Opinion : To the Editor: The meaning of 'left' vs 'right'

To the Editor,

Do we as voters understand the left vs. right argument?  What does it mean to be a liberal, progressive, moderate, libertarian, conservative, and just who is radical in their ideology?

From “The Five Thousand Year Leap” a must read for all Americans.  Reference page 10, 11 – draw a horizontal line (no matter how long).  On the left write Tyranny (ruler’s law) and on the far right write anarchy (no law), over the top of the line in the middle write – People’s law.  Now draw a vertical line in the middle of the horizontal line.  Somewhere to the right of that line is where the people are – we’ve heard it time and again – we are a center right country.   Further to the right is where our Founders placed us at the time of the writing of the Declaration and later the ratification of the Constitution, the concepts of liberty, freedom of industry, ownership of property, and most important that our rights are God given not government given (“Endowed by our creator with life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”).   “Authority under ruler’s law is nearly always established by force, violence and conquest”. 

What systems of governance should be placed on the left (the further left the greater sacrifice of personal liberty and property rights)?  That would be Monarchy, Dictatorships, Communism, Fascism, Sharia law, Marxism, Socialism, and Progressivism.  There is no doubt that liberals of the 21st Century are to the far left of the vertical line as are progressives whether D or R.   This is the big government, big spending, high taxes, income inequality, corporate hatred --  crowd.   On the right side of the vertical line is the wealth creation, the rising tide floats all boats, masters of own destiny, make the pie bigger so there are more slices -- crowd.  The right side has more risk, but also more reward.  The left side more dependency, victimization, “you didn’t build that”, wealth redistribution, the transformation of the U.S. of A., government needs to do more --  crowd.  This election and the one in 2016 will determine to which side of the center line we will go.  A further slide to the left could mean the end of our Republic.  Do your due diligence, disregard the negative ads, and vote ON the “right” side.

Regards,

John Stiegelmeyer

Vinton