The Political Spectrum

We often hear of a person, group, or policy being on the left or the right. Issues are often measured on this political spectrum, with liberals on the left and conservatives on the right.Different forms of government are even identified as being left or right:

An explanation of the origin of these terms is found in The 5000 Year Leap by W. Cleon Skousen: "These terms actually refer to the manner in which the various parties are seated in the parliaments of Europe. The radical revolutionaries (usually the Communists) occupy the far left and the military dictatorships (such as the Fascists) are on the far right. Other Parties are located in between."

This is not the political spectrum that the founders used. They did not define things in terms of political parties but rather in terms of political power. They considered that on one end of the spectrum would be total government or ruler's law and the other side would be no government. Their goal in writing the Constitution was to find the balanced center, where we could have people's law.
They knew that the government needed enough power to hold us together as a nation, but not so much that the people would be placed in bondage to the government. James Iredell said, "There are two extremes equally dangerous to liberty. These are tyranny and anarchy. The medium between these two is the true government to protect the people. In my opinion, this Constitution is well calculated to guard against both these extremes." (James Iredell was a delegate from North Carolina that participated in the ratification debates.) Using this spectrum, communism and fascism would find themselves on the same side - total government. Under total government, tyranny, or ruler's law, the people are not equal. The ruler is far above them, and rules are created and carried out according to the whims of those in ruling positions. Another characteristic, again from Skousen is that "Under Ruler's law, problems are always solved by issuing more edicts or laws, setting up more bureaus, harassing the people with more regulators, and charging the people for these 'services' by continually adding to their burden of taxes. Freedom is never looked upon as a viable solution to anything."
In contrast to this, people's law allows the people to choose leaders. They are ruled by law and not by the whims of men. Power is dispersed among the people. The people are expected to govern themselves as much as possible, only granting powers to governments to do things that the people are unable to do for themselves.
According to Skousen, the founders used two civilizations as examples of people's law: the Anglo-Saxons and the Israelites as they were led by Moses. You will recall from the Old Testament that initially Moses was trying to listen to and solve all of the people's problems. His father-in-law, Jethro, helped Moses understand the value in teaching doctrine, but then delegating responsibility and allowing the people to govern themselves (See Exodus 18:17-26). This is the kind of government our founders were striving to create. Government in the balanced center of the true political spectrum.