While I think Charles is right that complaining about the “right wing” moniker for these idiots is pointless (since the language is so rooted at this point, even if wrong, IMO), it does bother me a little. The whole “left vs right” linear paradigm for establishing a political geography is seriously lacking.

Something akin to that “political compass” notion of an X,Y rating with one axis economic freedom, and the other personal might be better, perhaps even a Z axis. A more rational system like this would place loons on either side well away from the extremes of the 2 major parties in the US.

If a handful of issues have overlap with right, calling them “right” makes as much sense as the same in the other direction. One could probably find a few places to overlap AQ with the “right” views (ID, etc), but also with “left” views (say anything Carter says lately as an obvious example).

I’d rather see them labeled more simply as “extreme racists” or something like that. Won’t happen, though :)