heaven on earth

I've been coming across the terms "leftist" and "rightist" very often in my course of study and reading these days and thought I'ld expound on it.

For the uninitiated, NO. A leftist is not a left-hander and a rightist is not a right-hander.

Leftist and Rightist are two factions of political beliefs. The definitions of these terms are broad and many, but a leftist generally refers to a politically liberal party and a rightist refers to a politically conservative party. Once again, it is difficult to precisely define liberal and conservative.

The term originated from France, when their parliamentary seating was in the shape of a horseshoe. The officials were seated on the RHS while the people's representative were seated on the LHS.