Dr. Martin Hash Podcast

In political comments, it seems everybody has their own definition of Left & Right, which leaves Center a no-man's-land. This confusion arises because the words have become accusations rather than descriptive terms. However, with the radicalization of The Left, and its tight association with Social Justice & Identity Politics, a clearer distinction has arisen: liberty, personal autonomy, individuals making decisions for themselves and reaping the rewards or suffering the consequences of their actions, is Right; so Libertarians would be hard Right. Egalitarian-thinking, equality, from each according to their ability to each according to their need, is Left; so Marxists would be hard Left.

Obviously, somewhere between those two concepts is Center. Boiled down to its essence, the ideological difference is the nature of responsibility: Right is you are responsible to yourself, and you are in charge of yourself; versus Left, where others are responsible for you, or in charge of you. Those are completely conflicting attitudes, which leaves no natural Center, so it has to be defined pragmatically. If America is to maintain its liberty-democracy nature, then Center would be the place where liberty still benefits the majority so that they would vote for it. Unfortunately, once liberty is lost, the Center is no longer obtainable.