The Political Spectrum
In political discussions today, people commonly refer to the political spectrum, but rarely does anyone define the terms. As a result, the terms become distorted and practically meaningless. To make matters worse, those on the Left often change the terms in order to distance themselves from terms that have taken on a negative meaning. For example, Liberals often refers to themselves as Progressives, a positive term, to distance themselves from the term Liberal, which has become a negative term.
The two most common categories on the political spectrum are the Right, which are understood to be the Conservatives, and the Left, which are understood to be the Liberals. When speaking of the Right, the media frequently speak of the Right as the Far Right and often use the adjective “extremist” to further alienate the Right. The media often includes in this category groups they consider extreme such as evangelical Christians, pro-life supporters and gun-rights advocates. They also occasionally include in this category Nazis and Fascists.
On rare occasions, you will hear mention of the Far Left which would include the Communists and Socialists, but the media speaks of this category as if these people no longer exist. What is most interesting about placing Nazis and Fascists on the Far Right and Communists and Socialists on the Far Left is that all of these groups are totalitarian and in the 20th century, each of these groups killed millions of people. So, how do you distinguish any one of these groups from the others? Why are these groups not all in the same political category?
The last major category are the people that are considered to be the smartest and most reasonable people on the planet and the type of people that we should all strive to be. These are the Moderates or Centrists. No one ever explains who these people are or what they actually believe. They are usually portrayed in the media as those who are giving careful consideration to all of the candidates, or are weighing all sides of an issue and, therefore, have not made a decision yet.
Defining the Political Spectrum
So, how can we define the political spectrum in a way that makes sense? The easiest way is to place all of these groups and categories on a chart. On the x-axis, we will graph the percentage of government control. On the Far Right of the x-axis will be 0% government. On the Far Left will be 100% government. On the vertical axis, the y-axis, we will graph Freedom. At the bottom is 0% freedom and on the top is 100% freedom.
If we begin at the Far Right, 0% government, and place a point on the chart for Freedom, where would that point be? In other words, if you have no government, how much freedom do you have? In his Commentaries on the Laws of England, William Blackstone, quoting John Locke, stated that, “Where there is no law, there is no freedom.” With 0% government, Blackstone would place this point on the x-axis, or at 0% freedom. Blackstone’s point is that if there is no government, then you are not free because you are enslaved to survival. Your time and efforts would be spent protecting yourself, your family and your stuff. If this point on the chart is not at 0% freedom, it would certainly be at the lower end of the freedom scale.
As you move left from 0% government and add government, freedom increases. With an empowered government, you have the law and government at your side to protect you and your property. The Declaration of Independence states that the purpose of government is to “secure these rights”. As you move to the left, freedom will rapidly increase… to a point. At a point not too far to the left from 0% government, freedom will peak. As you move to the left from this Pinnacle of Freedom and add more government, government will begin to take your freedom. As you move further and further to the left, freedom will continue to erode until you are left, again, with virtually no freedom.
Our founders created a government that would be just large enough to create the greatest amount of freedom. It is this Pinnacle of Freedom that would be correctly labeled Conservative or the Right. To the left of this Pinnacle is where you find the Left as well as all the other totalitarian, big government, groups: Liberals, Progressives, Communists, Socialists, Nazis, Fascists, Statists, etc. All of these Leftist groups have one purpose, to control everything you have and everything you do. As government grows in size and power, that is exactly what it does. It controls your possessions and ultimately, it controls you.
So, if the Pinnacle of Freedom is correctly labeled the Right or Conservative, and if to the left of the Pinnacle is the Left and all the big government groups, then what is to the right of the Pinnacle? This would be correctly labeled the Far Right and is where you would find those that call themselves Libertarian. The Far Right, or Libertarians, are not just interested in limited or small government in order to create the greatest amount of freedom. Libertarians want as little government as possible in order to have license to do whatever they wish as long as it causes no harm according to their definition of “no harm.”
The Political Spectrum can be correctly graphed into these 3 categories:
- the Left (big government, limited freedom)
- the Right (limited government, maximum freedom), and
- the Far Right (little government, license instead of freedom).
For the remainder of this discussion, the following terms will be used for clarity for these 3 categories:
- Leftist = the Left
- Conservative = the Right
- Libertarian = the Far Right
Further Defining the Political Spectrum
Each person who has ever lived has a belief system through which they view the world. This belief system, or worldview, is used by each person to interpret and make sense of the world around them. This belief system is essentially a person’s religion.
The Political Spectrum, as charted above, can be further defined by superimposing onto the chart who each of the three groups believes is sovereign, or, in other words, by clarifying who each group believes that God is.
Leftists believe that government is god, that government is the only sovereign entity in the world. As such, in government is found salvation. Government is the sustainer of life, the great physician, the provider, the comforter. Government is the all-knowing, benevolent provider of justice. Government is the giver of all good things. Leftists are those who look to government for all the answers to our problems and are those who want to use government to control behavior. This would not only include those who believe in no god, but also those who have a totalitarian theocratic religion such as Islam.
Libertarians believe that man is sovereign, that man, himself, is god. Man is capable on his own to care for himself and only needs the assistance of a very small government to protect himself and his possessions. Man can decide for himself what is good and right and proper. Man is essentially good, and, if left alone, man will do what is right and will wish to do no one any harm. Man will tend to do what is moral.
Conservatives believe that God is God. God is not only the Creator, but He alone is the omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, omni benevolent Sovereign of all. Each and every person is solely responsible to God for his actions. To put it another way, at the Pinnacle of Freedom, Conservatives believe that “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty” (II Cor. 3:17). Without Christ there is not and there cannot be true liberty. To the left and to the right of the Pinnacle are political philosophies that are simply godless. Without God there cannot be liberty.
Liberty without God?
Can these godless political philosophies, Leftists and Libertarians, create, sustain and enjoy liberty? The answer is emphatically, no, for several reasons:
First, Libertarians, and occasionally Leftists, like to use the terms moral and immoral to define something as being right or wrong. When someone uses these terms it begs the question, “How do you determine what is moral and/or immoral?” In construction or cooking or science and etc., there is a fixed standard that is used to determine the length of an inch or a foot, or the size of a teaspoon or a milliliter. Without a fixed standard, then the terms inch, foot, teaspoon and milliliter are meaningless because they would mean different things to different people.
When it comes to morality, there must also be a fixed standard that determines what is moral and what is not. If there is not a fixed standard to define what is moral or immoral, then morality is meaningless. Morality would be nothing more than someone’s opinion.
Since God is immutable (unchangeable), then whatever God states is right or wrong, moral or immoral, is always and forever right or wrong, moral or immoral. He is the standard and that standard will never change.
Without God, then man, individually or through government, defines for himself what is moral and immoral. If man defines the standard, then the standard will change as the majority changes. What was wrong and immoral yesterday could be right and moral today. Without an immutable standard of right and wrong, then man can and will justify any action as right and moral. In a world without God and His moral standard, then declaring that Hitler was immoral and evil because he killed six million Jews is nothing more than an opinion. We might believe today that Hitler’s actions were immoral, but in a world with a majority who are Islamists, it would be immoral not to kill Jews. “Woe to those who would call evil good and good evil” Isa. 5:20.
Libertarians consider morality to be doing “no harm” to someone else. On the surface, this may sound reasonable, but without a fixed standard of morality, this is just an opinion. At the turn of the 20th Century, an atheistic, evolutionary worldview was beginning to take hold. In that worldview, blacks, and aborigines were considered closer in the evolutionary tree of life to apes than to humans. As such, many black Africans and Australian aborigines were hunted as animals. Since society considered them animals, hunting them as animals was not doing harm to anyone.
Leftist believe that morality is doing whatever is for the greater good of society. Your value is determined by what you are able to contribute. Those who are disabled, or too young or too old to contribute are of less value to society than those in the prime of their lives whom society has invested in and who have more to contribute to society.
In the future, if a majority decides that some other group of people are nothing more than animals, or if government decides that some group of people have little or nothing to contribute to society, then eliminating these people could be considered a moral act.
With a fixed standard of morality in an immutable God, then “Thou shalt not kill” will always mean “Thou shalt not kill”, regardless of who you are, where you were born, your physical abilities or disabilities or your contribution to society. With an immutable God, then each and every human being’s life is sacred and worthy of protection. With an immutable God there can be true security and freedom.
Secondly, Leftists and Libertarians believe that people are by nature good and moral. They believe that if left alone, man will tend to do what is right. Man only chooses to do evil when some outside influence forces him to make these choices; influences such as poverty, hunger, war, etc. Conservatives on the other hand, believe, as God clearly states, that “all have sinned” (Rom. 3:16). The heart of man is bent towards sin and evil. Without any outside restraint, without God himself as that restraint, then for man “every intent of the thoughts of his heart would be on evil continually” (Gen 6:5). With an immutable God restraining the heart of man there can be true security and freedom.
The Final Result
Without God, the tendency is always to move left on the political spectrum. In those occasions when a people have moved to the right of the Pinnacle of Freedom, that society has eroded into lawlessness and anarchy. Lawlessness and anarchy always open the door for a dictator to step in and restore order. A move toward Libertarianism will eventually end in totalitarianism. The best example of this is found in the last half of the 18th Century.
In the 1760s and 1770s, the American colonies found themselves living under a tyrannical King and Parliament who declared in 1766 that they “have full power and authority to make laws… in all cases whatsoever.” The colonies found themselves living under a Leftist government. The American Revolution was an act of the colonists to restore freedom by climbing to the Pinnacle of Freedom by establishing a government firmly grounded in a Creator / Divine Providence/ Supreme Judge who “endowed” humanity with “certain unalienable rights.” This new American government was founded to “secure these rights.” As John Adams stated, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious (Christian) people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
Not long after the American Revolution, another revolution occurred. This revolution was grounded in a belief in the sovereignty of man and had as its rallying cry, “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.” The French Revolution was lawless, bloody and was nothing short of anarchy. The Libertarian cry is not unlike that of the French Revolution. As with the French Revolution, the final result of Libertarianism is not freedom or liberty or equality or brotherhood, but is instead totalitarianism.
Can there be Compromise?
Leftists love to promote the need for compromise in order to sound reasonable and sensible. The problem is that as Conservatives stand on the Pinnacle of Freedom, any compromise with Leftists will always move us to the left away from freedom.
Our founders were men who had a range of beliefs where some believed in a strong central government while others feared this, but each of our founders had the same common goal. They were looking to establish the least amount of government to create the greatest amount of freedom. They disagreed on how much government was just enough to create the greatest amount of freedom; they disagreed on where the Pinnacle of Freedom was, but they essentially had the same goal. When two or more people have the same goal, then there is room for compromise.
When Leftist call for compromise, the root problem is that Leftist do not have the same goal as Conservatives. Leftists want big government to control everything you have and everything you do, while Conservatives want limited government to create the greatest amount of freedom. When your goals are polar opposites, there is no room for compromise. Compromise with Leftist will always erode freedom.
The same can be said concerning compromise with Libertarians. While it is true that Libertarians have adopted many Conservatives beliefs, particularly constitutional and economic issues, ultimately, their goal is license, not freedom or true liberty. Libertarians do not have the same goal as Conservatives. When Libertarians are in agreement with Conservatives, they can certainly work together, but if Libertarians ask for compromise, then any compromise will move us from the Pinnacle of Freedom and will erode freedom.
Final Thoughts
In a recent meeting, the President of the Cato Institute stated that if the Republican Party (the party of the Conservatives) is to survive, it will have to become more Libertarian. On the contrary, if the Republican Party is to survive, if Conservatives are to survive, then they must stand firmly on the Pinnacle of Freedom and refuse to be pulled to the left by the Leftist or to the right by the Libertarians. Any move towards the Left is a move towards totalitarianism. Any move towards Libertarianism is a move towards anarchy and finally totalitarianism.
If our nation is to survive, we must become desperate again for Him. As long as we remain comfortable with our way of life our country will continue in decline and our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren will be deprived of the freedom that we have taken for granted. Our world will no longer see America as that city on a hill, that beacon of hope that generations of people have yearned for.
If we wish to enjoy true liberty again, we must reassert our belief that God and God alone is Sovereign (Soli Deo Gloria). We must repent of our sin, especially our sin against God, Himself; our sin of turning our back on Him.
– You shall have no other gods before me.
– You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.
– You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not leave him unpunished who takes His name in vain.
The Ten Commandments 1 – 3, Exodus 20:3-7
For I am God, and there is no other;
I am God, and there is no one like Me,
Declaring the end from the beginning,
And from ancient times things which have not been done,
Saying, ‘My purpose will be established,
And I will accomplish all My good pleasure’;
Truly I have spoken; truly I will bring it to pass.
I have planned it, surely I will do it.
Isaiah 46:9-11
My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and will heal their land. Now My eyes will be open and My ears attentive to the prayer offered in this place.
II Chronicles 7:14-15
Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty
II Corinthians 3:17