re: #586 000G

So saying “Fox News is a right-wing media outlet” makes as much sense as saying “Fox News is a left-wing media outlet”?

Yes, in that ‘right-wing’ there just means “GOP”. Which is what I said earlier.

You apparently think I said “The words don’t have any meaning and can never have any meaning whenever used”, instead of, as I actually said, that the words basically are just shorthand for GOP or Democrat, or in a different context, social conservative or not a social conservative.

Did you just skip that bit or something?

“When Glenn Beck calls Hitler a left-wing dictator he is incorrect” is as meaningful as saying “When Glenn Beck calls Hitler a right-wing dictator he is correct”?

You seem to be, for some reason, thinking that I said that these words can’t have any contextual meaning. But yes, it’s incorrect to say that Hitler was either left or right wing. Saying so is meaningless. If your ad-hod definition of right-wing includes strong state power, then he was right wing. If your ad-hoc definition of the left is for strong state power, then he’s left-wing. Really, he is neither, nor are any other totalitarians, in the context of politics as they apply to democracy.

The different social aims of Left and Right also change throughout history depending on the social circumstances but coherently stay true to their respective idealistic and ideological impetus in regards to social stratification.

I’m sorry, but do you see that here your own ad hoc definitions are breaking down? You’re apparently implying that one or the other ‘side’ has a specific view of social stratification, but earlier you touched on the fact, which I raised, that both ‘sides’ often share the same goal but differ in how to get there. Or they agree on the methods, or they disagree on how to get there. Or they absolutely agree on the goals, and how to get there, but disagree on who should get credit for that idea.

Left and right are simply arbitrary designations for any two political groups that are struggling with each other. What’s weird is that even in countries that don’t have a two-party system, people still prefer to pretend the left/right distinction exists, even if they have to go through bizarre loops in their head to have it make sense.

Yes, your problem, since you seem to go by the assumption that the terms could ever have meaning independent from how people used and use them when you ask me to define what left and right “are”.

Heh. No, I don’t assume they could ever have such meaning. That’s my entire point, actually. They have no meaning except in how people use them, and people use them in arbitrary and incoherent ways. And they always have.