Dan,


The more I read it, the more interesting.
Reference: http://www.rationalrevolution.net/articles/redefining_the_political_spectru.htm


Quotes:

There is a great deal of political confusion in America today, in part because the American view of the political spectrum is flawed.

The same thing happened in America after World War II that happened in Europe before World War II: The threat of Communism resulted in the Church, State, and Commerce aligning interests to support each other, and most importantly, the interests of the wealthy elite.

An American "Right" emerged that ideologically claims to support both free-market capitalism, individuality, traditional values, and Christianity. Because of the persistent opposition in American society to Soviet Communism, and because of FDR's New Deal, Americans tend to view all government involvement in Commerce as "anti-business," however this is actually not the case.

Additionally, FDR proclaimed himself to be a "Liberal" and thus FDR's creation of "big government" associated the word "Liberal" in America with "big government", although "Liberal" and "big government" really have nothing at all to do with each other.

These facts combine to promote the view that "Liberals" are anti-free market capitalism, or rather that free-market capitalists are "anti-Liberal".

Furthermore the view in America is that "Liberalism" is "Leftism".

Now it has to be explained why these views are all wrong and actually mask political and economic realities.

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Capitalism and Liberalism have always gone hand in hand, but the failure to recognize this, combined with the past 50 years of anti-Leftist sentiment in America, has resulted in American politics shifting further and further to the economic Right into the realm of Corporatism - State support for corporations and the wealthy elite at the expense of the working-class.

*--

American politics today is very much shifted to the Right economically and socially, yet American society in general is relatively liberal in the social sense.

"Conservative" citizens who support right-wing politicians are in fact contributing to the very problems that they are trying to oppose, and the result is that as the economics shift more and more to the Right, the social situation becomes more and more liberal. The conservatives then keep pressing more and more to the Right, thinking that that is the answer, but in fact it is not.