Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, it really means that the US political compass is very right-wing. Also that there is a semantic difference between being left wing in the US and left wing in most of the world. Historically, those supporting the king were on his right, and those opposing him on his left. Really basically, during the restoration, the far-right was composed of anti-Republicans (old nobles mostly), the right wanted to increase the c…
> Historically, those supporting the king were on his right, and those opposing him on his left. Kings typically didn't allow their opposition a seat at the table. Where the right wing/left wing thing actually came from was a seating arrangement in the French Parliament during the French Revolution (in this case it was the King who didn't have a seat at the table). It only made sense for a short time even then. It wa…
Then France had a 'real' assembly to draft new laws, and the monarch very much had a seat at the table, and vetoing right. He also declared war on his brother in law. Then he betrayed the army and that's when the clubs really organized from right-wing to left-wing, with the 'feulliants' on the right wanting to keep the king, and the girondin and jacobin on the left wanting to remove him. Sadly (for the king), letters were found that proved without the shadow of a doubt that the king betrayed the nation, and the 'feuillants' supported to keep the 1791 constitution (so a monarchy) and take Louis 16's son as the new king while placing the original under house arrest. They lost the arguments (a string of loosing battles and Austrian army closing in on Paris didn't help tbh). The left (girondin and Jacobin at the time), supported by the population won, and decided to behead the king and abolish monarchy. Then the new political power was a mess and like you said, no left or right, those on top were called 'La montagne', but most politic was still done in clubs.
My main reading on this in Jean-clement Martin, I don't have the reference on me right now but I can go look in 2-3days if you're interested.
Left-wing and right-wing started having a significance during the restoration, exactly as I said, with right-wing trying to limit the cens, left trying to expand it, left radicals trying to go toward a full republic and far-right trying to go toward a full monarchy.
Aren't libertarians left-wing? I mean, Joseph Déjacque was pretty left-wing, even by current standards. Unless you mean anarcho-capitalist or minarchists, and to be fair, those are much, much more closer to liberals than to nazis (although according to Chapoutot, liberals are pretty close to Nazi when you look at how modern management work).