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"So, project this onto the nation and you see that to the right wing, the good citizens are the disciplined ones — those who have already become wealthy or at least self-reliant — and those who are on the way. Social programs, meanwhile, "spoil" people by giving them things they haven't earned and keeping them dependent. The government is there only to protect the nation, maintain order, administer justice (punishment), and to provide for the promotion and orderly conduct of business. In this way, disciplined people become self-reliant. Wealth is a measure of discipline. Taxes beyond the minimum needed for such government take away from the good, disciplined people rewards that they have earned and spend it on those who have not earned it. "

He is correct there. But of course he finds this view anathema.

"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. In addition, the wealthiest Americans use that infrastructure more than anyone else, and they use parts of it that other people don't. The federal justice system, for example, is nine-tenths devoted to corporate law. The Securities and Exchange Commission and all the apparatus of the Commerce Department are mainly used by the wealthy. And we're all paying for it."

There's that ever-present hatred of the rich, based on jealousy.

The "strict father" vs. "nurturing parents" paradigm proposal is actually quite a useful one, most of all in that both conservatives and liberals tend to see >themselves< well described in the category to which he assigns them.

What's interesting to me is that each tends >not< to agree with that framework's description of the >other< side. In other words, I disagree that liberalism is particularly nurturing a way to bring up children, or society, in that it tends to strand people in dependency or degeneracy, without the lodestar they need to live happily and reasonably, and thrust upon society at large the costs of dependent and degenerate conduct. Liberals, similarly, don't credit conservatives with the altruism, self-sufficiency and egalitarianism which runs through the "strict father" framework's description. They prefer to believe that conservatives are animated by xenophobia and greed, and that conservative tendencies to authority are driven by a desire to dominate rather than a desire to be a loving provider and enforcer of guidance and standards.

The best and most useful frameworks are those with 360 recognition: useful for everyone to identify both themselves and everyone else. They provide a natural common ground, or at least rationalize issues down to a clear argument.

His "framing" argument is obviously true, as well, although less original (many of his observations are staples of rhetoric), but his suggestion that the left is systematically less competent at it seems unlikely to me. Liberals have successfully defended some fairly noxious policies (affirmative action, denying school choice to poor kids, state-enforced multiculturalism) with adept framing.