This section of DiscoverTheNetworks aims to clarify the definitions of political labels that are commonly misunderstood and misused.

For example, the category titled Liberal-Left-Progressive examines the core beliefs and ultimate objectives associated with those terms. When the term “liberalism” (from the Latin word liberalis, meaning “pertaining to a free man”) first emerged in the early 1800s, it was guided by a four-pronged value system that embraced individual rights, the rule of law, limited government, and free markets based on private property. These would remain the defining characteristics of liberalism throughout the liberal epoch (generally identified as the period of 1815-1914).

But since then, the term “liberal” has been corrupted and misused for political purposes -- by the socialist Left. Portraying themselves as the agents of enlightened commitment to “liberal” or “progressive” causes, leftists in fact stand for the antithesis of each of the foregoing liberal ideals. That is, they support:

• group rights rather than individual rights, as exemplified by their support for collective preferences—affirmative action—based on such categories as race, ethnicity, gender, or national origin;
• the circumvention of law rather than the rule of law, as exemplified by their support for the edicts of activist judges who legislate from the bench, and by their opposition to the enforcement of laws pertaining to immigration and nondiscrimination (vis à vis affirmative action);
• the expansion of government rather than its diminution (by means of ever-escalating taxes to fund a bloated welfare state, and to authorize government control over virtually every aspect of human life—education, health care, day care, energy, etc.); and
• the redistribution of wealth (through steeply progressive taxes and mushrooming welfare programs), rather than its creation through free-market capitalism.

The category titled Conservative-Right examines the meaning of conservatism, the premises upon which it is founded, and its political and social objectives. A key resource in this category is David Horowitz’s "A Conservative Hope," where the author writes:

“Because conservatism is not a philosophy that seeks to enlist its adherents in an historical vanguard, it does not have a 'party line.' It is possible for conservatives to question most positions held by other conservatives, including, evidently, the notion that they are conservatives at all, without risking ex-communication, expulsion from the community, or even a raised eyebrow. Of course this latitude has limits. No one would regard as conservative, for example, someone who embraced the leveling aspirations of contemporary liberalism or the utopian agendas of the socialist Left. Within such limits, however, the liberality of conservatism (or at least American conservatism) is a generally under-appreciated fact….”

The category titled Neo-Conservatism (which means means "newly conservative") examines a political movement (started by former liberals) that tends to favor big-government interventionism and an American foreign policy that seeks to install democracy in other nations.

The category titled Fascism and Nazism examines the history, ideological premises, worldviews, and ultimate objectives of these political philosophies. In his 2007 book Liberal Fascism, Jonah Goldberg offers the following working definition of fascism:

"Fascism is a religion of the state. It assumes the organic unity of the body politic and longs for a national leader attuned to the will of the people. It is totalitarian in that it views everything as political and holds that any action by the state is justified to achieve the common good. It takes responsibility for all aspects of life, including our health and well-being, and seeks to impose uniformity of thought and action, whether by force or through regulation and social pressure. Everything, including the economy and religion, must be aligned with its objectives. Any rival identity is part of the 'problem' and therefore defined as the enemy.... [C]ontemporary American liberalism embodies all of these aspects of fascism.... [F]ascism, properly understood, is not a phenomenon of the right at all. Instead, it is, and always has been, a phenomenon of the left. This fact ... is obscured in our time by the equally mistaken belief that fascism and communism are opposites…."

The  Islamo-Fascism category explores the similarities between fascism and fundamentalist Islam. In his article "Defending Islamofascism: It's a Valid Term -- Here's Why," Christopher Hitchens writes:

“The term Islamofascism was first used in 1990 in Britain's Independent newspaper by Scottish writer Malise Ruthven, who was writing about the way in which traditional Arab dictatorships used religious appeals in order to stay in power.... Does Bin Ladenism or Salafism or whatever we agree to call it have anything in common with fascism? I think yes. The most obvious points of comparison would be these: Both movements are based on a cult of murderous violence that exalts death and destruction and despises the life of the mind.... Both are hostile to modernity (except when it comes to the pursuit of weapons), and both are bitterly nostalgic for past empires and lost glories. Both are obsessed with real and imagined 'humiliations' and thirsty for revenge. Both are chronically infected with the toxin of anti-Jewish paranoia.... Both are inclined to leader worship and to the exclusive stress on the power of one great book. Both have a strong commitment to sexual repression — especially to the repression of any sexual 'deviance' — and to its counterparts the subordination of the female and contempt for the feminine. Both despise art and literature as symptoms of degeneracy and decadence; both burn books and destroy museums and treasures….”

The Libertarian category examines a political philosophy that favors minimal government intrusion on the private lives and liberties of individuals. Though libertarianism is commonly thought of as a “right-wing” doctrine, it tends, in fact, to be “left-wing” on social—as opposed to economic—issues.

The Neo-Communism category explores the phenomenon that David Horowitz defines as follows:

“Neo-communism is a view whose members consider themselves 'citizens of the world,' not of America, and who therefore agitate for open borders and want the morally repulsive collection of autocracies, slaveocracies and kleptocracies called 'the United Nations' to reign over us and the world. A neo-communist is someone who believes that America is ruled by corporations who put 'profit over people' — and thereby show that they don’t understand either profit or people. A neo-communist is someone who is convinced that race, class, and gender hierarchies make it not only legitimate but necessary to describe America as a 'white supremacist' society. Neo-communists believe that a revolution is necessary (if not opportune at the moment), that the Consitution is a disposable document, and that America’s communist and Islamo-fascist enemies (Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, Hizbollah, the PLO and Hamas) are freedom fighters or at least on the right side of the armageddon that faces us....”