About framing of political issues with language:
http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2003/10/27_lakoff.shtml
Example: It's not a California "budget crisis" it's a California "spending crisis".
-- Steve
That guy's whole "nurturant parent" thing is 180 degrees of where I see
liberals. When your default position is that everything must be regulated by
government, how can that possibly be based in the primary assumption that
people are good by nature? Everything liberals do to restrict freedom says
that they think people are naturally bad and must be controlled.
Was he doing a bit of reparative "framing" with these articles? Is it just
me, or is he using revisionism to make his side seem less domineering and the
conservatives seem more oppressive? Of course, I think both liberals and
conservatives have that same flaw, with only libertarians basing our
philosophy on the inherent goodness of man.
I'm going to forward this to a liberal former co-worker of mine to see if she
says "That's what I've always thought" or "Wow, I never thought about it like
that." If she chooses the latter, then I'll know that this whole nurturant
parent thing is a load of BS that he's concocted to make liberals seem like
less of a threat to individual liberty.
His statements makes more sense if one remembers that he's talking about viewing individuals as children. Even an inherently good child often needs to be prevented from taking actions that might harm it.
-- Steve