The Left is good, the Right is bad

The Left is good. It stands for progress and equality for all. The Left is youthful, kind, and well-intended. It’s rebellious, smart, and cool. The Left doesn’t believe in incentives, efficiency, free prices, or supply and demand. Instead, it thinks the economy can be nicely planned. It fights discrimination, except against its critics and the prosperous, who deserve to be silenced, plundered, and punished. The Left promises to impose perfectly self-defined fairness and social justice, while not judging or harming anyone. It’s intellectually and morally superior, and the times it ends up controlled by ruthless, incompetent dictators are just unfortunate derailments from its bright path. The Left aims to eliminate social hierarchies, through violence if needed, because it doesn’t believe performance has to be rewarded. Instead, it promises jobs and quality education, housing and healthcare, for free, to everyone. It is a way towards a glorious future, “a brotherhood of man.”

The Right is bad. It’s backwards and narrow-minded, only protecting the interests of the few. It’s sleazy and it’s dirty, controlled by mean, rich, selfish people who always oppress the poor. It advocates private enterprise, freedom, personal and fiscal responsibility—but who needs these empty concepts when we have some earthly deity called a “state” that can take care of everyone? The Right supports charities, but altruism and compassion become obsolete when money and property can be legally confiscated, and free speech is just a distraction when you already know the way. The Right is clearly dangerous, since impartial scholars labeled the criminal National Socialist German Workers’ party as “far-right”. The nazis, just like the communists, were anti-capitalist idealists who ended up committing crimes against humanity in the name of “the people,” but there is nothing to learn from that. Instead, some think the Right, with all its conservatives, Christian democrats and (classical) liberals, should be eradicated. Things would be so much better without religion, a free market, rich people, evil companies and banks. We wouldn’t even need multiple political parties: the struggle would once again be over; all people would be equal and “the world will live as one.”

And so, one hundred years and one hundred million victims later, we keep trying. We hand over our freedom and take the same deceptive path towards state dependence, thinking it’s for the greater good. The Left blinds us with its noble ideals and apparently grand moral standing, so we miss its unrealistic claims and fundamental flaws. We overlook the risks and explain away its colossal failures. In the most fortunate of cases, it leads to economic weakness or outright collapse. But it’s also responsible for the most horrific totalitarian regimes in history. Communism was never put on trial, though. One hundred million victims are swept under the rug. And so we think the Left today does not pose any danger; the enemies are still the business owners and the banks. We see through so-called right-wing propaganda, but left-wing aggressive populism doesn’t make us bat an eye. When the Right gets to power, it’s time to worry; when left-wing parties win elections, it’s time to celebrate. And when, once more, things end up badly, the Left pulls out its good intentions card. We can’t get upset with some dreamers, don’t be silly. There are always somewhere some imperialist capitalists to blame.