How do you Define Left and Right?

[Marnetmar]

A lot of people seem to have different definitions of "left" and "right", even though the "wikipedia" definition, which I use, seems to be that the left emphasizes egalitarianism and the right doesn't.

Here in Utah, which is extremely conservative, most people I talk to measure it as the left supporting bigger government and the right supporting smaller government, effectively making anarchism extremely right-wing, yet these are the same people who support banning birth control and condom sales.

Others measure it by the economic scale, where the left supports more regulation of the economy and the right supports deregulation. With all of the different definitions out there, I thought it would be interesting to start a discussion on it.

[Marnetmar]

To answer your question:

In France, where the terms originated, the Left is called "the party of movement" and the Right "the party of order."

Are you saying that this is what you define it as or what the terms meant originally? I know what they meant originally of course, but people today seem to have a lot of different definitions, so I'm curious to hear what they are.

[Marnetmar]

Heh, I think they're ridiculous definitions myself, but trying to explain that it's not quite that simple usually ends up with me being called a communist.

[Marnetmar]

Throughout the world, Adolf Hitler, Ron Paul, Rick Santorum, etc. are all classified as extreme-right, even though there are a lot of differences between the them. Perhaps a valid definition that applies to all political situations throughout the world can be created by finding what all of the people classified as "right wing" (or left) throughout the world have in common?