1 I read a lot of this yesterday.  Lackoff's the Left's ego-boo.  Interdict with him like we've learned with Alinsky.

2 Feeelings, nothing more than feeeelings...

3 Actually, Thomas Frank is responsible for What's the Matter with Kansas.

4 I wonder how much of his worldview was shaped by being constantly called "Jackoff" while growing up?

5 I bet it would be fun to read Lakoff's book right after reading Jonah Goldberg's new one.

6 One more interesting point: You know how liberals and conservatives often talk right past each other, speaking in completely different words and ideas and thus not addressing each other's central points? Lakoff recommends that. He actually recommends not addressing conservatives' key points at all, and specifically forbids progressives from even mentioning them.



That's my sister.  Cannot.Have.Calm.Conversation.  And thus we're no longer speaking.

7 Ha, I'm in the comments over there too. All your threads are belong to me.

8 Lakoff's communications framing strategy masterpiece was Don't Think of an Elephant!.

9 My morality is benevolent. Now put down that doughnut before I kill you.

10 rhymes with...

11 George Lakoff, not just wrong, but evil.

12 If conservative mindset is due to cruel parenting, how does Lakoff account for the former libs who changed to conservatism? (David Horowitz comes to mind, but there's so many unknown and unheralded who fit in this category. I'm one of them.) And my parents were far from cruel, they were pretty laissez-faire.

13 >> rhymes with...

Nice.

14 "ego-boo," I like that. So a "boo" is any kind of woobie, and you add that to a word to create a specific type of boo?

15 What a jackoff....sounds like by idiot gubmint teat-sucking loser of a brother.

16 Thomas Frank wrote "what's the matter with Kansas?" 

17 Lakoff rhymes with................

18 We'll have that worldwide family of man as soon as we kill all the clinkers.

19 This guy has a funny name

20 >>>Actually, Thomas Frank is responsible for What's the Matter with Kansas. aaarrrrggghhh... Damnit. Hey, you know what happened here, right? I wanted to believe there was one less asshole in the world, so I created an Obama-like "composite" character combining parts of Thomas Frank and George Lakoff.

21

#BeatingOnAmerica

 

Daddy only beats us...because he loves us.

22 To quote myself: Lakoff is the PT Barnum of Berkley.

23 Hmmmm......my sister and I had loving parents, thus she's a raving libtard.

What happened to me?

24

Posted by: Jane D'oh at July 10, 2012 02:40 PM (UOM4

___

 

Have you tried a few drops of haldol in her kool-aid? That might calm her sufficiently for you to put her some knowledge.

25 I really don't get this strategy at all. It seems totally jackass to me.


You got to say one thing for ace, he is quick on the uptake.

26 Yup, I read the whole thing yesterday and Zombie does a great job deconstructing Lakoff. He pointed out DWS, which of course was the first person that sprang to my mind as an afcionado of this technique.  She NEVER addresses any counterpoints but plows on ahead with her talking points of the day. I also saw a couple of days ago that she refuses to go on with anyone else as counterpoint; hmmm, I wonder why?
 
Good insight into the liberal mindset.

27 I always heard 'ego-boo' as 'ego-boost,' but it usually gets applied as 'security blanket,' so yeah, I guess.

28

Paging Doctor Feelgood.

29 Is "nuturant" a word or just psuedo-technical Leftard jargon? 

30 Lakoff rhymes with...Posted by: Ronster

Take off?
(you hoser!)

31 I was framed!

32 Damnit. Hey, you know what happened here, right? I wanted to believe there was one less asshole in the world, so I created an Obama-like "composite" character combining parts of Thomas Frank and George Lakoff.

Posted by: ace at July 10, 2012 02:44 PM (115KO

A good name for your "composite" would be Thomas Jackoff.

33 Leftists apply the same tactics when appealing to Christians, too. In other words there could be a book called What's the Matter With Christianity? For examples, we've all heard that Jesus would be for universal health care. And Jesus was a community organizer and He loved illegals. And Jesus would never disrupt a town hall meeting with shouting and asking questions.

34 I remember in law school they actually told us you don't want to get too bogged down in point-counterpoint when drafting reply and response briefs. You want to try and keep the focus on your strong points, blah, blah, blah.

I guess I was stupid for thinking it's not a good idea to let their argument stand without attack and pretend they don't have good points.

But, I see it a lot in briefs, where the lawyers never fully address the other side's points.

I guess judges are stupid and buy it or the lawyers would quit doing it.

35

He seems to be confusing what's actually useful (honestly debating an opponent) with what feels good (attempting some kind of stealth "shaming" and intellectual ostracism by running a cheap eigth-grade-alpha-girl game in which he never acknowledges his opponent's words or thoughts at all).

 

That right there is the conservative/progressive     separation   in a nutshell.   Practical, rational and    productive   versus "feel good"    narratives and emotional plea bargaining.

 

I printed the essay out yesterday and I've been reading it in bits and pieces as I've had time.   It really is very good.   I love how Zombie points out that Lakoff thinks he's being clever by     going back and forth between partisanship and "objective" science, while never actually abandoning the partisanship for the objectiveness.   It's not     clever at all.     It's really blindingly obvious that every word in the book is partisan pandering.  You almost want to ask Lakoff, "Um, were you trying to be subtle?   Because you... really failed.  Like... really."

36 The most brilliant and damning insight Zombie has is that while the liberal authoring this book accuses conservatives of some sort of authoritarian fetish as a driving force in their philosophy, it's actually the liberals who do it. Behold the Nanny State. What to eat, what to buy, what to say, and how to do it all... those are key elements of modern liberal political philosophy, not conservative. Conservatives just want to be left the hell alone.

Borrowing the author's ridiculous stereotyping, it's like liberals, raised in permissive and rudderless households, crave authority. They want to be told what to do and how to do it and that they're good little people because of it because the prospect of independent agency (i.e. free will and personal responsibility) terrifies them. They aspire to perpetual childhood.

37 Conservative mindset is due to cruel parenting? Gee, i guess it is really cruel to tech your kids responsibility, and the meaning of the word NO!

38

The Little Blue Book - Confessions of a sociopathic, intellectually retarded, adult 

By George Lakoff

 

39 Dammit, icky First Lady sock off.

40 >>> remember in law school they actually told us you don't want to get too bogged down in point-counterpoint when drafting reply and response briefs. You want to try and keep the focus on your strong points, blah, blah, blah. well that's certainly true, you want to *focus* on your best points and not fight the battle on your opponent's chosen battlefield, but to actually refuse to even acknowledge his points at all...?

41 I really don't get this strategy at all. It seems totally jackass to me.

I think the principal benefit of the strategy is that anybody can do it. Beyond sheer will, there are no qualifications needed for anyone on your side who happens to get the megaphone.

Anyone can be a pod person.

42 The one mistake that Zombie makes, is refering to this schmuck as a "scientist." People with Ph.D.s in social studies are not scientists, they are cerebral onanists who have to work with a small organ. The conflation between "scientist" and political advocate isn't a conflation at all.

43 Andrew Sullivan pulls this shit all the time, too. Andrew likes to argue that only he is a true conservative and a true Catholic, and everyone else is a fraud.

44 Ace has noted before that whereas Conservatives can easily repeat liberal argument since we swim in them culturally, Liberals in general, and Proggers in particular, have no idea what we really think. We're scarecrows at best to them.

45 Authoritarian puritanical parenting.

This guy went to the "Footloose" school of political science.

Everything you need to know about Republicans you can learn through the "John Lithgow Method."

46 Why are linguists such assholes?

I mean other than their field is one where you can make up whatever shit you want and it is as good as any other shit any other asshole has made up.

47

>>My reasoning is extraordinarily simple: If you had a good response, you would have offered that good response. If you instead flee and change the topic, you don't have a good response, but do not have the intellectual honesty to admit "that's a fair point," and are trying to sound like you're responding when in fact you're not responding at all.<<

 

How else would one approach this analysis, but your heuristic?

 

Btw, your heuristic has a corollary, often seen in academic seminars, namely, "I have such a good answer to that question that I will bring up the question myself, for fear that no one else will."

48 I blame it on mead and skullduggery!!!

49

Andrew Sullivan pulls this shit all the time, too.

Andrew likes to argue that only he is a true conservative and a true Catholic, and everyone else is a fraud.

 

He's a true heterosexual also.

 

And I'm glad you said "pulls this shit," since all too often the operative verb in Andi's case is "push."

50 so the argument boils down to this: If you want to be a true Kansan or a true Christian or a true conservative, all you need to do is to vote for Democrats, otherwise you're a walking paradox.

51

Liberals like to say that....."No, means NO!"

 

Except if you're a parent.

....Then, that is a bad thing...and you're being authoritarian.

 

Or except if you're a Republican.

....Then, you're 'causing gridlock'.

52 Progressives utilizing the Lakoff Method won't actually convince such people on an intellectual level (as he specifically forbids intellectual engagement), but they will get the subliminal message that there is simply nothing in the conservative argument to be intellectually engaged at all.

That's where we are with progressivism, isn't it? No persuasion, no engagement, just "shut up" like a boot stomping on a human face.

53

George Lakoff, at age 71, still can't get over his overly-strict dad telling him what to do and showing him no affection.

54 Borrowing the author's ridiculous stereotyping, it's like liberals, raised in permissive and rudderless households, crave authority.

No. They just don't want to see anyone else doing better than them or being happier. It's an ideology based entirely on envy.

55 Lackoff on Parenting;

GOOD = BAD
BAD = GOOD.

Or, even shorter:

Anything associated with my side is a GOOD.  Otherwise, Bad.

Lackoff's not thinking, here, he's taunting us and masturbating them.

56 I mean other than their field is one where you can make up whatever shit you want and it is as good as any other shit any other asshole has made up. Psychology. When I took my Abnormal Psych final decades ago, I allegedly missed two questions on it. I went to the prof and argued that my answers were just as valid as the ones he was looking for. He ended up agreeing with me that it was all bs anyway.

57 23 Hmmmm......my sister and I had loving parents, thus she's a raving libtard.

What happened to me?

Posted by: Jane D'oh at July 10, 2012 02:45 PM (UOM4

Alternate set of parents. They were the strict ones but they only came out at night.

(In all seriousness, these pseudo-psychological arguments (conservatives are the way they are because they came from strict households, yadda yadda) are a form of arrogance that infuriates me. It's a pat on the head that says "You can't help being a knuckle-dragging neanderthal, so just let mommy government change your diapers and everything will be oogie." It dismisses the possibility that there might be a rational counterargument out of hand and infantilizes the opposition. It's just blood-boilingly dismissive and it never fails to drive me mad. Like now.)

58 The strategy is them mindfucking you. Some people are weak enough that it causes them to pause for a moment and question their conservative/Christian/Kansan/redstate bona fides.

59 This is a brilliant post that is itself heavily dependent on the brilliant post of someone else.

Ace Of Spades HQ: the lichen/moss of the conservative blogosphere.

60 Im paradoxically skullduggerish and meady!!!!

61 Lakoff's Paradox: Why is it that policies that appeal to children (i.e., it's always time for dessert!) fail out in the real world?

62 17 Lakoff rhymes with................ El Rushbo always calls him that.

63 >>How else would one approach this analysis, but your heuristic? I don't know what other conclusions any thinking person would draw. I put it at 98%, because I guess there must be 2% of people who are simply wackadoo. I have no idea who would look at someone Changing the Topic and infer what Lakoff urges them to: "Gee, that guy changing the topic is CLEANING THE OTHER GUY'S CLOCK, because, obviously, his points are so contemptible they don't even warrant civil response!!!" Who would craft that kind of three-bumper-shot chain of reasoning? Besides Lakoff, and the people who read him. Shoe on the other foot: If we began doing this, would Lakoff claim WE were Charlie Sheen Winning?

64 If only this mindset on honest debate were present in the engineering world we could all still be hunter gatherers gently caressing mother gaia. So yeah this is a great way to run a government.

65 All we need is a little midnight basketball people ...

66 Let me fix Lackofs Progressive points: - Undisciplined whelps cant accomplish anything - Spending other peoples money is benevolent - Equality trumps liberty - Messages are Rejected by Reality, human nature, Adam Smiths Pimp Hand, math and Physics being what they are, hard.

67 It's my own heuristic, for example, that when I don't know much about an issue, and am just trying to find my bearings in a political dispute I know nothing about, I'll listen to two Talking Heads arguing with each other on TV. And, in this Collecting Very Basic Information Mode, I assume that if one of the Talking Heads refuses to address the point made by the other, and changes the topic, then that point has been conceded as largely correct.

Simple, he thinks you're stupid.

He thinks everybody's stupid.  Either that or he has never thought about these issues.  I've found that's true of the Left. They don't want debate, engagement or persuasion.  They want applause and approval.

68 Another pointy head that thinks he's smart, but really is just talking out of his narrative frame.

69 Liberals are all projection, all the time.

70 People with Ph.D.s in social studies calling themselves scientists are like lawyers calling themselves Doctors.

You have to have a fucking word attached to your name to have self-esteem? That's kinda sad, don't you think? Wait. No. You don't think, you feel--otherwise you wouldn't need a word to feel good about yourself.

71 The technique is also a type of brainwashing. You're actually training these people not to even listen to the only people who could possibly ever convince them they're wrong.

72 One of the commenters over there had an interesting take.  He thinks Lakoff - 'the thinker' - has a purpose beyond what seems to be a fairly stupid surface strategy.  While the method might not convert non-believers, it makes the believers they DO HAVE absolutely bullet-proof from facts or reason.  They are literally taught not to think - aka, 'indoctrination' in the darkest sense of that word.  Such people can be made to do anything.

73 Lakoff is as phony as Fauxcahontas Warren.  Both of them have made a fortune pushing bullshit studies that just play to the liberal echo chamber and tell liberals what they want to hear.  It's amazing that the "intellectual" "reality-based community" falls time and time again for these charlatans.

74 haha, lolz, I see once again I am smarter than Lakoff. I've been describing the arguing strategy (i.e., symptoms) of the liberal pathology for awhile. Filibustering, shotgun arguments there is no counter argument among others which I've described but forgotten.

75 This has got to be some sort of weird psychological projection right? We were raised by bad authority figures so we crave authoritarian social structure. Haven't the progressives pretty much replaced the "family" father with a govt. father? So he thinks were are evil and stupid because we believe the social structure is a bottom up model instead commanded from the top down.

76

"Benevolent, nurturant parenting??"

 

Can this wonderful parenting operate at long distance, say from Indonesia or Kenya to Hawaii? Must've been a helluva lot of post cards ...

77 simpler Lakoff, call it self-fellation.

78 So let me get this straight, a UC Berkley professor writes about nihilist and thinks he is original?  

History be hard for some peoples.



http://tinyurl.com/6wbn6vk

79 Simple, he thinks you're stupid. Yes. He thinks everybody's stupid. Yes, again. Either that or he has never thought about these issues. And right again. To wit: Aaron Sorkin.

80 72

It's a cult-like behavior-- 'do not listen to the infidel.'

81 Is the proper technique for benevolently applying the hoe to the back of the bourgeois' necks in an appendix or do you have to pay extra for that?

82 g*d damn you mommy and daddy for teaching me right from wrong, the value of hard work, to respect others, to defend the bullied, to have morals, to do the right thing even when others don't...

I hate you, I hate you, I hate you for trying to make me turn out to be a decent person with integrity!!!

83 Great article.

Zombie is a hero for slogging through that book.

84 I feel better now.

85 >>> I have no idea who would look at someone Changing the Topic and infer what Lakoff urges them to: "Gee, that guy changing the topic is CLEANING THE OTHER GUY'S CLOCK, because, obviously, his points are so contemptible they don't even warrant civil response!!!"

You are looking at this like it is a debate format of 2 guys sitting across the table bantering back and forth.

In the media marketplace of ideas, this approach does work (for the left).

The only way it is allowed to work is because the MSM acts as the moderators of this discussion and thus controls the framing of it. 

Without having the MSM in their pocket, this approach would certainly not work for the left.  Since they do, it is a very effective approach.

86 This tactic is becoming so over-used on the Sunday AM inside the beltway love-fest talking heads shows, that I cannot but believe that many independents and undecideds will give themsleves the face palm salute and say those Dem/Prog jackals don't have a clue about the real world.

Unfortunately, the real world is also where 52% voted for Obozo last time out and 47% are getting free stuff from Obozo's government!  This coupled with lies, unchallenged by the Dem media, and voter fraud will make this next election a squeaker, if an Executive Order does not suspend it entirely (perhaps during a contested recount in Florida).

87 right projection **"Benevolent, nurturant parenting??"** Good catch, the left's best (er, famous) politicians are product of single mother households (e.g., sociopaths) and or the scions of criminal masterminds (i.e., JFK).

88 <> Right on. Which is why lefty global warming debate that starts and ends with "the science is settled and the debate is closed" is the dead give away that the arguments are not on their side.

89 This is the same type of reasoning that allows them to claim the media has a conservative bias--bias because only a conservative would even mention the conservatives arguments/positions. And it is only because they support the conservative position that they even bring it up.

Yes, yes, we on the VRWC have so many moles and double agents and have managed to place our operatives at all levels of liberal institutions.

90 The shit the liberals are shoveling_ Top Story on Drudge-- is some of the most racist shit I ever saw. Good thing the Dems made it or the MSM would be up in arms

91 For examples, we've all heard that Jesus would be for universal health care.

And Jesus was a community organizer and He loved illegals.

And Jesus would never disrupt a town hall meeting with shouting and asking questions.

Try this one: Jesus absolutely hated lawyers.

Seriously, it's true. All of a sudden Mr. Pious Progressive has to sputter.

92

People with Ph.D.s in social studies calling themselves scientists are like lawyers calling themselves Doctors.

 

Faculty in social studies are most certainly NOT scientists, but scientist wannabes. And that includes economists, who are the pick of a bad lot. Sociologists are beneath consideration.

93 70 Liberals are all projection, all the time.

Posted by: toby928© at July 10, 2012 02:56 PM (evdj2)

 

Exactly correct.

94 They are literally taught not to think - aka, 'indoctrination' in the darkest sense of that word. Such people can be made to do anything. Posted by: Is what JQ Public is thinking

<rip>

What is every liberal arts college?

95 So my daddy kicking my ass and making me work and earn money as a kid is why I am millionaire?


Well, yes it is.

96 Stephen Colbert's show is What's The Matter With, Kansas? for television. Colbert uses mockery to poke holes in conservative values such as freedom, patriotism, and individuality.

97 Our trolls here are another good example. They rarely can pull off imitating conservative thought, because they really don't have any basic understanding of it. Lampshade is/was one of the better ones; he was pulling in lots of reply comments for awhile before his natural nastiness and bias about our stances manifested too often.
 
But I regularly see socks here that imitate liberal thought so well it fools me for a while (ahem, ace, Average Joe).

98 There's this little shit on youtube named pyrrho who does this all the time. He churns out these videos saying everybody is stupid but he is smart.

99 Ace -- by the way, I think you dismiss the Lakoff strategy a bit too breezily.

It is formulated with an unstated assumption that Lakoff can't actually openly acknowledge, but which is understood by every friendly reader (and which is a major component of the academic Marxist milieu Lakoff hails from): most people are stupid, and stupid people are easily led..  The idea of this "alpha girl bullshit," as you aptly label it, is not to reach or affect YOU.  You (and I, and all of us reading and posting here in fact) are not going to be pushed off our conservative beliefs by this sort of intellectual pettifoggery, but that's not the point: we don't matter to Lakoff because we are a relatively tiny minority. 

The Lakoff strategy presumes that the vast 'inert mass' of largely non-political voters -- and the unformed future generations -- are NOT sharp critical thinkers with BS detectors, or stubborn prideful people. Rather that they're susceptible to...well, to this sort of 'high school' shunning crap taken to the political realm like most kids were back in high school.  

I think it's dangerous to blithely assume he's entirely wrong about this, too.

100 even if you're looking at that lame headline I just wrote thinking "Huh?" Yeah, what's a 'blook'?

101 I don't know what other conclusions any thinking person would draw. I put it at 98%, because I guess there must be 2% of people who are simply wackadoo. Posted by: ace at July 10, 2012 02:54 PM (115KO) I love two things: My little red tricycle and Barack Obama

102 >> I have no idea who would look at someone Changing the Topic and infer what Lakoff urges them to: "Gee, that guy changing the topic is CLEANING THE OTHER GUY'S CLOCK, because, obviously, his points are so contemptible they don't even warrant civil response!!!"

This reminds me of a piece I saw on CNBC not too long ago with Debbie Wasserman-Schulz squaring off against Paul Ryan on the economy.

Ryan was just mutilating her with every word he said and she just kept mouthing the talking points like he wasn't even there. It was surreal.

103

@73

 

That's exactly what I was thinking.  These people control a good deal of the media, so there are an awful lot of folks who never hear conservative arguments outside of this bubble, if at all.  The effect this has on that audience is to be completely unaware of people who don't share that opinion except as cariacature, if at all.  When I moved to Maryland, I met someone who grew up in Seattle to non-religious, liberal parents; it astonished her to the point of shouting when anyone disagreed with her politically. 

104 Adam Smith's Invisible Pimp Hand:
>> So he thinks were are evil and stupid because we believe the social structure is a bottom up model instead commanded from the top down.

I think there's something to this.

In most apartments I've lived in, I never even knew the names of my neighbors.  Urban living, and no voluntary associations like going to church, lead to alienation.  They crave some organizing principle for society, so they can feel a part of something.  They find it in statism.

105 91 The shit the liberals are shoveling_ Top Story on Drudge-- is some of the most racist shit I ever saw. Good thing the Dems made it or the MSM would be up in arms

Posted by: Nevergiveup at July 10, 2012 03:00 PM (05RcU)

Will the MSM ask Obama to repudiate these statements?

106

I swear by the insanity of cthulhu that I assumed that The Little Blue Book was a parody because no one could call it that and think they would be taken seriously.

 

I have a background in semantics and it is my considered position that his conceits regarding narrative frameworks are bullshit. There is an objective reality outside of language and attempting to simply use words words words to avoid that will necessarily fail. It's not an intellectual position, it is ivory tower bullshit.  As deeply as it pains me to say this, language is not everything.  Calling a manatee a thoroughbred will not allow me to ride it to a win in the Kentucky Derby. 

 

To haul out the psycho ex analogy again, this refusal to concede that your opposition may have any legitimate basis is less than childish. It is demented.  It is showing up at the party and claiming that he still loves me even thouh he's called the cops to have me dragged away for violation of the restraining order. 

 

We've gone round and round about how the Right at least makes an attempt to reconsider the fundamentals of our positions if real world application of those positions proves disasterous. The Left, by and large, completely refuses to do so. To the Left, it is reality which has failed. That is insane.

 

But, then, I was raised in a demented Strict Daddy family structure so I crave Authority Figures to Instruct me as to what's right and wrong.

 

You know, anyone who is going to accuse me of craving an Authority Figure to Instruct me had better know precisely how to tie those knots.   Otherwise, well, do not taunt Happy Fun Alex or she may need to demonstrate precisely what strict instruction entails. 

107 I have no idea who would look at someone Changing the Topic and infer what Lakoff urges them to: "Gee, that guy changing the topic is CLEANING THE OTHER GUY'S CLOCK, because, obviously, his points are so contemptible they don't even warrant civil response!!!" Ace, the other method is to just ignore the hobos when they whine. I have ended these little whiners in the past be asking them to formulate their ideas in a testable hypothesis - facts are anathema to their paradigm.

108 "SHUT THE HELL UP!!!!" explained the Democrat.

109 Shorter Lakoff: "I reject reality, and substitute my own."

110 98 Our trolls here are another good example. They rarely can pull off imitating conservative thought, because they really don't have any basic understanding of it.


Just a fucking minute here.  I resemble that.

111 82 Is the proper technique for benevolently applying the hoe to the back of the bourgeois' necks in an appendix or do you have to pay extra for that?

Posted by: Jean at July 10, 2012 02:58 PM (WkuV6)

It's the subliminal part of Bill Maher's show. You wear the glasses and they tell you how to wield sharpened shovels effectively.

112 Proposition: "Ted Kennedy was a fat, drunken misogynist who was expelled from Harvard for cheating and walked away from a drowning woman to save his political career."

Retort:  "Ted Kennedy really cared for the little man."

113 Posted by: Jeff B. at July 10, 2012 03:02 PM (Wr7z4)


This technique, which I perfected, has worked every time it has been correctly implemented!

114 Trolls, the Daily Show, Colbert, academics all follow the same template to influence the weak minded: 1. Simplify 2. Convolute 3. Mock 4. Laugh

115 Liberal ideas simply don't work in the real world!

You can take your narrative frames, Mr. Lakoff, and shove them up your ass!

116 I would think being raised by a strong authority figure would give me the ability to tell who is worth respecting and who is full of shit. Otherwise I would just fall in love with the first power wielding moron I came across.

117 Even though the linked article is slightly longer than an Ace Movie Review... take the time and read it! You got 116 deep in these comments - you can read the article!

118 Also note that lefties want to use the government to shut down Fox News and Rush Limbaugh, yet I've never heard of a conservative who wants to silence the NYT, WaPo, CNN, MSNBC, or other leftist media outlets. See 'em go out of business, sure (be still my savage heart!), but use the government to silence them? Never.

119 Ah, the topic changers. That is what I miss most about Breitbart. He would not let them get away with an ounce of that crap. " Gee, CNN anchor, that's great, but what does that have to do with what I just said?"

120 Thank god this is getting some attention.  Beck has been beating this drum for a long time, but even conservatives called him a conspiracy nut for saying that progressives did this shit.  They are evil incarnate.  This is Orwells nightmare.  Right out of his book. 

BTW, conservatives win elections because our positions (most of them), are natural and just plain common sense.  Logic.

I still ask myself about what they are trying to achieve by taking us over a fiscal cliff.  An obvious cliff, too.  Everyone can see it coming, yet these idiots want to step on the gas and call it "social justice"

A country of this size going chaotic will be a humanitarian disaster larger than just about anything in history.  Nobody will come to help us.  How this is good for their cause, or ANYONE, I really cannot figure it out.  I think these people are sick and twisted misanthropes who just want to see the USA destroyed.. Probably hoping it will cure their guilty conscious about not seeing their kid or something.  These people are evil and must be stopped at all costs

121 Great article. Zombie is a hero for slogging through that book. Posted by: sandy burger I think Zombie is in the bay area, carrying that book marks him (or her) as a right winger there.

122 115
Trolls, the Daily Show, Colbert, academics all follow the same template to influence the weak minded:

1. Simplify
2. Convolute
3. Mock
4. Laugh


The smartest kids in Special Ed.

123

#8

 

That "Don't think of something" trick didn't work for Ray Stantz, as I recall.

124 i added 73 to the post.

125 and... Would Jesus own/need a gun?

126 116 Liberal ideas simply don't work in the real world!

You can take your narrative frames, Mr. Lakoff, and shove them up your ass!



I am married now, so I can't help you.  Wish I could.

127

 

Lakoff is just spewing the the same drivel that other lib-progs have spewed....to try to justify using permissiveness to lure in followers.

 

Using permissiveness to lure in followers....has been used before.

Hitler used it.

Other despotic movements have used it.

It works.

It works until the followers wake up to it with a sugar hangover, or an STD.

128 Zombie is a hero for slogging through that book.

Posted by: sandy burger at July 10, 2012 02:58 PM (6ClcK)

IIRC, Zombie lives in SF and frequents Berkeley. Either he/she is a convert or a deep-cover agent for conservatism. Either way, he/she has cast-iron balls.

129 Retort: "Ted Kennedy really cared for the little man." Is that what he called his ...

130

I haven't read the comments yet.

But let me say this, never let linguists and "cognative scientists" anywhere near philosophy or you get this dreck.

At the very least his assertions would only apply to SoCons, and even that'd be a stretch, because in order to assert that he assumes that the Progressive stance is..erg...well I guess he's asserting that it's amoral (or just naturally right? I can't which.)

In any case, he's an asshole.

131 Posted by: alexthechick SMOD 2012 at July 10, 2012 03:03 PM (VtjlW)

Excellent comment. It just got better and better.

132

Two more thoughts.

 

One is that this advice puts "paid" to the notion of "marketplace of ideas."

 

The second is the name of the book. "Little Blue Book?" C'mon, George, that's not a very subtle reference to Mao's "Little Red Book." Why not just come out of the closet already?

133 I think the next step should be a progressive boot camp.

Think of the fun they could have, like weeding Michelle's garden, or collecting all of those nasty, nasty plastic grocery bags, etc.

134 we don't matter to Lakoff because we are a relatively tiny minority. True that, but this gives me a segue into noting that I think that the rise of the snarky, politcally active, dirty cons, like the ones who post here, is having an outsized effect. Stuff gets said here, or at Zombie, or JWF, that gets picked up by Fakebook or Twitface and in short order, I'm hearing echoes of it in meatspace from regular folks. Breitbart is smiling down on us.

135 Progressives utilizing the Lakoff Method won't actually convince such people on an intellectual level (as he specifically forbids intellectual engagement), but they will get the subliminal message that there is simply nothing in the conservative argument to be intellectually engaged at all. I can see an easy connection to the state of public education. You won't even need a subliminal message if there are no honest intellectuals.

136 I find Lakoff's framing strategy to be interesting insight into a group of people who can passionately argue against the death penalty for serial killers so depraved that their own mothers would pull the switch on them, while simultaneously arguing for infanticide by tortuous dismemberment as the most sacred right of womanhood.  It takes a mighty flexible mind to hold that a freethinking adult guilty of heinous murder cannot be put to death, but, innocent children can be sliced and diced for Mama's peace of mind.

137 > 118 Also note that lefties want to use the government to shut down Fox News and Rush Limbaugh, yet I've never heard of a conservative who wants to silence the NYT, WaPo, CNN, MSNBC, or other leftist media outlets. Posted by: Jay Guevara As has been often said: Liberals want Conservatives to Shut Up, Conservatives want Liberals to Keep Talking.

138

This     goes back to   a brief convo we were having this morning on the Headline thread.   "He who controls the language controls the message,"    and,    "He who writes the definitions controls the language."      When you can define that "altruism" equals "redistribution of wealth," "civil rights" equals "getting stuff we want for free," "freedom" equals "dependence on government," etc, etc, you can do a great deal of damage with very little effort.     You just imply that your definition is the only definition that's real, and you shout down anyone who would argue.  

 

Lakoff's     narrative frames are really just Orwellian newspeak and doublethink     reframed (ha-ha!) as legitimate    rhetorical     tactics.         There can be no reasonable argument for both sides of an issue, because that opens the door for that icky gross conservative messaging to sneak in there and trick the idiot audience into believing that the conservative ideology is better than progressive ideology.      Therefore       any difference in opinion    must be    cast as a difference      between      good and EEEEEVILLLL.      There is no gray area;     if you aren't good, you're EEEEEVILLLL.     No one wants to be EEEEVILLLL, so the    listener     forces     himself     to     overlook the cognitive dissonance between what    he    THINKS     is "freedom" and what      he    THINKS    is "dependence," and simply take it as writ that they are one and the same.   Sure it doesn't make sense, but at least it means    he isn't     EEEEEVILLLLL.

 

But Lakoff thinks he's being original and non-Orwellian.  Which is why Lakoff is an idiot.

 

 

I assume that if one of the Talking Heads refuses to address the point made by the other, and changes the topic, then that point has been conceded as largely correct.

 

You have    to think in terms of today's soundbyte heavy culture, Ace.   What goes unsaid is left unheard, whereas what's spoken is heard over and over and over again.   To the left, acknowledgement of the other side's view is detrimental to their own messaging, which they agree is their weak point.  To them, messaging is as much about volume (both quantity and loudness) as it is about nuance.   Essentially their     goal is to shout louder and use prettier words than their conservative counterparts,   so that the conservative message doesn't even get heard in the first place.

139 Calling a manatee a thoroughbred will not allow me to ride it to a win in the Kentucky Derby.Posted by: alexthechick

Though it would make for great youtube.

140 The Leftist's view is a Utopian one, which is, in itself, nuts.  But it gives license to ignore anything else as a distraction from Utopia.  And the history of Leftism over the last 150 years proves that nothing is beyond destroying if its in the way of achieving the Leftist Utopia.

141

You're missing the broader meme.... Cognitive Science is based on the precept that Perception is Reality... therefore if you can control peoples perceptions then you control their reality.

 

Knowing that Language IS programing, he then attempts to reprogram perceptions by controling what language you hear...

 

Problem is that Reality tends to Bitch Slap folks who ACT on an erroneous Perception of Reality...  Like California and Anthro Global Warming... where the Government is destroying the economy, because of a perceived, but untrue, threat...

 

So, IMO.... this Guys writing breaks the threshold of what I conside EVIL (ie, things which make Race Survival Less likely)

142 do not taunt Happy Fun Alex or she may need to demonstrate precisely what strict instruction entails. There's potential for a side career there, you know.

143 I would think being raised by a strong authority figure would give me the ability to tell who is worth respecting and who is full of shit. Otherwise I would just fall in love with the first power wielding moron I came across. Posted by: Adam Smith's Invisible Pimp Hand at July 10, 2012 03:05 PM (ZhEoC) This is exactly what happens to girls who are raised without a father. They'll be violent without any concept of restraint against women and boys, but submit like a Jihadists model wife when any violent thug comes along. I've seen it happen, and it is getting worse, with all the fatherless households (and the households with a man-child for a "father") This will not end well...

144 >>>s formulated with an unstated assumption that Lakoff can't actually openly acknowledge, but which is understood by every friendly reader (and which is a major component of the academic Marxist milieu Lakoff hails from): most people are stupid, and stupid people are easily led.. The idea of this "alpha girl bullshit," as you aptly label it, is not to reach or affect YOU. You (and I, and all of us reading and posting here in fact) are not going to be pushed off our conservative beliefs by this sort of intellectual pettifoggery, but that's not the point: we don't matter to Lakoff because we are a relatively tiny minority. even so, his strategy relies on the "Stupid Voters" bringing a very nuanced, three-bank-shot style of reasoning to the table. Do "Stupid Voters" do so, or do they read the surface cues? If they read the surface cues, then this "go below their liminal consciousness" strategy will, alas, go over their heads.

145 re: RNC vs DNC comparison & contrast list: since when have Dems ever been altruistic? They are power hungry, micro-managing control freaks from hell, if they believed in hell, or Islamic Jahannam, to be multi-cultural & politically correct.

146 Where is Zombie Sen Hayakawa when we need him to bitch slap this guy?



http://tinyurl.com/7ltyrwc

147 As the great Hobbes once said:

"Maybe we can eventually make language a complete impediment to understanding."

148 btw, have you noticed we on the Right no longer use the phrase intellectual honesty? Why? Because we gave up and finally accepted who are ideological opponents truly are. (And that's what precipitated books such as How To Argue With A Liberal, I suppose)

149 Posted by: Can of Raid at July 10, 2012 03:06 PM (mLZe7)

This is what continues to amaze me, namely, where do the Dem shills think they are going to go when the wheels come off, as they most assuredly will, and how are they going to cope once they are there (wherever there is)?  There aren't enough really-well-gated communities inside the beltway, let alone outside the beltway to hold them all.

150 142, how much of this crap flows from Chomsky

151 "Maybe we can eventually make language a complete impediment to understanding." Yo pizzle my shizzle.

152 SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!


Relax people. That was a very lucid retort. Hey, I'm a science-guy type person. So this all very scientific.

153

I was raised by left-liberals -- my father became a conservative, my mother did not. My grandparents were conservatives.

I married a leftist, raised by leftists.

I adored my husband, and it was a wonderful marriage until he died.

Oh--by the way--I'm a conservative.

So, uh, George--how did THAT happen?

 

 

 

154 Manatee would be a cool name for a thoroughbred though.

155

In most apartments I've lived in, I never even knew the names of my neighbors.

 

The elevator/men's room effect, writ large. Mind your own business, don't look left or right, ignore everyone else.

 

Urban living, and no voluntary associations like going to church, lead to alienation. They crave some organizing principle for society, so they can feel a part of something. They find it in statism.

 

Some found it in Guyana. Drink up!

156 I think Zombie is in the bay area, carrying that book marks him (or her) as a right winger there. ----- FYI - Zombie is a she

157

This explains the pointless "debates" held on the issues on Fox and other outlets that allows righties to come on once in awhile and talk.

 

Bob Beckel, Alan Colmes, etc., all do this.  Instead of talking back and forth, they just shout out their own positions louder and louder. 

158 Zombie is a she She still has cast-iron balls though.

159 157 - Toaster, I thought his or her cover was a mystery

160 And a cast-iron stomach. I've seen those Code Pink photos.

161

I would think being raised by a strong authority figure would give me the ability to tell who is worth respecting and who is full of shit.

 

Ah, there's you're problem.      In the leftists'    worldview,    it's the people who are full of shit (themselves) who are worth respecting, not the clodpated Neanderthals with "sloping foreheads" that conservatives would be likely to respect.  

 

This is why they need to work on their messaging, see?  To make you understand that the peiople you think are full of shit are NOT full of shit, and are actually full of     unicorn wishes and puppy   dog    dreams.    You RUBE.

162 More seriously: This thing squares with everything I saw Back In The Day at that ridiculously leftist liberal arts college I no longer acknowledge as an alma mater. They've created, not just their own world view and philosophy, but their own religion and metaphysics, complete with their own savior and their own transubstantiation. Call them out on it and they look at you like you've sprouted antlers or something. Meanwhile they can't understand failure after failure, blaming everyone around them rather than acknowledging that, you know, maybe their first principles are utter bollocks. Add to that a need to feel "special", which comes from fostering approval from the "right" crowd. Which adds in that envy thing, not just of anyone getting more approval, but anyone who seems "special" by other means...it's a sorry, malignant mess, that I continue to suspect will only be cleared out with flamethrowers.

163 Whoo-doggie...Jakoff's instruction is to not even listen to the other side???.

Talk about your epistemic closure

164 While Lakoff may rely on stupid voters and they are everywhere, in this election cycle we have a whole group of voters who are involved and pissed off for the first time in their lives.  They woke up one day and were unemployed, their savings were gone, they kids they sent to college have moved back home, their home is unsalable, and even with every one pitching into the pot they are having a very hard time with the mortgage, groceries, and utilities.  Just show those voters a photo obama playing his 100+ and counting round of golf or one of Moochillini strutting around in another designer outfit complete with gaudy jewelry and $700 dollar shoes.

165 And a cast-iron stomach. I've seen those Code Pink photos. Posted by: toby928© at July 10, 2012 03:14 PM (evdj2) ...and the Folsom Street Fair photos. Everything self-eye-gouge inducing short of {CENSORED TO PROTECT YOUR SANITY}

166 I do have to give the Left credit, though. They somehow managed to back up every single one of their lies, smears, and vilifications with an scholarly study. That's thorough, I don't care who you are.

167 I love these types of threads but in the back of my mind, there is always just a hint of irony, since we pat ourselves on the back for being able to see through the other's idiocy.

168

Progressives are stupid and they lie. Next.

 

169 Manatee would be a cool name for a thoroughbred though. Manatee-O-War?

170 What I think we in the political attention sphere forget is that the average voter simply does not know the difference between Democrats and Republicans.

If you present an issue to them and give them multiple choice and ask them to match up what D's generally want to do vs R's, they will fail and fail miserably. They likely don't even know whether Ted Kennedy was a Republican or Democrat. Nevermind Harry Reid.

The existence of this bubble is a bigger obstacle to the party that makes sense (us) than anything else.

171 So this is the lefts new plan when attacking conservatives?



http://tinyurl.com/6qc6a5w

172 Why Progressives Fail: They overregulate the economy, and Adam Smith's Pimp Hand slaps them down. They raise taxes, and Laffer gets them. They think the only freedom that matters is sexual, and humanity surprises them by caring for more after age 19.

173

When Lakoff was titling this book, do you think it ever went through his head, "Hey.   You know, Mao was responsible for the deaths of tens of millions of Chinese during     his reign,    particularly during      the Great Leap Forward.   Maybe I shouldn't be using his book,   synonomous with Red China, as the titular template for my own rhetorical       analysis    and style guide."

 

...

 

Nah,      I didn't think so either.  

174 Ignoring the argument, shouting louder, and repeating the same chant ad infinitum would seem to be a bad strategy, but then most of the listeners graduated from public schools.

175 151 142, how much of this crap flows from Chomsky

Posted by: Jean at July 10, 2012 03:12 PM (WkuV6)

A lot of it. Chomsky is a straight-up anarcho-syndicalist and the intellectual father of modern linguistics. He helped make it a leftist enterprise dedicated to deconstructing society and he longs for the destruction of the US, and says so openly.

176 I love these types of threads but in the back of my mind, there is always just a hint of irony, since we pat ourselves on the back for being able to see through the other's idiocy.Posted by: toby928

Occupational hazard. It comes with the territory.

But how many examples do we need to know that we understand both sides of the debate better than most lefties? 

Any number of us could give a truncated history of the American left. do you think any of your leftie acquaintances could do the same for the America right?

177 Progressives are stupid and they lie. That's like saying Cylons are mean and angry. There's more to it than that. Leftist are many. And they have a plan.

178 Words cause our banner, victorious our day. Will silence be promised as violence display? The curse increased we fight the pow'r And live by it by day. Our gods awake in thunderous roars, And guide the leaders hand in paths of glory to the cause.

179 #167 "I do have to give the Left credit, though.
They somehow managed to back up every single one of their lies, smears, and vilifications with an scholarly study.
That's thorough, I don't care who you are."

Yup and it was a taxpayer funded study nine times out of ten.  Those SOBs know from grant writing.

180 " He seems to be confusing what's actually useful (honestly debating an opponent) with what feels good (attempting some kind of stealth "shaming" and intellectual ostracism by running a cheap eigth-grade-alpha-girl game in which he never acknowledges his opponent's words or thoughts at all)."

Seriously Ace, where have you been?  That's pretty much the entirety of the Left's thought, and has been for decades.  They're not about what makes the world a better place, they're about what makes them feel good, what lets them feel like they're the "good" people.

That's why they judge people by their political positions ("Bill Clinton is a Feminist President because he supports abortion") rather than their actions ("Bill Clinton is a misogynistic douche bag because he uses women and then throws them away like a a dirty Kleenex").  Actions are hard, positions are easy.  Doing things that make the world a better place, or actually arguing with your opponent and honestly addressing their points?  That's hard.  The requires work, and thought, and judgement.

Taking positions that let you feel good about yourself, w/o any concern for whether or not they actually work?  Ignoring your opponents points and just assuming they have nothing valuable to say?  That makes like so much easier.

Therefore, to the Left, that is what's "good".

181 Zombie is a hero for slogging through that book.

Posted by: sandy burger at July 10, 2012 02:58 PM (6ClcK)

If I owe Cahrlse Soonnhj one thing, it's being the site that introduced me to a lot of fellow morons *and* Zombie.  When he gave her the bum's rush I knew his lunacy was irreversible.

182

The problem is with the messaging!

 

The solution?  Stop messaging.

183

The problem with progressives is that they believe their own lies.  Kind of like a dog who sniffs his own ass and likes it.

 

184 When Lakoff was titling this book, do you think it ever went through his head, "Hey. You know, Mao was responsible for the deaths of tens of millions of Chinese during his reign, particularly during the Great Leap Forward. Maybe I shouldn't be using his book, synonomous with Red China, as the titular template for my own rhetorical analysis and style guide."

More like "...responsible for the deaths of tens of millions, that's hot, I hope I'm that successful.."

185 Like Alinksy's book, this is more a reflection and codification of the approach than a textbook that created it, but it is informative. The left is following a relativist/postmodern approach to persuasion, one which avoids logic and fact, that rejects truth and evidence, and replaces all that with emotion and manipulation.
Like Alinsky this can be effective in the short term, but inevitably creates animosity, spite, and anger. The tone they complain about is exactly what they systematically created.

186 >
I have no idea who would look at someone Changing the Topic and infer what Lakoff urges them to: "Gee, that guy changing the topic is CLEANING THE OTHER GUY'S CLOCK, because, obviously, his points are so contemptible they don't even warrant civil response!!!"
-----------
May I remind you of the Presidential Debates?
I've yet to see one where the press didn't think the Dem won.
And I've yet to see one where the Democrat squarely answered the point instead of shifting to the topic they want to talk about.
(to be fair, the GOP does it too. But since I'm an admitted partisan I'll say they're only doing so because the Dems started it.)

187 This is important. We need to know our enemies so's we can defeat them.

188 >> While Lakoff may rely on stupid voters and they are everywhere,

In a drunken stupor last night, I accidentally landed on O'Reilly's show. The saving grace was that it O'Reilly wasn't onscreen at the time.

His producer Jesse Watters was on a beach somewhere testing the intelligence of the voters.

Through the haze, I heard him ask what looked to be a 20-something girl a couple of questions.

1) Who did the US gain independence from? She said Russia.

2)...and in what year? She guessed1968

189 Posted by: The Mega Independent at July 10, 2012 03:18 PM (85Ks6)

Actually, I read this blog a lot, and I can't always tell the difference between establishment Republicans and Democrats.

The difference between Democrats and Conservatives is stark, but you need to be awake to really see it.

190 since we pat ourselves on the back for being able to see through the other's idiocy I don't see it that way. I test their claims, and they are found wanting. Take their ideas and test them, they fail.

191 167
I do have to give the Left credit, though.

They somehow managed to back up every single one of their lies, smears, and vilifications with an scholarly study.

That's thorough, I don't care who you are.


Yes. That IS impressive!

192 The worrisome thing for me is that when argument with facts and logic becomes passe, policy disputes are still resolved, just in the old fashioned way; with murder.

193 The problem is in the massaging.

194 189, its ok, she thinks we vote in march

195

Excellent comment. It just got better and better.

Thank you kindly.

 

Arrrggghhh Chomsky. As a linguist, he had some truly interesting ideas. As a political figure, my feelings can best be summed up via flamethrower.

 

Look, I love linguistics.  I love semantics.  I read Wittgenstein for fun for pity's sake.  I am also completely aware that these gorgeous little theoretical frameworks are just that, pretty little playgrounds in my head.  That is not to say that control of the narrative is unimportant.  Far from it.  But when your control is built on a lie, and manipulation of language is a lie, then that control will eventually fall.   

 

 

 

196 The thing is, in today's culture, with people who don't like to read, where people think its gay or boring to think through something, and where frivolity replaces wit, this works. Just shout down your enemy and people figure you won because they don't have the tools or inclination to think it through.

197 So in summary. 


The little Blue book is about fascism? 

198

"Doing things that make the world a better place, or actually arguing with your opponent and honestly addressing their points? That's hard. The requires work, and thought, and judgement."

 

And you might lose  the argument!

 

Lakoff, if I gather correctly, is essentially employing the W.O.P.R.  mentality.  "The only way to win is not to play."

 

I wil concede that it apparently has been working generally for Romney.  Per Breitbart, his best responses to Swiss bank account and Bain smears has been non-response, which helps to kill the story.

199 When I saw the title of this thread, I thought it was about the Walking Dead. I just watched a bit of the Talking Dead and it was pretty entertaining.

200 noods

201 re: RNC vs DNC comparison contrast list: since when have Dems ever been altruistic? They are power hungry, micro-managing control freaks from hell, if they believed in hell, or Islamic Jahannam, to be multi-cultural politically correct.

Posted by: adagioforstrings at July 10, 2012 03:10 PM (smBk5)

 

You say:   They are power hungry, micro-managing control freaks from hell, if they believed in hell

 

They say:   We are benevolent    guides     who    wish to    assist     our fellow men and women     in     making personal and social decisions that will benefit all    humanity,    without being constrained    by    outdated,    paternalistic       social constructs.  

 

202 193, and you wonder why the Conservatives buy guns. Do we fear the hippies, no? We remember Cambodia.

203 >>>even so, his strategy relies on the "Stupid Voters" bringing a very nuanced, three-bank-shot style of reasoning to the table.

>>>Do "Stupid Voters" do so, or do they read the surface cues?

>>>If they read the surface cues, then this "go below their liminal consciousness" strategy will, alas, go over their heads.

I think you slightly misunderstand the furrow Lakoff is plowing here, Ace.  Others in this thread came close to it when they called his underlying thesis "Orwellian" and spoke about the linguistic/cog-sci belief that perception is reality.  Lakoff's strategy bets, in a sense, that most voters are too stupid to even understand the surface cue; that is to say, they aren't logical or attentive enough to political arguments to even notice very often when a liberal politician offers a non-answer to a conservative argument (or changes the subject).  Instead, they respond to two things:

1.) "SHINY!" (i.e. if Dems just talk about happy poll-tested talking points crap then that will be enough -- the Stupid Voter forgets about the non-responsiveness and gloms onto his emotional identification with the Dem talking point)

2.) The subliminal thing, where conservative ideas are pushed out the media space by not being engaged or granted respectability. 

Understand this: Lakoff comes from an academic Marxist tradition that is obsessed with the mainstream media's loss of complete control over the discourse.  This isn't speculation on my part: I know several grey-haired liberal academics, and have been to these sorts of conferences in the past (a life long since past, ah youth...).  They fixate on how the rise of Fox News and the internet (Drudge, blogs, etc.) has stripped them of power to shape the discourse, set the frame.  What Lakoff is REALLY trying to do, I suspect, is reset America back to the 1940s-1960s era when conservative ideas were, as a rule, treated with disdain by the entire media as a whole.  In their mind, THIS is the reason progressive policies and government expansions were so popular successful then (and not, say, because they responded to certain political needs or desires at that specific place and time -- again, it's always the messaging and never the reality with these guys).

204 Jeff B, so Al Gore killed the progressive movement?

205

It's amazing how much leftists project. WE want an authority figure? What about the drones making the "O" symbol with their hands? WTF did they want?

206 Its not just apartment dwellers who do not know their neighbors.  Look at the housinbg trends fromthe late 60s through the 70s and partially into the 80s.



Houses were being built without front porches which were a staple of Southern living up until then.  Air conditioning killed the porch.

207 Posted by: Jean at July 10, 2012 03:27 PM (WkuV6)

We haven't forgotten China, the Soviet Union, or East Germany either!

208 He gets it pretty right about the book, its nothing more then a feel good circle-jerk for the leftists out there so they can tell themselves how great they are.

209 speaking of lefty pathological epistemological closurer, check out the video at zero hedges' ultimate krugman take down. The Keynesians still haven't accounted for Japan's two lost decades which had the Japanese do what the current brain trust wants the US to do.

210

169
Progressives are stupid and they lie. Next.

 

It's worse than that.

Progressives foster stupidity...so that they can prey upon it.

 

They essentially seduce people with:

"Come to us....there is no right or wrong....it's okay to make stupid decisions....we will protect you from the consequences of your stupidity."

 

And it works!

Permissiveness is very seductive.

They denegrate and villify common sense....and 'thinking for yourself'....because you can't have people 'thinking for themselves'.

No!

That would bad.

People might figure out that what they're being fed...and led into...is a lie.

 

211 203 193, and you wonder why the Conservatives buy guns. Do we fear the hippies, no? We remember Cambodia.


Which reminds me, I need some more ammo.

212

It takes a mighty flexible mind to hold that a freethinking adult guilty of heinous murder cannot be put to death, but, innocent children can be sliced and diced for Mama's peace of mind.

 

Alas, I have a Canadian FB friend who is currently on a crusade against circumcision (it's about the baby's right to choose) who was previously gushing about the woman's right to choose to kill her unborn child.  She's a mom of 3, too.   I'm wondering if I should point out the inconsistency there. ("They're just aborting the foreskin, it's the mom's body ...")

 

I used to think liberalism was understandable from a certain point of view.   Nowadays I think you must throw away understanding in order to embrace liberalism.  

213

"You know, anyone who is going to accuse me of craving an Authority Figure to Instruct me had better know precisely how to tie those knots. Otherwise, well, do not taunt Happy Fun Alex or she may need to demonstrate precisely what strict instruction entails. "

 

MOM!  ALEX BUNKED THE ENTIRE MALE POPULACE OF THE MORON HORDE!

214 I think Ace and Zombie are giving Lakoff too much credit with this "ignore the conservative approach" to arguing.

Progressives know that they are superior in mind and message, so they really don't ever consider the idea that their conservative opponents actually may have a superior mental process and message.  Thus when confronted with any sort of intellectual argument they have no response.  It's not a strategy, it's a flaw.

Lakoff is just trying to make a "feature" out of a "flaw."

215 1>>93, and you wonder why the Conservatives buy guns. Do we fear the hippies, no? We remember Cambodia.

Norm Chumpsky said the death by murder or starvation of as many as 3 million Cambodians by the leftist Khmer Rouge was a ":noble social experiment".

216

I've yet to see one where the press didn't think the Dem won.

 

You've yet to see one where the press didn't SAY the Dem won.

 

Again, it's all about what's heard.  

217 The Keynesians still haven't accounted for Japan's two lost decades which had the Japanese do what the current brain trust wants the US to do. Good point. The Japanese crushed their economy but protected their big banks by artificially keeping real estate values high. Sounds familiar.

218

I read Wittgenstein for fun for pity's sake.

 

O____O

 

Wow, AtC.   And I thought    my steady diet of Norton anthologies was punishing.  

 

I always took you for more of a sadist than a masochist,   though.

219 Norm Chumpsky said the death by murder or starvation of as many as 3 million Cambodians by the leftist Khmer Rouge was a ":noble social experiment".

Posted by: Albie Damned at July 10, 2012 03:34 PM (Yhu4q)

I guess he was talking about how they executed them by putting an axe to their skulls.  It saved bullets.  It was a successful experiment, unless it was you skull.

220

Epistemic closure of the lefty mind! 

221 Posted by: Jeff B. at July 10, 2012 03:28 PM (Wr7z4)

...and there are those who just can't comprehend when liberals in the leftist media complex are are being subtly biased

222 The Little Blue Book is being marketed as an “Indispensable Handbook for Democrats” and "Indispensable Handbook for Alienating Your Friends and Family."

223 "Progressives foster stupidity...so that they can prey upon it. "
And there's the key: they've managed to create a culture and educational setting where this approach works. Yes, if you're a conservative you are someone who loves reason and truth for its own sake, not because it reaches a desired conclusion. You beleive there IS such a thing as right and wrong, that you cannot hold two mutually contradictory ideas at the same time and in the same context.
All of that is alien to most people in the modern western world. What is obviously false and laughable to you seems common sense to them. What is plainly an inability to deal with your arguments is simply them winning because you can't respond to them. They are swayed by emotion and sophistry, and cheer on cue.
For God's sake, President Obama won entirely because of this effect. At least 53% of the population was mesmerized by his slogans and hypnotic motions while making speeches. We laughed and shook our heads and they all started nodding like bobbleheads.

224

@ConservativeMonster - they hate circumcision because it is

a) a reminder that there are still a LOT of religiously-inclined people in the world.  And even some people who aren't necessarily religiously-inclined but still are swayed to do it anyway.

b) a reminder that "blind watchmaker" style evolution is garbage.  We've been taking that bit off for how many thousands of years?  And it still grows back.  Not once has someone been born pre-circumcised.  You'd think that, if purely random evolution worked, our bodies would have  gotten the hint by now and done away with it.

 

But hey, we're the ones who like to tell other people what to do allthedamntime.

225 Yes, it is a given that progressives are stupid and they lie.  They have also undermined the educational system to the point that your children will graduate from high school knowing almost nothing except the following:

Recycling is good so polar bears won't die.
Families are made up of whomsoever gravitates together to call themselves a family.
There is no right and wrong.  Morality is flexible.
Math is hard and boring, so just text away on your phone while the teacher is talking.
Science is hard and boring, same technique as dealing with math.
Christians want to kill and enslave everyone with their paternalistic bullshit, but, islam is a religion of peace.
Do overs are infinite and can be had just by whining until you get your way.  Or else Mommy and Daddy can sue the school board's ass off.

226 I don't know if Chumpsky made those comments about the KH, but I was complaining about this guy, Slovoj Žižek, prof of BS at NYU, making similar statements about other mass murders.

227 Arrrggghhh Chomsky. As a linguist, he had some truly interesting ideas. As a political figure, my feelings can best be summed up via flamethrower.

LOL

Look, I love linguistics. I love semantics. I read Wittgenstein for fun for pity's sake. I am also completely aware that these gorgeous little theoretical frameworksare just that, pretty little playgrounds in my head. That is not to say that control of thenarrative is unimportant. Far from it. But when your control is built on a lie, and manipulation of language is a lie, then that control will eventually fall.

The key word is "eventually". Lots of pain can be caused in the process. As it happens, I love linguistics, too. My main problem is the same people who lecture us that it's alright for certain, um, population segments, to thoroughly bastardize the language because that is "correct" (I'll leave out the examples)... will then turn around and call someone stupid for saying "nucular". There's a disconnect and a prejudice there, and it means that the thought leaders on the subject simply cannot be trusted. Kind of like climate scientists.

228 Didn't we see this work out when the talking heads had absolutely no idea that there may have been a majority of the SCOTUS that might vote to limit Congress' power to regulate interstate commerce to regulation of interstate commerce?  Even after Thomas had penned Lopez a few years before, signalling that the noble lie that everything that Congress wants to regulate is magically transformed into interstate commerce was, in effect, over?

229

"The Little Blue Book is being marketed as an “Indispensable Handbook for Democrats” and "Indispensable Handbook for Alienating Your Friends and Family.""

 

Is it on Amazon?

Are there reviews?

Can we destroy it in a massive moron horde review seige?

230

"You know, anyone who is going to accuse me of craving an Authority Figure to Instruct me had better know precisely how to tie those knots. Otherwise, well, do not taunt Happy Fun Alex or she may need to demonstrate precisely what strict instruction entails. "

*swoon*

231 @229Is it on Amazon?
Are there reviews?
Can we destroy it in a massive moron horde review seige?

Posted by: reason at July 10, 2012 03:44 PM (5npD/)

Oh, you crafty bastard.   Is that you Karl?

232 Arrrggghhh Chomsky. As a linguist, he had some truly interesting ideas. As a political figure, my feelings can best be summed up via flamethrower. Posted by: alexthechick SMOD 2012 at July 10, 2012 03:25 PM (VtjlW) First of all, how original those ideas were is debatable. Not to mention how interesting. But the more important part is that any potential interest is drowned by the intent. Chomsky is like a chemical engineer who invents a new efficient fuel and the only thing he can think to do with it is burn down orphanages. I don't give any credit for the invention part in cases like that.

233 Year Zero for the Khmer Rouge was 1975. The number one song in that year was "Love Will Keep Us Together" by the Captain and Tennille.

Was that the problem?

234 I'll never forgive Chomsky for coining the term "meme." I hate that word, I hate how people use it and I want to punch them right in the boxy eyeglasses.

235 I believe I share this heuristic with 98% of the non-drooling population of the planet. More like 88-92% of the population. Who break roughly 50-50. So the actual decision comes down to the 8-12% who are swayed by herd instinct. That's one reason ridicule is weapon #1 - even the 8-12% get ridicule (maybe not the joke, but they can see who's getting laughed at).

236

224"Progressives foster stupidity...so that they can prey upon it. "

And there's the key: they've managed to create a culture and educational setting where this approach works.

 

Exactly so.

And now.....they have created the perfect solution for when their bad ideas fail:

Blame it on the Republicans.

 

When their lies finally are exposed....and their bad ideas are finally shown to be 'bad ideas'....with disastrous results....

Blame it on the evil Republicans.

It's "their fault that our bad ideas didn't work".

237 This makes complete sense. I once had a facebook debate with a guy who was a Lakoff disciple, and it was extremely frustrating. Any time I rebutted his statements with evidence even from sites known not to be "conservative" (e.g., talking points memo, cbs news, etc), he would just ignore it and change the subject. I kept saying stuff like, hey, do you agree with my evidence or call it into question, etc. You know, standard back & forth for any conversation between sentient beings. But no. The point is not to talk to people and engage them, but to beat them down. This is what the Left calls "critical thinking".

238 But hey, we're the ones who like to tell other people what to do allthedamntime.

Posted by: reason at July 10, 2012 03:41 PM (5npD/)

 

Agreed.  (though to be ornery about semantics, the bit doesn't grow back.  It just hasn't been "selected away" by the super magical power of random mutation)

 

Just had a hilarious yet sad discussion with a "libertarian-socialist" who insisted that "socialism" was all about letting laborers keep what they earned, and that "capitalism" was behind all the bad things in the world.  (USSR was "state-capitalism").   He never did tell me how a libertarian-socialist keeps the socialism part from trampling all over the libertarian part.  

He did say something about building a society based on consensus rule instead of majority rule.   Makes one wonder how exactly one creates that complete consensus ...  He got really upset when I point out that the Socialism in "Nazi" is in fact an accurate label, and that I hate socialism for its historically murderous behavior.  

239 The point is not to talk to people and engage them, but to beat them down. This is what the Left calls "critical thinking". Posted by: JeremiadBullfrog at July 10, 2012 03:52 PM (Y5I9o) I spent a long time (early in my internet "career") debating liberals. I eventually realized it was pointless, even if you could get them to concede a point of fact, the next day they would deny it again. You could demolish arguments 1-20 in order and on day 21 they would start with argument 1 again, as if the entire discussion had never happened. When we say it's a mental illness, we're not just being snarky. We're talking about dissociation from reality - even just the reality of a discussion between two people.

240 The best part of theLittle Blue Book is that Van Jones gives the game away in his blurb, calling Lakoff "the progressive movement's Jedi master of language." These aren't the droids you're looking for....

241 I disagree with ace. I think the left has done a good job of making some ideas socially unacceptable in order to shut down the debate before it begins.

For example, the black illegitimacy rate's effect on poverty. We all know that homes without daddies are more likely to be poor, but no one points it out anymore for fear of being shouted down as a racist. This allows the left to substitute their own policies, which have a track record of failure, as the only way to address the problem.

242 I'll never forgive Chomsky for coining the term "meme." I hate that word The word, or the idea? Would mind-worm or thought-germ be better?

243 "I spent a long time (early in my internet "career") debating liberals. I eventually realized it was pointless, even if you could get them to concede a point of fact, the next day they would deny it again. "
Exactly. Its pointless, they will concede something, know very well that its true, and then later go back to exactly what you repudiated before. This happened to me again and again during the Iraq invasion and rebuilding. I just gave up and started mocking or ignoring them at this point.
Don't answer a fool, lest you be dragged down by his foolishness.
And Warden is right. You can't judge this by how you react as a conservative because we're aberrant and odd in this society. Christians are used to this but its gotten bad enough now that just being rational is enough to set you apart and make you seem weird.

244 I believe I share this heuristic with 98% of the non-drooling population of the planet. Unfortunately, there are a *lot* of droolers out there.

245 Obama is a stuttering clusterf*ck of a miserable failure.

246 Don't answer a fool, lest you be dragged down by his foolishness. Posted by: Christopher Taylor at July 10, 2012 04:06 PM (r4wIV) And they're doing it on purpose, it's an alienation tactic. A combination of shunning and passive-aggressive manipulation, trying to make the opposition look unreasonable. They ignore you, spout talking points, etc., and then if you stop talking to them they accuse you of being unwilling to talk.

247

"The Little Blue Book is being marketed as an “Indispensable Handbook for Democrats” and "Indispensable Handbook for Alienating Your Friends and Family.""

 

Or "Rules for Radicals, 2nd ed."

248

What Lakoff is teaching leftist followers--to refuse to ever engage contrary ideas--is very similar to the programming techniques the Moonies used to keep their members on board. Check out the book Crazy for God by an ex-Moonie.

He talks about the techniques they use to put people into a trance state, and then the regimen they implant when followers are in that state. Incredibly crude stuff, like teaching them that doubts about what they are doing are the devil trying to get into their heads and that to keep him out they should literally beat their heads against the ground, and they would do it. Now there's a pretty effective shock collar. Just get the dog to shock himself when he gets to the boundary line.

But don't give Lakoff too much credit for this. Leftists have been doing it for years. They are always looking for how to avoid thinking  straight. Indeed, this in my opinion is the actual etiology of leftism. This is where leftism comes from. People who think backwards, looking for how to arrive at preferred conclusions instead of following reason and evidence, become leftists. Some  synergy there for sure. Leftist HAVE to think backwards to STAY leftists, because reason and evidence leads directly away from that cesspool at every turn, but I think that the more fundamental cognitive feature is the acceptance of backwards thinking, that it comes naturally to some people.

249 Seems like we are no longer involved with the trolling, psychology or ugly third grader question and answer sessions.
This is  progression to the art of fear.   

250 You know, noticing this was exactly step one in my conversion from being a left-wing radical to being a total right wing (social and fiscal) conservative (this was, like 8 or 9 years ago). I used to get SO frustrated when liberals would not answer arguments from conservatives that I thought they should; I thought, there are good arguments against that right wing point of view! So I went out to try to articulate them really coherently. And in the process I really started reading leftwing stuff from Center For American Progress and other places and they a. had NO arguments. ZERO. Just a whole bunch of framing and misrepresentation of facts or b. held a position that, could be argued, were so completely divorced on scientific reality or respect for people who disagreed with them that they would not at all be persuasive to the other side.

251 193 The worrisome thing for me is that when argument with facts and logic becomes passe, policy disputes are still resolved, just in the old fashioned way; with murder.

Posted by: toby928© at July 10, 2012 03:25 PM (evdj2)

THIS!

G. Washingtons saying about 'Winning on the battlefield of ideas', will become 'the battlefield'.  We are regressing as a culture because of the poison they spit.  Ironic that they call themselves progressive.  Makes me ill just thinking about how damn stupid these people are... and how in the hell people.. even some family members 'agree' with Obama and his nihilistic and misanthropic politics.

252 Good idea to read C. S. Lewis's "That Hideous Strength". Best insight into the depravity of left-wing "thought" ever written.

253 The solution is to call them out on this silly nonsense EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. Give them a mocking nickname-say, Lakoff Whackoff and use as in: "Oh my God, you're a Lakoff Whackoff. Just burping out little talking points. Don't you have a mind of your own? Or can't you think? (point at them) HA-ha-ha-ha!" The laughing is important because this is so childish.

254 Lakoff's second point is that morality trumps policy, so Libs must ALWAYS turn discussion's of differing approaches to policy to their supposedly holding the moral high ground, which means they are at the same time incessantly pointing out the rancid foul morality of those who don't share their position. This is why you've noticed when you're arguing with Liberals and they start to lose the argument, they start talking about their fine INTENTIONS and your ROTTEN MOTIVES for being a Conservative. "I love the poor. You hate the poor." "I want sick people to get treated. You want them to die." "I love working families. You hate working families." "I love minorities. You're a racist quack." etc. etc. ad naseum. Lakoff's 3 points keep them from being effective debaters, that true - but what following his 3 points ALSO does is it effectively walls Liberals off from ever being found wrong. This is why many of them can stay on they liberal plantation for years despite mounting evidence that Lib policies don't work - because they have actually mentally conditioned themselves to NEVER discuss it rationally. I wrote the definitive Conservative response to Lakoff's mental pathology several months ago - and I don't think it's going to far to call it a pathology. I never mention Lakoff by name, but I do spend the article dealing A LOT of how he's taught Liberals to non-think about issues: http://tinyurl.com/6uatpl8

255 Liberals are able to stay on the Liberal plantation for years despite mounting evidence that Liberal policies don't work because.......... they've been conditioned not to CARE that Liberal policies don't work. For them, it's all about being a part of the SPECIAL GROUP that cares more than everybody else. Results don't matter, so conversations about the latest Lib policy screwups never go anywhere because they keep talking about their fine intentions and mean and rotten the people are that keep criticizing them. When the full tally is made of how many tax dollars got wasted on this green tech insanity by this present administration, you will find you can't have a rational discussion with Liberals like Stephen Chu about this. They will at all times flash their 'morally superior to you' badge and talk about how fine their intentions were while you're just some evil Conservative that wants to rape the planet.

256

Per #255 - "Lakoff's second point is that morality trumps policy"

A great backgrounder to Zombie's review is a book on political morality by Jonathan Haidt called "Righteous Mind."  It is the most intellectually stimulating book I've read in a decade.

He has questioned almost a quarter a million people and finds that there are six aspects of morality.  Liberals only uses two, maybe three moral aspects (caring for others and freedom from tyranny) while conservatives have to balance all six.  Obviously, conservatives have a more complex worldview, one that has ensured our species' survival.

This is a basis for that truism - "Democrats think the GOP is the evil party while the GOP thinks the Dems are the stupid party."  Liberals don't want to engage the complexities of reality since they can only morally comprehend their two concerns of care and freedom.

Lakoff is, in part, telling his co-believers that they can only stay morally pure and engage in moral behavior by ignoring or drowning out conversative arguments.

257 They fixate on how the rise of Fox News and the internet (Drudge, blogs, etc.) has stripped them of power to shape the discourse, set the frame. What Lakoff is REALLY trying to do, I suspect, is reset America back to the 1940s-1960s era when conservative ideas were, as a rule, treated with disdain by the entire media as a whole

I'm way late to this, but this attempt to roll back the clock is like the old ghost dancing cults that sprang up among the American Natives at the end of the 19th century when they realized the continent was lost, and that their hunting-and-gathering way of life was pretty much gone and would never return.

Lakoff knows (or intuits) that the progressives are losing. And like the ghost dancers, he's trying to arm his people by getting them to pretend real hard otherwise.

258 Of course liberalism is a cult. Duh.

259 And it should be mentioned that liberals feel that their way of life is under imminent threat. Maybe DHS should label them "terrorists".

260 I could only handle the first few paragraghs Ace and I want a refund on MY TIME. This guy is the 'smart one' the libs use for guidence? And we still lose arguments with these idiots?Fuck ME!

261 The hypnosis idea is right on.

This is PRECISELY what cults do, and I do mean PRECISELY.

So it should come as no surprise that this is what the left has been reduced to.

262 @255 Read your article. Good stuff. Everything I've wanted to say but didn't have the writing skills to compose.

263 Ace- Your post has a Master's degree in there somewhere.  I always enjoy reading your stuff.  Exposing manipulative liberal lies makes my day!