Ways to Spot a Right-Winger
Isbel Díaz Torres
HAVANA TIMES — In the interest of contributing to the far-from-archaic debate about Right and Left, I would like to share some of the ideas I’ve developed about what defines a right-winger and a number of ways to identify these individuals.
1. They almost never recognize themselves as right-wingers. In fact, they consider it puerile to think in terms of Right and Left. Hierarchical distinctions are also unconvincing for them. They are more comfortable speaking about a certain “diversity” that includes the right to live under a bridge or to be charitable millionaires, depending on one’s mood.
2. They are staunch defenders of democracy, but do not ask themselves who decided that their country should go to war, raise income taxes or build golf courses.
3. Every night, they light a candle and set it before a statuette of the angelical Merkel. They don’t let anyone say anything bad about her. More moderate believers set up altars with photos of “alternative capitalists” like Dilma Rousseff, Vladmir Putin or Xi Jinping.
4. They support freedom of the press, provided it guarantees the growth of their capital or that newspapers attack a well-defined jugular.
5. They are respectable people from well-to-do families, governed by high moral standards. They would never allow a female or male prostitute who works on Saturdays denigrate a Sunday family dinner after Church or a meeting of their party.
6. Left to their own resources, they are compelled to do the good – which is when they set up a free-market economy where the fox can hunt freely in an unprotected henhouse.
7. They love private property so much, that they sometimes make public or common properties their own, with a view to guaranteeing their optimal performance.
8. The more progressive among them can even accept that there are “good” and “bad” capitalists, but they of course also recognize the right of both to amass fortunes at the expense of others and to co-exist peacefully.
9. They loathe any social arrangement which does not clearly define who is the owner of the children, the home, the village, the country.
10. They make for wonderful company when one wants to have a civilized debate, without violent outbursts or raised tones. They fully understand how a civilized person ought to behave and they have exquisite taste in art and museums.
Note: For the time being, while things remain this way, some continue to call themselves “left-wingers.”
!Jajaja! They refuse to pronounce Iraq correctly.They refer to Mideastern heads-of-state by their first names.
They can’t distinguish between communism/socialism and fascism.
They lump Hugo Chavez and Salvador Allende in with Pinochet, and conflte Fidel Castro with Mussolini.
They blame poor people for having bad teeth.
My method of discovering a right-winger is to challenge them to read or view something lengthy from what they would call the “far left” which would destroy their argument.
They invariably refuse to look at all deeply into facts and figures that gainsay what they choose to believe and upon which they base their self-esteem .
Since this has been shown to be true in several valid studies over the past few years, it is a quick and sure way of finding a right winger.
11. They will take historical truths that most have not learned (a tactic meant to shame and intimidate) then pervert those truths and stick in lots of lies to support their narcissistic argument of the day.
There are few right wingers that have exquisite taste in art, but they do know how to parrot those who do. I’m just sayin’.
Love you, my Isbel. And loved this article.
Could not have said it better. Thanks for the laugh on ‘them’ for a change:)
Well done.
Good one!