk pages or "Right-Wing" has nothing to do with any defence of freedom! Your changes to the article however (such as your latest) usually go unchallenged by the Leftist THE FOUR DEUCES. Funny that.


 * "Such an edit would, of course, have to be sourced, not original research" Fair enough. But I notice that when people use sources you do not like (such as Buckley) you delete them pretty quickly! If on the other hand THE FOUR DEUCES uses some Marxist or ex-Marxist source who says that people on the Right like to dismember children and feed them to their dogs......


 * "It is true that some Libertarians (right-Libertarians?) now use right-wing in the sense that ERIDU-DREAMING uses it, and the article should say that" Progress of sorts, but you have a very American perspective on politics. The "Liberty" argument is central to the dominant stand of (for example) British conservatism, and I could give (and have given) lots of other examples from around the world (you know that bit which is not the USA).


 * "I think most "right-Libertarians" are in the US" You rather prove my point about being very USA-centric.


 * "A much more common usage of "right-wing" is to mean "anti-communist", and anti-communist movements have often been as authoritarian as their communist counterparts." To be anti-Communist does not automatically imply that you are an authoritarian.


 * "The second most common usage of right-wing, at least in the US, is fundamentalist Christian, and Christian fundamentalism is often highly authoritarian." In Europe there are only a minority of Right-Wing politicians who are Christian fundamentalists in your sense. It all depends if you see being a Christian (or a Catholic) as ipso facto being a fundamentalist.


 * "In the European press I hear right-wing most often used to mean anti-immigrant" It is not "most often" used to mean anti-immigrant, but placing restrictions on uncontrolled immigration is not an uncommon position amongst politicians on the "Right" although such positions can also be found on the Left.


 * "Right-wing is also used to mean anti-union." In its pro-free market sense this is true. But as usual your talk of "union-busting thugs" just reveals you prejudices.


 * "The use of right-wing to describe right-Libertarians is a minor use." Defence of freedom is a central thread of the argument of many "Right-Wing" politicians.


 * "You will find more articles about the Right attacking Ron Paul than you will articles describing Ron Paul as right-wing." It could be because they think that Ron Paul is anti-Semitic. It could be any number of reasons. People have all sorts of reasons for supporting or not supporting a politician.


 * "In fact, given that right-wing is almost always used in a derogitory sense" This is not true. Of course the LEFT uses it as an insult, but all the time I hear people describing themselves as "on the Right" in a positive sense. I have given examples.


 * "I do not understand your eagerness, ERIDU-DREAMING, to have it apply to Libertarianism." To pick an example at random see "The Dictionary of Conservative & Libertarian Thought" Edited by Nigel Ashford & Stephen Davies (Routledge 1991).


 * "It is tempting, and I think justified, to revert edits that are strongly POV, but I will at least try to move forward instead of back."


 * Your latest edit is clearly a move BACKWARDS. Telling us what you mean by Right-Wing (anti-communist union busting Christian fundamentalist who opposes immigration) is hardly an improvement.


 * "A note on the use of sources: "right-wing" and "conservative" are similar but not identical" Correct!


 * ERIDU-DREAMING (talk) 15:46, 1 February 2012 (UTC)


 * The meaning of right-wing has not changed. What changes is the boundary of the right and policies they adopt.  The same is true of all poltical groups, left, right and center.  Incidentally, calling other editors "leftist" is a personal attack, and I pay no attention to the poltical background of sources I use, but rather look at the publishers.  I even mentioned Thomas Sowell.  True, he is an ex-Marxist, as are most "conservative" intellectuals, but that does not make them leftist.  TFD (talk) 05:18, 2 February 2012 (UTC)


 * THE FOUR DEUCES, you can take being called a "Leftist" an insult if that is your choice. I do not know how I got the impression that you are on the Left from your posts, it is a puzzle. Let me just say that you would be better suited to contributing to the "Left-Wing" article on Wikipedia, since, as your claim that "the meaning of Right-Wing has not changed" demonstrates, you obviously know very little about the Right. I detect a glimmer of wit about ex-Marxists. Yes indeed, some people change their political beliefs as they grow up. (ERIDU-DREAMING (talk) 13:14, 2 February 2012 (UTC))


 * When people grow up, their opinions moderate.  They do not normally move from being Trotstkyists or Stalinists to being pro-Franco.  You categorize people who do not agree with you as left-wing, that means that 99.99% of thinking people are left-wing, according to your ideosyncratic typology.  TFD (talk) 23:33, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Please do not remove the bias tag
"Please see the discussion on the talk page. Please do not remove this message until the dispute is resolved. (January 2012)"

The dispute is clearly nowhere near resolved. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Falconclaw5000 (talk • contribs) 05:17, 2 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Do you think that the Right is called that because of the (neoclassical) liberal policies they promote or that liberal policies are called right-wing because they are promoted primarily by the Right?  TFD (talk) 05:26, 2 February 2012 (UTC)


 * The free market and libertarian right is mentioned plenty of times in the article. Apparently, any mention of the traditional or reactionary right is offensive and slander. 161.133.8.248 (talk) 14:09, 2 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Support for hierarchical society can come in different forms. Be it supporting aristocracy, capitalism, etc. The current definition given for right-wing is meant to be a broad term. Yet, Falconclaw5000 wants to impose his narrower definition (the line about a hawkish foreign policy in particular). The lede already states that "right" has historically referred to reactionaries and traditionalist conservatives but has come to include classical liberals and their ilk. Why isn't that enough? How is defining "right-wing" as support for hierarchy (a mainstream idea) the equivalent of saying that they murder babies? LittleJerry (talk) 16:39, 2 February 2012 (UTC)


 * I think that the version provided by "Little Jerry" is accurate and fair (I especially welcome the fact that in defining what it is to be on the political Right no mention is made of dismembering babies) and so may I suggest Falconclaw5000 that you focus your attention on inaccuracies in other parts of the article (some of which is very poor).

ERIDU-DREAMING (talk) 17:03, 2 February 2012 (UTC)


 * This article is about right-wing politics not left-wing politics. As you said, "some people are better than others".  All any reasonable editor wants is to include that opinion as part of how the Right sees the world.  (Incidentally, you may find that the Right may have a different opinion of who is "better" than you do.  TFD (talk) 23:12, 2 February 2012 (UTC)


 * "Some are better than other people". I think you will find that is what being anti-egalitarian means! Better in what way, and rejecting egalitarianism to what extent, that is the political debate. It is all clearly explained in the "Lede". The USA is more egalitarian than C18th France but not as egalitarian as C21st Sweden. Most on the Right in the USA for example believe in equality under the law, but are opposed to equality of income, on the grounds that jobs are not equally valued by the market, and some people are better at them than others. But that does not mean that they are always opposed to politicians taking money away from rich people and giving it to poor people, the details of which are called politics.

ERIDU-DREAMING (talk) 23:29, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

None of this has to do with the bias tag. Yes, there are different ways to support hierarchy. You can support hierarchy by supporting communism, or by supporting social democrats, or by supporting the Democratic Party. Should we add that the Left Wing supports hierarchy? Falconclaw5000 (talk) 23:35, 2 February 2012 (UTC)


 * No, stop with this nonsense. ERIDU-DREAMING and I have come to an agreement. You're doing a disservice by edit warring and disrupting articles. LittleJerry (talk) 01:36, 3 February 2012 (UTC)


 * It is not nonsense. Modern right (such as e.g. social conservatives, such as US heartland, or right-libertarians) do not support hierarchy. Traditional right did. - BorisG (talk) 13:25, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

I think that the article should be as uncontroversial possible. It should explain what Right-Wing (and Left-Wing) means to anybody mad enough to look them up on Wikipedia. It should try to avoid political polemic and be as bland (and fair and factually accurate) as we can make it.

ERIDU-DREAMING (talk) 23:57, 2 February 2012 (UTC)


 * You said, "Some are better than other people". I believe that that represents a right-wing viewpoint, although the mainstream Right would not consider you to be better than anyone else.  But why do you object to the description?  TFD (talk) 00:13, 3 February 2012 (UTC)


 * 'You said, "Some are better than other people"'. Yes.


 * 'I believe that that represents a Right-Wing viewpoint.' True.


 * 'The mainstream Right would not consider you to be better than anyone else.' Untrue


 * 'Why do you object to the description?' I don't.

ERIDU-DREAMING (talk) 00:40, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Please, gentlebeings, focus on making this a better article, not on personalities. Rick Norwood (talk) 13:18, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

BorisG: many, but not all, on the modern right strongly support hierarchy. "America is a Christian nation," suggests a hierarchy in which Christians are favored over all other religions. The religious right sometimes cites St. Paul, "Wives obey your husbands," to claim a hierarchy in which men are superior to women. More importantly, while the modern Right do not usually openly say they support Whites over Blacks and Hispanics, their policies (picture IDs, low funding for non-white schools, harsher sentencing for non-whites) have that effect. And while the modern Right does not say they support the upper class, the effect of conservative tax law has been to greatly benefit the upper class, at the expense of the working class. As a recent example of the Right taking hierarchy as a given, witness Mitt Romney's recent thoughtless statement, which I'm sure he regrets, which separates Americans into a hierarchy of poor, middle-class, and rich.

The real point, I think, is this. If we confuse the meaning of "right-wing", we confuse ideas. To the extent that words lose their meaning, intelligent conversation becomes more difficult. Rick Norwood (talk) 14:07, 3 February 2012 (UTC)


 * The words don't lose meaning, but the meaning evolves over time. I never heard Americans claiming superiority of men over women, not those who supported, say, Sarah Palin, arguably a right-wing politician. If that happens, it is confined to a fringe which is not at all representative of the right. Second guessing policy is not something we should do on Wikipedia, since each policy may be interpreted in a variety of ways. Can you point where they call for low funding for non-white schools, harsher sentencing for non-whites as their policies? Anyway, we have digressed. The meaning has evolved, and we need to prominently show this. For why it evolved, TFD has given a good explanation some time ago. - BorisG (talk) 16:00, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Oh give it a rest Mr Norwood! Everybody knows that it is the Democrats who are, and always have been, the racist Party in the USA. Go up a mountain in the Tyrol and ask a passing goatherder and he will tell you that the Republican Party was founded in 1854 by anti-Slavery Republicans who opposed the pro-Slavery Democrats. That the first Republican President was John C. Freemont and the Democrats campaigned against him on the platform that – if you vote for him he will abolish slavery! He will tell you that EVERYBODY knows that the next candidate from the Republican Party won the election (a bloke called Abraham Lincoln) and seven Southern States immediately left the Union before he was even sworn in (of course he was eventually assassinated by a Democrat activist called John Wilkes Booth but not before Amendment 13 and 14 and 15 abolished slavery – ALL of which were opposed by the Democrats) and of course when black politicians got elected to Congress the Democrats founded the Klu Klux Klan (that well known anti-racist organisation). At this point the Austrian goatherder would no doubt turn to Mr Norwood in exasperation and say “You do not even know your own history!” because even the dumbest of dumb Americans know that is was the Democrats who formulated the Jim Crow Laws, it was Democrat politicians (such as Lester Maddox, Bill Conners, and George Wallace) who ordered the police to turn firehoses on blacks marching for equal rights in the Sixties. Of course, before he goes back to his goats, the goatherder will no doubt explain, that in more recent years the racism of the Democrat Party has taken the form of positive discrimination and affirmative action programs [not pograms] in which all that matters is the colour of your skin, and it defends policies which keep black people on urban plantations of welfare dependency (securing a harvest of votes rather than cotton) but hey, that is enough about American politics.

ERIDU-DREAMING (talk) 15:05, 3 February 2012 (UTC)


 * ERIDU-DREAMING, you should know that "Democrat" was not automatically synonymous with "left" historically. The Klu Klux Klan was a far-right movement. George Wallace considered himself a conservative when he was in his "segregation now, segregation forever" phase. The civil rights movement was a center-left movement and MLK was further to the left than Obama. LittleJerry (talk) 15:15, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

This has all been explained to ERIDU-DREAMING many times, and he continues to confuse or pretend to confuse "Republican", "conservative", and "right-wing" on the one hand, and "Democrat", "liberal", and "left-wing" on the other. I have been trying to give him the benefit of the doubt, but I think it best, now, to just insist that he provide evidence for his edits, and ignore his insults. Rick Norwood (talk) 15:29, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

I do not know "Little Jerry" where you got the idea that being on the political "Left" is synonymous with anti-racism. Marx (I presume you view him as on the Left - if you don't things can get a little complicated) was a racist, and I could cite numerous other examples. I never cease to be amazed that the "Left" [See Rick Norwopd] know so little about their own history. There is an article here

http://jonjayray.tripod.com/leftrace.html

which covers a little of that history. I do not recommend that Rick Norwood or THE FOUR DEUCES read the article (best dismiss it as some nut who should be sent to a re-education camp or better still completely silenced) but I supply the link in order that I satify his exacting requirement for evidence, which is not of course to say that you will agree with Jon Ray! I apologise Rick Norwood for picking on you, but at times your bigotry is truly jaw dropping. This is all a bit of a distraction of course from Boris G asking if Right = Inegalitarian = Hierarchical.

ERIDU-DREAMING (talk) 16:05, 3 February 2012 (UTC)


 * John J. Ray's views are fringe, and presenting a link to his essay does not forward discussion. TFD (talk) 17:15, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

"I do not recommend that Rick Norwood or THE FOUR DEUCES read the article - best dismiss it as some nut who should be sent to a re-education camp, or better still completely silenced." Ah Yes. Right on cue. THE FOUR DEUCES. I am still laughing at when you dismissed some of the most important European historians of their generation as fringe.

ERIDU-DREAMING (talk) 17:30, 3 February 2012 (UTC)


 * I did read the article, in fact had read it before. I take an interest in the extreme right, and am interested in their world view, which I find interesting.  However, Ray's views, for example the America's founding father's were Communist, are not accepted by mainstream historians, and little of what he has written in a long time entered academic discourse.  Here is a link to a reply to him written in 1996.  TFD (talk) 17:49, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

The fact that the authors of that paper respond to John Ray's criticism of their work (on Adorno's The Authoritarian Personality) by asserting that he is an anti-Semitic former Nazi gives you a rough idea of its intellectual quality. Strangely enough, if you look up the topic of “Authoritarian Personality” on Wikipedia you will find all of the references to John Ray have been deleted, by somebody called THE FOUR DEUCES. For my amusement I looked up their evidence for declaring that this well known (for those who can read) Pro-Jewish opponent of the Nazi Party was in truth a former Nazi supporter. Ten seconds later up comes

http://jonjayray.tripod.com/nazimail.htm

“Back then John Ray, a student at the University of Queensland used to watch it all unfold. Ray, now a retired university lecturer...recalled the scene in Centennial Park. "It was my regular Sunday entertainment. "A mate of mine, Alec Barnes, who became quite a famous amateur photographer, first got me into it. "We'd go down to the park. He'd capture it all on film and I'd do verbal battle with the Nazis....Ray never belonged to the Nazi Party. He had good reason to take in everything that was said and done. Ray reported regularly to Queensland's then-special branch – the organisation within the police force that kept watch on so-called subversives. "And they paid me for it," says Ray.”

Ah yes, clearly a Nazi.

ERIDU-DREAMING (talk) 01:30, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

This year I will be 70 years old. I grew up in the American South. I never once, not once, heard "right-wing" used to describe anyone who opposed segregation. For ERIDU-DREAMING to expect me to believe that "right-wing" means anti-racist is as if he expected me to believe that "red" is commonly used to describe the color of grass. Rick Norwood (talk) 00:50, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

I never said that "Right-Wing means anti-racist" I said that the "Left-Wing" (both now and in the past) have been racist, which is not quite the same thing.

ERIDU-DREAMING (talk) 01:30, 4 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Never heard that, either, and I notice a subtle change in what you wrote. I'm talking about what words mean and how words are used.  You're mind reading.  That is, you are not addressing the question about what the phrase "left-wing" means, but rather what left-wing people are.  Of course, the only way to tell that a person is racist is to read his mind, since people who identify as left-wing never say they are racist.


 * Can you provide any example of the phrase "left-wing" being used to describe someone because they are avowedly racist?


 * Rick Norwood (talk) 01:44, 4 February 2012 (UTC)


 * If you recall, you implied that racism should form part of the definition of what it is to be Right-Wing i.e. right = racism. I pointed out that there is a long history of racism on the Left. Marx for example (who is usually viewed as being on the Left) wrote articles advocating racial genocide. This however takes us a long way away from the Boris G question: Is Right = Hierarchical correct?.

ERIDU-DREAMING (talk) 06:50, 4 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Wrong in every particular THE FOUR DEUCES : well except for the living in England bit. If you are hoping to join the secret police do not give up the day job.

ERIDU-DREAMING (talk) 06:50, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Then aI shall remove my comments. TFD (talk) 16:09, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

ERIDU-DREAMING: Sources say that right-wing is often used to describe racist organizations, such as the Ku Klux Klan. You're the one who carries this to an extreme, pretending that someone has said "right = racism", when in fact nobody said that. I also find it hard to believe that you really can't distinguish between the idea that some leftists are racist, which is true, and the idea that the phrase "left-wing" is commonly used to describe people because they are racist, which is false. Rick Norwood (talk) 16:32, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Rick Norwood, since you are relying upon different assumptions to me, it is hardly a surprise that you are arriving at different conclusions. I think it is fair to say that since you have reached the venearable age of seventy it is highly unlikely that you are going to change those assumptions, and so, please forgive me for not wanting to endlessly repeat myself.

ERIDU-DREAMING (talk) 17:41, 4 February 2012 (UTC)


 * I make only minimal assumptions. Addition is commutative.  Two points determine a line.  Things like that.  I prefer data.  And logic.  What assumptions do you rely upon? Rick Norwood (talk) 18:06, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

How long is a piece of string?

(ERIDU-DREAMING (talk) 19:54, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Why is a mouse that spins? Rick Norwood (talk) 19:54, 4 February 2012 (UTC)


 * ERIDU-DREAMING, you are presenting the views of a fringe writer on a blog and asking us to accept it as better evidence than a reply in Political Psychology. I suggest you read WP:RS.  TFD (talk) 00:00, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

"I am still laughing at when you dismissed some of the most important European historians of their generation as fringe."

ERIDU-DREAMING (talk) 02:02, 5 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Outside crank websites, Ray is not considered to be one of the most important European historians of his generation. TFD (talk) 02:27, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

"I am still laughing at when you dismissed some of the most important European historians of their generation as fringe."

ERIDU-DREAMING (talk) 02:37, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

A different perspective
A useful perspective to terminology here would be to extend good faith to all political movements. Under this approach, all movement want prosperity and happiness for the vast majority of their people, but differ mainly in the means to acheieve this. This approach may be applied to all or most political movements, even to such extremes as Nazis or Khmer Rouge. Hitler wanted the best for German people, but his approach was disaster for everyone else, including Germans themselves. Stalin is also rightly considered to be mass murderer of enormous proportions, but he also considered these to be necessary sacrificies for the future communist paradise.

While I can understand the difficulty of extending good faith to such monsters, it is very reasonable and healthy to extend it to mainstream movements. That is, mainstream left and mainstream right have similar goals of general prosperity and well being, but differ on the strategies how to achieve it. The right favors unrestricted free market as the best means to acheieve the quickest economic growth, while the mainstream left favors putting constraints on this in terms of minimum living standards, gap between rich and poor, environment, etc. The right thinks the happiness is achieved through fostering individuality and family, while the left beleives in community spirit. And so on.

I am not sure if and to what extent this concept can be extrapolated back in history, or even to present-day non-democratic regimes. But in democratic countries it is kind of obvious. If any movement was only really concerned with the well-being of one per cent, surely the voters would find out sooner or later, and this movement would no longer have any electoral success.

I know I need sources to back it up. However this is more of a meta-statement, to guide the way we have to approach this, rather than about any specific wording. The wording needs to be based on sources, but the concept written above may provide the thread (so lacking across Wikipedia articles on all topics). - BorisG (talk) 12:15, 4 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Here is a link to Lipset's description. When the Conservative Party was formed, only 1.2% of people could vote so at that point they did not need to extend their support beyond the 1%.  Most conservative parties failed to expand their base and have disappeared.  TFD (talk) 17:06, 4 February 2012 (UTC)


 * OK, but I am talking about the present-day right and left. - BorisG (talk) 01:59, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, the Republican Party, which today is the conservative party, totally got its ass kicked in the last election...oh wait...they actually swept the House of Representatives, the most democratic of the three elected parts. Falconclaw5000 (talk) 04:03, 6 February 2012 (UTC)


 * The Republican Party is liberal not conservative - John Locke, Adam Smith, founding fathers, American Revolution, nonconformist religion, limited government, etc. TFD (talk) 04:26, 6 February 2012 (UTC)


 * IOW, the "political spectrum" is a constantly changing and evolving target, varying from place to place, from time to time, from issue to issue. Thanks for making this quite clear. Collect (talk) 13:25, 6 February 2012 (UTC)


 * No. Please notice that the U.S. has only two major political parties and therefore not all of the major ideological families that can be arranged from left to right are represented.  Hence the Republican Party does not refer to itself as "right-wing", but as "center-right" or "center".  TFD (talk) 14:44, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
 * And this disproves my statement that the "spectrum" is far from immutable in what manner at all? Collect (talk) 15:17, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I am not following your reasoning. Do you have any sources that explain what you are saying?  TFD (talk) 15:51, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Only the same few dozen I have cited before - which show that the "spectrum" is mutable, and not readily definable except, at best, in a specific country at a specific time. I really do not think this game of asking for the same sources over and over and over benefits anyone much.  Cheers. Collect (talk) 15:59, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
 * You provided sources that said additional axes should be used in addition to left/right. TFD (talk) 16:11, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
 * And sources saying that the "spectrum" was not of value, some that multi-axis spectrums might work, and some which said the whole idea is pretty much useless. None said that any spectrum is an absolute in any manner whatsoever.   Now at least you accept that I have given a multitude of sources to iterated demands for the same sources over and over and over and over. Collect (talk) 18:02, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Why don't you provide one of these sources and we can evaluate its degree of acceptance by experts. TFD (talk) 18:10, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
 * And over and over. See above.  Cheers. Collect (talk) 18:25, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
 * So your reply is that you cannot find a source, but you WP:KNOW the answer. Ironically it does not stop you from inserting the description "left-wing" into articles about media or BLP articles.  Why do you want to add descriptions that you believe to be meaningless?  TFD (talk) 19:08, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

"a blend of beliefs which include economic libertarianism, social conservatism, and support for a hawkish foreign policy"
This line keeps being inserted seemingly without regard for the sources. With regards to the deleted sources; the John Robert Moore article does not attempt to give a broad definition of "right-wing" but is an analysis of American conservatives in the New Deal era. The Steven Lukes article also does not give a specific definition of right-wing but discusses different currents of rightist movements. It does mention the "neo-liberal right" which supports economic libertarianism but it also states that this neo-liberal right supports elitism and order like the traditional right. So this source can not be used to prove that the right no longer support a hierarchical society. I would also like for someone to point out where in any of the sources does it define the right as support for a hawkish foreign policy. LittleJerry (talk) 04:22, 8 February 2012 (UTC)


 * I don't think Moore uses the term "right" and although he described a group of congressmen as conservatives, he was not attempting to define conservatism. Neoliberlaism had not been developed and these congressmen were isolationists, not hawks.  TFD (talk) 05:07, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Again assertion of what one "knows" does not work on Wikipedia. Cheers.  Might you give sources for what you have just asseted? Collect (talk) 12:49, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Collect, I don't think that WP:KNOW says we cannot know what is in sources. TFD (talk) 14:28, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
 * You made assertins. I asked for your reliable sources for your assertions. Simple. Provide them - or simply say that you "know" what is in them but will not provide them. Cheers. Collect (talk) 14:36, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
 * We are discussing a source, the "Conservative Coaltion in the United States Senate, 1942-1945" by John Robert Moore. The Road from Mt. Pelerin, among other sources outlines the history of neoliberalism.  Amazing that you would attack editors who challenge unsourced or incorrectly sourced material in an article and ask them for sources rather than sources for the text in the article.  TFD (talk) 15:02, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
 * You are the one who made the claim above which I am addressing - and you are declining to provide a reliable source for your claim.  It is not "attacking" anyone to simply ask for sources, TFD.  Cheers. Collect (talk) 15:06, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
 * And I just provided two sources, one of which is the one we are discussing, and therefore no need to present it again. TFD (talk) 15:27, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Your claim was:
 * I don't think Moore uses the term "right" and although he described a group of congressmen as conservatives, he was not attempting to define conservatism. Neoliberlaism had not been developed and these congressmen were isolationists, not hawks
 * And the sources you aver you gave (where?) do not back up your claims for them. Now again - provide sources for your specific claim I just quoted. Cheers. Collect (talk) 16:15, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
 * You want me to provide a source saying that a source does not make a claim? I fear you have got ahold of the wrong end of the stick when it comes to reliable sources.  TFD (talk) 17:59, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
 * IOW you decline to provide any source for what you asserted to be the WP:TRUTH. Cheers - Now we know how to regard some sources. Collect (talk) 01:50, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

The William F. Buckley quote that I have just inserted is a valid source. It is better to trust actual intellectual leaders of the Right to tell us what they believe than to get it second hand from left-wing academics. Falconclaw5000 (talk) 18:31, 8 February 2012 (UTC)


 * While it is a reliable source for Buckley's views, it has several problems. First, it is not a reliable source for what other U.S. conservatives believe.  Second, there is no mention of the Right in the mission statement.  TFD (talk) 21:02, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Well then, if Right just means opposition to Left, why all this nonsense about hierarchy? Buckley was the leader of the American conservative movement; he is a much more accurate source for the beliefs of the American Right than some left wing academic like Tatalovich is. Wikipedia uses the term "Right wing" and "conservatism" interchangeably; if you notice, this article is part of WikiProject Conservatism. Falconclaw5000 (talk) 03:11, 9 February 2012 (UTC)


 * You are mixing up definitions and descriptions. For example we describe birds as having wings, although that is not part of the definition.  TFD (talk) 04:48, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

suggestion: new section on definitions
There is so much argument over what is truly "right-wing" in this page I think it would help to have a section on different definitions of the term. For one thing the definition seems to have changed over the years and in some countries is not what you'd expect. For example during the perestrioka period in Russia, "left" came to mean supporters of free markets and liberalism, and "right" socialism and communism (see). I've also read that in China during the Deng period (maybe still) "conservative" and "left" were synonymous. So it can get complicated. --BoogaLouie (talk) 18:59, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
 * According to Political parties in post-communist Eastern Europe, p. 54-55, the ex-Communists in Eastern Europe show similarities to Western European conservatives, but are still called left-wing. (I no longer have full access to the book, but you can see a snippet view here.  Also, your source appears to be about "left and right", not the Right per se.  For left-wing politics, most sources are about the Left itself.  For example, books about the Left in the UK and US may not  identify an indigenous Right against which the Left is compared.  Yet all the sources presented for this article define the Right in contrast to the Left.  TFD (talk) 21:20, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Does a source being `about "left and right", not the Right per se` disqualify it??? Anyway, I think it would be good so have a section on the various definitions. --BoogaLouie (talk) 22:07, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
 * There are zero definitions universally applicable is the main problem here. And no source saying that a universal definition applies has been furnished either.  There are, moreover, a great many definitions applied to specific time periods in specific countries, but do we really want to state the multitude around?  Cheers. `Collect (talk)
 * The definition is opposition to the Left. TFD (talk) 02:21, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Definition by tautology?? Astounding = and ludicrous. Collect (talk) 14:02, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
 * You do not appear to understand what "tautology" means. Defining a group by what they oppose (e.g., anti-Semitism, anti-Communism, anti-imperialism, anti-Americanism) is not a tautology.  TFD (talk) 14:08, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Left = opposite of right. Right = opposite of left. Tautological observations.   Collect (talk) 16:07, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Your logical fallacy is called equivocation (metaphor). For example, "All jackasses have long ears, Carl is a jackass. Therefore, Carl has long ears."  "Left" and "Right" are metaphors, but you are talking about directions.  Left is not defined as the opposite of Right, but rather as soclialism, communism, anarchism and related groups, all of which are clearly defined, and the Right opposes them.  TFD (talk) 17:13, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

This is impossible, because the leftists editing this article want to define the Right as believing in hierarchy, when in reality the defining feature of the Right is believing in limited government and traditional moral values. Falconclaw5000 (talk) 03:12, 9 February 2012 (UTC)


 * You need a source for that, preferrably one that is clear about what the terms mean. Would a right-wing government for example abolish monarchy, aristocracy and the established church, level class, gender and racial divisions, how do limited governments enforce public morality?  BTW I noticed you put the National Review mission statement back claiming that the terms conservative and right-wing are interchangeable.  They are not and if they were then this article should be a re-direct.  TFD (talk) 04:44, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
 * It was hard to determine which noticeboard to post your addition to, it violates OR, POV, and RS - but I have posted to WP:NPOVN. Incidentally, you should avoid personal attacks, such as calling people with whom you disagree "leftists".  It is ironic, because they are merely trying to include the defintions accepted by conservative writers.  TFD (talk) 14:40, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Have you noticed that this edit war is not getting anywhere?
I tried to provide a neutral definition, but neither side liked it. I'm going to try again, using standard reference works. I suggest that the use of standard reference works is the only way this can be resolved, and that a never-ending series of reverts back and forth between two wrong definitions accomplishes nothing.

I would ask any changes be referenced, and that the references use the word "right". References that use the word "conservative" but do not use the word "right" may be misleading. I would also suggest that references be to standard reference works, not to the popular press. Finally, it would be a big help if actual quotes from the references were provided. Rick Norwood (talk) 14:15, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

I am satisfied with the current version, provided my inclusion of Buckley's quote remains. Falconclaw5000 (talk) 21:13, 10 February 2012 (UTC)


 * BTW, you ask in an edit summary "Why then, is this article part of WikiProject CONSERVATISM?) " It is part of the project because you want it to be.  So lets remove it.  TFD (talk) 05:17, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Also, I noticed that when you restored your NR quote you wrote, "Nobody ever speaks for the universal anything." I do not know what that means but it has a sense of poetry.  I would be appreciative if you could explain the meaning.  TFD (talk) 06:02, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

I want it to be? I had absolutely nothing to do with this being classified as part of WikiProject Conservatism. I hardly even know what a WikiProject is. LittleJerry objected to the quote on the basis that Buckley doesn't speak for the universal Right. Well, no academic speaks universally for all academics, and yet we use academic sources in the article. Falconclaw5000 (talk) 06:26, 11 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Although no academic speaks for all academics, they may explain how academics view a subject. Buckley was only explaining how he viewed a subject and incidentally was not talking about right-wing politics.  I think that they only started calling themselves right-wing after Murray Rothbard chose the term and did not even call themselves conservatives until shortly before the magazine started.  They originally wanted to call themselves liberals.  See the Timeline of modern American conservatism.  TFD (talk) 06:42, 11 February 2012 (UTC)


 * I think the current lede is too large, given the article's size. Some of the information should be moved to the history section. LittleJerry (talk) 14:51, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Focusing on modern day conservatism involving libertarianism or support for laissez-faire capitalist values is very Anglophone world oriented - does not represent a world view of right-wing politics
Claims that right-wing politics today has solidified into a libertarian, laissez-faire capitalist values does not represent a world view - this is largely a phenomenon in the Anglophone world - especially the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, and Australia amongst others - it has spread into Europe but it does not universally represent right-wing politics in Europe, nor much of the world either. Historically, even in the Anglophone world, right-wing politics was strongly opposed to laissez-faire economics and unconditional libertarianism.--R-41 (talk) 17:08, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

There is a very strong right-wing movements in the world that has existed for centuries that bear no similarity to libertarian laissez-faire capitalist conservatism - that is especially Catholic and Muslim religious right-wing movements. The Catholic right in particular does not agree with social libertarian and laissez-faire values - since the Catholic Church's announcement of Rerum Novarum, the Catholic right opposes laissez-faire policies - and supports corporatist economic policy - including inclusion of both employers and employees in setting economic policies. The Catholic Church is strongly socially conservative and opposes social libertarianism - it believes people should follow the social ethic of God as in Christianity. Iran's religious right-wing Shia Islamic theocracy that espouses strict social conservatism - supports anti-capitalism, Ahmadinejad went to Cuba - an officially non-religious communist country, to state Iran's and Cuba's common anti-capitalist stances and stated that capitalism is dying, see here: .--R-41 (talk) 17:08, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Right-wing politics was founded as the politics of acceptance of social hierarchy as opposed to left-wing politics as being the politics of seeking social equality. Right-wing politics is based upon the belief that hierarchy and order were preferable to forced attempts to level hierarchy into what they deemed to be an unnatural equality that would result in in a lack of authority in society. The right alleged that in left-wing egalitarian society everyone would regard themselves as being equal authorities of themselves and reject hierarchical authority, resulting in a breakdown in the legitimacy of society being able to bring to order its citizens, thus causing anarchy, disorder, chaos, and tyranny in order to achieve its claimed goals of social equality and eliminating dissidents - the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror by the Jacobins is an example used by the right to demonstrate this. A more recent example used by the right today is the October Revolution of 1917 followed by Stalin's Great Purge. This is the basis of the right - that the left seeks to impose an ideal of equality that is unnatural, or other right-wingers believe is impossible, and it results in disorder, violence, and tyranny to achieve and impossible ideal, and that in reality society is inevitably hierarchical to some degree and that there must be authority in society to maintain order.--R-41 (talk) 17:09, 10 February 2012 (UTC)


 * We are working to make the article less anglo-centric. Rick Norwood (talk) 20:24, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

The previous version, focusing on preserving hierarchy, gives an absolutely false view of the state of the Right in the Anglophone world. If you would like to distinguish between the two, go ahead. But it's ridiculous that the English Wikipedia should depict the state of the Right only as it exists outside the English speaking world. Again, the words "conservatism" and "right wing" are interchangeable, as this article is part of WikiProject Conservatism.


 * I do not think the usage is different. In the English-speaking world it means extreme, reactionary, fascist or authoritarian.  The only groups that try to redefine it are themselves on the fringe.  TFD (talk) 21:20, 10 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Your main problem is that you do not have reliable sources saying " 'Right' means extreme, reactionary, fascist or authoritarian."  The fact you assert that this is the definition is wonderfully absurd, especially since you also say that Right is simply anything opposed to Left.   Sorry -- I fear that your new definition is as flawed as any ever proposed here.  Cheers. Collect (talk) 21:24, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I am talking about the usage. Google for example "Stephen Harper" + "right-wing".  You get, "Tax cuts drive Harper's right-wing agenda", "This is representative of the views of right-wing extremists like Harper", "most right wing gov't Canada ever ..."  Notice that the sources that use the term right-wing are all opponents.  Harper would not call himself right-wing, any more than he would call himself extreme, reactionary, fascist or authoritarian.  Only fringe politicians call themselves right-wing.  TFD (talk) 21:43, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
 * And "Stephen Harper" + "Conservative" gives vastly more hits.  So much for using Google as your main source for WP:TRUTH.  Collect (talk) 22:38, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Could you please explain your statement as it is not clear what you mean. TFD (talk) 03:46, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

If that is the case, why don't we just define "right wing" as meaning fascist or authoritarian? And which mainstream politicians define themselves as being "left wing?" Certainly nobody in the US. Google "Obama left wing." It seems that left wing ALSO means fascist and authoritarian! https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ix=sea&ie=UTF-8&ion=1#hl=en&output=search&sclient=psy-ab&q=obama%20left%20wing&pbx=1&oq=&aq=&aqi=&aql=&gs_sm=&gs_upl=&fp=4084e84d72bbc120&ix=sea&ion=1&ix=sea&ion=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.,cf.osb&fp=4084e84d72bbc120&biw=888&bih=447&ix=sea&ion=1 Falconclaw5000 (talk) 04:11, 11 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Mainstream politicians in the U.S. do not identify themselves as left-wing because the Left in the U.S. is not mainstream, unlike the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia.  Similarly, politicians in these countries do not identify themselves as right-wing, because the Right is not mainstream in any of these countries.  Mainstream politicans who call themselves left-wing include Ed Milliband,  Nycole Turmel,  and Julia Gillard the leaders of the left-wing parties in those countries.  Incidentally, your google search for "Barack Obama" + "left-wing" is similar to the search for "Stephen Harper" + "right-wing" - it returns hits from people who oppose him and paint him as being right or left wing.  TFD (talk) 04:33, 11 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Falconclaw5000 said: "But it's ridiculous that the English Wikipedia should depict the state of the Right only as it exists outside the English speaking world. Again, the words "conservatism" and "right wing" are interchangeable, as this article is part of WikiProject Conservatism.". I did not state that it should be ignored or maximized in the article - but that the context of right-wing politics must be understood in a way that applies to the different societies it exists in. It is important to understand the original right-wing politics as what was first made identifiable in France after the French Revolution. Why? Because the "conservatism" in Anglophone countries that Falconclaw speaks of today is in reality a mixture of classical liberal values of laissez-faire economics with conservatism. I assume that Falconclaw is a conservative of the Anglphone world type I have described above - he should notice the uneasiness he has with the idea that the right-wing is associated with hierarchy. That uneasiness involves the acceptance of equality of opportunity as part of the classical liberal mindset that remains part of Anglo-American conservatism, but Anglo-American conservatism does not accept equality of outcome as a goal as movements to the left do.--R-41 (talk) 06:05, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Right-wing groups in the past and even today amongst more extreme right-wing groups - the idea of people being equal by law or having equality of opportunity was seen as unnatural leveling of what they perceived as a natural hierarchy of aristocracy. The right may not necessarily support deliberate construction of hierarchical society, they do not typically see hierarchy as fair to all in fact - as Thomas Hobbes said life is "nasty, brutish and short" but they accept it as an inherent reality of nature. Even today the right in the Anglophone world continues to state the existence of hierarchy in society - American right-wing politics in its conservative, libertarian and neoliberal nature, emphasizes the difference between self-made people in business and careers as successful people while looking upon people who are able but do not look after themselves - or those continuously dependent on society through welfare - as failed people who leech off society and drain it. Today, there exists in the various religious right movements especially in Western religions, the hierarchical division is between the pious who are deemed close to God and salvation and the damned who are far from God and damnation.--R-41 (talk) 06:05, 11 February 2012 (UTC)


 * "Anglo-American conservatism" is a fiction, not supported by mainstream research. TFD (talk) 06:10, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
 * By Anglo-American conservatism, I am referring to liberal conservatism - the conservative ideology that fuses conservative values with acceptance of the basic system and values of liberal democracy, economic liberalism, and other liberal values; in Britain its champion ideologist was Edmund Burke; in the USA its champion ideologist was William F. Buckley, Jr..--R-41 (talk) 06:39, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
 * @R-41 sorry, I don't agree with you, to put it mildly. Left vs right is a Western concept, and is mostly used in the Western world. For other countries, it is often easy to define, by analogy, left-wing, but the analogy is limited. Almost any party or political movement in the West is easily placed, at least approximately, on the left-right spectrum, but outside of the west and europe it is difficult. Is pesident Nazarbayev of Kazachstan right-wing or left-wing? Or Burma's junta? Or take China where the communist party is presiding over the most rapid spectacular development of capitalist economy and free market... For you Iranian Mullahs are right-wing and their freindship with Cuba proves that right-wing may be anti-capitalism? Hillarious. They are friends because they both oppose the US; this has nothing to do with domestic economic policy in either country. Broadly speaking, socialism is left-wing, capitalism is right wing. And what about societies where the main conflict is not capitalism vs socialism? Well, I do not think the concept of left vs right is applicable to these societies either. Also I do not think anyone has suggested that right-wing=libertarian. Right wingers are libertarians on economic issues but conservative on social issues. Libertarians are right-wing on economic issues but liberal on social issues (e.g. immigration, drugs etc.).
 * @TFD, I am confused. Is Harper right-wing or not? - BorisG (talk) 14:32, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Then explain what right-wing means. How does right-wing apply to the diversity of movements in the past to present including Catholic religious movements, absolute monarchs, noble people advocating nepotism and mercantilism, others advocating meritocracy and capitalism? The original right in France was anti-capitalist - supportive of aristocratic land ownership, monarchism, and in favour of mercantilism - involving protectionism, capitalism was to the left of aristocratic economy and mercantilism; and capitalism at this time was advocated by classical liberal radicals who opposed monarchies. The French parliament immediately after the French Revolution had capitalists sitting on the left side of the parliament and the aristocrats and mercantilists sitting on the right side - this has changed with the decline of aristocracy on the right and the rise of socialism. shifting the spectrum leftward but placing capitalists as the conservative side and socialists as the radical side - aristocrats today who advocate return of nepotism to replace today's meritocracy would be considered far-right reactionary by today's standards. The Catholic religious right has always been highly sympathetic to the poor and scolds unrestrained laissez-faire capitalism as crassly materialist and destructive in its competitive individualism to its Christian humanitarian doctrine of compassion for the poor through charity - at the same time the Catholic right has strongly opposed liberal social values and has strongly opposed socialism. As for Iran would you seriously believe that Iran - that demands strict traditionalist adherance to the teachings of the Quran and opposition to liberal social values is left-wing merely because it is seeking alliance with officially athiest and communist Cuba? You need to understand third-world politics - since the end of the Cold War, countries like Cuba and Syria have been making "sales pitches" to potential donors like China and in this case Iran to assist their countries - to replace lost funds previously given by the Soviet Union - Iran offers Syria and Cuba assistance in exchange for alliance. But back on point, please explain what right-wing means then.--R-41 (talk) 14:55, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
 * BorisG, while Harper is to the right of the Canadian spectrum, that does not necessarily make him a right-winger. His party would more typically be described as center right.  I agree with your comments about third world parties, although there are some that can be placed on a political spectrum because of their adoption of Western ideologies, especially in Latin America.  But elsewhere typical cleavages are tribal or religious.  R-41, Buckley claimed to unite conservatives and ant-New Deal liberals through "fusionism".  But the existence of Burkean conservatism in the U.S., outside the writings of Kirk and Viereck, is not generally accepted.  See for example Viereck's "The Pseudo-conservatives", Hayek's "Why I am not a conservative", Auerbach's The conservative illusion,   TFD (talk) 15:53, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
 * TFD, let's focus on the definition of what right-wing means, BorisG should describe in detail what right-wing means - according to him and his evidence. If it is accurate, it should be able to account for the history of right-wing politics and the diversity of right-wing views - such as Catholic religious right that substantially differs from pro-capitalist right-wingers as I mentioned earlier.--R-41 (talk) 16:09, 11 February 2012 (UTC)


 * If one of the editors who is most active in editing this article believes that (with the exception of some people on the "fringe") Right-Wing means "extreme, reactionary, fascist or authoritarian", and another of the most active editors on this article defines the political Right as people who "support the upper class against the working class" (no laughing at the back) it is clear that the odds are stacked against any attempt to make this an accurate article.


 * On a more constructive note, I originally defined "Right-Wing" as anti-egalitarian, but actually this is perhaps not the best definition, because it defines the Right via its opposition to egalitarianism. But opposition to the antinomian "utopianism" of the Left is more fundamental than its anti-egalitarianism.

ERIDU-DREAMING (talk) 20:11, 11 February 2012 (UTC)


 * I did not saying that I believe that is what it means, merely that that is how the term is normally used. Mainstream politicians do not call themselves right-wing.  If you doubt that, then find an example.  TFD (talk) 20:49, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
 * @R41, you are right that originally right-wing meant support for absolutism and aristocracy. But it has evolved, and now it almost universally means support for capitalism, and not only in the Anglosphere. But oyu are correct in saying there is a genuine tension between ttwo aspects of conservatism: social (or should we say cultural) conservatism and economic liberalism. It is more organic in the US, where is no tradition of absolutism, royalty or aristocracy. However in the UK it is manifested in the fact that Thatcher, the champion of free market, was criticised for dismantling many traditional institution. I remember that when a proposal came to privatise The Royal Mail, a natural step for Thatcherites, some Tory MP's objected because 'as a conservative, I do not changed what works well'. Yes there is this tension. But the main things remain: the right are conservtaive on social/cultural issues and pro free market on economic issues. And if one of these component is absent, as in your Catholic example? Well, then their position on the left-right spectrum is not well defined. See political compass. No I did not say Ahmedinejad is left-wing because he is friends with Castro. I said the left-right concept does not apply to him at all. The word is really used with respect to Iranian politics.
 * @TFD, why would you take Harper's self-description rather than that of his critics'? I take your point that people are kind of shy of calling themselves rigt-wing, not quite sure why. But I seriously doubt there is any meaning of right or left except in relative sense. Like in | this paper. - BorisG (talk) 00:13, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
 * But that still is very exclusively Western view - other societies in Eastern Europe accept left-right distinction but not all of their right-wing movements are friends of Western capitalism. But then, even today there are paleoconservatives in the United States and national conservatives that are openly protectionist and hostile to free trade - Lou Dobbs is the best example in the US. Far-right nationalist and religious movements (and I am not talking merely about fringe Nazis who I know people will remind me are "National SOCIALISTS" in caps - I am talking standard far-right) in Eastern Europe are protectionist and oppose Western lifestyle as decadent and morally corrupt. For instance - at least since the 1990s you will not find the very influential far-right Serbian Radical Party as a friend of the Western world or capitalism - it is protectionist, opposes integration into free trade with Eastern Europe, and despises the United States and the West especially after the Yugoslav Wars. On the moderate right - even the British Conservative Party took on an anti-laissez-faire and anti-free trade stance in the late 19th and early 20th century, with the influential Conservative Foreign Secretary Austen Chamberlain openly denouncing free trade and advocating imperialism in Africa to create new colonies for material goods and sought to effectively found a neo-mercantilism - he remained prominent in government and the British Conservative Party into the 1930s. Yes, government and economic systems change but the left-right distinction has remained - if it is so different from the original definition, then why has it remained? There must be a consistency between past right-wing movements and current right-wing movements.--R-41 (talk) 02:20, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

I strongly believe that from what was compiled earlier in the intro but was removed - and seemed it far more universal and accurate - it is the acceptance of an inevitability of social hierarchy that permeates across the right - there is a deep-seated nervousness to the idea of egalitarianism - especially in the form of equality of outcome as forcing people to give up their positions to achieve equality. Make no mistake it does not mean that right-wing people are all snobs looking down on people viewed as inferior - on the moderate right it is the belief that inequality is inevitable and note that schemes by society to create social equality have disasterously failed - especially in the French Revolution and the October Revolution. However on the far right, the view of the inevitability of inequality takes on the extreme form of supremacism - that because people are believed to be naturally unequal - those who have ideal qualities are innately superior to those who have unideal qualities who are regarded as inferior - aristocracy is the political and economic form of this. Racism often takes on a far-right form - regardless of what a racist's views on other issues are that may be left-of-centre - like the Dixiecrats. That being said I am not stating that all racists are far-right though - there has been innate racism in left-leaning movements - the concept of White Man's Burden - that sadly still exists in many TV ads for charity for Africa - depict people in underdeveloped parts of the world as immature, backward, desperate people who need the help of white civilization to bring them to equality with whites. In response to your earlier query - yes many governments that are officially "socialist" or "democratic" are strongly hierarchical - that may be the result of corruption and narcissism of their leaders - or an example of the well-known political science concept of the iron law of oligarchy that claims that even egalitarian movements inevitably succumb to hierararchical organization due to the needs of order in organizations themselves.--R-41 (talk) 02:43, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
 * @R-41, The article should reflect the current usage, not that in the early 20th century. Your examples of anti-capitalist right are all form far right. In my understanding, there is a sea of difference between right and far right. Eastern Europe is a very special case, especially Russia and Serbia, where extreme nationalists come, almost universally, from the former ruling communist parties and form coalitions with them (against Western values, America etc). In Russia these are often called Red-Brown Coalition. This is very distinct from the mainstream right. The best example is Union of Right Forces, a moderate pro-democracy, pro-market and pro-western party in Russia. Interesting example, because it was not afraid to call itself right, even in a country with deeply seated left-wing indoctrination. Maybe that's why they had little support among the masses.
 * @TFD, after further thinking, I now understand your point about Harper and his critics. You do have a point about the usage. But with one caviat: these critics are from the left, and so the understanding of the term as extreme, etc, reflects its usage by the left. Not sure this is represenative enough to define the term objectively. - BorisG (talk) 07:16, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Think about the logical fallacy about what you are saying: you are saying that the article should only reflect current usage of the term right-wing - particularly the capitalist right, that you claim is not connected or at least is fundamentally different with the historical right that included monarchism, aristocracy, and the established Church. Then what is the common thread that allows people to call them universally right-wing? You claim that the anti-capitalist right only includes the far-right, I gave you the example of the Catholic right's long advocacy of opposition to laissez-faire capitalism and the materialist ethos of capitalism - the Catholic right has been on both the centre-right and the far-right - it remains strong in recent history (1945 on) and up to today and is a strong force in Europe and the Catholic Americas (Latin America and Francophone America - particularly Quebec in the Union Nationale). The issue of time as representative of change in ideology has to be taken in context of civilizational change - civilization is thousands of years old - the left-right dimension as conceived of in France has only existed since the 1790s and there were strong far-right monarchist political forces in France and elsewhere in Europe up to and including World War II, such as Action Française or Francisco Franco's quasi-fascist authoritarian conservative Falangist-Carlist alliance that existed into the 1970s that was closely connected to the Catholic Church and the long-lasting feudal Spanish aristocracy - in terms of time - it is within one lifetime, many veterans of WWII are still alive today, and more humourously the American comedian Chevy Chase who declared that "Franco is still dead" in 1975 is himself still alive today along with many others who have personal recollections of the Franco regime. Lastly, you are dismissing the far-right as not representatitive of the right - but you emphasize the centre-right as representative of the right: at Wikipedia we are not at will to discern whether centre-right or far-right political ideology is the legitimate representation of the right, we only are to record it these perspectives in encyclopedic entries.--R-41 (talk) 09:48, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
 * The fact that some right-wing regimes were authoritarian (e.g., Franco) does not mean that authoritarianism is an attribute of the right, any more than the existence of Stalin is evidence of the authoritarianism of the left. The left always try to portray far right as a sub-class of the right, while the right usually try to distinguish themselves from far right. But I think at least since the fall of colonial empires in 1960s, if not through the entire 20th century, the left-right divide has been between socialism and capitalism. If you don't agree with this simple proposition, then I cannot help it. - BorisG (talk) 13:23, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
 * We need to get back to sources. The book The New Right (1987) said that what we would now call neo-liberalism came to be called the "New Right", but it was not "that old-style, neo-collectivist and anti-liberal 'Right' associated with some types of European conservatism".  The author made no claim as to whether the New Right is right-wing, just that that it was what is was commonly called.  I do not think that we can conclude from this that the meaning of the term has changed.  TFD (talk) 17:11, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I am not proposing anywhere that the right-wing is staunchly authoritarian. The original right in France however did emphasis order - as in the rule of law as preceding in importance idealist pursuits of egalitarianism, and other political agendas. "The left is always trying to portray far right as a sub-class of the right, while the right usually try to distinguish themselves from far right" - that is a POV opinion and shows a logical fallacy. The far right is of course a sub-class of the right - the far-right reactionaries in the French parliament led by Joseph de Maistre sat on the right side of the legislature alongside more moderate right-wing movements - that doesn't mean that they agree on everything of course. "The left is always trying to portray" - that's a straw man fallacy because who stands for the left as a whole? And how can you know the alleged plans of the whole left across the world to "always" discredit the right in a specific manner? I am centre-left and I do not see centre-right or moderate right parties as being close to the far-right - even though they are of the same genre, they are close to the centre with some right-wing attributes - which means they accept some degree of moderate left ideals (most likely equality of opportunity and that people should be considered born equal and have equality under the law), just as the centre-left has some degree of moderate right ideals (most likely that the pursuit of egalitarianism should be pursued orderly - through the rule of law - rejecting revolution as proposed by the far left; and that there are limits to egalitarianism - they likely view complete equality of outcome as extremely unlikely to achieve). The left-right divide is not just about socialism versus capitalism - that stereotypes the left as all being socialist and the right as all being capitalist - it involves social issues - abortion, law and order, woman's role in society, affirmative action, immigration, minority rights, multiculturalism, LGBT rights, etc.--R-41 (talk) 17:43, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
 * The terms "left" and "right" to describe political ideology did not arise until the 20th century. Prior to that they merely referred to where one sat in the legislature.  See Marcel Gauchet's article "Right and Left" in Realms of memory: conflicts and divisions, Columbia University Press, 1997.  TFD (talk) 17:49, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
 * But where they sat in the French legislature related to the values they held, the more egalitarian-aiming social justice-emphasizing politicians sat on the left, the ones who were more accepting of existing social hierarchies and social order-emphasizing politicians sat on the right.--R-41 (talk) 18:20, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
 * What is important though is that the terms left, right and centre became associated with those groups that sat in those places c. 1900. De Maistre conservatives sat on the right, socialists on the left and liberals in the center.  What creates ambiguity today is that those conservatives have largely disppeared and liberals and Christian Democrats (who were called "Centrists" now occupy the right.  Do we now call them right-wing?  And of course Anglo_Scandinavian conservatism c. 1900 was too liberal to be called right-wing.  Why would be call them right-wing now, other than that it is a useful journalistic shorthand?  TFD (talk) 18:38, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
 * They have shifted to being representative of the right because liberalism used to be strongly left in comparison to aristocratic proponents. Now socialists have taken the centre left (social democrats) and the far left (communists, anarchists, etc.) and aristocracy that formerly were ruling elites were replaced by merchants and businesspeople as the dominant people in society - as they controlled trade. The original left - that included laissez-faire capitalists at that time - was opposed to aristocracy, the modern left is more focused on hierarchical business-based societies because hierarchical aristocracy has dissappeared in the Western world. Liberals are still to the left of conservatives on social issues, and social liberals are more to the left on economic issues than classical liberals and neoliberals.--R-41 (talk) 18:52, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
 * You are saying that one can always arrange political groups along a left-right axis. In that case the axis retains meaning but no meaning can be assigned to either end, because liberals can occupy either the left or the right of the spectrum at different times.  So Bastiat was left-wing, Mises was centrist and Rothbard was right-wing, despite espousing bascially the same opinions.  If that is the case then it does not justify this article.  TFD (talk) 20:15, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Then what does left-wing vs. right-wing mean? What the intro previously had was a multiple sourced statement in the lead that states that right-wing politics involves the acceptance of social hierarchy. This acceptance of social hierarchy varies on the right - from a mild acceptance on the centre-right that does not support goals for equality of outcome but has supported equality of opportunity, equality under the law, and support of some actions for social justice that are achievable under the rule of law etc. The composition of the left and right has changed over time due to political circumstances - but the principles remain: of advocacy of equality and advocacy of social justice (left) vs. acceptance of hierarchy and advocacy of social order (right) is the main basis. Why does it change - because the value of achievements deemed important to a movement generally depreciates over time - replacing aristocratic nepotism with meritocracy in society was a huge and radical achievement for the original left - meritocracy is taken for granted now, the right emphasized the need for law and order such as the major achievement by original right in Britain who through the Metropolitan Police Act 1829 created the model of the contemporary organized metropolitan police forces as a constant presence in cities - this is taken for granted now. If it is wrong that left vs. right is on an egalitarian + social justice vs. hierarchical + social order dichotomy, then please explain what the left-right political spectrum means.--R-41 (talk) 22:40, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
 * This article is not about the political spectrum, it is about the Right. By your definition a social democrat in the English-speaking world who is a member of the Left suddenly becomes a member of the Right by moving to Venezuela.  Closer to your home, a Quebec Liberal goes to bed a Leftist on election night 1973 and wakes up a right-winger because the PQ has replaced the UN as the official opposition.  TFD (talk) 23:13, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I am trying to describe it as best as I can - I am not familiar with all of the histories of the examples you have stated. I do know that the Quebec Liberals have changed from being a social liberal party in the 1960s to being a more business friendly party under Robert Bourassa and a neoliberal party under former federal PC party leader Jean Charest. But if I am mistaken then what does left-wing vs. right-wing mean then? What is the dichotomy? What does right-wing mean?--R-41 (talk) 23:17, 12 February 2012 (UTC)