Good question!  A political system doesn't simply appear from nowhere, there is a process that leads to a society drafting a constitution or choosing a form of government.  Whether it be conscious or unconscious is not germane to the process or the discussion of political theory in general.  A political system takes ages to dream up, apply, and even when applied, takes ages to perfect provided that the system is at all sustainable to begin with.  The proper study of politics is feckless when separated from a discussion of politics or ethics because without ethics, a discussion of justice and how to apply it to a society becomes meaningless, and without philosophy, a discussion of ethics floats in mid-air and collapses of its own weightlessness.  "Politics" sans philosophy, is meaningless.

This, in essence, is the ultimate problem with the contemporary political discussion.  We hear about the Republicans and the Democrats, "right" and "left", "liberals" and "conservatives" with no real definition attached to the terms, rendering them more disorienting than definite, making the entire political discussion cloudy, making any attempt at having a rational discussion quixotic at best.  So, those terms; "Republican", "Democrat", "right-wing", "left-wing", "liberal", "conservative"; forget them.  They're not classically defined words but a product of the Stalin Doctrine ("whatever the party [communists/Stalin] disagrees with is 'right-wing'") and Alinskian (i.e. Saul Alinsky) methods of misdirection for the purpose of power. 

We tend to use these words because we don't know how they came into being, which is the real problem.  To top it off, popular culture has so perverted the meanings and so effectively applied Stalin's Doctrine to the terms, that we don't question them.  A pundit we agree with most of the time berates the "left" or the "right", "liberalism" or "conservatism" and we simply become familiar with those words in that particular context and create an image in our head of the subject of our beloved pundit's hatred that we burn in effigy in our heads and find ourselves appalled when we find one of our friends or relatives is one of "them".

Today's entry will concentrate on defining our political semantics.  It will be followed by a deeper explanation of political systems and how they're formed and the inevitability of unenlightened cyclical motion of collapse and renewal.  It's less a "redefining" of the political spectrum that we usually apply and more of a lynching, burning, and pissing on the ashes of an evil beast that devoured our children and raped our wives in the dead of night.  My theory works basically on the idea that the development of political economy, law, and justice put a nation somewhere on the spectrum and judges how long they can ultimately last before collapse and renewal.  It works on the Galelean/Hobbesian idea that the natural state of things is in motion until someone stops it.  Since people are natural beings susceptible to natural laws, and since motion and inertia are both natural principles, and since the study of political science is the study of human interaction and societal ethics, then the natural state of society and human interaction is in motion.  By this very simple principle, I can say rather soundly that the shift of prevalent societies through this cycle is inevitable when the people of that society are unconscious. 

One of the ways that the people are rendered unconscious to history, politics, and economics, is through the ambiguety of terms.  It happens to all of us: "C-SPAN is just so boring, economics has all those words I don't understand, and political pundits on TV just yell over each other, history is simply a series of dates and people I don't care about, and when people talk about any of it I get bored to tears!"  One of the ways it becomes boring or infuriating is through the undefining of our political language.  Allow me to clear up where the terms come from.

Republican:
Obviously, a political party, also known as the GOP (Grand Old Party).  The Republican Party officially began in 1854 in Michigan, shortly after the collapse of the Whig Party.  There was a void left there that was mostly being filled by the "Know Nothing" Party (AKA the "Native American" party- a protectionist, anti-immigrant party.) and the Free-Soil party, which ran solely on abolitionism.  Now, to understand the Republican Party, you have to understand the Whig Party.  They were formed by the former Speaker of the House Henry Clay of Kentucky in the early part of the 1800s.  Originally called the "National Republicans" during the non-partisan period before the forming of the Whig and Democratic Parties, they were the more radical descendants of the Federalist Party (Alexander Hamilton and John Adams' party).  Hamilton was the more radically pro-central government of the founding fathers and was often out of step with the Madisons, Jeffersons, and even the Adamses, but he was the beau ideal of Henry Clay and his National Republicans/Whigs.  The Whigs were in favor of a bigger centralized state than the Federalists originally wanted by way of a national bank, a nationalized currency, "internal improvements" (i.e. corporate subsidies to build infrastructure), protectionism through high tarriffs, and nativism.  This was all what Clay called the "American System".  Lincoln was a big believer in this. 
The Whigs only managed to get two presidents in the White House (William Henry Harrison and Zachary Taylor) but both died in office leaving less than desirable Vice-Presidents in their sted (John Tyler and Millard Fillmore).  In 1860, however, three years after the panic of 1857, Lincoln campaigned for the Republicans, presenting Clay's "American System" as a cure for all ills and to put an end to panics and recessions.  Lincoln was advised by the Whigs/Republicans' favorite economist; a man named Henry C. Carey, a man who proclaimed Adam Smith as a fause prophet and the vindication of Hamiltonian mercantilism.  He also admitted once that he hadn't spent even three days devoted to the study of economics, explaining his love for such an asanine economic system as the "American System".  So basically, the Republicans were formed to be the "progressive" party in the sense of the progressive movement.  The party planted the seed for the expansion of government.
It wasn't until the Great Depression where things started to change for the party.  There was a new movement in the form of a group called the Liberty League, led by Democrats and Republicans disgusted by Roosevelt's New Deal.  The Liberty League gave rise to the Libertarian movement, which birthed also the Conservative movement and started making Fabian-like plans to take over the Republican Party, viewing the Democratic Party as too far gone now under the spell of the Rooseveltian myth.  There are still Hamiltonians among the Republican Party, but Jeffersonians/Libertarians have been slowly taking it over for some time now.  Reagan was highly influenced by the Libertarian movement and openly read Libertarian magazines like the Freeman.  Though Reagan was disappointing to many Libertarians, he did pave the way for a more Jeffersonian Republican Party, setting an archetype for conservatives, but a mere stepping stone to the Jeffersonians.

Democrat:
The other major political party formed in the early 1800s by Martin Van Buren to counter Clay's Whiggish "American System".  They were the descendants of the Democratic-Republicans (the party of Jefferson and Madison).  They believed in delegated, decentralize government power through states' rights, free-trade, economic freedom, and were against "internal improvements", a central bank, and a nationalized currency.  Because of this, the Democrats had many presidents in the early half of the 19th century (Jackson, Van Buren, Polk, Pierce, and Buchannan) thus a lock on the Supreme Court.  The Civil War changed the dynamics drastically.  With Lincoln forcibly answering the secession question with a resounding "no, you have no right", and the Republican Monopoly of the latter half of the 19th century (Grover Cleveland was the only Democratic president of that period and fought against the expansion of government), there was a sea-change in the Democratic Party during the Progressive movement. 
The Democratic Party was mostly changed during the turn of the century through Southern Nationalism.  After the Civil War, the South was in shambles economically.  Education was poor and the people were poorer and disenfranchised.  Pressures began mounting for the Democratic Party (the party of the South) to take more militant and radical pro-poor measures.  This led to a stronger interest in socialistic and progressive ideas.  Mixing socialism with the nationalism of the progressive doctrines of the Republicans, they turned the American System on its head.
Then, of course, the sixties changed everything.  The hippies were at best confused, mixing Libertarian liberalism and individualism with socialism and progressivism.  This led to the modern Democratic Party.  It was during this time that the Republican Party simply reacted, retreating to ardent nationalism in order to provide a contrast.

The long-and-short of it is that depending on party as a definition is fickle and unreliable.  The more Libertarian Democratic Party of the early 19th century is completely different from the more nationalistic party of the early 20th, and the more socialistic party of the latter 20th and current era.  To simply say the killing of indians is the "fault of the Republicans", or slavery is the "fault of the Democrats".  You must look at the ideology of the particular issue.  Just because the Democrats were the more Libertarian party also doesn't mean Libertarianism is to blame for slavery, for reading the justifications of slavery reveal Southern Nationalism as the root and not the Classical Liberalism that influenced Libertarianism.  Replacing philosophy and ethics with partisanship in politics robs politics of its very meaning.

Right/Left-Wing:
The terms "Right" and "Left" Wing have no basis in philosophy or ethics either.  The terms are based on parlamentary seating and have no meaning whatsoever.  For instance, the "left" in revolutionary France were laissez-faire individualists while the "right" were monarchists and mercantilists, the socialists were actually seated center-back.  So what we now consider "right" was "left" to France and what was "center-back" to them is "left" to us now, where as their "right" has no baring in modern American politics.  Therefore "left" and "right" are unreliable terms.

Liberal:
Liberalism, by its classical definition, was a philosophical movement during the Enlightenment based on individualism, free-markets, and natural laws.  It bred a new school of economics, justice, science, and political theology based on natural law and personal freedom.  It worked on the idea of spontanious order and that people are capable of governing themselves better than the government can.
However, the progressive movement changed the definition of Liberal and took it from a Newtonian ideology and applied it to a Darwinian ideology of collectivism and applied the Liberalism to societies and groups and the idea of the State rather than individuals.  This flipped the term on its head.  In fact, many imbittered Libertarians still sneeringly call modern Liberals "so-called liberals".  So seeing as Liberalism has been robbed of its classical definition, the modern term of "liberal" is unreliable and clouds political discussion.

Conservative:
Again, Conservative, like Liberal, has been robbed of its classical definition, rendering the term useless.  Conservative simply means "not radical" or "resistant to change".  The term in itself carries no philosophy with it.  In the modern political games, the term is used to describe someone who is uptight or simply an obstructionist.  "Conservative" was never used in its modern sense until the 1950s as the Conservative Movement began breaking away from the Libertarian Movement and carving its own identity with family values and religion at its forefront, two ideals Libertarianism rejected.  Chiefly, "Conservatism" in its modern sense is used to describe someone who believes in the Newtonian idealism of the Enlightenment, but mixes it with religion and family values, and nationalism.  However, since it, like Liberal, has been robbed of its classical meaning, it is rendered useless in political science.

Radical:
The root word, "Radi" is the Latinate term for "root" (i.e. radish).  A Radical believes in a pure idea and demands immediate and drastic change to that pure idea.  The conservative, classically, is meant to resist and suppress the Radical.  That's all the term means.

From now on, in my entries, when I use these words, I will be using the classical definitions.  I will continue to get into the spectrum and cycles that serve as the focus of my political theory.  I will revert from using parties as definitions and will explain the spectrum of no government, to absolute government that inevitably collapses back into no government--Anarchism to Internationalism.

Pay attention, folks, I'm going to be thorough.

-W.D.P.