>Dan, again you make the mistake to think that the right and left classification is conform the US classification of left and right. IT IS NOT. This is the DUTCH/EUROPEAN classification. As I have said that I belong to the right of the dutch political arena you can pretty much figure out where I belong.

Did I say they should conform to the US classification? No. However, in order to compare the politics of the US and the Netherlands, we must have a common model. Left is left and right is right. Pure and simple. "Left is right" neither fits the model, nor is appropriate for all European countries.

What you also seem to forget is that within the two major parties in the US is a wide variety of political stripes. Unlike the European parlimentary model, both parties here have to appeal to a wide variety of voters. So, under the Democrat umbrella, you have people like my father-in-law (socially and fiscally conservative, but a lifelong union member and therefore a sworn Democrat) and my mother (Sierra Club member, a "social democrat" if we had such a party here), as well as a lot of ultra-liberals. Under the Republican umbrella, you have people like myself (generally conservative) and the Moral Majority (whom I detest).

By your own admission, the VVD is center-right. Just because you vote VVD, does that make you a right-winger? Not according to any of the models, nor according to any of the information you've presented. Nor according to the other Europeans I know.

This is the trap of generalization. You may consider yourself to be to the right within the Dutch political arena. But how would you be classified within the German one? Or the Polish one? A German friend of mine would consider you to be a raging Socialist. How would any members of the hard right in the Netherlands label you? To categorically say that "left is right" is just plain wrong.