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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (42838)	9/9/2002 12:15:16 PM
From: JohnM	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

>>Would you consider being called a leftist by people who have contempt for leftists denigrating? Or not? a most interesting question, Win. ...especially if regarded both straight-on and in an ideological mirror. I've tried to stay out of this one. Right-left is not a big deal to me unless someone else makes it so. I'm much more interested in the content of arguments. However, one part of Win's response is interesting. He notes that if one is called a "leftist", and it is meant in a derogatory fashion, is that not a cause for something. I don't recall that "leftist" is a term Bill used. I thought it was simply left wing and right wing. But be that as it may, when the "ist" is tagged on, we do tend to mean negative things. Generally, it's a term for an ideologue and a way to condemn an opponent. Calling someone a right wing something or other doesn't carry quite the same ideological content, at least to my mind, as being called a "rightist." Note that this latter term "rightist" is not in frequent use, whereas "leftist" is. I'm reminded of it because I'm reading so much material these days which wishes to distinguish between Islam and Islamists. But, talk about mountains from molehills. This one is certainly one.