Memes

See those jackasses with swastikas, they hate you. They’re the furthest right. See the people with hammers and sickles or black flags and maltovs? They hate each other almost as much as they hate the rich. They’re the furthest left.

In reality the right wing wants lower taxes, more police, more military, less corporate legislation, and to regulate your sexual and medical decisions every moral panic. They also tend to vote how their preacher tells them.

The left wing wants to regulate businesses, fund public works and social services, try to create a more equal society (the right wants hierarchy), and generally supports freedom except when used for bigotry. We also like unions. The further left you go the more you like unions.

Obligatory Wilhoit: “Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.”

Bro, the left and right are originally French, not American, and they're applied worldwide throughout various systems.

Long story short, in the original National Assembly in 1789, people with similar opinions ended up befriending each-other and sitting nearby during the session, so at one point you had all those who thought the revolution ought to go further (give more rights to more people, decrease the power of the king or outright depose him, etc...) sitting on the left, and all those who thought the revolution had gone to far already and ought to slow down sitting on the right.

Of course, by this metric, the very concept of a republic is far left, but the idea is that no matter what system you're in, once it's established enough, wanting to maintain the status quo is being a centrist, wanting change that puts more power in the hands of common people is left wing, and opposing such changes or wanting to undo them to "restore order", often concentrating power in fewer hands, is right wing.

This "power" I speak of was at the beginning just political power, but through the 19th century, the focus shifted towards economic power. Therefore, since the late 19th century, a right wing policy a policy that favors the rich, and a left wing policy one that places restrictions on the rich and welfare policy for the poor to decrease inequality. This is why liberals were initially left wing, but neoliberalism is now mostly regarded as a wing ideology. These are policies that want a weaker state, but more rights/powers for rich individuals.

If in America then it's all right wing.

Some people enjoy walking on the wings of passenger planes. For some reason Americans are really hostile about which wing is better to stand on while in flight.

Left wingers want collective ownership of the Means of Production, right wingers want individual ownership of the Means of Production.

What follows from that are generally a bunch of interconnected, intersectional views. Leftists tend to oppose hierarchy, rightists tend to support hierarchy.

I can't stop recommending the youtube channel what is politics. Seriously: it's perfect if you're represented by this meme.

It's a simple series of videos that explains in digestible terms what right and left are and why everyone should care.

There's a hockey joke in there too.

It depends if you're watching them from the front or the back. So it can be quite confusing.

Left wing and right wing are like political vibes. They only make sense when you have more understanding of what the issues are. What they mean can change over time.

I think it's easier to understand what the individual issues are and why people want them or don't want them. Then you need to figure out what your ideology is and pick what things you want to support to further your political goals.

Political "debates" are useless, but I always like to watch different conceptions from different countries.

When I see USA politics right-wingers have some speeches and actions that left-wingers have in my home country and vise-versa.

Like, leftwingers in my country usually attack a former rightwing president because he supposedly fomented immigration, specially illegal immigration. (Although, here rigwingers also have more hate against the inmigrant, just like US) 1 (sorry for the language, didn't find an english version of it)

Or a former leftwing president that mobilized our army to Haiti to protect their democracy 2

Same with labels: In US "liberal" is a left wing label, in my country is a righ wing one.

Same apply in other countries, like I see Spanish news when "republicans" are the radical ones, usually left-wing, because they oppose monarchy, and the "republican" flag is a left-wing symbol for spaniards.

That's why political labels are pretty useless too. Republican means literal nazi or revolutionary against monarchy depending where you are lol.

Those who wank off with left hand are left wingers and those that wank off with right hand are right winger. And none of them are gonna care about your privacy or freedom.

You're probably better off not knowing. This stuff never makes a person happy.