LIVE AT FIVE – 09.12.11

I used to think that Lefties held beliefs. Now I’m not so sure. Can you ground this argument about intimidation and framing in real history, starting with the Founders?

Reading your PuffHo post, it sounds as though you may be the heir to Chomsky. You’re making weighty-sounding pronouncements, which arrive like a flatbed load of lumber for the audience to assemble into who knows what. What are your first principles? What do you hold absolutely true? If you are one of those no-truth intellectual invertebrates, then how do you argue against anything, conservative or otherwise?

Wishing you made more clear sense,

Chris

The mechanism of intimidation is framing, not just the use of words or slogans, but rather the changing of what voters take as right as a matter of principle. Framing is much more than mere language or messaging. A frame is a conceptual structure used to think with. Frames come in hierarchies. At the top of the hierarchies are moral frames. All politics is moral. Politicians support policies because they are right, not wrong. The problem is that there is more than one conception of what is moral. Moreover, voters tend to vote their morality, since it is what defines their identity. Poor conservatives vote against their material interests, but for their moral identity.

All language activates frames in the brain. Conservative language activates conservative frames, which activate conservative moral worldviews in the brains of those who hear the language. The more those frames are activated, the stronger the conservative moral views get in people’s brains.

When Democrats are intimidated into using conservative language, they help conservatives, even if they are arguing against them. Here’s why. The main voters you want to affect are the bi-conceptuals, those who are conservative on some issues and progressive on others; that is, those who have both conservative and progressive moral worldviews, but on different issues. They are sometimes misnamed as “the center,” “independents,” or “moderates.” But they do not have any single overriding worldview. Instead they have two. Given the way brains work, the activation of one worldview will inhibit the other worldview. The more one is activated, the stronger it gets and the weaker the opposite one gets. The worldview that is most activated by the public discourse they hear will most likely govern how they will vote. What activates one worldview versus another? Framing. Conservative language activates conservative frames, which activate conservative worldviews. If Democrats use conservative language, even to argue against it, they are just helping conservatives.

To a large extent, Democrats don’t understand this. They think that language is neutral and that reason works by logic. If you just tell people the facts and reason logically, everyone should be convinced. But they aren’t, because language works by framing and by brain mechanisms. Framing is just the normal way people think and talk. Conservatives tend to understand this. They avoid using liberal language. They frame issues very carefully to fit their goals. Democrats need to do the same — avoid using conservative frames and instead frame the issues with their own values.

Maybe somebody else can RTWT and tell me if there was a point other than whining about having lost the tempo in the public discourse.

Category: Uncategorized

Not Even Chesley Sullenberger Could Have Made The Spruce Goose A Success

Posted on | September 11, 2011 | 12 Comments

by Smitty

Chesley Sullenberger is as close to immortal as a pilot can get, after his Hudson River heroics. But even that skill could not have made the Spruce Goose a success.

Progressivism is the political equivalent of the Spruce Goose, on a variety of levels. However, BHO is no political Sullenberger, despite the prodigious propaganda efforts of the lickspittle media.

And yet some behave as if there was some way this Spruce Goose could have succeeded, if BHO was just a bit more like Harry Truman?:

“[B]arack Obama is no Harry Truman,” Krauthammer said. It’s not that complicated. Obama is over his head. He is a great orator. He came out of nowhere. He dazzled America. He [has] never run anything. He never actually enacted anything even in the legislature. He hadn’t run a state. He hadn’t run a city. He hadn’t run a business. He is running the biggest enterprise in the world and he has not succeeded. And that is why all of these independents, all of those who believed in a soaring rhetoric, including probably a couple who swooned in the aisles as he spoke in 2008, are now waking up and realizing he is a mortal who is in over his head.”

Colby King, also a columnist for The Washington Post, protested Krauthammer’s analysis and said it was inspired by a “dislike for Obama.”

“I think your dislike for Obama is getting in the way of sound analysis of the situation,” King replied. “Week after week after, it is a personalized attack. And now you are saying, ‘he is stupid.’”

No, this blog is not saying that BHO, the man, in isolation, is stupid. What is stupid is the depth to which 100 years of Progressivism have weakened the American commitment to liberty; have made running peacetime deficits acceptable; have mistaken the government cart for the capitalist horse as the driver for the economy.

The notion that anyone could put wings on these political anvils and somehow make them fly, by propaganda or sheer will-to-power, is what is stupid. In and of itself, it’s still a good thing that the U.S. elected a black man. However, we could have elected Joseph Edgar Foreman to meet that requirement with a less negative effect on the economy.

Category: Barack Obama, Uncategorized

Things I Am Confident Will Not Occur: A Unionized U.S. Military

Posted on | September 11, 2011 | 16 Comments

by Smitty

iOwnTheWorld:

Ulsterman: Stop right there. Did you just say that the Obama administration wants to unionize the American military?

Wall Street: Oh my – look at you now! That’s got you a bit riled does it?

Ulsterman: Are you being serious?

Wall Street: Oh yes. Absolutely serious. A bit over a year…perhaps a year-and-a-half ago. A younger gentleman who was said to be with the administration – affiliated with the DOJ actually – these people were crawling all over everything at that time. That situation itself was enough to sour many of us on the Obama White House. They would walk in as if they owned you. Wall Street had become a plantation. Ironic, isn’t it? But that’s how it felt. It’s improved somewhat, but not enough. Not nearly enough…

One might argue that the military-industrial complex, of the four branches of the DoD, or the various parochial communities within hte services exhibit some union-esque behaviors at times. Then there are all of the political lobbies championing veteran’s causes.

So what, other than creating a dues system to siphon dues money into Democrat party coffers, would this idea solve?

Hmmm, if you wanted to weaken the U.S. military, a mechanism to allow group insubordination (i.e. mutiny) would probably do the trick.

Peradventure one supposed that such existed, it would be met with derision and scorn. Like an unnatural sexual pairing.

Category: Uncategorized

Joe Fein, in a Fighting Mood

Posted on | September 11, 2011 | 6 Comments

My L.A. friend Joe Fein has been trying for some time to get the California GOP to take online New Media seriously. He’s trying again with “Why 30 Bloggers are Worth More for the CAGOP then One MSNBC.”

Joy McCann likes Joe’s message. Let’s hope California Republicans are paying attention. Otherwise, some day soon they can hold their state convention at the La Brea Tar Pits, with the rest of the extinct species.

Category: California, Valley of the Shadow

NY-9: Boots on the Ground

Posted on | September 11, 2011 | 2 Comments

CHARLOTTE, N.C.
Changing planes here on my way to Tampa for the debate, but enough of a layover that I had time to had time to check my e-mail, and found a report on what the Conservative Action Fund is doing in the run-up to Tuesday’s special election in Anthony Weiner’s former congressional district. Here are some photos:

CAF district field manager Bill Murphy talks to an NY-9 voter.

Murphy and another CAF activist streetside in NY-9.

My friend Ali Akbar is a consultant working with CAF on the NY-9 campaign and e-mails these comments:

“Conservative Action Fund has the largest outside force inside of Weiner’s old district. . . . Our team is running into tons of disaffected Democratic voters and they’re not just complaining about Weprin — it’s Obama and jobs too. . . .Conservative Action Fund beat the DCCC and the NRCC into the district. We are proud to be making a difference and forcing Democrats to spend hundreds of thousands, maybe a million dollars or more, to keep this very blue seat in the heart of New York city.”

Click here to support CAF’s effort in NY-9.

PREVIOUSLY:

Category: Congress, Election, New York

Jobs Saved or Created?

Posted on | September 11, 2011 | 7 Comments

Just randomly checking the news headlines when I saw this at Fox News:

Use of Surrogate Sex Partners
Rising Among Women

Ummm. OK. Let’s see what this is about:

“More and more women are now claiming their birth right to either have an orgasm, or healthy relationship or have sexual satisfaction,” said Shai Rotem, a surrogate partner who is based in Los Angeles but practices internationally.
In his 14 years as a surrogate partner, Rotem has worked with women who have a condition called vaginismus, which makes sex painful, women in their 40s or 50s who are virgins and women who have experienced sexual trauma. . . .
Surrogate partners work with their patients to build their communication skills and self-confidence, and help them become more comfortable with physical and emotional intimacy. Rotem said sessions are well-planned and less anxiety-provoking for patients than real-world sexual encounters, where anything can happen. “[This] is way safer than meeting strange men in a bar,” he said.

Is this sort of employment going to be increased as a result of Obama’s jobs program? Will surrogate therapy be covered by ObamaCare?

Because if this blogging gig doesn’t work out . . .

Category: humor

« go back — keep looking »

About

This is an area on your website where you can add text. This will serve as an informative location on your website, where you can talk about your site.

The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

LIVE AT FIVE – 09.12.11

FMJRA 2.0: The One You Love To Hate

Lakoff: A Seminar In Hooey?

Not Even Chesley Sullenberger Could Have Made The Spruce Goose A Success

Things I Am Confident Will Not Occur: A Unionized U.S. Military

Joe Fein, in a Fighting Mood

NY-9: Boots on the Ground

Jobs Saved or Created?

THE FULL METAL JACKET REACH-AROUND AWARD

HIT THE FREAKING TIP JAR!

Search

Recent Posts

RSS reader subscription

MEMEORANDUM

Recent Comments

THE AMAZING GONZO FEED

Major Leagues

Archives

Free Agents

SHAMELESS CAPITALISM

Triple-A Franchises

Blogroll

About

Subscribe to our feed

Search

Admin