Comment 27175

By Political Spectre (anonymous) | Posted November 06, 2008 at 09:06:02

@gullchasedship - But it's not all relative. Conservatives believe something specific about how society works, so do liberals, and progressives, etc.

Do you think people should be allowed to live in whatever family arrangements they want? That's a liberal position regardless of how the rest of society feels.

Do you think people should respect authority just because it's authorty and that makes society more stable? That's a conservative position regardless of how the rest of society feels.

An entire society can be conservative or liberal, and they'd be on the right or the left of the spectrum.

Also, the political compass is two-dimensional, not just left and right. The left/right axis is on economics (more progressive on the left, more laissez faire on the right) and the up/down axis is on authority (more libertarian on the bottom and more authoritarian on the top).

You can be a left-libertarian (like Noam Chomsky) or a left-authoritarian (like Hugo Chavez) or a right-libertarian (like Ron Paul) or a right-authoritarian (like Augusto Pinochet) so its a lot more nuanced than just left-right.

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