Liberal Lackoff Decodes Speech (Rush On How The Inaugural Address Has Driven Libs Bonkers Alert)

I have a story here. This is from the San Francisco Chronicle. (shuffling paper) I'm not sure how to pronounce the writer's name. It's G-a-r-o-f-o-l. Oh, it's f-o-l-i. Yeah. So it would be Joe Gar-ofoli? Joe Garof-oli? Joe Garofoli. The headline: "Bush Puts His Own Spin on 'Freedom;' Left's Mainstay Word Recasts Economic Terms." So what this story is going to tell us -- you just wait till you hear it -- is that Bush has stolen a liberal word, "Freedom." Now, if that's true, then you have to once again ask, "Why are they so mad? Why are they so upset that it can't done? If freedom is their word, shouldn't they be happy that Bush is stealing their stuff?" No, because they can't stand competition, as I brilliantly pointed out in the previous half hour. So let's just hear it. Let me read some of the highlights of this story. "While progressives..." (laughing) Don't you just love these people? You are LIBERALS! If anything, you are re-gressives. You are regressing. You are digressing. You certainly aren't progressing, no matter how you define your actions. Can't even be honest and call themselves liberals in San Francisco! When it gets to the point that liberals can't be honest with themselves about who they are in San Francisco, folks, we've got them on the run.

"While progressives were turning their backs during George W. Bush's inaugural address Thursday, the president laid claim to one of their metaphorical mainstays: the meaning of 'freedom,' a word he mentioned 26 times in his 21-minute speech." I think it was 27 times, to be honest, but this is a liberal paper doing the counting. That needs to be rewritten here. The president stole one of their words: Freedom.

"In Bush's parlance, 'freedom' has been recast largely as 'economic freedom,' a political shift that could damage liberals already searching for a cohesive message, analysts said." So they went and talked to Berkeley linguistics professor George Lakoff: "What he's done is take over the old progressive language of 'freedom' and redefined it without explicitly saying it -- only with code words -- in terms of a conservative worldview. Those people who've got that worldview will understand the code words.'' Would somebody go look up the word "freedom" in the dictionary and tell me how there can be a conservative definition of it and a liberal definition? The only way there can be two definitions of this is if liberals don't like what it really means and have had to redefine it over the years to mean something else. This is a linguistics professor at Berkeley and this is the guy the left has been going to since the election to help them out with their "word messages," and again, he said, "What he's done is take over the old progressive language of 'freedom' and redefined it without explicitly saying it -- only with code words -- in terms of a conservative worldview." Said Professor Lakoff: ''Those people who've got that worldview will understand the code words.'' (interruption)

I don't know, Mr. Snerdley. I don't know! It's lunacy. Everything is a conspiracy to these people and so there are code words, secret agents and all running around stealing the liberals' ideas and their words. In Lakoff's decoding -- Lakoff has decoded Bush's speech -- and in his decoding of Thursday's address, freedom meant "unfettered economic markets." That's what Bush meant: Unfettered economic markets. "Same goes for phrases such as 'ownership society,' and the 'governing of the self.' Their conservative shorthand for believing that the government should not be regulating guess," Lakoff said. "Conservatives have been masterful for this, but they've been working on it for 35 years while progressives have just been standing by," Lakoff said. So they are threatened. What did I tell you? They're threatened by unfettered economic markets. They are threatened by the ownership society and the governing of the self. What did I just tell you in the last half hour? That's their fear. They are god, folks. They're the ones that we should all look to. There's no higher authority than them. If we realize there's something larger than ourselves, we realize there's something larger than government, there's something larger than liberals and their compassion. Liberals can't stand the idea. Freedom is what bugs these people. It really is.

Economic freedom? You shouldn't have it. Tax cuts? Hells bells, folks, no way! You want to see... If they think they're oriented toward freedom? Take a look at their opposition to Social Security reform. It's based solely on one thing: Keeping the government in charge of your retirement. What in the world is controversial about you being in charge of your own, with your own money? You're going to keep some of your own money that you earned. You're going to put it in a retirement account. It's going to grow much larger than if you gave it to the government. Makes total sense, does it not? Who does it threaten? The people who think they're god. The people who think they're in charge of your entitlement. The people who think they ought to be in charge of your entitlement. Why? Because you're too stupid to handle your own! You're too incompetent. You can't be trusted. Besides, they want the power of having you depend on them for your retirement. This opposition to Social Security reform frankly flabbergasts me in a pure common-sense way and if you look at the way they're reacting and hyperventilating here over now what they consider to be Bush's theft of their concept of freedom, you will understand precisely why they didn't like the speech yesterday and you'll understand precisely who they are.

They have a different definition of freedom, folks. "Bush did not mean specifically economic freedom!" Partially, yeah, because that is part of being free, determining your own economic circumstance. "Outflanked liberals have tapped Lakoff," rhymes with, uh, "for his skill at deconstructing how conservatives use language to dominate the political landscape. This is really 180 degrees out of phase because what's happened. (Cough) Excuse me, a little Bill Buckley impersonation there. What has happened there is the left, in order to succeed, has had to redefine the language. They've had to come up with new definitions, like tax increases are "contributions." Tax cuts? What did they call tax cuts, Mr. Snerdley? "Giveaways for the rich." They have had to redefine the language to fool people every day. They've had to redefine the language so that they're not properly identified. It's not conservatives that have redefined any language here. If we use language to dominate the political landscape, it's the language of truth, Mr. Lakoff. "Democratic congressional leaders distributed copies of Lakoff's most recent book, Don't Think of an Elephant, to their membership. The conservative notion of freedom isn't the one held by the progressives who are trying to pick Lakoff's brain. 'For progressives, yes, there is economic freedom,' he said, 'but freedom from them extends to other aspects of life.'" What? Freedom from who? Let me read this again:

"Conservatives' notion of freedom isn't the only one held by the progressives who are trying to pick Lakoff's brain. Conservatives' notion isn't the only one...?" Okay, so this makes no sense to me. I guess the freedom that we are stealing isn't the only freedom we're stealing. "For progressives, yes, there is economic freedom, but freedom for them extends to other aspects of life." Who? "When Bush is talking freedom," Lakoff said, "he isn't talking about freedom to marry or freedom of a woman to control her own body in reproduction, or freedom to unfurl a banner protesting the president." No (sigh) he's not, Mr. Lakoff. You people don't want any laws. You don't want any judgment. You don't want any morality. Bush is talking about freedom from tyranny, freedom from government. They don't get it, folks. This is the guru they've turned to to help them out of the swamp. They are hopelessly mired in their own quagmire. "Bill Whalen, a research fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution agreed that Bush's speech had transferred the concept of freedom from the foreign policy world to the domestic policy world." He's essentially... "Whalen says, 'He was espousing the conservative ideal of the self-made person who doesn't need a government handout. He's essentially using it to say the days of New Deal policies of government assistance are over.'

"'Yes, he means freedom to pursue democracy,' Lakoff said, 'but what constitutes democracy? He's saying this is freedom to pursue money.'" So, I don't know how else to define this, folks. Bush didn't say one thing. These people... No, let me put it this way, because as I've always told you: "Listen to what people say and they'll tell you their fears. They will tell you more about them." These guys are telling us more about who they are than anything Bush said yesterday, and what they're saying is they fear the New Deal. They fear that the power of government's being eroded. They fear it because they can see it happening all around. They're losing elections. They can see it happening all around them, and they don't know how to stop it, and so they're going to try to assign a boogeyman to this within their group: Bush. Bush is stealing your freedom to be dependent on government! This is a fabulous piece to learn about these people. It's tough to follow this newspaper story, but if you do, you will learn more and more about who these people are, what their fears are, what guides them. Later in the piece, it says, "Democrats have to come up with a set of values to explain why they feel that, say, Americans shouldn't be able to invest their Social Security funds in the stock market, and the rhetorical battle will probably come back to the concept of freedom."

So, "Democrats have to come up with a set of values to explain why they feel that, say, Americans shouldn't be able to invest their Social Security funds in the stock market." They don't want you to have the freedom to do that, and the Democrats, he says -- that's Lakoff speaking -- they got to come up with a way to tell you that you shouldn't. They want to deny you your freedom, so they got to come up with a way to convince you to give up more of your freedom to them, the liberals and the government. No wonder they're opposed to the word "freedom" being used so much! Lakoff said, "The Democrats respond by giving all the facts and figures. None of them say, 'This is an issue about whether we're going to have a guaranteed annuity for everybody in our family, the American family, or whether you're on your own, buddy.' Rather, they argue the details. As soon as progressives argue the details, conservatives come back and argue their own details, and nobody knows the difference, and as soon as you get into the technical details, the liberals lose because the other guys are arguing values." Sounds like panic to me. I think these people are in full-fledged panic. They're admitting they can't argue facts; they can't argue values. They can only argue confusing details, massaged and maneuvered in such a way as to persuade people to live in fear, as they do.

RUSH: And now, as you've all been eagerly awaiting, time to go to the phones. We start in Lake, Michigan. Not the actual lake. It's a city.

CALLER: Mega dittos from Lake, Rush. I have to respectfully disagree somewhat with your premise of freedom. I don't believe it's the natural state or longing of all men. History shows that freedom is a fairly recent development and phenomenon. I think that's part of the problem that we're having in the Middle East.

RUSH: Well, you know what Moses did with the ancient Israelites, leading them out of the bondage of Israel?

CALLER: Absolutely true. And I also know the problems he had after he got them out.

RUSH: It was for freedom! It was. You know, look, I appreciate this. I really do. But I cannot entertain this. The idea that some of us are created yearning for freedom and some of us aren't is incomprehensible to me. I don't understand it. It doesn't compute. Now, if you want to say some people alive today are not... We heard this after the Soviet Union collapsed. We had liberals in this country that said, "Oh, I don't think freedom's going to work for those people. They've had generation after generation of depending on the state. I don't think they're going to know what to do." Yeah, that's probably true. There's probably a little fear when you have to go on out and fend for yourself when you haven't for a while. But what do you think caused them to implode? See, I don't understand why it's so hard to understand. If you take people whose life experience is tyranny and oppression, yeah, it may be a difficult transition at first, but to say that they enjoy it, to say that they choose it? The fact is I'm not aware. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, because I'm going to take a wild stab in the dark here, but I'm not aware of a free people voting themselves into a tyranny, into a gulag, voting themselves into jail, voting in real elections. Now, I'm not talked about these trumped-up Saddam elections. I'm not (interruption).

Where? What are you going to tell me? (interruption) What are you going to cite? Come on, Mr. Snerdley! (interruption) Germany did not. They did not think they were voting themselves into a tyranny. They believed a demagogue mad man. You've got to be very explicit. Somebody runs on the platform, "I'm going to imprison you. You can't leave your homes. If you speak against me, you will die. Your wife and daughters will be raped and I'm going to put you in prison." Okay. I'm voting for that guy! It doesn't happen. You've got the people that end up in tyrannies end up being fooled into it by demagogues or they have no choice in the matter in the first place, but the quest, the human condition, the quest for all humanity has been freedom. It is what they've all sought. If you want to get specific and say, "Well, you know, you go to the ancient middle eastern countries and they don't know anything about freedom and they're not really interested in it and so forth." They're scared out of their gourds over there, folks. They get beheaded if they're caught saying the wrong thing or dating the wrong woman. The women cannot even show their faces. It's a life of total fear, and the fear of losing your life will suppress, in some people's cases, the quest for freedom. But there are always those among them who take the risks, and those are the people that history always has noted.

Yeah, it's a vicious world out there, and it is filled with a lot of tragedy and it's filled with a lot of malaise, and we can do a couple things about that. We can sit here and we can wring our hands and say, "Boy, the world is bad. There are some bad people in the world. Let's just hope they don't do anything bad to us," and we can sit there and say, "It's just a shame but we can't police the whole world and we can't take care of the whole world." All right, fine and dandy. Well, then let's get rid of the United Nations. Let's get rid of foreign aid. Let's get rid of all the stuff that's designed to help the oppressed people of the world, because it can't be done, right? It can't be done! Let's get rid of every financial donation, effort, we make because it can't be done, because some people don't want freedom, folks. It's just unfortunate. Not everybody can be like us. Right? Really? Are we that different and better as human beings? Are we better human beings? Well, that could be racism. It could be nationalism. It could be an ism, and isms aren't good. Got to be very careful, folks, about this. It's really not hard. You just have to think about it, rather than feel it. Feeling it, in a certain sense is okay, but thinking about it will get you past some of the blockages that the emotions cause.

Liberals see conspiracies everywhere. Why as the good old BezerkeleyTaliban prof George Lackoff has darkly warned, the eevil Republicans are stealing the word "freedom" and employing it as a code word to advance the right-wing agenda. As Rush points out, the fact President Bush said it is enough to drive the Left bonkers. So the Left's on the run; they can't argue facts, values or even propose a theme. Life's good when our opposition is behaving straight out of that Mel Gibson movie entitled Conspiracy Theory. Life imitates art.

If you want to appeal to regular heartland folks, then hey -- nothing warms our cockles more than to be lectured by a condescending, snotty, pointy-headed scold with a ponytail and ear rings.

Yeah, that's who we're going to flock to.

While I think GWB's policy is global in nature, the immediate emphasis will be on the mideastern countries, starting with Iran.

Feeling it, in a certain sense is okay, but thinking about it will get you past some of the blockages that the emotions cause.

The essential difference between democrats and Republicans.

Liberals don't believe in freedom because it scares them. They think that people can't handle it without becoming evil and power-mad and that they must be given limits and told how to be free. Look at liberal free-states: socialism and communism. Neither has freedom, but it is as much as what a liberal thinks a person can handle. Curiously, there is some truth to this. Liberals living in a free society go berserk, ignoring the law or try to pass laws that limit freedom, and use their freedom as a means to control others. Conservatives in a free society generally live responsibly and let laws enhance their freedoms. The fact that conservatives extend freedom even to the unborn, says a lot.

Even on the most left wing boards, liberalism is dying, its being replaced the new inherent belief in conspiracy theroies instead of a (bad) ideology.

If you want to appeal to regular heartland folks, then hey -- nothing warms our cockles more than to be lectured by a condescending, snotty, pointy-headed scold with a ponytail and ear rings.

You lost me - type slower - to whom are you referring?

LVM

Are you watching Chris Matthews??

By he's thinking of America and liberty .. FDR should have stayed out of WWII and Hitler should have been allowed to concord Europe

Yea, but they aren't knocking down the straw men, they are just saying they are there.

Your assuming sanity, from a group that has become unhinged, and can now lose a debate to itself.

"Rush what hot today..."

Rush was hot all week. His environmental wacko football picks today were a blast:)

You have to take President Bush at his word. He WILL show he's trying to work with the democrats. If he can't do his job with them around, political coffins will be quietly built for another bunch of them in 2006.

If you step back and look at his campaign last year, you will see they very rarely used the liberal media. He went completely under their radar and established a hard-wired network of GOP voters nationwide. It will grow from there.

"Even on the most left wing boards, liberalism is dying, its being replaced the new inherent belief in conspiracy theroies instead of a (bad) ideology."

One way to think about it is that oldtime liberals are being replaced by hard core leftists, who have actually always held liberals in contempt anyway. That's why the "loyal opposition" of the earlier twentieth century is dead, and the opposition today is no longer "loyal."

The MoveOns of the world would be happy to see the US falter and fail. They wouldn't even care if it was a 'rat president who was in charge at the time, since they think 'rats and GOP are the same party under the skin.

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