In Britain it is still simple: Left means less inequality in wealth or income and Right means a slightly higher Gini coefficient, and both are related to the original meaning of the Left Wing of the French Assembly in 1791, but in the US the meanings firstly developed and got a bit deeper, but then just got totally unfocused. So I have two questions Firstly what does the distinction usually mean, and secondly can we find better terms for what we are trying to say?
The statistical distribution of wealth and or income is best described by the Gini coefficient. If one person or entity has all the money, the Gini coefficient is 1, and if it is totally equally distributed the Gini coefficient is zero; no inequality. After a brief discussion and examples from various countries most people decide an ideal Gini coefficient would be. The Gini coefficient is most often expressed as a percentage, so 0 to 1 is expressed as 0 to 100.
Left Right arguments can last forever and most people without a quantifier end up extolling the virtues of one end of the scale or the other. With known Gini coefficients it gets a lot easier and less hazardous. Most people feel inequality in the US is too large, I always grant an exception to Elon Musk because he earned his money and keeps risking it for the benefit of the human race, and doesn't treat it like property but as a tool. The US coefficient of 0.4 or 40% is generally considered a bit high, and the French one of 0.3 or 30% as pretty good. But what do you think?
Surveys have shown most Americans think the US is about 30 in income inequality, whereas the correct figure in 2021 was 39.8. Most people are surprised when shown income tables that the inequalities are that high, so I'm about where most people think the US should be. I do not support Biden because his love of starting wars, moves money into the pockets of the weapons makers and therefore increase the Gini coefficient, and I consider that wars increase human suffering, and there are other ways to reach agreements.
There is an older dispute which seems to have been wound into the Right Left dichotomy and that is order/disorder. Often in the US Right = order and Left = disorder. That's a very old concept found in religions several thousand years old, and in many places in literature, with chaos sometimes appearing to win but order making a comeback. In politics starting wars and flooding the country with immigrants looks very much like disorder, and we hope that order will soon be making a comeback.
It's completely different here. Here the Left is the privileged gentry and egghead academics and the Right is the party of the Working and Middle Class
I think Right and Left should keep just the economic meaning of greater or lessor inequality, and use more obviously ethical terminology to describe things like abortion because they don't directly map onto greater of lessor inequality. Whilst abortions would be expected to be lower in a country with less inequality, in the US the Right Wing usually advocates more restricted abortion, which suggests the economic and ethical meanings of Right and Left need to be separated, and distinctly economic or ethical terms used instead.
Yes, I got pretty confused in my first years back here. I'm beginning to think the US Left means Chaos and the Right means Order.
Well the neo-Left is chaotic, they seem to hate and want to destroy everything, especially America, Americans and Jews. The traditional Liberal Left that is dedicated to constitutional limits on the federal power is as respectful of ordered liberty as the Right is. This is funny. The anti-Free Speech Left is now getting yelled down by other members of the anti-free speech Left. Hillary's big fan of government censorship of opposing views, especially views that call out the liars in the government. Hillary To Students on Gaza: Can We Talk & Not Shout?
In ideological terms, it means pretty much the same. However, it is also used to simply mean Democrats (left) and Republicans (right) without necessarily a reference to political ideology. For example, something that is not necessarily left or right in some countries. Like healthcare, for example. Those who support universal (or more widespread) healthcare are considered left, and those who oppose it are right. Probably. But you'd have a hard time making it stick.
Here are some areas where we are seeing budding bipartisan agreement, reining government spying on Americans without a warrant: The FISA Fight Portions of it are up for renewal and some reforms are badly needed. 'Rules is set to consider an amendment proposed by Judiciary to require national security agencies to obtain a warrant for obtaining information on U.S. persons involved in activities the government is surveilling. The push has mainly come from the Judiciary Committee with bipartisan support—Jordan and Ranking Member Jerry Nadler have worked together for the inclusion of warrant requirements. Both the Judiciary and Intelligence Committees are reportedly in favor of this amendment and will vote for its inclusion. Other curious bipartisan efforts have cropped up around the issue of FISA warrants—Davidson has been pushing for warrant requirements with progressive Rep. Zoe Lofgren on Capitol Hill.' “There is a strong bipartisan coalition advocating for privacy protections,” Davidson told The American Conservative in an email. “These privacy provisions for American citizens should be included if FISA is allowed to continue.” “Representative Turner is well aware of the fact that FISA section 702 is used to spy on American citizens,” Davidson told TAC. “According to their own reporting, the FBI searched for 119,383 unique query terms associated with U.S. persons. In fact, Darin LaHood, a member of HPSCI, was subject to an illegal search in 2020.”
