Public Education's Political Spectrum

Last week I watched a fairly sensational documentary on Polish gangs. The facts and footage were fairly straight forward. Most of the gangs were a fancy blend of white supremacy and Polish nationalism. These guys were mean looking and mean acting. Both somewhat predictable, my problem lay in the fact the commentator kept referring to the gangs as right wing, and worse than that the gang’s rise of prominence was linked to a rise of right wing politics. Now I know the Euros don’t like a bush, but does the logic really follow.

Let’s go back to our high school years and go over our indoctrination into political science. We good, for the most part morally superior Canadians remember the mantra…
On the far left we have Communists. These guys seek to control and organize society’s economic and cultural life. In Communists countries all capital and recourses are owned by the government. Then on the far right we have fascists. Fascists also seek to control society from a moral and economic perspective, the difference being (I presume because I find this entire concoction entirely ludicrous) that capital and resources are not exclusively controlled by the state. Both are managed, with the blessing of government, by private entities, free from bureaucratic ineptness. Fascism, a highly nationalist and chauvinistic philosophy is naively portrayed in Canada and Europe as what happens when business becomes too powerful.

Then in the middle, taking the best from the left and the right (the communal morality of Communism and practical necessity of private ownership?) we have Canada. This is the basis of political knowledge from my public school years.

Here is the crux of a rational understanding of Communists and Fascists alike. They are one in the same. They are both spurned by the same collectivist methodology. A methodology that states “I know what is best for society, so this is how everyone shall live, and if they will not they shall live like I see fit, they will be put to death.” Both societies are completely regulated by the elite that are in charge of all aspects of a person’s private life. Both societies are completely dependent on the arbitrary whims of whatever madman is steering the ship. In this vain there is no difference between any dictators (Hitler, the Taliban, Pinochet, Stalin, the crazy from Iran, Chaves, Edi Amin...), regardless of what ideology they purport. People are not free from arbitrary rule in these countries. Does anyone really believe that businessmen were free from Hitler’s influence in Germany? Sure they kept profits, but they produced what he told them to produce (less widgets and more tanks) at the point of the gun. This isn’t freedom. Shouldn’t the opposite of a slave society be a free one?

Societies are not philosophically separated by the whims and actions of whatever dictator is in charge. What separates Canada from Fascism and Communism alike is the fact Canadians are not ruled by any absolute authorities. There are checks and balances that prevent a single madman from being able to prescribe what is best for society (whether it is forbidding religion or genocide). *It was hard for me not insert a Trudeau joke here*

The traditional dialectical understanding is absurd. I always ask people that still espouse this type of thinking: where do libertarians fit in? Where would Ron Paul fit on the spectrum? The spectrum should still be a single line going from left to right, but the standard used to place an ideology on this line, should be based upon the amount of control the government has over society, regardless of their explicit intentions.

So Canada is still in the middle, but for different reasons than the utopian ones we are taught in our public education.