Can you be on the left on one area, but on the right in another?

Yes. The world isn’t all black and white after all.

I don’t categorize my belief as “leftist” or “right winged”. I follow what is right for me. And I can combine different views if they feel right, or choose nothing at all. There is no right and wrong here.

Happens all the time. Most of my peers up north are socially liberal and fiscally moderate to conservative. Some of those people identify as Democrats, some as Republicans. A lot of black people I know in the South are socially conservative and fiscally liberal.

I wish the world was not so polarized. Yes individuals can feel strongly about some issues that are on both sides f the divide.
For fun I made a list of my position on certain polarizing issues. It was interesting.
Example:
Welfare/charity:. I want to generously help people in need. (families impacted by disaster, terrorism, sudden catastrophic sickness, (Left) But I don’t want to pay for problems people caused by poor choices drugs, obesity, building in a disaster prone areas, etc. (Right)
Abortion: It is the woman’s body. it is her choice (left) But if this is your second unwanted pregnancy and you have been on public assistance for the past 5 years including the medical car for your previous child, the second abortion will include tubal ligation. If your child is born addicted to drugs your hospital treat will include sterilization. (Crazy far right)
Religion: Everyone may have their own belief system. (Left). But Religion has no place in the school system or government. None! (libertarian?)
Guns: Individuals may own guns. (Right) But not all individuals. Guns and owners should be registered.. (Left)
And so on.
This type of thinking helps people understand the other side.

I’m with @LuckyGuy on a bunch of things. I also don’t think people should be on Section 8 for a lifetime unless they’re disabled or elderly. It should be a 5 year plan and then get the f out so someone else can live there, and now you’re living elsewhere. That’s an incentive to get your act together.

I don’t think that welfare should just give more and more to moms who have unlimited numbers of kids.

Other than that, I’m all for abortion, social programs, public schools, good pensions, etc.

You’re describing myself. I’m on the left with most social things, on the right with economic and foreign policy.

Yep, I agree with @LuckyGuy and @jca too on certain issues surrounding public aide and @ARE_you_kidding_me as well. I consider myself quite socially liberal but more fiscally conservative, or, as I like to say, liberally liberal and conservatively conservative depending on the issue.

Of course. It means you have an open mind and are not a slave to a particular political or religious ideology.

I agree with @LuckyGuy on his way of thinking also. It goes to show that people are never just one thing or another.

Absolutely. In fact, it used to be that a rule of thumb was that you would vote on the left for local and state elections and on the right for federal elections. Not all the time, mind you, but then what is done all the time? I think @LuckyGuy summed it up very well.

I think you can take a liberal view in some matters and a conservative one in others, and I really think most people are a mix rather than an extreme.

But I don’t think you can be partly “on the left” and partly “on the right.” Maybe I’m just being too literal in my interpretation of a metaphor, but I think you can see things in a lot of ways from a given perspective while you stand in only one spot.

I also think we don’t need to label ourselves. Others are often all too eager to label us; let’s not bind ourselves by that.

Libertarians tend to be to the left on some social issues but are to the right on economic issues. Basically they say that you can do whatever you want provided that you don’t hurt anyone and government should do as little as possible.

For the record, these are not my beliefs. I tend to be to the left on most issues.

Of course. I think most people are a combination of both. I’m preference to monogamy could be seen as conservative

@LostInParadise A lot of people though, like myself don’t adhere to any political labels, actually I joke about being liberally apolitical and my self imposed label of being a hippie cowgirl is pretty spot on. One foot in each stirrup straddling a wide horse. LOL

I heard that Jack London was a socialist and a racist.

Sure. I consider myself left of center on most issues, but I can also stand up for some conservative views (to a degree) when necessary. Second amendment rights, for example. I do feel we badly need some sane, logical gun control legislation in this country, but that said, I largely support gun owner rights, I have owned more than a few guns myself, and I enjoy shooting. Look folks, here’s the deal. Now you and I could walk out into a cow pasture, and set a gun down on the ground between the two of us. Then if we both turn and walk away, and neither of us touches the gun, that same gun will still be lying in that same place 100 years from now. I hardly feel that that old mean gun is going to levitate itself up off of the ground, squeeze its own trigger, and off one or both of us. The point I want to make then, is that guns don’t kill, people do.

Can we please not do the gun debate in here? If you want that fight open a new question. This is a good discussion and doesn’t need a derail.

Yes, because left and right and liberal and conservative and progressive and all those labels are attempts to combine several complicated things together and reduce them. It tends to have many people relating to them as actual things, above all politicians, with fairly terrible consequences.

Actual people can and do have a variety of opinions that don’t match anyone’s attempt to boil them all down into one label.

Making elections and legislative and even judicial decisions into a game with simple voting rules tends to also have nasty effects, and gets exploited by political tacticians, so that attention gets focused on issues that are designed to get people to align a certain way. And of course to distract everyone from how there’s not much actual democracy happening.

“Let’s do the timewarp again!!”

Of course, generally we end up centrists.

You pretty much just described my views!

If you stand to my left, you’re actually really far to my right, on a globe.

Of course. Example: I do not believe in legal killing including criminal executions and abortions.