Back in the day, popular legend* tells us, individuals and tribes in nomadic Arab culture might've fought hard and fought dirty to resolve their conflicts; but one rule they considered sacred, and it was "Never poison the wells". Anyone who violated that command, in one version of this legend, would be killed on sight if he was caught doing it.
And so it is today, almost. If you were caught dumping poison into the water, you would be hauled before a judge, tried, probably convicted, and sent to jail. Just like that. Even if you had a few people helping you - they might end up in jail with you, that's the only difference.
( * A strikingly untrustworthy source )
But! If those people helping you have titles like CEO, CFO, COO, member of the board, etc., and together you have a few billion dollars, and you get caught dumping poison into the water... now there's a political argument over whether or not it's morally or ethically acceptable to send you to jail for it. People will actually say it's immoral to send you and your partners to jail for poisoning the water, because... well, honestly I'm not sure of the logic, but people who lean toward the right wing of politics are pretty sure of their logic.
That's what "right wing" means to me.
"Right wing" to me means anti-poor, anti-woman, anti-gay, anti-black and anti-brown, anti-disabled, anti-Jew, anti-Muslim, anti-environment, anti-democratic, anti-worker, anti-soldier, anti-citizen. But it's also pro-corporation, pro-military, pro-secrecy, pro-nationalist.
"Sensible" to me means helping the poor; offering people a fair shot regardless of sex, sexual orientation, skin color, religion, or health or disability status; encouraging citizen participation; protecting the rights of individuals to be free from abuse by institutions; protecting the citizens not only of your country but of all others by taking a foreign-policy stance that rejects war as anything but the tool of last resort.
It's not a matter of left vs. right for me. It's a matter of "I've got a brain, am I gonna use it or not?" Am I going to vote for policies that make sense, or am I going to vote for policies that encourage concentration of power in the hands of people who (a) are not me or anyone I know or care about and (b) do not care about me, or anyone I know or care about, or our welfare, and see us as either tools or obstacles to their own goals?
It's about self-interest, to be blunt. Not stupid, short-sighted self-interest of the kind that suggests... well, profiting in business by cutting corners with labor policies and environmental regulations. I'm trying to think not just about the next five or ten years, but the next fifty, which (if all goes well) I'll probably live to see. You know? I want to live in a decent place for living in, not a corporatist's paradise.