Got it? No? Let me explain then.
On every issue there are people who want to move in a particular direction, and generally it is true that there is a majority that is happy with the way things are.
Back when we first started writing down ideas, codifying the world as we saw it, the world was ruled by divine right. Kings, Czars and Emperors abounded, all of them claiming to have their power because god granted it to them. But the people at the bottom of the chain of power suffered horribly and died for want of even basic care; food, water and shelter could be and were denied to them by the more powerful amongst them.
Many excuses were made for why this was so, but in the end the people in the middle of the chain came to believe that the suffering of the bottom could be alleviated by sharing the wealth present at the top. To this end, they began to cause trouble. They started providing care for the less-well-off (the dreaded poor these days) educating the lower classes about the wealth available to the upper classes because of the combined efforts of the group as a whole.
When enough of them understood their plight, and the artificial nature of it, they began to form together as groups, pressing their rulers to provide to them some of the benefits that the rulers enjoyed. Through the ages, forums and then parliaments were formed, attempting to gather to themselves some of the power held by the rulers. As this form became more common and more powerful, it just so happened that the supporters of the king (the conservatives) happened to be sitting on the right side of the room, whereas the people demanding change, more power (the liberalizing influence) were sitting on the left side of the room.
To go further into the obscurity of these terms, left has always been the side of darkness. Most people are right handed, while those who are left-handed are seen as peculiar (Sinister is another name for the left side) it is seen to be proper that the right hand be dominate. At earlier times in history, left-handed children were forced to use their right hand (still happening –ed.) until it became dominant to all external appearances. To this day left-handed people die younger, of injury inflicted by tools and machines created in a right-handed world.
So it was probably not by chance that the supporters of the king were seated on the right side of the aisle, the correct side, by their understanding. After all, supporting god and king was the way to be in those days. History has progressed and kings are almost extinct. Where they still exist in the civilized world they retain a figurehead status with no real authority beyond the title they hold. Where they exist in the rest of the world, they are no better or worse than other people, tending toward dictatorship in the more perverse examples of royalty, and seen as the benevolent father in the more enlightened examples.
However, the verbiage of Left and Right remain; the Left being those who wish to change the status quo, and the Right being the group which favors the way things are or, even better, were.
Except that memory is flawed. The way things were never was, or only was because of elements or structures which no longer exist. The way things were relied upon variables which ceased to be, and so the way things were cannot be re-established.
There are other words for those who want things to stay the same. When they refuse to change because they fear change, the word is coward. When they refuse to change because they cannot see that the change has already occurred it is called delusional. It is only when the change will make things demonstrably worse is the descriptive word prudence, or caution. It is only then that the second definition of right (to be correct) applies here.
The changes which are forcing themselves upon us through technology and an imperfect understanding of the closed system which is our habitation known as the Earth are inevitable. We cannot deny their occurrence because reality will assert itself until it kills us all if we do not admit that change has occurred. The changes which we can afford but are being resisted (universal healthcare as one glaring example) will occur either now, or at greater cost in the future.
So today, now, the Right are not right they are simply right, as in seated in the section reserved for those who are in love with the past in an demonstrably unhealthy fashion. Creepy.
Postscript
I was informed by several rightists that this article is not funny. For the record, self-identified conservatives (those on the right side of the room. Those who are conserving the tradition of royalty in 18th century France) are either cowards, delusional, or both simultaneously. Most of them don’t know this because they are also crushingly stupid. A rare few of the conservative leadership are simply prudent. Most of them only identify as conservative because it is/was fashionable not to be seen as being liberal.
I am conservative on some issues. Decidedly conservative when it comes to tattoos and piercings. Definitely conservative when it comes to preserving the biosphere of planet earth. But I don’t define myself by those stands. On most subjects, especially economics, I am a liberal. Please put me on the left side.
There are forty-four definitions of the word right in the Merriam-Webster dictionary as of this date (March 4, 2020) which one of those definitions is the one you identify with? If your answer is correct or one of the variant definitions that are synonymous with correct, you should substantiate this correctness with third-party verification, at least to yourself. If you are puzzled by the word synonymous, then you are a member of the conservative majority that I’m referring to above.
