Tasteless site

Gordon Fitch gcf at panix.com
Fri Feb 16 15:58:50 PST 2001


Matt Cramer:
> ...
> You're trying to force everything I say through some kind of cosmic
> battle of left vs. right. My politics do not fit into that dichotomy.
> ...

That depends on your definitions. The Left is or used to be defined as the party of freedom and equality, the Right as the party of authority, established order, and inequality (of both political power and private wealth). There are other definitions, of course, but I don't think they make much sense or have much use, where as the definitions I give have been pertinent since the invention of slavery.

If politics is the theory and practice of whose will shall be done in a community, then it is hard to see how any politics does not come down somewhere on the Left-Right spectrum: either one thinks some should rule others, or one thinks not, or one perhaps thinks some should sometimes sort of rule others if they're not too unpleasant about it, or if they follow a nifty set of rules, or if they're the vanguard of the working class. One could evade the spectrum by evading politics altogether, of course, but you did say "my politics" and you're writing on a political discussion list.



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