Posted on 06/17/2010 5:55:19 AM PDT by rightwingintelligentsia
(June 15) -- If you aren't the least bit concerned about the health of America's freedoms, you are either a) in a multiyear-long drug induced coma, B) Sean Penn, or C) dead. And you've definitely never heard of Overton's Window.
The Overton Window is a political theory developed by the late Joseph Overton, a brilliant public policy strategist and ardent free-marketer. Overton observed that "when public policies in a given area (education, health care) are arranged from freest to least free, only a relatively narrow window of options will be considered politically acceptable."
The theory says the window will gradually move over time based on a variety of factors, including truth, facts, arguments, big events and misinformation, to name a few.
The window of what's becoming "acceptable" debate in America today has changed quite a bit from even just a few decades ago. In March 1950, Newsweek declared "socialism is on its last legs," and it was right. When your favorite political model routinely ends in societal collapse, it tends to dampen the mood. Fast forward through nearly six decades of socialists chipping away at capitalism, and in February 2009 Newsweek proudly declared "we're all socialists now."
How'd we get here? Let's take a look at the theory in practice.
(Excerpt) Read more at aolnews.com ...
I’m guessing you’re NOT referring to a place where I can purchase water skiing equipment?
If you scroll about halfway down the page you’ll find an interactive example of the Overton window. It shows why its so important to elect principled conservatives to stop our slide downward on the scale.
http://www.mackinac.org/OvertonWindow#top
Interesting, thanks.
Just as clarification, I didn’t post this article to help promote Beck’s book, but because I am curious about the political theory it presents.
The overton window came out of the Mackinac center so they have a lot of info on the theory.
It would be great if we had that choice.
Decades of "pragmatic" conservatives voting RINOs into office as the lesser of two evils has resulted in making certain that the right edge of the window is always shifting to the left.
That is why someone like Lugar is still in office, and he claim that eliminating the DOE is now unthinkable.
Obama's election might end up being the best thing for the conservative cause. If McCain had won he would probably be doing similar things and giving the Republicans an even bigger black eye.
I just want to say that I personally knew Joe Overton and considered him a friend. He was absolutely a brilliant political analyst. I truly enjoyed my discussions with him. As a police officer being friendly with the mackinaw center may seem to be a conflict of sorts. However, I was raised free market and believe in the American system. He helped shape some of my views but my views were already on par with the Mackinaw Center.
Overton was quite obviously correct with his theory. We see it in action all the time. My congressional choice is labeled an “Unelectable Extremist” by both the left and moderates alike for things like supporting slant drilling under the great lakes. They continue the mantra in the face of polls that show the “unelectable extremist” leading by wide margins.
Its an attempt by the left and moderates to pull the public to the window when the “extremist” is only one small step outside the window himself and still well within the mainstream right.
Read tomas shuman, KGB defector, for perspective:
www.1776-redux.com/reference/Love_Letter_to_America.pdf
thejerichomarch.intuitwebsites.com/World_Thought_Police-Tomas_Schuman-1986.pdf
We “got here” because free enterprise and freedom in general has made us a rich society that can afford to support hordes of ambitionless idlers who are an ever growing source of votes for “redistribution” and taxes and a horde of “highly educated” idlers who don’t have any sensation of working for a living i.e. academics and perpetual students and journalists and trust fund babies. They do not connect production with work and many don’t believe in production at all. They have never had to scrabble and they think that wealth is a constant and just has to be divided up better. The richer the society the more of these bright tapeworms and dull leeches it produces. This freemarket has always had in itself the cancer that would kill it. There is NO cure for that cancer and it will run its course. Once the tumor has become great it cannot be excised nor shrunk. At best it can be kept from growing for a time but that time will not last long.
For those weak on metaphor, the tumor is government and its malignancy is most insidiously expressed in the education system.
I just read a bunch of Amazon reviews, and then went to the excerpts there.
By page three, Beck has a whistleblower on a pay phone killed with a “silenced” .357.
Couldn’t Beck afford to hire ONE fact checker with knowledge of firearms? Every shooter is rolling their eyes by page three. I stopped reading the excerpts. Maybe I’ll read the entire book, maybe not.
Page 81 - in “The Overton Window” - right there on Page 81, he mentioned “Freepers” Yep “Freepers” Big as you please. We made it into Beck’s book!!!! Yahoo!!
Yesterday I recieved a copy of “The Overton Window” from my daughter-in-law as a Father’s Day gift. The mail arrived at about 2:00 pm and I read the book by 11:00. Yes, I do read fast but it was a pretty good story about a pretty good subject. I doubt it will win a Pulitzer or even compete with “Going Rogue” but I certainly don’t regret reading it.
On another tack... We’re back at it again folks. We’re spending as much energy fighting each other as we should use aginst the liberals. I’m a Palin person even though she’s gone to bat for McCain. I also think Beck does some stupid stuff but in the end he has much the same feelings for liberals as I do so I’ll continue to support him too.
None of the people we see listed as possible Presidential candidates are perfect, though some have bigger imperfections than others. Still, almost any of those with an “R” by their name is better than the socialist we have in the oval office now.
Ronald Reagan claimed what he called the “Eleventh Commandment.” Something like ‘Thou shalt not speak evil of fellow Republicans.’ Let’s get with it, shall we?
Cool!
I can't tell you how many novels I read that are loaded with grammatical error, worse, names of characters are wrong, details that were critical to one part of the story mysteriously change. The editor-class these days is woefully lazy, my eyes are frequently rolling as well.
I don’t think there’s an editor in NYC who has ever touched a gun. Same goes for Glenn himself. SOMEBODY who is knowledgeable on a given subject covered in detail in a book should be given an advance copy, whether it’s guns, airplanes, SCUBA or whatever.
...Aunt Rudy sees him do it, writes him a ticket and makes him replace window.
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