Is saying "all right wingers are fascists" the same as "all muslims are terrorists"?

[JohnBrown1917]

I think that most people have no idea what left wing and right wing mean anymore. And claiming that Right Wing means Authoritarian and Left Wing means Libertarian is ludicrous.

It was the Left that passed the NDAA, it was the Right that cried about it stepping on peoples rights. It is the Left that wants to take away gun rights, it is the left that wants to limit free speech, it is the left that wants to empower the Federal Government over the state governments.

The US democrats are not left wing, so you're wrong on all counts.

[Endus]

I think that most people have no idea what left wing and right wing mean anymore. And claiming that Right Wing means Authoritarian and Left Wing means Libertarian is ludicrous.

That's not what I said.

I was pointing out that there are two general axes to political thinking (well, more, but two that we can use here). Left-right, and authoritarian-libertarian. I was pointing out that rhetoric from some on the right suggest that most people on the left lean Authoritarian as well, while people on the right lean Libertarian. I was pointing out that if you look at actual politicians and parties, the general trend is the opposite of that; it's a broad trend that left-wingers tend to be more libertarian, and things get more authoritarian as you go right.

I emphasized that this is only broadly true in developed countries, and only as a broad trend; there can, obviously, be exceptions. I am not arguing that you cannot be left-wing and authoritarian, just that it's not the most commonly expressed left-wing viewpoint.

The two axes are separate, and you can fall anywhere. But if you look at actual stated political viewpoints by politicians and parties, there's a trend that emerges, and it's broadly from left-libertarian to right-authoritarian. There are exceptions, but most fall in that broad trend.

It was the Left that passed the NDAA, it was the Right that cried about it stepping on peoples rights. It is the Left that wants to take away gun rights, it is the left that wants to limit free speech, it is the left that wants to empower the Federal Government over the state governments.

For every NDAA, there's a PATRIOT Act.
"The left" isn't talking about taking away gun rights, in the USA. Gun control legislation does not do so.
The left isn't limiting free speech. Noting that your free speech doesn't protect you from other people's free speech or people making decisions based on what you said is not a "limit".
And empowering Federal over State governments isn't automatically "authoritarian"; I suspect you don't understand what the term means.

And like Gilrak said above, the Democrats generally land center to center-right, when placed on any objective metric. They aren't left-wing ideologues, for the most part.

- - - Updated - - -

This all depends on how accurate one thinks the Political Compass is. The Political Compass is a useful tool to map out the political landscape, but like every kind of map, it's by no means a completely accurate representation of the entire landscape.

I fully admit that the Political Compass' actual test is pretty US-centric, and it likely skews results a bit; I think it sets the center a little to the libertarian-left, pushing things more into the upper-right quadrant generally.

But that skew doesn't really change the trend pattern, it changes where the center is set on that pattern. It still runs from lower-left to upper-right, generally speaking.

If you have a better resource, feel free to link it. I'm using the Political Compass out of convenience, not because I think it's perfect.

[Rumred]

That would also be incorrect, for its time it was enlightened and pretty non-violent - until of course the Christians came

Yup those none-violent conquest that took Islam from Arabia within a a short time to northern Syria,Persia/India all the way to into Spain and knocking on southern france in in what the 600 to 800's many century's before the crusades. All of this of course was none-violent.

[Daedius]

I'll take that as a "yes" then. Have a nice evening!!

Whatever helps you sleep at night...

[Volardelis]

I think that most people have no idea what left wing and right wing mean anymore. And claiming that Right Wing means Authoritarian and Left Wing means Libertarian is ludicrous.

It was the Left that passed the NDAA, it was the Right that cried about it stepping on peoples rights. It is the Left that wants to take away gun rights, it is the left that wants to limit free speech, it is the left that wants to empower the Federal Government over the state governments.

In Australia, it was a right wing Prime Minister (and a massive conservative I might add) that imposed tough guns laws.

The democrat party under Bill Clinton shifted back to the right, and continued to do so under Obama, just they weren't as far on the right as the republican party became.