THE POLITICAL SPECTRUM

There have been many attempts, through the years, to graphically represent the political spectrum. While some of these have been on the basis of a horizontal line, some on the basis of a circle and some on the basis of a geometric object with cross axes and a distribution of traits, none of these has proven really satisfactory to the stated purpose. While our effort, here, will doubtless draw some negative criticism as well, we wished to at least take a stab at shedding more light on the subject. The chart that follows is that stab.

We invite your ongoing criticism and, accordingly, reserve the right to further refine or modify the result as time goes by:

	EXTREME LEFT	FAR LEFT	LEFT to CENTER LEFT	CENTER LEFT to CENTER	CENTER to CENTER RIGHT	RIGHT	RIGHT
SYSTEM OR MOVEMENT -------->	Communism	National Socialism	Social Democrats & Radical Theocracies	Moderates (Including Republics & Monarchies With Power In A Popular Electorate)	Monarchies Or Equivalent Without Vested Safeguards	Conservative Theocracies	Systems Where Vested Rights Are Sacred	SYSTEM OR MOVEMENT <----------------
Examples	(Lenin's Russia, Chairman Mao's China, North Korea)	(Hitler's Germany, Clinton's puppets in Haiti, Iraq)	(Modern Sweden, Fabian Britain, LBJ's Great Society, Modern Iran & America under Clinton)	(Germany under Kohl, America under Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford, etc..)	(Modern Japan, Iran under Shah; Modern Britain, Netherlands or Spain, when the more Conservative parties dominate.)	(Puritan Massachusetts, Spain Under Inquisition, Saudi Arabia)	(England--off and on--from Magna Carta until Popular Government intervened; America from 1776 til 1860; brief shining moments in the history of other lands.)	Examples
Family Rights & Responsibility For Children	Families have no Rights. Children belong to Collective.	Family Rights (including inheritance) depend upon standing with Government. Children belong to Collective.	Family Rights limited by what is Politically Correct. Inheritance under attack. Children's values determined by Collective.	Some erosion of Family Rights. Children's Education mixed responsibility with Central Direction.	Family Rights more respected. Children's Education mixed responsibility.	Family Rights respected, so long as Mandated Religion accepted. Children's Education parental responsibility under clerical supervision.	Semi- autonomous Families--Children's Education parent's responsibility--Inheritance rights sacred.	Family Rights & Responsibility For Children
Property Rights	All Property held in Common.	Property nominally private, but must be used as Monolithic State dictates.	May be some Nationalization, yet most property private. Usage controlled in many particulars by collectivist State.	Private property rights respected, but some controls for social objectives.	Private property rights respected, but some controls for social objectives.	Private property rights respected, but subject to controls as to religiously proscribed actions.	Governmental role as to private property: To protect same with rights of peaceful enjoyment and inheritance.	Property Rights
Ethos & Perspective	Ultimate Authority=Masses. Utilitarian--Everything centrally planned--no tolerance for eccentricity. Institutions from past repudiated. Belief in human plasticity--uniformity, with selective exclusions. New Order of masses to replace past social forms. Ends justify means. Truth no virtue.	Ultimate Authority=Might. Utilitarian--Centrally planned--no tolerance for eccentricity. Kindness, honor & chivalry repudiated. Belief in human plasticity--uniformity, with selective exclusions. New Order (based upon monolithic mass support) replaces traditional society. Ends justify almost any means. Truth no virtue.	Ultimate Authority=numbers, ie. "Democracy," in form denounced by Madison. Utilitarian--More tolerant, but looks to evolving New Order: Social Engineering premised on human plasticity. Willing to cut ethical corners--more tolerant of public lies than those to the right.	Ultimate Authority=Confused. Mixed Utilitarian & Moral--More respect for heritage, but compromises with Left for reform. Looks in both directions without clear sense of issues. Generally: Rejects evil means, upholds concept of truth; but in quandary as to corrupt public servants.	Ultimate Authority=God, but man interprets. Mixed Utilitarian & Moral--Greater respect for heritage, but insufficient resolve to build adequate safeguards against Left. Generally: Believes in integrity of action; but still in quandary as to corrupt public servants.	Ultimate Authority=God, but man interprets. Moral--Values & Perspective skewed by theological concerns. Usually conservative, celebrating heritage and family, often with more understanding of religious argument than dynamics of social interaction. If not corrupt, can handle corrupt public servants.	Ultimate Authority=God. Moral--Ongoing social dynamic, builds on achievements, wisdom and understanding, generation by generation. Accepts diversity, vast inequality of man. Honors forebears & heroes--role models for future--personal integrity, honor, pursuit of truth and knowledge (positive values), & chivalric code. No incentive for corruption.	Ethos & Perspective
Intellectual Freedom	No intellectual freedom. Suppression of all dissent & religion.	No intellectual freedom. Suppression of all dissent & most religious activity that challenges moral authority of monolithic State.	Some intellectual freedom, but gradual erosion in favor of what is politically correct. Educational system biased against traditional values, historic achievement.	Slower erosion of intellectual freedom, but similar trend to Social Democrats, because of lack of clear focus on what Left is doing. Gradual corruption of educational system.	Generally tolerant of intellectual freedom, so long as not seditious.	Can be very tolerant of intellectual freedom (even serve as repository of learning) that does not threaten theology; but restrictive as to what is deemed sensitive.	In cherishing the individual, provides maximum incentive to intellectual development and free inquiry.	Intellectual Freedom
Right To Local Self Government	Local Governments puppets of Central Authority.	Local Government merely Administrative Units of Monolithic Central Government.	Tolerates State & Local Government, but only as subservient to value dictating Central Government.	Much more tolerant of local rights; still willing to over-rule same for Centralized Social Objectives.	About same as Republican Centrists.	Tolerant of Local Rights, so long as no dissent on Theological Imperatives.	Most Government functions, local. In original U. S. (Federal Union of delegated powers), Police Power concern only of very varied State Societies.*	Right To Local Self Government

*Government at all levels limited to recognized functions, accepted by all. No Federal role as individual problem solver, or moral guide.

It should be recognized that most present day Governments in the World borrow from more than one concept, both as to their role and as to the relation of the individual thereto. Few fit into precise categories. What we strive for, here, is rather a projection of the range of intrusiveness, perspective and interaction, as one analyzes any Political Society in terms of a Left/Right projection. This reflects our belief that most previous efforts to project Left/Right differences, in some sort of visually useful form, have been flawed because they were either the work of centrists trying to make themselves appear in the most reasonable light, or were the work of Leftists trying to make certain other Leftists appear to be on the Right in order to tar the true Right with a tainted brush, basically to confuse analysis.

This is in part, also, an effort to correct misunderstandings as to differences between the American Right and the European Right. As such, it will doubtless be challenged by those with an axe to grind. From an American perspective, we have taken the position that the traditional European Right's concern with preserving the prerogatives of a privileged class, is similar functionally--however different at first impression--to the traditional American concern with preserving individual rights to retain and pass on the fruits of one's own achievement--including cultural achievements and values, as well as property--in our far more fluid and socially mobile Societies. From a European perspective, we have equated the rightwing desire of their Aristocracy to preserve their positions, based upon ancient achievement, with the right of the Jeffersonian Natural Aristocracy, unleashed here, to pass on both what is valued and sacred, in our own still developing heritages, within our own very unique Societies. (Note the deliberate use of plurals.)

Since the American ethos has always been more inclusive, it is only natural that the prerogatives being preserved are those of a much wider segment of the population. Yet the common threat to such different Societal clusters is the same on both sides of the Atlantic--and equally across the Pacific. It comes from what might be termed the egalitarian mob mentality. It arises in an appeal to a mindset that seeks justification in jealousy, envy and resentment--in coveting what is others: That looks to Government to level man; to a mindset that seeks to rally the worst among us against the thinking, reasoning, achieving and upwardly aspiring individuals, of whatever social class. It is from such mindset that the most ominous threats to all Conservative social systems arise. And hence, for all of our vast differences, the idiosyncrasies of our quite different Societies and Nations, we on the Right share a common interest, all challenged by the same enemy--the same base negative mindset--throughout the World.

The forces of the Right, generally, also share a common belief that we are all individually answerable to a Higher Power than any human agency. This is reflected in the chart, as you go from Left to Right, and move from a Utilitarian to a Moral basis for political Society. This is more basic than many may appreciate today, because of a Leftist induced misunderstanding of what the separation of Church and State in traditional America really means. If you will note Jefferson's own language in the Act that established Religious Freedom in Virginia in the 1780s, you will see that the Act, itself, repeatedly cites Almighty God, Himself, as the Legal Authority for the Act (see Chapter Three, below).

The reader will note that we have put the Nazis to the Left of the Social Democrats in the Socialist zoo on the Left side of the display. While some may question this because of the avowed "Nationalism" of the German Socialists, it may be well demonstrated not only by the attributes referred to in the chart, but by the much more detailed discussion in Chapter Seven, The Lies Of Socialism, below. (It should also be noted that the "Nationalism" of the Nazis was somewhat disingenuous: Not only did they trash the National heritage of most ancient German principalities; they ended up defining "Nationalism" in a way little different than the cult of personality with which the Communists clothed Lenin.) The most significant difference between Communists and Nazis is that the latter allowed a fiction of "private property." Yet they so completely controlled the attributes of property that they might just as well have seized it--as indeed they did from those out of favor.

Note, also, that there is no effort to place Anarchists into our projection. To do so would make no sense. By their very nature, Anarchists repudiate the political process. They may share an affinity with the Left in that they despise the existing system; they are not likely participants in any other. And their disdain for intrusive Government is not enough to give them a meaningful affinity with the Right, which has always accepted legitimate Government as a Defender of the quiet enjoyment and inheritance of Property, Privacy and the common interests of a Political Society.