There is no way to be absolutely sure about the origins of the argument that political positions can be described as "Left" and "Right". But, I have a feeling that it came about as Communists, and perhaps, Fascists attempted to obfuscate the reality that both of the these political systems are simply two sides of the same coin. Both have socialist, statist roots and inevitably result in tyranny over their hapless subjects. Because both ends of the "Left" vs. "Right" spectrum are so similar, it's virtually impossible to locate other political philosphies in their proper places.
The key to sorting out these distortions and correcting them turns out to simply be to bring the ends together, where they belong, by wrapping the ends into the form of a circle. Once this is done, it's very easy to visualize and place any policy or political position in its proper perspective in terms of the Liberty (small government) vs. Tyranny (big government).
Notice that we do not place Conservatism at the top of The Liberty Dial. Absolute liberty would be chaos. SOME, limited goverment is required for any orderly system. But, even with this slight shift from dead center, the ratio of the power of the people is MUCH greater than the power of the government. This means that government can easily be driven BY the people, just as the founders envisioned.
In the "Left" vs. "Right" model, the midpoint would generally be described as the "Moderate" position. But, in reality, those seeing themselves as moderates would embrace a relatively large government without realizing the effects of the size of the government on their own freedoms and ability to make a difference in the direction of that government. Using The Liberty Dial, it's easy to see why we are having such a difficult time getting congress to listen to the people speak. Government is almost at the tipping point, where it becomes SO large that the people become powerless.
The real danger we face at this critical time in our country comes from the 111th Congress. If they have their way the tipping point will have been crossed and it will be very, very difficult to pull the ship of state back to a position where the weight of the people has any impact at all. Typically, when a country moves that far from liberty the only way to recover the liberty lost is by waiting until the system crashes under its own weight... as the Soviet Union did in the last century.
The danger, as represented by the Power Ratios in the above illustration, should be a warning to Conservative and Moderate alike. We have to be very aware of the high cost of big government not only to ourselves; but, to our children and grandchildren. The more power we give to the government over our lives, the less control we have over our destiny.
