posted June 23, 2006 05:01 PM            

We've seen the move to raise the minimum wage...which has been discussed endlessly by "Progressives". We know that dries up jobs in America and they're either eliminated or sent offshore, which hurts the very group that's to be helped...the less skilled or unskilled in the workforce...not to mention it also drives up prices, including prices for those least able to afford it.

We've heard it all before about how "Progressives" want to help and support the troops...by criticizing their mission, by accusing them of baby killing, indiscriminate killing of civilians and tying their hands in combat. Not to mention putting their lives at more risk by giving terrorists the idea "Progressives" are going to save their sorry @sses and bring American military forces home. Hold on terrorists, we "Progressives" are going to save you and give you a victory...before the US military kills every last one of you. So much for "Progressive" ideas and policy concerning American national security. Oh wait, I forgot to mention "Progressive" national security ideas dictate that unless America can get the permission of the UN and all European socialist nations, we can't even defend ourselves at all...just ask the traitor John Kerry.

Now, "Progressives" are being counseled to couch their ideas in different language...something understandable to American voters. As if American voters don't already understand the "Progressive" communists and socialists very well already.

This is what passes for the "Progressive" democrats game plan for winning back control of Congress and the White House and gee, we've heard it all before and rejected it all before Now, "Progressives" want to tell us in language we can understand...seeing as how we're too damned stupid to have understood what they've been telling us all along.

posted June 23, 2006 05:20 PM            

How Progressives Can Win
Bernie Horn
June 22, 2006

Bernie Horn is policy director at the Center for Policy Alternatives , a nonpartisan organization working to strengthen the capacity of state legislators to lead and achieve progressive change. This article was written for The Nation magazine.

It is an exaggeration to say that today's progressives don't have a philosophy. Progressives have a fairly consistent agenda—we know what we stand for. The problem is, we don't have an effective framework to communicate our philosophy to persuadable voters.

Because a crucial election looms before us, progressive thinkers are rightfully focusing on this problem. But in fashioning a solution, we must insure that the language we use speaks to the Americans we are trying to persuade. This is a challenge, because most persuadable voters are not like us—they are normal people. Unlike us, they don't think much about public policy, they don't have a policy checklist for candidates and they don't speak policy or use intellectual jargon.

How do we persuade people who are so different? By assuring them that we share their values. "Values" need not be the anti-choice, anti-gay, anti-science mores of the right wing. In politics, they are ideals that describe the kind of society we are trying to build.**Note, what they really mean is overthrow the government and Constitution.** There is a set of values that progressives can employ to frame public policy in language that will win over persuadable voters. And to those we are trying to reach, our values will sound very familiar: freedom, opportunity, security and responsibility.

What's so special about these rather moderate-sounding words? First, they resonate with all Americans. When we use these values to describe and defend progressive policies, voters understand that we're on their side. But more important, they summarize a progressive philosophy that voters can grasp and remember.***Yes, we stupid Americans just can't grasp what good things "Progressives" want to do for us.** Successful message framing isn't just repetition of preselected words and phrases. (Anybody remember how often Kerry said "values"?) The trick is using those words and phrases to communicate a coherent set of principles—a vision for the future.

We can begin by defining the proper roles of government. Progressive policies fit fairly well into three situations, where: (1) government has no proper role because public action would violate individual rights; (2) government acts as a referee between private, unequal interests; or (3) government acts to protect those who cannot protect themselves, including future generations.

Where government has no proper role, the progressive value we should speak of is "freedom." The idea of freedom is deeply ingrained in American history. It is universally popular. Oddly, progressives rarely talk about freedom, perhaps because we are afraid that defending civil liberties makes us unpopular. But that's the point of values—to help us bridge the gap between popular ideals and policies that truly uphold them.

Where government acts as a referee, the progressive value is "opportunity." Americans believe in a land of opportunity where hard work is rewarded and everyone has equal access to the American Dream. Equal opportunity means a level playing field—fair dealings between the powerful and the less powerful, the elimination of discrimination and a quality education for all.

Where government acts as a protector, the progressive value is "security." Conservatives want to narrow the definition of security to mean only protection from domestic criminals and foreign terrorists. But Americans understand that protection of our health and well-being is also security. Insuring the sick and vulnerable, safeguarding the food we eat and products we use and preserving our environment are all essential to US security.

While progressives work to extend freedom, opportunity and security to all Americans, conservatives try to limit these rights to a select few.***More "Progressives" nonsense and utter bullsh*t** When conservatives restrict basic reproductive rights, authorize warrantless police searches and impose their creationist doctrine on schoolchildren, they are trampling on American freedoms. When they block antidiscrimination laws and traffic in government favors, no-bid contracts and economic development giveaways, they are crushing equal opportunity. When conservatives try to gut Social Security; dismantle programs that protect our health, safety and environment; and grossly mishandle the terrorism threat, they are wrecking our security.

All this brings us to "responsibility," the value that most plainly sets progressives apart from conservatives. We take responsibility for the well-being of our nation by crafting policies to extend freedom, opportunity and security to all. Conservatives cynically turn the word inside out by chanting a mantra of "personal responsibility." They mean that unemployment, hunger and discrimination are the individual's problem, not society's. In this way, conservatives twist the language of responsibility to avoid responsibility. It's downright Orwellian.

So let's talk the talk: When advocating a public policy, let's emphasize freedom if government action would violate individual rights, opportunity if government should act as a referee and security if government should act as a protector. And let's point out that the progressive position takes responsibility for solving the problem, while the conservative position abdicates it. Here's a brief example: "America should truly be a land of opportunity. But the current minimum wage denies workers the opportunity to support a family. We have a responsibility to make the American Dream more than just a fantasy. Those who oppose raising the minimum wage are shirking that responsibility."

Polls consistently demonstrate that our policies are very popular. Americans want fair wages and benefits, consumer protections, quality education, a clean environment and healthcare for all. But many persuadable voters don't trust us to deliver these programs, because they don't understand our philosophy. Let's explain ourselves in language that voters will understand and appreciate. Let's make it clear that, for progressives, "values" is not just a buzzword. And, this time around, let's win.
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/06/22/how_progressives_can_win.php

What's immensely amusing is that the "Progressives" have been in charge of education at all levels for more than 50 years and have driven education into the toilet. As for the rest, it's utter bilge, bile and bullsh*t. All those social programs eat up more than 50% of the federal budget...so we conservatives, who authorized those high spending budgets and have since 1994, want everyone to die, everyone to starve, everyone to choke to death on toxic fumes and waste...you know all the fantasies of the brain dead "Progressive" Marxists.

posted July 01, 2006 10:19 AM            

Now these people all know well Hillary is one of them, just as radical a leftist as they are and in fact, Hillary's political science professor called Hillary a Marxist...right he was and still is.

But leftist thought can't stand the idea of political impurity. Pol Pot killed over a million...some say 2 million Cambodians just because he thought they weren't pure enough communists.

When Hillary winks and nods at leftists just before she tacks towards the center, they aren't pacified. In spite of the common knowledge among people at moveon.org, at democrat underground, at daily KOS and Huffington's idiots that Hillary is a radical leftist extremist, they seem not to care that Hillary needs the votes of middle of the roaders to win.

So, the game is how can we fool em today..and every day? In spite of leftist writers laying out Hillary's game plan, I suppose the rest of us aren't supposed to notice that Hillary only talks the talk but doesn't mean a word of it and will never walk the walk.

We're not supposed to be able to read and understand plain English.

Hillary tacks back and forth between her real constituency and the middle..where the votes are and we're supposed to not notice she says one thing when she's on Main Street and quite another when she's visiting Leftist Lane.

Further, Hillary has a couple of leftist rear sniffers trying to out left her. That would be Russ Feingold and the traitor John Kerry.

Kerry, whose military discharge came years later than is usual and whose discharge was ordered by Jimmy Carter under very suspicious circumstances is singing to the same leftist choir. Perhaps it's a selling point to leftists that Kerry is a traitor. But the rest of us realize Kerry still hasn't signed that SF-180 form to release all his military records for examination.

Feingold wants a censure resolution in the Senate for Bush.

That's trouble for Hillary on the left and Hillary has all the trouble she needs in the center.

There aren't many people being fooled by Hillary Clinton....not any more and Kerry is fooling fewer and fewer people. Feingold isn't fooling anyone, he's a cut and run surrender artist like most democrats and untrustworthy with American security issues.

If there was someone in the democrat party like...say Harry Truman, a true liberal who loved America, it would be a different story come 2008. Alas, all the self respecting Democrats have fled the party, leaving only the leftists...and Joe Lieberman who the leftists are attempting to bounce out of the democrat party.

It's getting harder and harder for leftists to fool-em.

Notice---Notice---Notice. Here's the admission..one among many that Hillary is just posing, just supposin, just positioning herself...to fool-em. Notice the say anything, do anything cynicism of leftists...just to win an election. Do they really think they're fooling anyone?

Hillary's Centrism Is Necessary to Win
Susan Estrich
Friday, June 30, 2006

There she goes again. Hillary, I mean. Trying to come up with a position on the issue of flag burning that allows Democrats to be responsible centrists instead of out-and-out liberals. The nerve of her. The outright gall. I mean, who does she think she is? Bill Clinton?

What Mrs. Clinton did was oppose the constitutional amendment banning flag burning, while introducing a statute that would protect the flag. Personally, I don't think the dog hunts, but even John Kerry, no friend to Hillary, voted for it. Call it much-needed cover. As Mrs. Clinton explained in her floor speech, "Fortunately, we have an opportunity to protect our flag in a bipartisan and constitutional way."

Former Republican Arianna Huffington was all over her, speaking as the oracle in The New York Times. "It seems in line with her stance on so many issues – trying to strike right in the middle and triangulate, by not supporting the amendment because that would upset the base too much and at the same time supporting a legislative proposal that will appeal to the center. It's a truly tragic way of leading."

"Tragic"?

In my book, cancer and earthquakes are tragic. AIDS and malaria are tragic.

As for politics, losing the House was tragic. Losing every presidential election but two in the last three decades was tragic. Hillary staking out a moderate position on flag burning may or may not make constitutional or even political sense, but is this really tragic?

Lifelong liberal Democrat Barney Frank was kinder, describing Mrs. Clinton's proposal as "an effort to take into account the people on the left by narrowing" the scope of the prohibition. "I still disagree with it," Barney said. "But it's clearly a move away from the constitutional amendment, rather than toward it." He did not describe it as a tragedy.

Neither did longtime Democratic political consultant Steve McMahon, who pointed out, sensibly enough, that "what's politically pragmatic isn't always what's pleasing to the left. But pragmatism is what wins elections for Democrats."

And that is, after all, the gist of the problem.

Huffington's much-hated triangulation was the key to Bill Clinton's re-election success. In those days, Arianna was supporting arch-conservative Newt Gingrich, who had just routed the Democrats from Congress. So the former president settled on triangulation as his best, some would say only, hope for political survival. And, of course, it worked.

Mrs. Clinton, it seems, is trying to position herself in the middle so that she might actually lay claim to an electoral majority. Arianna is certainly right that it is a risky strategy because it requires a level of sophistication among those on the left, the sort of sophistication demonstrated by people like Barney Frank and Steve McMahon, who've been around for so many of our defeats.

The challenge for Hillary will be to hold onto the base of the Democratic Party while at the same time appealing to the moderates who ultimately decide elections. Right now, the big whine among Democrats is that we don't have any candidates for 2008. Where is our messiah, liberal Democrats ask each other, as they eat alive the perfectly capable candidates who are out there trying to figure out how they'll do better than the losers who have failed to accomplish what Bill Clinton did by appealing to the center while holding onto the base.

You can win a Democratic primary by playing hard to the left. Plenty of candidates have done that. I've worked for any number of them. And every one of them has gone on to lose in the general election, most of them in landslides. And that was when the country was somewhat more liberal than it is today, when values issues figured less prominently than they do today.

posted July 11, 2006 11:21 AM            

This twit endorses "outcome guarantees" to achieve success and happiness.

Last time I looked, the Declaration of Independence talked about the "pursuit of happiness". I've never seen a word in the Constitution or the law in any state guaranteeing happiness, success, fame, fortune or any other expression which might be entwined with "happiness" or the pursuit thereof.

Leftists keep telling the rest of us we don't understand their programs. I disagree, we understand leftist programs quite well..and we continue to reject their government programs and their Marxist roots.

Free to Twist Left in the Wind
“You give me a progressive issue, and I’ll tell you how it comes down to a matter of freedom.”

A review by Anthony Dick

If the American Left believed in sainthood, they would have resolved to beatify George Lakoff by now. They adore the Berkeley linguist as an intellectual hero. His brilliant innovation, as they see it, has been to harness the power of cognitive science to unlock the mysteries of conservatism — that dreaded mental disorder that plagues the brains of half the country.

Outside of academic circles, Lakoff first made a name for himself by explaining how the right wing has used mind tricks and manipulative language to dominate American politics. It is he who is chiefly responsible for the Left’s recent obsession with the terminology of “framing.” On any day of the week, you can read throughout the ranks of left-wing bloggers the following fervent incantation: “We need to reframe the debate.” This already-trite new jargon apparently expresses nothing more than the old truism that arguments can be made more or less appealing depending on the way they are presented. Lefties have become strangely fixated on this basic idea, perhaps because it offers a comfortable explanation as to why they have been losing so many arguments and elections lately: It’s not that their ideas are tired and discredited; it’s just that they haven’t been so good at “framing the debate.”

Lakoff’s approach to politics makes him a pioneer of what might be called “clinical liberalism.” Instead of engaging conservative arguments directly and seriously on the merits, he treats conservatism as an affliction that needs to be cured. Thomas Frank took a similar approach in his recent book What’s the Matter With Kansas?, in which he essentially took it for granted that Republican policies are bad for most people, and then puzzled over why these people continue to vote for Republicans anyway. One way to resolve this paradox is to divide conservatives into two rough taxonomic categories: the small elite of evil geniuses who spend their days spinning sinister plots, and the masses of ignorant dupes who can be tricked into following them. Conservatives can thus be diagnosed as either evil or stupid — masters of sinister language manipulation, or hypnotized victims of it. In either case, Lakoff wants to conclude, their ideas can be dismissed out of hand.

Lakoff’s latest proposed cure for the common conservative is on display in his new book, Whose Freedom?: The Battle over America’s Most Important Idea. Reading it, one has to struggle mightily to suppress the impression that the author is an intellectual charlatan who specializes in passing off banalities as genuine insights. The book is a conceptual muddle, with a persistent strand of historical inaccuracy; Lakoff’s popularity is an indictment of his admirers.

A few short sentences from the book capture Lakoff’s central argument: “Freedom and liberty are progressive ideas that are precious to Americans. When the right wing uses them, it sounds as if aliens had inhabited, and were trying to take possession of, the soul of America. It is time for an exorcism.” Lakoff is thus claiming that leftists are the guardians of the traditional American idea of freedom, and that conservatives are using their dark arts to try to trick the American people into embracing a new and dangerous definition of freedom.

Lakoff is mercifully clear in explaining what his “progressive” conception of freedom includes: “Freedom is being able to achieve purposes,” he writes, “either because nothing is stopping you or because you have the requisite capacities, or both.” He elaborates with a barrage of italics: “Freedom is the freedom to go as far as you can in life, to get what you want in life, or to achieve what you can in life.” This, he explains, means that freedom has a significant positive component: “Freedom requires not just the absence of impediments to motion but also the presence of access. . . . Freedom may thus require creating access, which may involve building.” What Lakoff is describing, in other words, is a type of “positive freedom,” in the sense that it requires the provision of certain goods and services to citizens to ensure that they have the capacity to achieve their goals. On this view, you aren’t “free” unless you have been provided with what you need in order to be successful.

To illustrate this concept, Lakoff considers what it would mean to have the freedom to “pursue a career as a visual artist.” Among other things, he says, you would “need access to an art school to develop your talent. That means a school will have to have a place for you, you will have to be admitted, you will have to have the money to attend . . . In short, the freedoms required to pursue a particular purposeful life may be extensive.”

“Extensive” is a fitting word for what Lakoff advocates in the name of freedom. For the sake of “freedom from want,” he deduces the necessity of “Medicare and Medicaid, Social Security, food stamps, unemployment insurance, disability insurance, public housing, homeless shelters.” To secure “freedom from harm via disease, unhealthy food, and dangerous pharmaceuticals,” he calls for “food inspectors, the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control.”

By the time Lakoff gets to this point, it hardly comes as a surprise that his conception of “freedom” has boiled down to nothing more than a left-wing wish list of big-government programs. As you wade through his book, you steadily develop the sense that it is something quite different from a serious analysis of the concept of freedom. It is instead a how-to guide for left-wing rhetoric — an exhibition of how progressives can manipulate language to advance their political agenda. At one point Lakoff boasts: “You give me a progressive issue, and I’ll tell you how it comes down to a matter of freedom.”

Here Lakoff reveals his grand design: to show his fellow left-wingers how to perfect the very type of sophistry that he claims the Right has used so effectively. In an effort to harness the emotional force of the term “freedom,” he’s willing to twist the word’s meaning to serve his political ends without any concern for the underlying truth: How has freedom actually been understood throughout American history? How do most Americans understand freedom today? What is the most sensible way to define freedom, apart from partisan goals?

Lakoff doesn’t seem to care much, and the result is disastrous for the book. To begin with, his historical claims are wildly inaccurate. America was not founded with anything like a Lakoffian conception of freedom that would necessitate the creation of a massive federal network to cater to citizens’ every need and ambition in the name of “freedom from want.” Such an idea is the product of utopian thinking that first gained popularity in the 19th-century Progressive movement, and ultimately culminated in the New Deal and the Great Society.

The American Revolution was fought in the name of liberty, conceived as a basic type of freedom quite different from the one Lakoff describes. The freedom of the American Revolution was understood as liberty in the negative sense, defined by the lack of external interference and the absence of tyranny. The Founders had no interest in a sprawling welfare state. The Constitution was carefully crafted to limit the scope of government, the powers of which were narrowly defined within a federalist framework. There wasn’t even a provision for a federal income tax — it had to be added by constitutional amendment in 1913.

Perhaps because he is dimly aware of such uncomfortable facts, Lakoff occasionally attempts to account for them by portraying his “positive freedom” as simply a more robust and updated version of the original American ideal — much like the “living Constitution.” But in fact, the Founding Fathers anticipated the possibility of a government powerful enough to provide substantial entitlements to its citizens — and they were adamantly opposed. In 1787 Thomas Jefferson explained that “the policy of the American government is to leave their citizens free, neither restraining nor aiding them in their pursuits.” The Founders were wary of government power because of its coercive nature and its susceptibility to abuse; as George Washington famously wrote, “Government is not reason; it is not eloquence; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.”

Lakoff’s conception of freedom is thus in direct conflict with that of the Founders. When government seeks to provide entitlements for some in the name of “positive freedom,” it must necessarily interfere in the lives of others. This is because all government action is predicated on taxation and coercion, which by definition entail infringements on liberty. The state can’t give a welfare check to one person without taking money from someone else; it can’t fund a Social Security system without forcing people to pay into it.

People who don’t have food or health care or education have not been deprived of freedom. What they lack is not freedom but material goods and services. This is a matter of vocabulary, not ideology. The court of common word usage simply rejects Lakoff’s claim that being free means having the capacity to achieve one’s aims. It would be wrong, for example, to say that Lakoff lacks the freedom to write an insightful book about politics. What he lacks is the ability.
http://books.nationalreview.com/review/?q=YmM4OWNjZDg1MjVlMDk0MGJjYzVkZjdlMzYyYjgyY2Q=

posted July 11, 2006 12:43 PM            

On the day that George W. Bush took office, the words tax relief started appearing in White House communiqués to the press and in official speeches and reports by conservatives. Let us look in detail at the framing evoked by this term.

The word relief evokes a frame in which there is a blameless Afflicted Person who we identify with and who has some Affliction, some pain or harm that is imposed by some external Cause-of-pain. Relief is the taking away of the pain or harm, and it is brought about by some Reliever-of-pain.

The Relief frame is an instance of a more general Rescue scenario, in which there a Hero (The Reliever-of-pain), a Victim (the Afflicted), a Crime (the Affliction), A Villain (the Cause-of-affliction), and a Rescue (the Pain Relief). The Hero is inherently good, the Villain is evil, and the Victim after the Rescue owes gratitude to the Hero.

The term tax relief evokes all of this and more. Taxes, in this phrase, are the Affliction (the Crime), proponents of taxes are the Causes-of Affliction (the Villains), the taxpayer is the Afflicted Victim, and the proponents of "tax relief" are the Heroes who deserve the taxpayers' gratitude.

Every time the phrase tax relief is used and heard or read by millions of people, the more this view of taxation as an affliction and conservatives as heroes gets reinforced.

Now we're hearing the slogan "Tax relief creates jobs." Looking at the Relief frame, we see that afflictions and pain can be quantified, and there can be more or less relief. By the logic of framing (NOT the logic of economics!), if tax relief creates jobs, then more tax relief creates more jobs. That is just how the president has been arguing for increasing tax cuts from $350 billion to $550 billion. The new frame incorporates the old Tax Relief frame into a new "Tax Relief Creates Jobs" frame.

Now suppose that a Senator goes on a Fox News show in which a conservative argues with a liberal. The way these shows work is that the conservative host states an issue using a conservative framing of that issue. The conservative host says: "Some say that more tax relief creates more jobs. You have voted against increased tax relief. Why?"

The Senator is caught. Any attempt to answer the question as asked simply reinforces both the Tax Relief frame and the "Tax Relief Creates Jobs" frame. The question builds in a conservative worldview and false "facts". Even to deny that "tax relief" creates jobs accepts the Tax Relief frame and reinforces the "Tax Relief Creates Jobs" frame.

The only response is to reframe. But you can't do it in a soundbite unless an appropriate progressive language has been built up in advance. With more time, one can bridge to another frame. But that frame has to be comprehensible in advance.

Long-term Reframing

Conservatives have worked for decades to establish the metaphors of taxation as a burden, an affliction, and an unfair punishment – all of which require "relief." They have also, over decades, built up the frame in which the wealthy create jobs, and giving them more wealth creates more jobs.

The power of these frames cannot be overcome immediately. Frame development takes time and work. Progressives have to start reframing now and keep at it. This reframing must express fundamental progressive values : empathy, responsibility, fairness, community, cooperation, doing our fair share.

Progressives have to articulate over and over the moral basis for progressive taxation. They have to overcome the outrageous conservative myth that wealthy people have amassed their wealth all by themselves.

The truth is that the wealthy have received more from America than most Americans — not just wealth but the infrastructure that has allowed them to amass their wealth: banks, the Federal Reserve, the stock market, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the legal system, federally-sponsored research, patents, tax supports, the military protection of foreign investments, and much much more. American taxpayers support the infrastructure of wealth accumulation. It is only fair that those who benefit most should pay their fair share.

Reframing is telling the truth as we see it – telling it forcefully, straightforwardly, articulately, with moral conviction and without hesitation. The language must fit the conceptual reframing — a reframing from the perspective of progressive morality. It is not just a matter of words, though the right words do help evoke a progressive frame: paying their fair share, those who have received more, the infrastructure of wealth, and so on.

Reframing requires a rewiring of the brain. That may take an investment of time, effort, and money. The conservatives have realized that. They made the investment and it is paying off. Moral: The truth alone will not set you free. It has to be framed correctly.

Taxation is not an affliction. Tax cuts will not create jobs. These are facts, but stating them as we just did just reinforces conservative frames. The right framing for the truth must be available and used for the truth be heard.

If the truth doesn't fit the existing frame, the frame will stay in place and the truth will dissipate.

It takes time and a lot of repetition for frames to become entrenched in the very synapses of people's brains. Moreover, they have to fit together in an overall coherent way for them to make sense.

Effective framing on a single issue must be both right and sensible. That is, it must fit into a system of frames (to be sensible) and must fit one's moral worldview (to be right).

Framing vs. Spin

Every word comes with one or more frames. Most frames are unconscious and have just developed naturally and haphazardly and have come into the public's mind through common use. But, over the past 40 years, conservatives — using the intellectuals in their think tanks — have consciously and strategically crafted an overall conservative worldview, with a conservative moral framework. They have also invested heavily in language — in two ways:

* Language that fits their worldview, and hence evokes it whenever used. "Tax relief" is a good example.

* Deceptive language, that evokes frames they don't really believe but that public approves of. Saying "Tax relief creates jobs" is an example — or referring to their environmental positions as being "clean," "healthy" and "safe."

posted July 11, 2006 12:51 PM            

Conservatives have been battering progressives on what they have framed as "tort reform" – legislation to cap awards in tort cases. They have been most aggressive in Texas, where they have used the following language::

Litigation Lottery, Lawsuit Abuse, Lawsuit Abuse Tax, Frivolous Lawsuits, Greedy Trial Lawyers, Out of Control Juries, Runaway Juries, Jackpot Awards

The term reform is defined in the Corruption frame, lottery in the Gambling frame, and so on. Opposites are defined with respect to the frame, but given opposite values, one positive, the other negative. When you say your opponent is frivolous, it is rhetorically implied that you are the opposite, serious; if your opponent is a gambler, then you are fiscally responsible, and so on. That's how Republicans were framing Democrats.

These words evoke frames that, as they are used in context, evoke conservative values:

You alone are responsible for happens to you.
You shouldn't get what you haven't earned.
You should be disciplined, prudent, orderly.

We crafted a response that allowed the trial lawyers to take the moral high ground — in a way that fits what they believe. We took out a copy of Moral Politics and listed progressive values. Then we followed a systematic procedure:

1. Pick out the relevant core values for this issue.

2. Write down how your position follows from these values.

3. Articulate the facts and their consequences within this moral framing.

4. Define us and them within this moral frame.

Here's how the issue looks from a progressive moral perspective:

Tort law is the public's last defense against irresponsible, if not downright immoral, corporate behavior that harms the public. It is only the threat of huge punitive damages that has any effect on companies that put profit ahead of public health and well-being. Without that threat — with a small cap on awards — irresponsible companies can fold the relatively low cost of potential lawsuits into the cost of doing business and go on selling dangerous products unchecked. Public safety requires keeping the courts open for juries to make awards appropriate not just to the suffering of the victims, but to the threat to the public. It is a matter of protection.

The proposal to cap awards would effectively take the power to punish away from juries, and would make it hard for those harmed to sue, since lawyers would have a financial disincentive to take such a case. This would have the practical effect of closing off the courts to those seeking redress from corporate harm. Justice requires open courts.

The fundamental progressive values are:

We are empathetic; we care about people.
Be responsible
Help, Don't Harm
Protect the powerless

These led to the following language to describe conservative Republicans and the relevant corporations in this case:

The Corporate Immunity Act;
Corporate Raid on Responsibility;
Accountability Crisis;
Closed Courts;
The New Untouchables;
Rewards Greed and Dishonesty;
Protects the guilty, punishes the innocent.

Taking this morals-based approach changes both how you think as well as talk about tort cases and open courts:

Talk about responsibility instead of victimhood; about accountability instead of grievances; about citizens instead of consumers; about open courts instead of money.

The Texas legislature is ovewhelmingly conservative and will not be swayed by this reframing. However, some legislators know that immoral corporations must be held accountable when they sell dangerous products that harm Americans. They have now been given a powerful tool to express their values. The major newspapers in the state have adopted this framing enthusiastically and now support this position, and it appears that the proposed constitutional amendment will fail.

Communicative, Conceptual, and Moral Framing
Communication itself comes with a frame. The elements of the Communication frame include: A message, an audience, a messenger, a medium, images, a context, and especially, higher-level moral and conceptual frames. The choice of language is, of course, vital, but it is vital because language evokes frames — moral and conceptual frames.

Frames form a system. The system has to be built up over time. It takes a long-range effort. Conservative think tanks have been at it for 40 years. Most of this system development involves moral and conceptual frames, not just communicative frames. Communicative framing involves only the lowest level of framing.

Framing is an art, though cognitive linguistics can help a lot. It needs to be done systematically.

posted July 11, 2006 01:26 PM            

"Conservatives have worked for decades to establish the metaphors of taxation as a burden, an affliction, and an unfair punishment – all of which require "relief." They have also, over decades, built up the frame in which the wealthy create jobs, and giving them more wealth creates more jobs."

I sometimes wonder if you're even aware of the world you actually live in?

In the real world, this world, the United States of America acoustic, tax relief...lowering taxes across the board..including corporation taxes, lowering capital gains taxes, removing estate taxes for most estates et al., has produced an economic boom unrivaled since Reagan touched off an exploding private sector with the very same tax reductions. Further, John Kennedy did the very same tax reduction acts and it worked then too..and produced a vibrant private sector. In fact, that's the outcome every time taxes are reduced.

Now acoustic, for your argument to have any validity...it doesn't by the way...you would need to show that tax reductions don't work, don't create upward spiraling economic activity...AND generate more tax revenues for the federal government to run both the welfare state and the essential departments of the federal government, including the defense department.

You cannot show any such thing because with the tax reductions came the economic boom we're experiencing right now and have been for at least the last 3.5 years...along with additional tax revenues to the government which are up more than 15% because more people are paying more taxes because of the economic activity.

Your feeble attempt fails on all counts and the one totally missed is that corporations pay no taxes in the first place...they pass along those taxes to consumers in the form of higher prices for goods and services. Those corporations which cannot do that...go out of business or are forced to cutback on hiring, personnel..layoffs, borrowing, business expansion and everything else which affects the bottom line.

The argument is laughable that the government is giving or gives wealth to business or corporations.

Only a leftist would be able to even form such a thought in their minds.

One must start from the position the government owns everything and gives to those who need it or whom they favor for that argument to have any validity at all. But this is not the Union of Socialist States of Amerika acoustic and no matter how mightily leftists strive to bring that about, it's not going to happen.

posted July 11, 2006 02:06 PM            

Tax cuts for the rich ring any bells for you?

Paying their fair share ring any bells for you?

All I did was attack the outrageous assumption of the leftist..so called linguist you decided to post here. He might want to work on his own framing.

Nevertheless, it all fits neatly into the category of "how can we fool-em today"...the daily search for something democrats can latch on to in order to fool American voters into voting for their leftist drivel artists.

Here's one leftists haven't completely explored...yet, though they've come close a few times.

posted July 18, 2006 02:55 PM            

Dems and the Bible, a Strangelove affair
Posted: July 17, 2006
1:00 a.m. Eastern
Jim Wallis
WorldNetDaily.com

Jim Wallis, author of the best-selling "Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It," hosted a get-together in Washington, D.C. attended by a couple of Democrat heavyweights (yes, even a lightweight party can have its "heavyweights"), Howard Dean and, drum roll, please ... Hillary Clinton.

Called, ''Pentecost 2006,'' the purpose of the meeting – as far as I can tell – was to try out some new material for a play they all hope to star in called, Bishop Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bible.

Here's the plot: A deranged chairman of a once great political party starts a process to pretend to be sympathetic to the concerns of those of deep religious faith and a political war room of Anti-American media types frantically try to cover up from their readers and viewers (there are no listeners as liberal radio programs are now less popular than short-wave broadcasts out of Tijuana) details of the scam! Pretty zany, don't you think?

Like most poll-iticians on the left, these aspiring actors and their director, Mr. Wallis, want to disengage churchgoers from concerns about abortion and homosexuality and refocus them on poverty and the environment. All in the name of ''entertainment.''

Set to open in November, 2006, Democrats are hoping for a standing room only response at the polls and at a theater near you.

Now, in this hilarious fictional work (which is based on a true story, I hear), we won't get much dialogue from the performers about religion and the Bible when it comes to abortion and ''gay'' marriage. They will instead dance around these top-of-mind issues and take a sideways approach to pandering to church-going types by singing wonderful songs advancing hard-left positions on the evils of tax cuts, voting rights to felons, socialized medicine, etc.

The hook is, it will all sound very much like religion and the left-wing political agenda go hand-in-hand. Like in the old Soviet Union.

Some critics who have seen the script complain the writers, directors and performers – Democrats – don't appear to be sincere in their faith. That is, they don't use religion to find peace and truth within themselves, they use it like a souless attorney who will say anything to win a case. That is, they say what they think the jury wants to hear. At least, that's the way the script for Bishop Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bible, reads.

These same critics continue with their harsh review. They stress how lawyerly it all feels. It is political, yet it is billed as a play that deals with the important religious issues of our day. But, the critics say, this is pure manipulation. Democrats involved in this stinker are certain to turn off a large potential audience of Christians because it all seems so contrived. So forced.

Some are even saying this whole thing is really just a sham – it isn't a play to entertain, it is a thinly-veiled attempt to pick up votes in the upcoming election. Imagine! They also contend these entertainers are nothing more than poll-iticians – of the worst kind. People like Howard and Hillary are secular poll-iticians who despise the very people they are ''wooing.'' At least, it is said they come off that way. Audience members know that because they themselves oppose abortion on moral grounds, they are considered narrow-minded, intolerant and unsophisticated by liberals.

That's why Bishop Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bible will close after the first week.

Why? Well, the script and the sincerity of the performers are factors. We know a little bit about Howard and Hillary in their ''real'' lives outside the political theatre. Do you remember Howard or Hillary coming to the defense of the valedictorian who was not allowed to talk about her faith in her speech to her classmates? Do you recall Howard or Hillary coming to the defense of the football teams who were told they could not pray before their games? I must have missed it when Howard and Hillary took a strong public stand on behalf of private Christian groups who wanted to hold a meeting in a public-school classroom after hours and were denied that simple request. And I certainly don't have any memory of Howard and Hillary throwing a fit when the Ten Commandments were removed from courtrooms and public property in recent years.

If they did any of this, they haven't been very forthcoming. Audiences pick up on this sort of thing. I know that shouldn't matter because we're talking about a harmless play. But people store those facts away. They aren't stupid.

Maybe it is just some poll-iticians up on a stage having a good time. But there are people out there like me who think religion is not a play thing to be used as a tool for manipulative poll-iticians. To me, this effort to fool those of faith is sickening. Just like when the left lies to us about their support for the troops, but not their mission. The secular left also says they support the congregation, but not their mission. These are lies meant to gain votes and approval ratings. There is nothing worse than a posturing, pandering, condescending poll-itician. Especially one who uses faith and people of faith to assist their advancement of a secular agenda.

posted July 18, 2006 04:20 PM            

Some people get Christianity, and some don't. Your journalist clearly doesn't. I wonder if he could recite for me Jesus' additional commandments.