This comes to us from our compatriot Charles Cole of Sheridan. It was recently published in The Sheridan Press.
As a lifelong student of history, I am amazed at the durability of several myths from long ago,
especially those without factual basis. A particularly irritating concoction is the wholly
ridiculous legend of a hypothesized “far right” allegedly proposing a “radical right agenda.”
The terms “left” and “right” to describe political/ideological movements and politicians
associated therewith first appeared during the French Revolution. When viewed from the French National Assembly’s presiding officer podium, the lunatics of the radical left wing – the Jacobins – sat to the speaker’s far left with the conservative monarchists seated at the speaker's far right.
Some ninety years ago, Adolf Hitler's Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda Josef Goebbels claimed that Germany’s National Socialists (the Nazis) stood in stark contrast to Stalin’s far left Communism and were thus on the “right.” In truth, instead of being two ends of a horizontal continuum, Hitler’s Nazis and Stalin’s Communists were but two sides of the same radical, brutal, inhumane collectivist coin. The putative German “right” had absolutely nothing in common with the conservative monarchists of 1789 France! Therefore, bringing forward into modernity this obvious fabrication prolongs distortion and is totally inaccurate and misleading.
When viewed in proper historical context, we who are today labelled "right" might indeed resemble the rational conservatives of 1789 France – a group noted for their restraint and their preference for reforming society in a sane, logical, and orderly manner, versus the violent lunatics of the far left Jacobins of that era. The continued promulgation of this silly, mendacious myth illustrates the ignorance and arrogance of the loony left and their Uniparty enablers.
I find it interesting that this false dichotomy continues to rear its head in Wyoming media, e.g. in a recent op ed in the Buffalo Bulletin which repeatedly used the term “far right” to describe members of the Wyoming legislature’s Freedom Caucus. A recent LTE in the SP also labelled that group as a “reactionary faction” and excoriated them and their supporters as proposing a “radical right agenda.”
If supporting the agenda of the freedom caucuses in Wyoming and in the U.S. Congress makes me a “right winger,” count me in! I’m honored to be identified with those standing in opposition to the continued growth of a behemoth government incapable of carrying out its constitutionally mandated functions in a reasoned and fiscally prudent manner.