A Common-Sense Political Spectrum

The political spectrum we all learned about in school is making less sense all the time. You remember: the one that has Communism at the left extreme, Nazism at the right, and the rest of us in between. It never seemed reasonable to me even when I was first exposed to it as a boy. After all, what is the real difference between Communists and Nazis, no matter how much they appear to hate each other?

Lately things have become even more confusing. With the breakup of the Soviet empire, we're seeing old-line Communists referred to as "right-wing" or "Conservative." As a life-long Conservative activist, I have been called a lot of things; but I never expected to be lumped together with those who want to reimpose Communism on Eastern Europe. The political scientists and journalists who use this terminology must think they are making perfect sense. I think they're crazy.

Back when I took physics, my teachers explained that a spectrum is a scale measuring continuous variation in some property, like the wavelength of light. What property did the political spectrum ever measure? In what way are the beliefs and practices of international socialists (Communists) and national socialists (Nazis) so different that they should be on opposite ends of a spectrum? How are American Conservative beliefs similar to those of the old-line Communists in Russia? Let's face it: this spectrum measures nothing, and the terms "right" and "left" derived from it are meaningless. If we are going to use such terms, we had better find a real meaning for them. We need a sensible political spectrum.

There is a version of the political spectrum that many Conservatives have been using without confusion for some years. The spectrum measures how much control a person believes governments should have over society. Near the extreme left end are those who believe in total government: Communists, Nazis, fascists, and other totalitarian socialists. At the extreme right end are those who believe in no government: anarchists. Inside these "fringe" positions we find the Liberals, Conservatives and Libertarians, along with variations of these. Notice that this puts Conservatives near the center, between the big-government policies of the Liberals and the minuscule-government ideas of the Libertarians. Could Conservatives get used to being called "moderates?"

Perhaps even more startling is the place for the Liberal philosophy on this common-sense spectrum. The socialists on the extreme left are broken into several factions, based on their views of private property. Rightmost in this left-wing grouping are the fascists, who give lip service to the idea of private property, but insist that the actions of individuals and industries be totally regulated by government. Those who favor stringent but somewhat less than total regulation by government are today called Liberals. Could Liberals get used to being thought of as just to the right of fascists?

The anarchists on the extreme right are not, by definition, in control of any governments. They work solely for the destruction of existing governments. When they prevail, they leave behind them a power vacuum that is inevitably filled by a totalitarian (left-wing) system of some kind. In fact, leftist revolutionaries routinely make use of terrorists, including anarchists, to bring this about.

Our Founding Fathers believed in providing for as much individual freedom as the people could handle. They wrangled some over how much responsibility the average person was ready for, but they were all striving for the best balance between personal liberty and government power. In other words, they were seeking the best position on the political spectrum for their new government. I think they came pretty close to the ideal balance when they created our Constitution. The whole point of the Conservative movement is to conserve that balance, and to restore it when it has been damaged. We should think twice before we scrap what the Founding Fathers have done and move to the right or left from their position. That is why I am proud to be called a Conservative.