IS LEFT AND RIGHT ALL THERE IS IN POLITICS?

I am afraid I have to get a bit academic here:

The idea that political orientation needs to be described in terms of two dimensions instead of a single Left-Right dimension is an old one -- going at least as far back as the factor-analytic work of Ferguson in the 1940s. It also seems to be something of an article of faith for most libertarians -- though the usual 1% of the vote gained by the U.S. Libertarian Party in national elections tends to show how far the theory is from reality. The latest attempt at a two-dimensional description is some work by Lightfoot. I took the Lightfoot quiz myself and you can see my results here. Note that according to Lightfoot, Stalin was a Rightist! Black might as well be white.

I have no idea of Lightfoot's political orientation but it does rather look like the attempt made by Leftist psychologists to claim that all political baddies are conservatives. They have falsely claimed for years that the socialist Hitler was a Rightist, so why not Stalin too? For a quick treatment of why two-dimensional descriptions of politics don't work, see here. My own statistical research into the dimensionality question goes back over 30 years and my reply to the claim that Communists are conservatives is here.

Putting it at its briefest, the Left/Right division is so pervasive because that IS how the great majority of people think. There are of course varieties of conservatism --- with religious conservatives and economic conservatives having least in common -- but they all do have SOME things in common: Principally a respect for the individual. Leftists, by contrast, talk in terms of groups and say that the individual must bow down and conform to some largely mythical "community'. And both the Communists and Hitler were very good at that.

See here for some statistical evidence that economic and religious conservatism do combine in the general population. And that is why (to be very technical) the first eigenvalue is always large relative to subsequent ones.

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ELSEWHERE

Wow! I am beginning to think that Nelson Ascher is the most brilliant blogger around at the moment. He seems to have taken over "Europundits" and last night I just read right through through every word of the current postings there. He is a Brazilian of Hungarian origin but really sticks the knife into anti-American stupidity. His sarcastic comment on Springsteen is a gem. And if you are interested in languages and in poetry (long great interests of mine) this long post is gripping. Thanks to Marc Miyake for introducing me to Ascher.

Speaking of sarcasm, This WSJ piece by Peggy Noonan from last April is very pointed too.

A libertarian case for GWB: "voting for George W. Bush on Nov. 2 may be the best choice for advocates of a free society. In fact, on several issues important to libertarians, Bush has even staked out positions clearly superior to those of his Democratic opponent. Chief among them is Social Security reform. Since he first ran in 2000, Bush has proposed to return a share of Social Security taxes to workers in the form of private pension accounts invested in the market.... Ditto for health care reform. Bush signed legislation establishing health savings accounts, which empower more consumers to decide how their health dollars will be spent..... While Bush has been a big spender, he has not been a big regulator... On gun control, Bush is a consistent defender of the moral and constitutional right to keep and bear arms.... On free trade, Bush has embraced the freedom of Americans to trade and invest in the global economy. His administration won trade promotion authority, launched a new round of negotiations in the World Trade Organization and signed a number of free trade agreements.. On tax reform, Bush shares the Reagan vision of a tax system that encourages economic success. With a GOP Congress, he has cut marginal tax rates across the board and especially on dividends and capital gains."

Good comment from a reader: "I am reading "Unfit for Command" at the moment. WOW! The 30 second sound bites and O'Reilly interviews don't do it justice - there is more here than you possibly can imagine. And it's all internally consistent - how could the authors possibly get so many people to lie consistently? Yet leftists just discard obvious facts and defend Kerry. Kerry's insults to soldiers were never forgotten - most veterans just were happy to get on with their productive lives - unlike Kerry, who never had a real job".

"Unfit for Command" is a Regnery book and might not have got published without them so click here to read a summary of the book and perhaps buy it. And here is a way to get a free(ish) copy of it.

A fun post about Kerry and dogs on the WSJ

The Christian Science Monitor has a rare flash of humour in reporting the lies of the Chinese Fascists about Tibet.

The Happy Carpenter has a big post about how a government bureaucracy that hands out licences to build things is heavily up its own rear-end -- And helping nobody in the process.

Lost Tooth Society is a new conservative blog with a lot of good links.

Wayne Lusvardi has a good short review of a book on the motivations of one of America's home-grown terrorists -- the Unabomber. As with Muslims, it looks like sexual frustration had a lot to do with his destructive behaviour.

In case you have not come across it yet, Communists for Kerry seems to be very popular at the moment.

Another socialist icon bites the dust: The Kibbutzim have gone capitalist.

Wicked Thoughts has put up heaps of good jokes lately

For more postings, see GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH and GUN WATCH. Mirror sites here, here and here

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The vast hatred of President Bush coming from the Left seems to focus almost entirely on his Iraq policy and a claim that it is "stupid" or dishonest. Yet the world's most successful and influential Leftist intellectual -- the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom -- is a vigorous supporter of that policy. It shows that everything said to justify the Leftist hatred of Bush is mere camouflage. What they really hate is someone non-Leftist wielding great power. The hatred is purely emotional and envious -- with only the slightest pretense to reasoning tacked on. As usual, principles have nothing to do with it.

The conflict between conservatives and Leftists is not usually a conflict between realists and idealists. Mostly it is a conflict between realists and people who will say anything to win applause

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