Left-right America

I have been openly critical of the left-right political spectrum. I find it ridiculous that we can identify politics that touch diverse concepts on a singular scale. A lot of this is arbitrary, and the use of this political spectrum leads people to very bizarre conclusions.

What if we look at politics in terms of government size? We insist that anarchy, which is an absence of government, is far left. Not surprisingly, this puts the totalitarian concept of fascism at the far right of the spectrum.

In the United States, we view Republicans as right wing and Democrats as left wing. Republicans believe in small government, although they don't always live by that viewpoint. Democrats believe in big government. While I'm at it, let me add our biggest third party into the mix. Libertarians generally believe in minimal government, and they are frequently classified as right leaning (although there are increasing attempts to label them as far right).

If you go from left to right, what do we get in our country? Here's a list:

• No government
• Big government
• Minimal government
• Small/mid-sized government
• Total government

Do you honestly believe this scale makes sense? I certainly don't. There are also a lot of implications to using this scale. There are a lot of Americans who believe that the extreme version of a big government is no government. The same people believe that small government is a fascist concept.

This might not be a popular opinion, but I would like to retire this stupid concept. Let's try to see the parties for what they really are. Let's stop acting like a one-dimensional scale is sufficient to establish anyone's political beliefs. We should be able to do far better than allow this absurdity to manipulate our views of politics.