Titanic Post

Conservative: At the core of present day political conservatism is the resistance to change and a tolerance for inequality.  Some of the common psychological factors linked to political conservatism include:

• Fear and aggression
• Dogmatism and intolerance of ambiguity
• Uncertainty avoidance
• Need for cognitive closure
• Terror management

Neoconservatism is a political movement, mainly in the United States and Canada, which is generally held to have emerged in the 1960s, coalesced in the 1970s, and has had a significant presence in the administration of George W. Bush.

The prefix neo- refers to two ways in which neoconservatism was new. First, many of the movement’s founders, originally liberals, Democrats or from socialist backgrounds, were new to conservatism. Also, neoconservatism was a comparatively recent strain of conservative socio-political thought. It derived from a variety of intellectual roots in the decades following World War II, including literary criticism and the social sciences.

Irving Kristol,^[1] Norman Podhoretz^[2] and others described themselves as neoconservatives during the Cold War. In general, however, the movement’s critics use the term more often than supporters.^[3] In fact, some people described as “neocons” today say that neoconservatism no longer exists as an identifiable movement.

Many associate neoconservatism with periodicals such as Commentary and The Weekly Standard, along with the foreign policy initiatives of think tanks such as the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and the Project for the New American Century (PNAC). Neoconservative journalists, pundits, policy analysts, and politicians, often dubbed “neocons” by supporters and critics alike, have been credited with (or blamed for) their influence on U.S. foreign policy, especially under the administration of George W. Bush.

Liberalism refers to a broad array of related doctrines, ideologies, philosophical views, and political traditions which hold that individual liberty is the primary political value.^[1] Liberalism has its roots in the Western Age of Enlightenment, but the term has taken on different meanings in different time periods.

Broadly speaking, liberalism emphasizes individual rights. It seeks a society characterized by freedom of thought for individuals, limitations on power (especially of government and religion), the rule of law, the free exchange of ideas, a market economy that supports free private enterprise, and a transparent system of government in which the rights of all citizens are protected.^[2] In modern society, liberals favor a liberal democracy with open and fair elections, where all citizens have equal rights by law and an equal opportunity to succeed.^[3]

Democracy: (see “Why Democracy is Better“)

The Democratic Party: An organization that sometime pretends to represent the interests of working people while bathing in the glow of moneyed interests. They possess a general lack of ability to figure out what the Republican Party has been doing since 1973. Democratic administrations and congresses generally behave like Republicans. Anatomically, they have very flexible spinal columns that do not stand up well under pressure.  Democrats generally claim to not support monarchy as our preferred form of government. I will post more on this as soon as I figure it out.

Democratic Leadership Committe: Same as New Democrat.

New Democrat: A return to 19th-century political form seen as free-market economics understood as the state of nature, plutocracy as the default social condition, and, enthroned as the nation’s necessary vice, an institutionalized corruption surpassing anything we have seen for 80 years. All that is missing is a return to the gold standard and a war to Christianize the Philippines. An antithesis to liberalism.

Fascism is a political ideology and mass movement that seeks to place the nation, defined in exclusive biological, cultural, and historical terms, above all other loyalties, and to create a mobilized national community.^[1] Many different characteristics are attributed to fascism by different scholars, but the following elements are usually seen as its integral parts: nationalism, authoritarianism, militarism, corporatism, totalitarianism, collectivism^[2], anti-liberalism, and anti-communism. There are numerous debates between scholars regarding the nature of fascism, and the kinds of political movements and governments that may be called fascist. For further elaboration, please see definitions of fascism and fascism and ideology.Fascism emphasizes the role of the personal will in creating political institutions, the use of violence in supressing political and ideological enemies and an existentialist emphasis on “living the moment dangerously”. Wikipedia

The Republican Party is composed of Fiscal Conservatives, Evangelicals, Social Conservatives, Neoconservatives, Libertarians, Moderates, Liberals (sometimes derided as Republican In Name Only, or RINOs, by more conservative Republicans), and Log Cabin Republicans.

There are only two kinds of Republicans: millionaires and suckers. The suckers support the party, but the party works against the best interests of the suckers. The Republican Party is often the more socially conservative and economically libertarian of the two major parties, and has closer ties to both Wall Street (large corporations) and Main Street (locally owned businesses) (small mom & pop businesses)^{[citation needed]}; it has little support among labor union leadership, but more support from blue collar workers^{[citation needed]}. The party generally supports lower taxes and limited government in some economic areas, while preferring government intervention in others. In the 1980s, the Republican Party was more strongly libertarian. In his 1981 inaugural address, Republican President Ronald Reagan summed up his belief in limited government when he said, “In the present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”^[1] Since 1980, the GOP has contained what George Will calls “unresolved tensions between, two flavors of conservatism — Western and Southern.” The Western brand, wrote Will, “is largely libertarian, holding that pruning big government will allow civil society — and virtues nourished by it and by the responsibilities of freedom — to flourish.” The Southern variety, however, reflects a religiosity based in evangelical and fundamentalist churches that is less concerned with economics and more with moralistic issues, such as opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage. Noting the waning influence of libertarian philosophy on contemporary Republican ideology, Will describes the current Republican Party as “increasingly defined by the ascendancy of the religious right.” Republicans openly support the  monarchy as a good substitute to democracy.

Right-wing: In politics, right-wing, the political right, and the right are terms used in the spectrum of Left-Right Politics, and much like the opposite number of Left Wing, it has a broad variety of definitions and terms- the same name can, in politics, sometimes mean different things. However, it is generally used to refer to the segments of the political spectrum often associated with any of several strains of conservatism, monarchism, fascism, libertarianism, anarcho-capitalism, reactionism, the religious right, nationalism, or simply the opposite of left-wing politics.

The term originates from the French Revolution, when liberal deputies from the Third Estate generally sat to the left of the president’s chair, a habit which began in the Estates General of 1789. The nobility, members of the Second Estate, generally sat to the right. In the successive legislative assemblies, monarchists who supported the Ancien Régime were commonly referred to as rightists because they sat on the right side. It is still the tradition in the French Assemblée Nationale for the representatives to be seated left-to-right (relative to the Assemblée president) according to their political alignment.

As this original reference became obsolete, the meaning of the term has changed as appropriate to the spectrum of ideas and stances being compared, and the point of view of the speaker. In recent times, the term almost always includes some forms of conservatism.

Some consider the political Right to include those forms of liberalism that emphasize the free market more than egalitarianism in wealth, but many free-market advocates, including most libertarians, share certain political ideologies with the left-wing and conceive of a two-dimensional political spectrum that they say more accurately portrays their political position.[1] (See Nolan chart, Pournelle Chart, Political Compass). Many anarchists (including libertarian socialists) also avoid placing themselves on the classic political spectrum.

See political spectrum and left-right politics for further discussion of this kind of classification.

Left-wing: In politics, the left-wing or the left is associated, to varying degrees, with social (as opposed to classical) liberalism, social democracy, socialism, communism, anarchism, and green politics and has historically been opposed by the right.

The left is generally secular, as in India, the Middle East, and Turkey. In some Roman Catholic countries however there is a tradition of Liberation theology which focuses upon “social justice” and in most Protestant countries there is a tradition of Christian Socialism. In the US, religion and left-wing politics have sometimes been allies, for example in the U.S. civil rights movement, and sometimes opponents, for example opposition by conservative Christians to legalising abortion.

Those on the left view themselves as “progressive“, on the side of social progress and openness to change.

Old Left refers to the tendency within left politics in the first half of the twentieth century to focus upon class conflict, sometimes in an economic determinist way, while New Left refers to the left politics that emerged in the 1950s and especially 1960s, which emphasised the cultural. Examples of the new left include Students for a Democratic Society and New Left Review.

Centre-left, left of centre and left liberal refer to the left side of mainstream politics in liberal democracies. These support liberal democracy, representative democracy, private property rights and some degree of free market, as well as high social spending, universal provision of social welfare and some state regulation of the economy. Examples are the British Labour Party, the American Democratic Party and the Social Democratic Party of Germany. Soft left refers to reformist, democratic or parliamentary forms of socialism. Hard left refers to socialists who advocate more radical change in society - e.g. the Militant Tendency. Ultra-left refers to those deemed to be on the extreme left of the political spectrum e.g. Italian autonomism.

See political spectrum and left-right politics for further discussion of this kind of classification.

Center: An imaginary point located half way between between the politics of Liberalism and Conservatism. Presently the center is located just left of the politics of Benito Mussolini.

Freedom