| It is very much 2 competing ideologies, yes. But you're being very unfair. You're describing one aspect of what the left stood for (and only what matches with the modern democrats, because these leftists wanted extreme laissez-faire, to the point of giving direct government power to the rich. Why? Because the king's many monopolies and taxes gave jobs to tons of people, but sucked. Somehow that's missing from your description). AND you're totally disregarding what the leftists did. And on the right you're describing what they did, totally disregarding what they stand for. Both sides stood against democracy. That left stood for having "rational thinkers" (ie. capitalists, rich traders, bankers) control government. People who achieved things in society. The right stood for the same structure as had been there before: nobility and clergy guide society as a whole. The right, even at this point in time, was only rich in power, aside from the king and perhaps in land. Not in money and not in numbers of people under their direct control. In the cities, the king had only limited control and there were far more poeple in cities, even then. Both sides then went on to massacre each other for about a decade. All over France, spreading even to Egypt (that was the left by the way). Kidnapping tons of Belgians and Dutch citizens and shipping them to South America (that was the left too). Neither side comes out looking very good. But if you compare how many they killed, I'm sorry but the left is the absolute unchallenged champion. The left you're defending were (pretty extreme) capitalists who were fighting for money-should-control-the-government-directly against people who fought for having moral principles control the government. And yes, you'd be right in pointing out those were very self-serving moral principles. This fight then turned into a decade of massacres. Why are you defending them? Because 4 letters and one direction match your current favorite political party that has very little to do with either side. |