Don,

Obviously you are confused. To simplify:

Left = Socialism = big government

Right = economic rationalism = smaller government.

Brilliant....picking our own point on the spectrum is surely aspirational!
I aspire towards a "Greenie", but for the numerous reasons NOT to go there. So where does a conservitave "Greenie" fit in on this scale, I wonder aloud?

SM, as Don writes, it's not really so black and white :)

How to distinguish Left and Right, conservatives and progressives, in all their myriad of sects ?

Maybe as a start, we could take their various attitudes to a common problem: if you broke up a dozen Cessnas and threw them into the air, how would they, or how you like them, to come down ?

A 'conservative' would shrug and say that they would come down in the bits of a dozen Cessnas.

A true-red 'Left' would shrug and point out that it COULD come down as a Boeing 787, since that's what the blueprint says. If it didn't, the totalitarian Left (i.e. aka 'the Left') would immediately suspect a neo-con conspiracy, and hunt for any hidden CIA agents. Arjay would talk about bankers and we all know who they are.

A 'reactionary conservative' would fervently hope that all the bits come down as a dozen Tiger Moths (ask your grandmother).

A conservationist would hope that it comes down in bits, to be recycled. A cave-and-kale conservationist would demonstrate to ban all forms of air transport to reduce all CO2 footprint: 'Ban all planes NOW, or by two o'clock at the latest !'. Perhaps all in caps lock.

Inner-city professionals would check their flight schedules and hope that there is a regular 787 already waiting at the airport.

I hope this helps.

Joe

In many respects, the most 'conservative' political party in Australia is the Greens. They oppose a wide range of new technologies such as GM and nuclear, they oppose many existing industries such as native forest logging and most mining, and they want to not just conserve but preserve the environment, almost at any cost, hence the accusation that they want us to go back to living in caves. Most also want to prevent 'development' as most Australians understand the word from changing the lives of many tribal peoples, instead maintaining them in their peaceful idyllic tropical or aboriginal lifestyles, free from the evils of our consumer-driven modern world.

Whatever ever you want to call it, conservatism works, unlike the Left alternative. History proves it.

BM,

You have it in one. The "progressives" are the ones clinging to 1960s socialist ideology and who are generally anti technology. i.e. nuclear, genetic modification, CSG etc.