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Political terms

Can anyone explain to me some political terms like leftist, centrist, far right, conservative, liberal, etc, etc. I see these terms frequently and I don't understand them. I'm not really a political person although I do vote. I'm anti trump, anti kavanaugh if that helps...

Cutiebeauty 9 Oct 7
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Are my comments here coherent?

Yes

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Be weary of people trying to shape your opinion while concealing their own motives. Most of these answers, including my own are made up according to people's personal perspectives. For example Liberal and conservative do not actually mean "liberal use of government" and "conservative use of government." An opinion stated as fact is still only an opinion.

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Conservatives use the government to profit themselves via corporate giveaways and defense contracts.
Progressives want the government to correct for this historic, systematic travesty.

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Economic Left/Right: -9.5
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -7.54 myself.

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Okay so if you're more Democrat the Republican, you're on the left side of the mainstream political spectrum. If you still like some Rupublicans you're a moderate and some might say you're a centrist. Often when you hear Leftist and Liberal as seperate terms Liberal is the centrist group represented by somebody like Bernie Sanders or Obama. Leftist is then often your Green Party people and radical leftists who think voting in this system is pointless and may or may not do it, but if so, do it as a means of speach to the public rather than than to the powers that be. Conservative is what republicans were, wanting to resist change and preserve tradition, before they decided we need to move to their imaginary past which is very authoritarian and Hitleresque. This movement in an Authoritarian direction is called regressive or reactionary. Hope this helps.

Lmk if you have more questions, we leftists rarely get a say in defining words, like "socialist," that we use to identify ourselves. Marx provides a definition of Communism as an ideology, but in the West we only have a definition of Communism as a system of government, which is much more different than it sounds.

If you want to understand the contempt in the word Liberal coming from Radicals, [open.spotify.com] Liberal is the "thoughts and prayers" of politics.

Libertarian and Authoritarian are terms refering to how involved the government is in people's lives as oposed to their finances. The Libertarian Party takes this further to oposition to any fiscal involvement by the government.
Libertarian Socialists predate the notoriety of either of the terms "libertarian" or "socialist" in the US and have nothing to do with the Libertarian Party.

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You had me at "anti trump, anti kavanaugh." 🙂 I suspect you skew to the center or left politically, but check out an online dictionary or political guide for more specifics.

Lol thanks. I got that much so far. Left centrist...

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Cutie - one further point. When you see the Slogan, "Make America Great Again", usually the supporters are referring to society in the 1950's. Coming off World War II, America had tremendous growth and economic prosperity. What most people fail to remember (or realize) is that most Americans paid in excess of 60% of their income as income tax to pay for that prosperity. Also it was the pinnacle of white privilege where whites could get away with anything over minorities and did (see Jim Crow era).

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Cutiebeauty @BigPawsBullets is not quite being accurate, fair, or balanced. He equates Bernie Sander's and the Democrats position as trying turn America into a socialist country. Actually Bernie and others are talking about a system called Democratic Socialism. It is not the same as Socialism (see Venezuela). While Socialism has not worked historically, Democratic Socialism is alive and functions quite well in countries like Sweden and Norway. In fact it works better than our system presently.

Paws would like to the US move to a type of capitalism known as laizzez faire in there are no regulations or checks and balances. The problem with this type of system is that it depends upon the participants (at our economic level corporations) to act in the best interest of everyone. In doing so they, as well as the consumer ultimately benefits. Unfortunately what the capitalistic system has degenerated into and its right wing (Republicans) proponents is s form of predatory capitalism. In this system the general rule is to destroy your competitors at any cost, strive for the maximun short-term profit, regardless of the long term negative impacts. This includes fleecing, cheating, and stealing from their own consumers. Trump snd the Freedon Caucus are the best examples possible for this cancerous system.

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Conservative pro-capitalism and business, Liberal pro governmental control, Far is just terminology that describes how emphatically a person is about a cause, Centerist is also known as a Moderate some issues on both sides of the political agendas interest them.

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Put in the simplest terms, it refers to "liberal use of government" vs "conservative use of government".
The left is liberal and the right is conservative.

Bollycocks. Conservatives use the government to profit themselves. Progressives want the government to correct for this systematic travesty.

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Here in the US A left wing politician would be someone like Obama or the Clintons. A far left politician would be someone like Ocasio Cortez, Maxine Waters or Bernie Saunders. A right wing politician would be someone like Mitt Romney or Donald Trump. A far right politician would be someone like Ted Cruz. The Republican Party of today is probably more left wing than the democrat party of Robert Kennedy’s day. The left wingers favor big government with more government regulations with those on the extreme left favouring government ownership of all property and virtually no private property ownership which in effect is socialism. The right wingers favor less government, less government regulations and free enterprise with those on the extreme right favouring even smaller government and less regulations and even more unencumbered free enterprise. The Democratic Party of today with the rise of politicians like Bernie Saunders and Ocasio Cortez have taken a sharp turn to the left and seem to be headed toward Socialism. If you studied your history you’d realize that socialism just doesn’t work as everyone but the ruling elite becomes poor. I myself lean to the right as I firmly believe in private property ownership and free enterprise. @Lancer, @bigpawbullets

That was very helpful! Thank you!

Well stated and pretty neutral. Good job.

10/10.

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I’ll try and give you a very brief explanation, but understand this is just a brief overview. Start with centrist, this is a person who takes into consideration both left and right and tries to compromise with both. A leftist is a person who tends to be a bit more liberal in their thinking, usually trying to fight for the people in a more direct manner, usually tending (but not always) to be less religious. Leftists usually fight for the government to help people with social programs, like welfare and Medicare. Then you have the right. They tend to be a bit more conservative and usually more religious (again that is a generalization) the right focuses on “smaller government”, wanting to lessen or eliminate social programs. When you talk about far right and far left just take the previous explanations and move them to the extreme. When people talk about liberal, they are mostly talking about the far left, usually these people tend to be classified as SJW.
Please know these are just brief overviews. I am far from an expert. If you have more questions please feel free to ask and I can try to answer them.

MarcT Level 7 Oct 7, 2018

Thanks. I suppose I'm a leftist then.. Or maybe a centrist... I like smaller government but not at the expense of social programs that help people...

@Cutiebeauty No problem. Again, as with anything as complex as government there is way more to the terms used. People even self-label at times. But it's a good starting point.

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