How Liberals Dominate the Public Debate: By Controlling the Language.

American Thinker ^ | 10/07/2014 | CM Phillips

[SeekAndFind]

According to former Green Jobs Czar Van Jones, the Democrats have a linguistics “Jedi” named George Lakoff (rhymes with back off), a Professor of Linguistics at U.C. Berkeley. He advises Democrats on how to win in the political arena by controlling the language. Lakoff's theory -- according to his Little Blue Book -- is that people use metaphors or narratives make decisions about politics. The way liberals frame issues in narratives undermines conservative’s positions in a subtle way that lets Democrats easily defend their disastrous policies.

Here are ten examples:

10) ObamaCare – At one point, the president embraced the word “ObamaCare”. It is the frame for the Affordable Care Act as “Obama given healthcare”. Then, the website debacle and the lies about “keeping your doctor” and “keeping your plan” began to tarnish the word by proxy. Obama dumped the frame went back to the “Affordable Care Act”. The media quickly followed.

9) Progressives – The “liberal” label has lost its glow, so it is back to “progressive” from Woodrow Wilson’s policies of the early 1900s. They choose “Progressive” because it implies that opponents are regressive. Same hula dance, different grass skirt.

8) Tea Baggers -- The Tea Party is overwhelmingly made of decent Americans who believe they have been Taxed Enough Already (TEA), are called "Tea Baggers" (A sexually offensive term) even by Biden. They are the moral opposite of the crude, law-breaking left’s Occupy Wall Street crowd.

7) Pro-Choice -- The term "pro-choice" frames those who are champion abortion-on-demand as defenders of a woman’s “right” to choose. Maybe the "war on the unborn" would be an effective Republican frame.

[dangus]

No: by controlling the media. If you control the media, you get to pick the language.

[Dilbert San Diego]

We could think of other examples too.

Regarding homosexual marriage, it has been called “marriage equality” by the liberals. The media have been cheerleaders for homosexual marriage for years, and they have picked up the “marriage equality” meme. After all, who could be against equality? This ties in with liberals desire to change the definition of marriage by comparing it to civil rights movements of the past.

And if the Supreme Court ever imposes homosexual marriage on all 50 states, such a ruling will be compared to the decision in 1967 which overturned bans on interracial marriage in some states. That narrative is already written.

Considering how the media carries water for the liberals on these causes and word choices, it’s not surprising they gain traction with their narratives of the issues of the day.

[left that other site]

Even this list leaves out the most egregious example of the usurpation of a word.

The word, of course, is “GAY.”

[Uncle Miltie]

I called a planned parenthood street hustler a baby killer to his face the other day. Just trying to preserve the truth through language.

[Romulus]

The other word hijack is “gender”.

[Sivad]

Ping

[Zeppo]

the Democrats have a linguistics “Jedi” named George Lakoff (rhymes with back off)

I'd say that 'Lakoff' rhymes with 'jack off', which is a synonym for 'jerk off', of which 'jerk' is an apt description of the guy (just controlling a little language of my own here)...

[KarlInOhio]

The only major example of the right winning the terminology battle was “partial birth abortion”. The left sqealed about that term sticking and tried to insist on using the medical term “dilation and extraction” to make it seem inoffensive.

[Rusty0604]

Whenever a liberal mentions “pro-choice” to me, I say, “you mean pro-abortion?”, and become very angry. Same with “undocumented workers”; I say, “you mean illegal aliens?”.

[GSWarrior]

If Obama had a residue of humility he would never call his law Obamacare. He would always say ACA.

I could imagine Pres. Carter trying out insurance reform, but I can't imagine him ever referring to it as CarterCare. He had some dignity. Obama nada.

[Labyrinthos]

I’ve actually been thinking about this very topic quite a bit over the last few weeks. We really need to adopt Alinsky tactics and take the name fight to the Rats. The word “progressive” is way too comfortable. It implies progress, and who isn’t against progress. What we really need to do is call them what they are: Extremists. When referring to Rats on blogs, letters to the editor, internet comments and forums, barroom debates, etc., call then left-wing extremists, environmental extremists, economic extremists, abortion extremists, gay extremists, etc. This should become routine.

[aimhigh]

NPR controls the debate by having liberals talk about the issue, and then having conservatives talk about the ‘legislative process’. Equal time, unequal impact.

[jiggyboy]

Good examples. And if they insist that “undocumented” is less derogatory, your rebuttal should be that they are indeed documented — with fraudulent or stolen documents.

[Tigerized]

As well as owning the vocabulary and debate, the third leg of this stool is (almost) complete control of the mass media. You can’t go to a movie, watch TV, read most newspapers, read your child’s textbook, or see a commercial or ad without the constant reinforcement of liberal memes.

When was the last time you saw a person of color portrayed in anything less than heroic light? When was the last time the buffoon was NOT a bumbling, stupid white male oaf? Have you ever seen a current commercial where there’s a Smart Man and Dumb Woman?

We have slowly but surely become bound and gagged by political correctness, and to resist insures societal ostracism.

[sportutegrl]

Two words I hate: Jingoistic and Proselytize, which mean: patriotic and spreading the Word about Jesus’s love for us. Only people who see evil in those two things uses those words.

[MrB]

They manipulate the language and destroy the meaning of words.

They’be been doing it since their ideological father uttered the words “Did God really say...”

[left that other site]

Indeed!

[Colinsky]

They manipulate the language and destroy the meaning of words.

It's one of their oldest tactics. Lenin's group was a small faction among competing groups, so he named them the "Bolsheviks" --the "majority," in Russian, and called the opponents the "Mensheviks," the "minority." Say it loud enough and long enough and people will become accustomed to it.