Any good English term for lewactwo and derivatives?

Does Enlgish have any good and widely used equivalent of Polish lewactwo, lewak, lewaczka and lewackie ścierwo? It is not the same as lewica, lewicowiec, lewicowy, etc.

The closest I can think of is the misuse of the term "liberal" by Americans, but that's about it I think?

Isn't lewak a higher degree of lewicowość, ie more radical leftism?
I agree about US misuse -- what are called liberals in the US are actually socialists or social-democrats. It is the exact opposite of laissez-faire liberalism, because they advocate an over-bloated welfare state dispensing hefty handotus to their pet minorities.

It's hard to say, because for me, lewak is rather about those hard socialists who advocate really hard left wing policies and support using violence to achieve their aims (so - really - anarchist), while lewicowość is rather more about old school trade union politics, which don't really have a parallel in Poland.

And yes, American politics is stupid like this. It's becoming the same in Poland - "lewak" being used for anyone that supports even centrist social politics such as the current stance on abortion. It's the same reason that PiS can't be described as Catholic Socialists, even though there's nothing at all wrong with the title - they pursue Catholic policies socially and socialist policies economically.

We agree to disagree. According to me, that should be phrased:
The current immoral and criminal leftist-liberal stance on pre-natal infanticide or unborn baby butchery. Its advocates promote the PC fairy tale that it's a simple procedure no different than a tooth extraction. In other words -- live immorally and scrape out the conseuqences! Disgusting!!!

I believe "libtard" is very closew to Polish "lewak".

How widely is it used and understood? Obviously the etymology = liberal + retarded.

Not very. It's only really used and recognised among the alt-right. See also; rightard.

Libtard, commie, communist, leftist sometimes normie - Also the term alt-right isn't accurate anymore as it now is the mainstream right in America ever since Trump's election. A lot of young people saw through the leftist propaganda.

Young people voted overwhelmingly against Trump.

Am I the only person who finds mocking "retards" offensive ? It would not be allowed in polite conversation face to face.

Is there actually a definition of what views/policies you need to have to officially be considered left or right wing? A lot of people don't consider PiS a right wing party due to their economic stance and many don't see the Conservative government in the UK as right win, due to their social stance.

@Wielkipolak

There are quite a few things like this available online: politicalcompass.org/test

Interesting website Jon, but seems very left leaning to me.

The way some questions in the test are phrased makes you come out of it a leftist every time. The way some questions are asked give you very little room to manoeuvre.

A few examples
A/ It's a sad reflection on our society that something as basic as drinking water is now a bottled, branded consumer product.
B/ It is regrettable that many personal fortunes are made by people who simply manipulate money and contribute nothing to their society.
C/ What's good for the most successful corporations is always, ultimately, good for all of us.

Obviously any reasonable person would agree with the two statements above, which pushes you more and more in to looking like an anti-capitalist, even when you're not. And the 3rd one, I mean come on. They just want you to give leftist answers.

Then there are these.

D/ Abortion, when the woman's life is not threatened, should always be illegal.
E/ What goes on in a private bedroom between consenting adults is no business of the state.

Again, I do not believe abortion should be made legal, but believe it is acceptable in a few cases, more than just the one that is stated in the question. I am also against some of the perverted things people do to each other the bedroom and believe there is a line they shouldn't go over, but don't believe the state ought to have any right to intervene in that.

All of these capitalist and social questions could have been asked differently and probably would have got a different answer if they had. It's still an interesting website as I said, but a but manipulative.

The website actually covers the whole range of left/right, authoritarian/libertarian viewpoints. If you look at some of the other ones, you'll find statements associated with right, left and centre. For each statement you can choose the extent to which you agree or disagree, thereby covering the whole political spectrum.

The only answers I see are strongly disagree, agree, disagree or strongly disagree. There is no, neither agree or disagree option.

Also I don't see any questions asking if you think abortion should be completely illegal or legal unconditionally.

Like I said it's an interesting site, which for example reiterates that Macron is actually for more right wing than Le Penn, for all those leftists in France ready to go out and vote for Macron.

I do find the way a lot of the questions are angled to be more from the left though. Not all of them, but a lot of them.

That's a fairly full range of options. Adding a 'don't know' would cause problems in calculating an accurate result.
For the abortion example you give, I suppose the best answer to the statement would be either a strong disagree or strong agree.


As far as I know, it's written by political scientists, and the result isn't based on a yes/no to one or two questions, more on a synthesis of reaction to a number of subtle statements.


Indeed. Le Pen is a National Socialist, whereas Emmanuel Macron favours freedom and a market economy.

Interestingly (and closer to the topic) I did a Polish language one recently, partly geared to issues within Poland. I'll have a look later and see if I can find it.

edit This isn't the one I did, rather it was prepared for the last GE in Poland. But maybe worth a look: parlamentarny.pl/barometr-wyborczy-2015/