What do "left" and "right" mean to you?

[RainDog]

6. He may point out a pov, but that pov is not supported by data

This, again, is an example of the bullshit that provides conservatives with rationale for mean spiritedness.

It's not enough to say... well, this other person says. What does the data say?

The data says that trickle down means pissing on the poor, not a rising tide.

The data says that nations with greater economic equality, achieved through taxation, because that's how it happens, every time, anyway - those nations have stronger democracies.

Those nations have greater upward mobility than the U.S.

Those nations have healthier populations.

Those nations have happier populations.

So, it's really not enough to say... this person frames it this way. Because that person is full of shit and reality does not support what that person wants to believe.

I'm so sick of people pretending there is anything worthwhile in a conservative economic argument - their ideology is like creationism at this point when the data indicate they're wrong.

Yes, I use left and right. Rightwing, more often. The left, to me, is someone who supports social democracy. That's the meaning of the left in other western democracies as well.

The right is someone who is conservative and supports the divine right of capital, rather than democracy. Capital is the current "monarchy."

Progressive, to me, indicates the early 20th c. in strictest terms, but recently it seems to be a way to indicate someone who is farther to the left than a liberal.

Liberals, traditionally, in Anglo govt. since the Victorian era in England, indicated free market industrialists.

But terms are used loosely and, more often than not, for the purpose of political propaganda.

I don't really care what label someone gives him or herself. What positions do they take? That's how to determine how they fit within the political universe.