Framing the issues: UC Berkeley professor George Lakoff tells how conservatives use language

UC Berkeley ^ | 27 Oct 2003 | Bonnie Azab Powell

[petty bourgeois]

The conservative worldview, the strict father model, assumes that the world is dangerous and difficult and that children are born bad and must be made good. The strict father is the moral authority who supports and defends the family, tells his wife what to do, and teaches his kids right from wrong. The only way to do that is through painful discipline — physical punishment that by adulthood will become internal discipline. The good people are the disciplined people. Once grown, the self-reliant, disciplined children are on their own. Those children who remain dependent (who were spoiled, overly willful, or recalcitrant) should be forced to undergo further discipline or be cut free with no support to face the discipline of the outside world.

[Tijeras_Slim]

Who's your daddy?

[Paul Atreides]

I'll bet the author isn't married. At least, to a man.

[Snuffington]

Another liberal trying to justify her own psycho-therapy as important academic discovery.

[Arrowhead1952]

petty bourgeois
Since Nov 1, 2003

HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!!!

Link is for a totally different story.....

[Tijeras_Slim]

Father knows best....

[Brian Mosely]

Geez, is this guy full of it or what?

The phrase "Tax relief" began coming out of the White House starting on the very day of Bush's inauguration. It got picked up by the newspapers as if it were a neutral term, which it is not. First, you have the frame for "relief." For there to be relief, there has to be an affliction, an afflicted party, somebody who administers the relief, and an act in which you are relieved of the affliction. The reliever is the hero, and anybody who tries to stop them is the bad guy intent on keeping the affliction going. So, add "tax" to "relief" and you get a metaphor that taxation is an affliction, and anybody against relieving this affliction is a villain.

[geedee]

Berkeley Professor: Conservatives are "strict fathers"

Versus "absent" liberal fathers? Hmmm, I wonder which is best for the family unit?

[petty bourgeois]

I'm your daddy...and you need a SPANKING!

[backhoe]

Link is for a totally different story.....

Yep, I caught that, too- hidden agenda, or honest error?

[Physicist]

There's actually a whole other way to think about it. Taxes are what you pay to be an American, to live in a civilized society that is democratic and offers opportunity, and where there's an infrastructure that has been paid for by previous taxpayers. This is a huge infrastructure. The highway system, the Internet, the TV system, the public education system, the power grid, the system for training scientists — vast amounts of infrastructure that we all use, which has to be maintained and paid for. Taxes are your dues — you pay your dues to be an American.

I love this, and hope the Democrats adopt this strategy. It begs the natural question: what do the welfare recipients pay to be Americans? Nothing; in fact, their contribution is negative. Transfer payments aren't simply un-American, but anti-American.

Run with it, liberals.

[Brian Mosely]

No, the quote from above is near the end of the linked article.

[Tijeras_Slim]

Yep, I caught that, too- hidden agenda, or honest error?

Troll incompetence.

[Tijeras_Slim]

Well, how big a boy are ya?

[petty bourgeois]

It's my first post, what could go wrong?

Here it is, again:

http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2003/10/27_lakoff.shtml

[JoJo Gunn]

"Right now the Democrat Party is into marketing. They pick a number of issues like prescription drugs and Social Security and ask which ones sell best across the spectrum, and they run on those issues. They have no moral perspective, no general values, no identity."

Hard to argue with that....

[CaptainK]

Linguistic babble form a Chomsky clone.

[ChadGore]

Re: "This is a huge infrastructure. The highway system, the Internet, the TV system, the public education system, the power grid, the system for training scientists — vast amounts of infrastructure that we all use, which has to be maintained and paid for."

Notice how he couldn't bring himself to mention our wonderful military ?

Unfortunatly he's informed by the reality that liberals lothe any and all things military.

[petty bourgeois]

John McWhorter used to teach linguistics at Cal. I don't know what happened to him. He may be in some sort of Symbionese or Sino-Viet re-education camp, undergoing mandatory sensitivity training.

He told me once he would speak at ANY campus but Berkeley when asked to do so/

[Brian Mosely]

He's also got this right:

Conservatives understand what unites them, and they understand how to talk about it, and they are constantly updating their research on how best to express their ideas.

Meanwhile, all the libs do is whine and stomp their feet.