A Basic List Differences Between Left and Right (Dennis Prager)

A Guide to Basic Differences Between Left and Right

~ Dennis Prager ~


Source of Human Rights

  • Left: government
  • Right: the Creator

Human Nature

  • Left: basically good (Therefore, society is primarily responsible for evil.)
  • Right: not basically good (Therefore, the individual is primarily responsible for evil.)

Economic Goal

  • Left: equality
  • Right: prosperity

Primary Role of the State

  • Left: increase and protect equality
  • Right: increase and protect liberty

Government

  • Left: as large as possible
  • Right: as small as possible

Family Ideal

  • Left: any loving unit of people
  • Right: a married father and mother, and children

Guiding Trinity

  • Left: race, gender and class
  • Right: liberty, In God We Trust and e pluribus unum

Good and Evil

  • Left: relative to individual and/or society
  • Right: based on universal absolutes

Humanity’s Primary Division(s)

  • Left: rich and poor; strong and weak
  • Right: good and evil

Ideal Primary Identity of an American

  • Left: world citizen
  • Right: American citizen

How to Make a Good Society

  • Left: abolish inequality
  • Right: develop each citizen’s moral character

View of America

  • Left: profoundly morally flawed; inferior to any number of European countries
  • Right: greatest force for good among nations in world history

Gender

  • Left: a social construct
  • Right: male and female

Most Important Trait to Cultivate in a Child

  • Left: self-esteem
  • Right: self-control

Worth of the Human Fetus

  • Left: determined by the mother
  • Right: determined by society rooted in Judeo-Christian values

Primary Source of Crime

  • Left: poverty, racism and other societal flaws
  • Right: the criminal’s malfunctioning conscience

Place of God and Religion in America

  • Left: secular government and secular society
  • Right: secular government and religious society

American Exceptionalism

  • Left: chauvinistic doctrine
  • Right: historical reality

Greatest Threat to the World

  • Left: environmental catastrophe (currently global warming)
  • Right: evil (currently radical Islamist violence)

International Ideal

  • Left: world governed by the United Nations, and no single country is dominant
  • Right: world in which America is the single strongest entity

Primary Reason for Lack of Peace in Middle East

  • Left: Israeli settlements in the West Bank
  • Right: Palestinian, Arab and Muslim denial of Jewish state’s right to exist

Purpose of Art

  • Left: challenge status quo and bourgeois sensibilities
  • Right: produce works of beauty and profundity to elevate the individual and society

Guns

  • Left: ideally universally abolished, except for use by police, the armed forces and registered sportsmen
  • Right: ideally widely owned by responsible individuals for self-protection and the protection of others

Race

  • Left: intrinsically significant
  • Right: intrinsically insignificant

Racial, Ethnic and Gender Diversity at Universities

  • Left: most important
  • Right: far less important than ideological diversity

Black America’s Primary Problem

  • Left: racism
  • Right: lack of fathers

Greatest Playwright

  • Left: entirely subjective; there is no greatest playwright
  • Right: Shakespeare

War

  • Left: not the answer
  • Right: sometimes the only answer

Hate

  • Left: wrong, except when directed at the political
  • Right: wrong, except when directed at evil

Cultures

  • Left: all equal
  • Right: some are better than others

America’s Founding Fathers

  • Left: rich white male slave owners
  • Right: great men who founded the greatest society

Purpose of Judges

  • Left: pursue social justice
  • Right: pursue justice

National Borders

  • Left: a relic of the past
  • Right: indispensable for national survival

View of Illegal Immigrants

  • Left: welcomed guests
  • Right: illegal immigrants

Nature

  • Left: intrinsically valuable
  • Right: made for man