Here’s a primer on today’s political landscape.

What does this singular noun, politics, really mean?

At its core, politics is about how people live together in groups and make collective decisions, especially regarding power, resources, rights, and responsibilities. It is the process through which societies debate, decide, and implement rules and structures that shape how we live and how we interact. Were I inclined to provide a succinct definition, I would describe politics as the practice and theory of organizing collective life. In a nod to political scientist Harold Lassell, this includes decisions about:

• Who gets what, when, and how
• Who holds power and how it is exercised
• What values a society upholds, and
• What systems (laws, institutions, norms) govern interactions

Thus, politics is fundamentally about structuring both community and society, distributing power and resources, and addressing the question: “How, ideally, should we live together?”

Politics is not a bad thing in and of itself. A lot of people are squeamish about even discussing the subject, but it need not be that way. Trying to make smart and wise decisions about how best to structure society and live together in a productive way seems to me to be a very engaging and important topic of discussion.

Yet there are political parties, groups of people who espouse certain ideologies, that are in conflict with certain opposing ideologies. Thus, political ideas and policies get debated in the public square, as part of the marketplace of ideas. There are winners and losers. There are good ideas and bad ideas. Individuals may differ on a host of things, such as:

• Should we maintain a strong military?
• Should we save for a rainy day or spend more than we have on the assumption that we will have more at a future time?
• Should people be free to do whatever they want?
• Should we make educating our citizens mandatory or optional?
• How much value should our nation place on religion?

It seems to me that these are valid and interesting questions. They are political questions. Yet not everyone will agree on the answers to such questions. So we debate them, discuss them, dissect them, look at the pros and cons concerning them, and vote on them. Then we hopefully get behind them.

Today, we not only have two major political parties, we have two major ideologies: Conservative (or those on the “right,”) and Leftist. Where did those two terms (Left and Right) originate? I will explain.

The terms originated during the French Revolution. In 1789, during meetings of the French National Assembly, those who supported radical change and revolutionary ideas sat on the Left. One of their factions, the Jacobins, were thoroughly Leftist and were behind the thousands of beheadings of the bloody and violent French Revolution.  They were the precursor of today’s Antifa radicals.  By contrast, those who supported traditional institutions sat on the right of the assembly.

In our day, the terms Left or Leftist or Leftism or Left-Wing have come to mean those who favor what they imagine are “progressive” policies, meaning policies that deviate from what the Founding Fathers envisioned. They preach what they call social equality and they like government control over the people. They disdain entrepreneurship because entrepreneurship presupposes freedom of thought and action rather than dependence on the government.

Conversely, the terms Right, Right-of-Center, Right-Wing, and similar terms suggest those who support tradition (including traditional marriage), individual responsibility, free markets, and limited government intrusion into our lives.

Here is a brief but fair snapshot of how these two ideologies stack up. See which ones most resonate with your own thinking.

On Patriotism:

• Conservatives tend to stand for a strong commitment to honoring our country, celebrating our standards and accomplishments, reverencing the flag, strengthening our nation.
• Leftists tend to see our country as highly problematic, focusing more on its flaws, denigrating our foundations, and having no problem with burning our flag as a form of protest.

On Law and Order:

• Conservatives, when they are embracing their own values, see law and order as a necessary part of maintaining a coherent society. They see criminals as needing to be held to account for their crimes, and see murderers in particular as worthy of receiving the harshest of punishments in the justice system – including Capital Punishment on occasion.
• Leftists tend to place much emphasis on trying to understand the needs of the criminals and to try to study why a criminal did what he or she did. Leftists veer towards compassion and mercy towards criminals, hoping they can be rehabilitated. A Leftist judge would tend to want to release a criminal back into society, hoping the criminal has learned an important lesson and be given a second chance to redeem him- or herself.

On Religion:

• An individual conservative may or may not be devoted to a particular faith tradition, yet would tend to see religion as an important element in the founding of our nation, and an important part of a healthy, productive society. Religion should be valued as well as protected for those who wish to be active in a faith-community.
• Some people on the Left may individually have some sort of connection to a faith community, at least nominally, but most veer towards secularism and see religion and religious people as backwards, judgmental, and superstitious. Many, though certainly not all, Left-wing people maintain a somewhat hostile view of religion and certainly look upon believers of Jesus Christ as worthy of mockery.

On Social Issues such as abortion, gender, human sexuality, and the like:

• Conservatives look askance at abortion rights activists, chiding them for uttering incomplete phrases such as a “woman’s right to choose” without finishing that sentence and talking unambiguously about what that woman is choosing . Likewise, a conservative would see the term gender indistinguishable from the term sex (meaning the distinctions between male and female being sacrosanct). A conservative would look to scientific realities such as chromosomal structure as the determining factor of what constitutes male and female, and conservatives see such distinctions as immutable. In that, conservatives adhere to thousands of years of societal norms.
• Leftists tend to see abortion as something a woman should have as an undeniable right to undergo, regardless of the reason, as they see the fetus as part of the mother’s body, not as an independent body of an independent person within the body of the mother. Leftists believe that if a man “identifies” as a woman, that identification itself automatically transforms that man into an actual woman regardless of chromosomal realities, or genitalia, or any of the other immutable characteristics that point to that person as a male (i.e., facial hair, size, upper body strength, voice, etc.) A man with a penis and a beard and all of the other characteristics of a male is believed to be an actual female if that is what he claims he is.

On Economics:

• Economics seems to be a curiosity where politics is concerned. Many otherwise “Conservative” people do not necessarily possess the requisite “Conservative instincts” to be called a conservative in this arena. They are, to use a word, Liberal in that they are liberal and lavish in their spending. I’m talking about leaders in government who pull the levers of power. Thus, whether a person is otherwise on the Right or the Left in areas as described above doesn’t necessarily tell much about their political proclivities. Economics is a unique animal in this regard. To cite but two examples, President Bill Clinton was a man of the Left who governed more towards the center but was actually rather conservative economically speaking. President George W. Bush was a man of the right who intended to mark his Presidency by what he called a “humble foreign policy.” That all changed with the 9/11 attacks, and the subsequent war on terror in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the spending ballooned up to colossal levels.

Final Word:
I have been merely descriptive with this article, by illustrating in a straightforward and objective way what these two forces tend to stand for. Were I to be prescriptive rather than descriptive, I would be trying to promote one over the other. I have not done so. Were someone to press me and ask, “Which approach, Conservative or Leftist, do you recommend?” I would simply say, “You decide. Use your best judgment and try to ascertain what results each approach tends to produce, and then make a decision.” I know where I land, but that is neither here nor there.

And that, my friends, is the latest elephant in the room.