Here is an excellent article on why the view of the political spectrum is inaccurate. The American thinker website is a great site...
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/09/rethinking_the_political_spect.html
From the article:
[FONT=times new roman,times]Then in 1941, Hitler turned on his fellow socialist and invaded the Soviet Union. How was Stalin to explain or rationalize this turnabout? What ideological signboard could he put around Hitler's neck that would make sense in the Soviet political context? Certainly Stalin could not let it appear he had been duped by a fellow socialist, nor could he allow Hitler to give socialism a bad name. The solution was to label the bad guys, Hitler and the Nazis, as polar opposites of the good guys, Stalin and the Communists. Fascism - a leftist, socialist doctrine - was abruptly and absurdly labeled a phenomenon of the extreme right.[/FONT]
[FONT=times new roman,times]From 1941 onward into the postwar era, Soviet propaganda, diplomacy, and scholarship consistently depicted Nazism as a right-wing phenomenon, communism on the left, with the Western powers arrayed on a vague spectrum somewhere in between. Western academics and journalists fell into the same practice, often but not always because of their own leftist sympathies. Few bothered to contest the analysis and assumptions that underlay the new model, and it was a convenient way to depict and describe political camps. Thus the classic political spectrum of the 20th century became second nature to everyone, not just to communists.[/FONT]
There is something nonsensical about a political spectrum that spans the range between tyranny and ... tyranny. If one end of the spectrum is the home of tyranny, then shouldn't the opposite end of the spectrum be the home of liberty, tyranny's opposite? The new spectrum is a rough measurement of liberty: very little liberty on the left end, quite a bit on the right end. At the left extreme reside the hard tyrannies of communism and fascism, as seen historically in such places as the Soviet Union, China, Germany, or North Korea. A bit to the right are the softer tyrannies of socialism, as commonly practiced in Western Europe. Liberalism comes next, then "moderation." Moving further along the spectrum toward greater liberty, one finds conservatism, and finally libertarianism.
[FONT=times new roman,times]Placing the political world into this more accurate framework yields a number of important corollary benefits and insights:[/FONT]
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/09/rethinking_the_political_spect.html
From the article:
[FONT=times new roman,times]Then in 1941, Hitler turned on his fellow socialist and invaded the Soviet Union. How was Stalin to explain or rationalize this turnabout? What ideological signboard could he put around Hitler's neck that would make sense in the Soviet political context? Certainly Stalin could not let it appear he had been duped by a fellow socialist, nor could he allow Hitler to give socialism a bad name. The solution was to label the bad guys, Hitler and the Nazis, as polar opposites of the good guys, Stalin and the Communists. Fascism - a leftist, socialist doctrine - was abruptly and absurdly labeled a phenomenon of the extreme right.[/FONT]
[FONT=times new roman,times]From 1941 onward into the postwar era, Soviet propaganda, diplomacy, and scholarship consistently depicted Nazism as a right-wing phenomenon, communism on the left, with the Western powers arrayed on a vague spectrum somewhere in between. Western academics and journalists fell into the same practice, often but not always because of their own leftist sympathies. Few bothered to contest the analysis and assumptions that underlay the new model, and it was a convenient way to depict and describe political camps. Thus the classic political spectrum of the 20th century became second nature to everyone, not just to communists.[/FONT]
There is something nonsensical about a political spectrum that spans the range between tyranny and ... tyranny. If one end of the spectrum is the home of tyranny, then shouldn't the opposite end of the spectrum be the home of liberty, tyranny's opposite? The new spectrum is a rough measurement of liberty: very little liberty on the left end, quite a bit on the right end. At the left extreme reside the hard tyrannies of communism and fascism, as seen historically in such places as the Soviet Union, China, Germany, or North Korea. A bit to the right are the softer tyrannies of socialism, as commonly practiced in Western Europe. Liberalism comes next, then "moderation." Moving further along the spectrum toward greater liberty, one finds conservatism, and finally libertarianism.
[FONT=times new roman,times]Placing the political world into this more accurate framework yields a number of important corollary benefits and insights:[/FONT]
- [FONT=times new roman,times]Gone is the muddled notion that if one moves too far from tyranny, one only encounters more tyranny. Liberty is the opposite of tyranny, and the more accurate spectrum makes that clear.[/FONT]
- [FONT=times new roman,times]Leftist critics become less persuasive when depicting conservatives as incipient fascists. They can no longer warn that if one becomes too conservative, one becomes a fascist tyrant. To the contrary, the conservative is identified with liberty, while the liberal has more affinity with tyranny, whether soft or hard.[/FONT]
- [FONT=times new roman,times]Moderates lose their hallowed position and aura of wisdom and restraint. They are simply a bit more conservative than liberals and more liberal than conservatives, i.e. they are less jealous of their liberty than are those to their right.[/FONT]
- [FONT=times new roman,times]Libertarianism has a home. It resides at the right end of the spectrum, reflecting the maximization of liberty.[/FONT]
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