Chomsky's a linguist, too. What is it with linguistics?
Because it's not a science and there's no way to prove your theories wrong it attracts a lot of leftist who can then come up with a lot of looney theories and no one can prove them wrong. Unlike say physics where if you put forth the theory that Karl Rove has deliberately distorted gravity to make Bush look more powerful you can be proven wrong. But if you claim that Rove has distorted the meaning of some words to make Bush look more powerful, all the leftists flock toward you, bow down, and proclaim "our all-knowing savior is here." "He's so smart."
"Chomsky's a linguist, too. What is it with linguistics?"
Lakoff and Chomsky are cunning linguists. ;-)
It goes back to the old thing, "if you tell a lie often enough, it will become the truth."
Simply the latest fad for fulfilling Orwell's "1984". Words are symbols for thought or the way we express our thoughts. Therefore, if the words are confused the hope is to confuse our thoughts.
There are three primary ways we learn. Visual - seeing mind pictures of what we are reading or being told. Auditory - more in tune with hearing what we are learning. Feelings - an emotional involvement with what we are learning, normally by relating to past experiences. Obviously, the more senses involved the more we retain. That is what they are talking about when they say "framing the issue", involving as many senses as possible in a personally relevant way.
Conservatives know this naturally. It is the bases for sales and advertising, a key part of free enterprise. Liberals know it, too, as they use it to sell their lies about their intentions. The truth is they have been using these techniques forever.
All this new linguistics bs is another attempt to explain to themselves why they continue to lose. They don't blame it on the message, they blame it on their inability to "get their message out". They are just trying to get another running start to sell their lies, to re-energize their base who have been getting so depressed they are beginning to stray from the reservation.