There's No Such Thing as a Right-Wing Extremist

There’s no such thing as a right-wing extremist. There’s no such thing as a left-wing extremist either. Because the whole right-left model doesn’t work.

Yes, there are extremists. But communism (what we’ve been calling extreme left) isn’t the polar opposite of fascism (what we’ve been calling extreme right); they are almost the same. Both are nasty, misery-filled tyrannies. Trying to find some balance between two really awful things only gives us a really awful compromise.

I propose that we look at the actual polar opposites, and the world of positions between them, in hopes that we can make some better choices.

We want freedom, prosperity, and civilization. That’s our goal. We can judge an ideology or government form by how far it diverges from those political, economic, and social goal zones: near, far, or extremely far.

In the Spherical Model, the political sphere has freedom as the north pole; the south pole is tyranny. Overlaying that is the Economic Sphere, with prosperity north and poverty south. And overlaying the other layers is the Social Sphere, with civilization north and savagery south.

Lateral location on the sphere is neutral; it depends on whether the issue being looked at is relevant to local, regional, national, or larger interests, on a spectrum ranging from the individual and family all the way up to global. Lateral posistion only relates to tyranny if a higher level than necessary tries to take control.

When we look at the extremes of communism and fascism, they’re pretty close to one another. They may even overlap: the communist Soviet Union was called the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic. Nazi Germany was the National Socialist Party.

In this example Communism is blue, Socialism is red, Fascism is green

If we draw them on our Political Sphere, communism and fascism are both in the lower left quadrant, where you find statist tyranny, or totalitarianism. Socialism might overlap them completely. Or, as it is in some countries, there could be only partial socialism, so those versions might be less far south into tyranny. And there could be versions that are globalist, or only national or even more local. For example, Berkeley, California, has had a communist mayor and some citywide communist policies. And California is clearly more socialist than Utah or Texas. The latter two are much closer to Constitutional freedom than the current US as a whole.

From the perspective of the global interest extreme,
moving away from global interest either left or right

Communism and fascism can be different ideologies and still be right next to one another on the sphere. If we spin the globe a bit, so we’re directly facing the far eastern global line, we can place communism all the way south and next to global interests, and fascism can also be all the way south and next to global interests. It’s like being on either side of the international dateline. You might have come at the dateline from one direction, and your friend might have gotten there from the other direction, but you’re both within a couple of blocks from each other with an imaginary line between you.

Why does all this matter? Because ideas matter. Philosophies matter. That’s what determines what our governments are like.

And what our governments are like determines what our lives are like. How free we are to pursue our dreams, live our lives, enjoy the fruits of our labors and our property. Governments can either protect our life, liberty, and property, or they can limit our choices and prevent us from thriving.

And even if we, ourselves, figure out how to get to freedom, prosperity, and civilization, the government we live under is in part determined by the rest of society. So we need others to learn how to get there too.

Here’s the secret we keep trying to yell from the rooftops: Government needs to be limited to its proper role, the way it’s spelled out in the Preamble to the Constitution:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

For prosperity, government gets out of the way of a free market and merely protects our lives and property. And for civilization, government that gets out of our way while encouraging good citizens to honor God, family, life, property, and truth.