Up-Down, Not Left-Right
It's time to abandon the old political paradigm of "left" and "right"—which has always been nebulous and ill-defined.
Those of us in the United States who love freedom because we care about human flourishing face the daunting challenge of political and cultural reform. Doing that work well will require clarity in both thought and speech.
One adjustment that can help us think better and speak more clearly is to abandon the old political paradigm of “left” and “right”—which has always been nebulous and ill-defined—and replace it with an “up” and “down” model, the top of which represents good citizenship and government protection of natural liberty and private property, while tyranny and total government control over slavish subjects are at the bottom.
Left-Right
The “left-right” political scale originated during the French Revolution, and even then it was plagued by ambiguity.
The storming of the Bastille in July 1789 was a key event that ignited the French Revolution, which then continued to upheave France—and much of the world—throughout the 1790s.
In the early stages of the revolution, the Estates-General convened in 1789, quickly transformed into the National Assembly, and then later became the Legislative Assembly. These bodies became arenas for intense debate among competing factions proposing different plans for France's future.
The classifications that infuse our political vocabulary today—the “left-right” spectrum—emerged from the seating arrangements within these revolutionary French legislative bodies.
During sessions of the National Assembly and Legislative Assembly, members organized themselves based on their political beliefs. An Assembly President—a rotating position distinct from the King of France—presided over official meetings. Members who supported the monarchy and existing aristocratic privileges, seeking to minimize changes to the traditional social order, sat on the right side of the President's chair.
Advocates for radical change, including the abolition of the monarchy and transformation of social structures and hierarchies, sat on the left side.
Hence, the political “left” and “right.”
Confusing Then, Confusing Now
Yet many questions remained unanswered, even at the time of the French Revolution. Were those seated on the right in favor of their particular monarch at that time—King Louis XVI—or did they support all monarchs and all forms of monarchy? Did they favor and actively support all social-political traditions, or only some?
Were French right-wingers in the early 1790s opposed to any kind of political power exercised directly by the people or their elected representatives?
What about “left-wingers?” Were they in favor of every kind and cause of revolution? What was the proper “leftist” response to French revolutionaries who later attacked other French revolutionaries in the name of revolution?
Were those sitting on the left opposed to their own, particular monarchical government, or were they opposed to all monarchical governments? Or did they want to overturn all forms of government entirely? Were they anarchists?
If you asked a hundred people who sat to the right of the French Assembly President, you would likely have received nearly a hundred different responses, maybe more. Certainly, many were loyal to King Louis XVI in particular. Some probably supported the idea of monarchy more generally, while others might have been highly critical of certain foreign kings, queens, and principalities.
The same goes for those who sat on the left during those fevered revolutionary years in France. If you had talked to many “leftists” at that time, you would have heard many different responses. Some were anti-monarchists without a doubt; some were opposed to entrenched elites, the rich and powerful among them; and some were simply anti-government, openly espousing anarchy.
When we take the “left-right” model of politics—which comes from French disputes over the authority of a sitting king versus revolutionaries who ultimately cut off his head—and then apply it to our modern American politics, the confusions and contradictions multiply to the point of meaninglessness.
The status quo in the United States today is not a monarchy; it's nominally a self-governing constitutional republic. It’s really an entrenched administrative state staffed by millions of unelected, unionized bureaucrats—many of whom enjoy the equivalent of tenure for life—who exercise arbitrary and unconstitutional power on a daily basis.
If the French revolutionary scale of “left-right” were applied to the United States today, wouldn't “leftists” be up in arms (some figuratively, others literally) in opposition to the unelected bureaucracies that now control our lives and property? Isn’t the progressive administrative state the focus and locus of political power in America?
Yet, “leftists” in America are the ones clamoring for more bureaucracy, more regulations, and more government power. American leftists are conservative. They’re the ones, after all, who want to conserve and preserve the powerful bureaucratic state they’ve been building for over a hundred and fifty years.
The radicals today are the Americans we call “conservative.” They’re the ones calling to abolish the Department of Education, and other government offices, agencies, and bureaus. That’s an agenda for radical change, not a conservative agenda.
See how confusing it is? The “left-right” French Revolutionary spectrum—and the vocabulary that accompanies it—make no sense for Americans in 2025. It’s time we let it go.
Up-Down
A more meaningful scale—one that better articulates the real and important alternatives in the United States and other nations—is a vertical spectrum: up and down.
At the bottom is totalitarian tyranny, meaning total government control over everyone and everything. Here, one finds no individual liberty at all (except for the tyrants who command the totalitarian powers of government). The bottom of the scale represents total government, total economic central planning, total social engineering.
There are no citizens; there are subjects who are cowardly, needy, dependent, and all too willing to comply with any orders, commands, regulations, and edicts—no matter how arbitrary or lawless—government officials issue. For slavish subjects, compliance and obedience are civic virtues.
Subjects don't defend inherent, individual, unalienable rights defiantly. They don't fly flags featuring the motto: “Don't Tread On Me!” Subjects beg those in government for permission—and the lucky few who receive some kind of permission slip or permit from bureaucrats are grateful.
At the top of the spectrum is a regime in which self-governing, responsible citizens take care of themselves and their families, for the most part do whatever they please, and use their own property however they want. Government does the bare minimum necessary to protect the individual rights, natural liberty, and private property of each and every citizen.
The top of the scale means equal protection for equal individual rights. No group rights. No special rights, no affirmative action, no transfer payments, no entitlements unwillingly funded by taxpayers.
If you want something, you’re free to make it or work and buy it. You are free to be self-reliant. No one, however, has an obligation to buy the things you want.
The top of the scale also features citizens who are spirited, feisty, and armed to the teeth with weapons that might make those in the military envious. These are citizens who are polite when treated respectfully but are not to be trifled with, threatened, or pushed around by anyone. They will defend themselves, their families, their property, and they're good at it.
Scale That Represents Reality
Between these two poles—justice and individual liberty at the top, totalitarian controlling tyranny at the bottom—every actual political regime can be located. Every actual government, political party, candidate, and organization falls somewhere between these two poles.
This vertical scale shows how ridiculous it is to say that communism is “left-wing” and Nazi fascism is “right-wing.” Nonsense. They’re both forms of progressive totalitarian tyranny and fall at the bottom of the vertical scale.
Moreover, the vertical scale helps us clarify where the United States was in the past, where we are now, and where we are heading in the future. Are we moving toward more individual liberty and security in our private property, or toward more government control over our lives?
As Abraham Lincoln said in the opening of his House Divided Speech: “If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could better judge what to do, and how to do it.” With a vertical scale that goes from freedom and individual rights at the top to tyranny at the bottom, we can better follow Lincoln's sage advice.
What say you, fellow citizens? Do you have any more use for the tired, confused “left-right” spectrum? Are you ready to ditch it and replace it with something much more accurate and meaningful?
For the branding and marketing experts among us: What would it take to get Americans to start using the terms up and down, or top and bottom—freedom versus tyrannical control—rather the ambiguous terms “left” and “right?”
Seems to me Dem, Repub, left, right, up, down miss the point: its control by government versus individual freedom.