I sat dumfounded after watching the latest Rudy Giuliani TV Ad entitled “One Hour”.
In it he talks about how terrorists released the hostages in Iran one hour after Reagan took office. Why did he say they released them? Because Iran knew they couldn’t mess with Reagan.
Ever hear of arms for hostages Rudy? I just lost what little respect I had for him.
Please share widely!
It’s surprising that you had any respect for him. Everything we hear about him (interrupting meetings to speak with Judith, Kerik’s overly rapid rise, the foreign policy Strangeloves with whom he surrounds himself) makes him sound worse and worse. This ad is bad.
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p>Just a few things that seem salient about this ad:
The photo he uses of the hostage takers has the individual in it that people (particularly those on the right) think is Ahmadinejad:
http://www.iranfocus.com/modul…
But true enough
He’s said that same point in debates and speeches quite a few times before.
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p>He’s insane.
Every time I hear it, I’m like, “Oh dear. I hope this isn’t what the Republican party has come to.”
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p>The stirring music mixed with Rudy’s narration about how terrible immigrants are, especially the ones who commit crimes, teeters dangerously towards satire. But the strangest is his triumphant announcement that he “worked with Immigration” to make sure a drug dealer got deported, even though he apparently had to pull a switcheroo with a professor who had overstayed his visa because “there wasn’t enough room”. On what, the back of the deportation pick-up truck? And is Rudy bragging that he let the illegal professor stay? Even Republicans are going to ask themselves, “WTF is he talking about?”
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p>The fact that Rudy thinks this ad showcases his suitability to be the world’s most powerful leader is the most damning thing I’ve seen from him yet.
… non-evangelical right behind him. The two most recent ads I’ve seen pay homage to: The Laffer curve and tax cuts, Ronald Reagan.
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p>He’s trying to peel away the last of Thompson’s support.
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p>Also I’m sick of the narrative that Reagan was ‘tough’ on terrorists. You can make a convincing argument that Regan’s capitulations taught terrorists that ‘terrorism pays’ and that , since then, we’ve been dealing with the fallout of what he created.
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p>Frontline did a pretty good analysis of the Reagan era’s terrorism problems.
The Contras were not a book club.
saw the same, thought the same…
…which is why I know that Iran-Contra unfolded several years INTO the Reagan Administration, and had nothing to do with the hostage release when he was being sworn in!
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p>The timing of the release was done to embarass Carter – no other reason. The radical Islamists had used his image and name as a demon, similar to the treatment Bush receives today from them, and wanted to humiliate Carter. They didn’t fear Reagan – hell, they didn’t KNOW Reagan.
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p>Rudy and I were both adults when this happened. He shold leave revisionist history safely in the province of the Left, where it is most comfortable and has the longest history of use.
… wants to stand on exemplifying Reagan’s character, then the questions of Reagan’s character are fair game, regardless of timing.
Who was doing what and with whom is very murky. It should be noted that Regan fumbled then dropped the ball in the mideast. Instead of screwing around with Daniel Ortega and Fidel he should have taked out Iran. If he had we would not be confronting this present dilemma. To make matters worse, Reagan packed up the US military and completely abandonned the middle east and allowed it to turn into a cauldron of anti western hate. Reagan was not quite as smart as many people like to assume.
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p>Actually, if the US hadn’t supported the ouster of Mohammed Mossadegh and backed the Shah, we (probably) wouldn’t be facing the present dilemma. Not that any of that was Reagan’s fault, of course.
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p>However there is that little matter of supporting the mujahideen in Afghanistan — Reagan’s freedom fighters certainly weren’t limited to banana republics in Central America, and look where that’s gotten us.
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p>Of course hindsight it always 20/20, right?
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p>Reagan was not quite as smart as many people like to assume.
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p>Reagan and those in his administration were dumber than hell and probably criminals.
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p>I’ll gloss over the “supply side economics” fantasies and go directly to two incidents. The first was the nonsensical insertion of US Marines into the civil war in Lebanon, with no clear mission other than the fact that they be there. They were viewed by one side as supporting the other, and so their Beirut barracks were blown up, in which incident 241 (or so) Marines, lost their lives and probably many more were injured. That was in 1982.
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p>Fast forward to 1986, when the Iran/Contra affair was first revealed in the US press. It had been reported as early as 1983 that the US was supporting Iraq in the Iran/Iraq war–remember the famous Rumsfeld handshake with Saddam Hussein? It turned out from the Iran/Contra affair that the US.was also supporting (ta da!) Iran, selling them arms gotten from who-knows-where (some have surmised that the arms were supplied by the Israelies, which arms had been given to them by the US, but I find that hard to believe) with the funds going not into the US treasury, as they should have, but instead going to the Contras in contravention of the Bolland Amendment. As far as I can tell, that was a crime. And apparently, as far as GHWBush could tell, he considered that a crime, too, since he pardoned all of the participants.
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p>Reagan wasn’t particularly smart. But he got himself some excellent acting gigs.
Speaking of revisionist history, the right, for years, has been peddling the story that, if had simply incinerated more Vietnamese, the South Vietnamese government (invented by the US in the 1950s) would have survived.
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p>Or how about the right’s peddling the story that it was Communists in the State Department that caused the loss of China?
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p>Or how about the right blaming the genocide in Cambodia on the loss in Vietnam when it was Nixon’s coup against the Cambodian government which set the stage and it was the Vietnamese Communist government which stopped the genocide.
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p>The entire recent Iraq adventure, with Iraqis yearning for a Western notion of freedom for their “nation”, is based on a heady dose of revisionist history.
Arms for hostages happened later in the 1980s, not when Jimmy Carters mess was cleaned up. Your dog won’t hunt.
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p>In fact I became a Republican at 7.33 years old on January 20th, 1981. I was watching Real People at the Dracut House of Pizza with my parents and they broke in with the breaking news that the hostages were freed. The place went wild. I remember thinking if this man could get us out of the mess we were in I would follow him.
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p>I don’t know when you grew up Jim. But living through the late 1970s as a young child I could sense the doom and gloom all around me. I actually threw out a “Presidential Proclamation” I received for helping to clean up McPherson Park with Jimmy Carter’s name on it. I was embarrassed by my president even at that young age.
“I could sense the doom and gloom all around me”
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p>whereas i at that time, despite the pall of heterosupremacy closing in around me, approached life with excited optimism.
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p>it really does make me wonder whether social/political outlook is as ingrained as sexual orientation. have you pondered this too?
Jesus Christ—give it a rest.
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p>James Earl carter may go down in history as the largest embarrassment that ever sat in the Oval Office. I am likely older than everyone here. I remember full well the “almost depression” and the gas lines and the near economic catastrophe that that azzhat wrought upon this country. Which explains my particular paranoia for do gooders who wish to occupy the White House.
… foreign policy in the middle east has consequences?
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p>Whodathunk?
…Bush perfects cold fusion in the next 1 and a half and we finally get our flying cars I think he’s got a lock on the bottom slot.
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p>You were 7 when Reagan got in? Some of us voted in that election. We also waited in those gas lines. We also witnessed the massive inflation during the previous two Presidents’ tenures (got your “WIN” button still?). And watched the Watergate hearings on TV. Etc.
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p>It’s probably good not to assume one has witnessed more history than the others in a forum like this. Surprisingly, there are folks over 40 who know how to use “the Internets”. Some of us even helped build them.
And I thought I checked the authors of both posts twice! My mistake. MCRD could be older than everyone here!
is the grand dame of the blog, age-wise. but there are likely many others here circling her chronology.
is a mid-40s, upper-middle-class guy.
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p>So I think you have something to your point. LOL.
…, on average, white?
no. but i’m not surprised you misunderstood the basis of my comment in the most trollish manner possible. you’re nothing if not consistent.
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p>re: carter. i also remember waiting in the gas lines. it was a good wake-up call. after that, i have never knowingly wasted energy or taken our supply of it for granted. and you?
… we are doomed to re-learn the wisdom of energy efficiency every so often.
…had nothing to do with the release of the hostages. Ever hear of the Algierian Accords, signed the day before he took office? Did Mr. Reagan have anything to do with the Death of the Shah or the commencement of the Iraq/Iran war – both considered critical in Iran’s receptiveness to the negotiations that led to the accords? As PP stated above, the release on the day of Reagan’s innauguration was a dig at Carter, not an expression of fear of Reagan. And as far as Iran/Contra goes, it was not asserted that these dealings had anything to do with the release of the hostages. But the dog will certainly hunt when it comes to offering pretty solid evidence that Iran was likely not too afraid of the people who were selling it weapons just a few years later.
Thank you, I was waiting for when I would see someone mention those. This is a nice link on the add.
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p>http://www.swamppolitics.com/n…
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p>As for the Hostages in Iran-Contra, there was another hostage stand-off in Lebanon in the Mid-80s. So that Iran would use their influence over the terrorists to release the hostages, we sold them US military equipment at a heavily marked up price. With those proceeds, we replaced the stockpile that we secretly sold, and sent the rest to the Contras in Iran. This was illegal because Congress passed laws prohibiting sales of weapons to Iran and providing support to the Contras. The cover up of the sale made it even more illegal.
Sorry meant Contras in Central America
Kind of telling for the future of his presidency don’t you think?
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p>Real people? Time to get you head out of the sand. What is factual here is that for all the talk about Carter being weak. He actually held a stronger position against terrorists than Reagan. He was the only who froze assets, stopped trade (that includes oil – a Republican no-no) and didn’t negotiate. Reagan negotiated the ransom before he was elected. Those are the facts.
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p>Rudy’s commercial is just loony, but maybe it’s not for regular people, maybe it’s for the 30 percenters.
…Real People was the name of a TV show that was popular at the time. I don’t think EaBo was trying to imply that he has the attitue of the “real people”. Secondy, the ransom being pre-negotiated is not a fact, it is an unproven political theory, there is a difference.
… Skip Stevenson and Fred Willard (and others I don’t remember). Used to love the viewer sent-in pictures. 😉
Real People was my first exposure to “comedian” Mark Russel. Loved the viewer pictures, and the water skiing squirrel.
… was a classic. Truth be told, however, I probably remember more of “That’s Incredible” than “Real People”. Of course it helps when you are looking at Kathy Lee Crosby.
John Davidson, who would have made the 2007 Mitt Romney look ravaged by smallpox, cataracts, and warts.
… A Reagan like, perfectly combed, immovable ‘hair helmet’ combined with the perfect skin of a mannequin, and teeth that could run ships aground. If he was stiff he’d have looked like something from the ‘hall of presidents’.
… years old at the time, what was the basis for anyone believing that Reagan had anything to do with the release?
….the October Surprise Conspiracy. That is a good place to start.
… I’m more wondering how Reagan supporters thought that he was the cause. As I recall, the Conspiracy was dismissed by Reagan supporters. Were they being hypocritical, secretly believing in the surprise while publicly denouncing it? If not, what was their basis for believe that ‘Reagan made it all better’?
…them I suppose. As far as I know that is the only basis for this belief, along with a belief that Reagan, post election but pre-innauguration was participating in planning an attack on Iran that was “leaked” to Iran shortly before the innaugural date.
My point perhaps not worded effectively is how can Rudy hold Reagan up as a standard for fighting terrorism given he traded arms for hostages. Do you deny that Reagan traded arms for hostages?
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p>BTW – I was 11 when Reagan was sworn in and I grew up in Everett. I understand your frame of reference. I just ended up on the other side of the aisle.
…1953, when Eisenhower had his CIA overthrow the democratically elected Mossadegh government of Iran and the Shah installed. At the behest of British Petroleum, of course.
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p>Republicans have been screwing up for a long, long time.
In fact, the Iranians threw the British out of their country. This was during a Tory Government led by Churchill who had reverted from his noble anti-fascism to his prior advocacy of British imperialism. The Tory government wanted Mossadegh overthrown, but they couldn’t do it because no British were let in. They appealed to Truman. Truman refused.
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p>Not so the Eisenhower Administration. The CIA under Eisenhower made two attempts. The first failed. The second succeeded. They were so proud of themselves, they did it again in Guatemala.
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p>Iran had a long history of the ulama (the Shi’ite clergy if you like) opposing the shah, but from the beginning of the twentieth century until the coup, there was a flicker of democratic government in Iran. There were struggles for a constitutional government. Nationalists like Mossadegh and leftists like the Tudeh Party were gaining strength. The coup against Mossadegh ended that.
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p>The Shah’s brutal police, the SAVAK, essentially crushed all secular opposition. No Nasser for Iran. That’s how we end up with an ulama-ocracy in 1980.
One thing that might be contemplated is that the Iranian revolutions in 1978-79 were the obverse of the French revolution of 1789-1793. The French revolution was basically a revolution against the oppressive clerics, who held power over the secular government, and that is why the French revolution was so violent, and that is why the French government ever since has been guarding its secularity. On the other hand, the Iranian reviolutions were against an oppressive secular government, which brought a quasi-religious government to power.
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p>One thing that has been reported, not widely, is that the Iranians who took over the American embassy in Teheran were well aware of the US overthrow of the Mossadegh government in 1953 and the installation of the Shah. And that is one reason why they did what they did. Americans should be careful what they do in other countries: what they do might come back to bite them in the nether regions.
And we named a major airport after the Sec’y of State who helped make it happen: John Dulles. Also interesting to contemplate is that the CIA mastermind was Kermit Roosevelt, Teddy’s grandson.
This has been another edition of easy answers to easy questions.
When did he have it?
In his book Whose Freedom?, George Lakoff devotes an entire chapter (#7) to how liberals and conservatives use causation in their political language. His observation is that liberals cite systemic causation while conservative arguments use direct causation.
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p>
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p>Buy or borrow the book if you are curious about Lakoff’s theory as to why this is.
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p>So it shouldn’t be a surprise to see this sort of ad from Giuliani. He’s not trying to convince the average BMG reader. He’s reaching for the likely Republican primary voter.
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p>I think the real stretch is establishing Rudy-equals-Reagan. I don’t necessarily see that he’s done that here.
I haven’t read the book, although I have heard of it, and the example you cite is intriguing.
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p>What would be the liberal, systemic equivalent? How would liberal thought create a systemic causation for a tyrant’s defeat?
Good question. I waited until I could actually think about what I was typing to respond. Sorry for the delay.
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p>I suppose Lakoff started with this example because it could be explained in its literal sense, which he has done in that paragraph. GWB didn’t ride into Bagdad, pop Saddam in the kisser, and then gallop off into the sunset, leaving the townsfolk with mouths agape, muttering “who was that masked man?”.
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p>If we look at it deeper, it’s a bit more fuzzy because I believe that Bush is responsible (subtle difference in the language which reflects a difference in how I think about this). Actually, Bush, Cheney, and the rest of the neocon core that was in his administration at the time are responsible. While there were systemic forces that made the decision to invade politically and logistically feasible, it would not have happened without their decision.
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p>Some things to take into account:
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p>
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p>I think this particular BMG thread is a much better illustration of Lakoff’s point. Note how much of the criticism against Giuliani’s ad details the systemic underpinnings of the hostages’ release. Note the addition of a direct causation argument that everything that went wrong in the late 1970s was Jimmy Carter’s fault.
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p>I find that many of the interesting examples revolve around Ronald Reagen (e.g., Reagen defeated the Soviet Union).
…a lengthy interview with him is available here. I suspect, but cannot prove, that it is a succinct precis of the point in his book.
I don’t think it covers the discussion of causation.
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p>If you want to be up on the latest thinking from Lakoff or inspired by Lakoff, head over to the Rockridge Instititue’s site.
“Rethinking Progressive Politics”
“Reframing Public Debate”
“Changing Public Policy”
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p>I’m sure I’ll love it.
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Viz: liberals tend to think in terms of systemic causation, conservatives in terms of direct causation.
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p>Is that too weird, vague, or broad to think about? Or does it match your observations? Is it contradicted by them?
I don’t think all that highly of Lakoff because it seems to me that his whole schtick is an attempt to pathologize a viewpoint with which he does not agree. Conservatives are like the strict father– they are practically child abusers! I also find many of his proposals for “re-framing” to be preposterous. Taxes as “user fees?” Please.
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p>I suspect a similar phenomenon is at work here: see, those conservatives are just to simple to understand the complex system at work, poor them. Don’t you feel superior now?
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p>Nevertheless, there is something to the observation. I do not, however, see it in an entirely positive light for either side. All manners of ills are blamed on Carter; Carter tried to accomplish too much and became paralyzed, and would up exuding weakness from every pore. All the bad news of the late 70s wasn’t all his fault, but he sure did a poor job projecting an image of anything other than a hamstrung politician. Reagan was capable of projecting the opposite image, even if not true, and the perception of vigor is highly valued in the businessplace from which many conservatives come. In other words, Reagan and even Bush — conveyed the impression of controlling the government, wven when they didn’t, and Carter conveyed the impression that he was in turn controlled, even when he wasn’t.
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p>Liberals do indeed seem to focus on “systems”– largely under the misimpression that, with sufficient government resouces and tinkering, the system can be perfected somehow. This manner of thinking tends to dissolve all individual responsibility, from the petty criminal whose crime was society’s fault, to the various poeple who are poor because of discrimintaion, rather than because they can’t or won’t hold down a decent job, all the way up to the wayward politician that can be forgiven for corruption in a political arena in which campaign finance reform is but a dream.
…from what I have read of his thoughts, he is not pathologizing conservatives. What he is telling liberals/progressives is that conservatives have done much better at “public relations,” i.e., framing the issues, than liberals/progressives have.
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p>In other words, Lakoff is blaming liberals/progressives for their failures. There is a huge difference.
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p>I’ll put it slightly differently. Self-styled conservatives over the last 30 or so years have been saying “tax cuts good, government spending bad.” Wink and nod, they do tax cuts, which reduces government revenue (“supply side economics” having been proven to be a fraud) but don’t reduce government spending. All that the self-styled conservatives have done is to impose the bill on the next (or next, or next) generation. But, self-styled conservatives know how to frame the issues (Lakoff’s phrase) to get themselves elected.
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p>I like the conservatives’ borrow and spend philosophy, too. We have no kids, so why should we care?
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p>A few nits, not particularly related to the issue
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p>…see, those conservatives are just to simple to understand the complex system at work…
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p>Actually, conservatives can have open minds, and many of them do. Liberals/progressives also can have closed minds, and many of them do, too. That’s one reason that I totally reject the conservative vs. liberal/progressive mantra. Give me an issue, and let’s discuss it.
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p>All manners of ills are blamed on Carter
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p>Carter’s problem was that he was a captive of a history that he did not create and for which he was not responsible. He tried to be humane, by admitting the former Shah if Iran into the US for medical treatment–which was the immediately instigating factor for the takeover of the US embassy in Iran–but there was way too much history there for him to realize what was going to occur.
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p>Liberals do indeed seem to focus on “systems”– largely under the misimpression that, with sufficient government resouces and tinkering, the system can be perfected somehow.
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p>As I have written here, I am not a liberal/progressive, but instead a pragmatist. I would interpret it a bit differently. As far as I’m concerned “systems” cannot immediately accommodate to “perfection” (whatever that means) but at least to “make do.” We can work to improve the systems later, after they have at least make the “make do” level.
You are referring to his points about framing.
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p>By pathlogizing conservatives, I refer to his notion that the enire worldview of conservatives can be summed up as needing an authoritarian father, whereas the entire worldview of liberals can be summed up as seeking to be a nurturing parent.
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p>Regarding liberals and their systems, I was referring to a penchant for social engineering without regard to unintended consequences.
… manager (mechanical, computer, whatever) will adjust the system as results become undesirable. This is common sense.
As one who has read not one, but numerous books by Lakoff, CMD is not far off the mark here. Moral Politics, the main work on politics and linguistics, ends with an appendix about how f**ked up strict parent childrearing really is.
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p>Rosenberg, on Open Left, has also had a series of diaries that point toward pathology. There is a line of thinking that conservatives are “stuck” at a lower level of moral development than liberals. In other words, this current of thinking is certainly not unique to Lakoff and colleagues.
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p>Whether it is true or not (or, better, has explanatory power or not), it is still rude and it certainly undermines Enlightenment notions of civil debate within a democracy. If conservatives suffer a pathology, they can simply be dismissed. “Away conservatives! with your icky moral pathologies!”
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p>However, as Nietzsche (and, RAJ, please spare me yet another footnote about the Nazis) enjoyed pointing out, arguments about taste are not arguments about truth. One must tread carefully here. It might be the case that conservatives are stuck at a lower level of moral development, but, if that is so, those who advocate that position had better provide very strong evidence.
Pathologizing liberals has a longer tradition on the right that the converse on the left. Next door one can read plenty of commentary that suggests that liberals are generally lazy or promote lack of initiative. Right wing talk radio has labeled liberals “whack jobs” for years.
This is an over-simplification, for sure. It leads to the fruitless approach of trying to find the right verbal gimmick to win debates and elections.
The systemic/direct causation theory of liberals and conservatives breaks down.
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p>The most important credos of convervative thought fall squarely within the “systems” mode of thinking: markets and the value of cultural tradition. Market revering conservatives critcize liberal interventionism as missing the forest for a tree: A War on Peverty. AFDC. Handing out money. All of which, says the conservative, miss the point that the market responds to incentives. So when you hand a guy some money because he is not working, you encourage him not to work. Similar arguments apply on bussing or affirmative action to solve complex problems like racial discrimination.
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p>Likewise, the conservative values cultural tradition to a greater extent than the liberal because of the perceived systemic benefits of cultural tradition on the moral development of societies.
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p>It sure seems to me a distinction between systemic and direct causation is merely a means of expressing didain for a policy prescription with which one disagrees. Those stupid conservatives think Reagan sunk the USSR all by himself, as if that was all there was to it. Those naive liberals think that they can end poverty by handing out free money, as if that were all there is too it.
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p>It sure seems to me that this boils down to the fllowing statement: Lakoff is liberal, and therefore disagrees with conservatives.
…and start using the term that you really mean to use, which is “demonizing.” That is what you really mean, isn’t it?
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p>The most important credos of convervative thought fall squarely within the “systems” mode of thinking…
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p>may have been true at one point in time, but it isn’t true now, and it hasn’t been true for a number of decades. Conservatives have discovered that the way to gain power is through welfare–directed to their constituents–and fear. You may not wish to claim them as conservatives, but they are, nonetheless, in no small measure but that they claim to be such.
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p>One thing that you, like most people in the USofA who might claim to be conservatives (and I am not suggesting that you claim to be a conservative), seem to overlook is that what passes for modern-day conservative thought has nothing to do with a “systems” mode of thinking. It has only to do with a “power maintaining” mode of thinking.
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p>There really is a rather substantial difference. Engineers (and I was one, once) think in terms of systems. Politicians think in terms of coalitions to maintain power.
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p>As a couple of asides
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p>This Likewise, the conservative values cultural tradition to a greater extent than the liberal because of the perceived systemic benefits of cultural tradition on the moral development of societies. is positive nonsense. Conservatives resisit cultural change because they fear change, even if others in society are demanding change because they are oppressed by the then current state of affairs. Conservative leaders prefer the “then current state of affairs” because it profits them at the expense of others.
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p>Regarding It sure seems to me that this boils down to the fllowing statement: Lakoff is liberal… Lakoff could be a purple people eater, for all I care. Lakoff is a linguist, and he has made it clear that conservatives have done a better job at identifying and using language to frame issues than liberals/progressives have. And he’s exactly correct. Conservatives have bought off the middle by giving them the same welfare as the liberals/progressives–particularly in the agribusiness states-by appealing to racism–the cadillac welfare queens (but at least then, cadillaces were american cars)–and by spreading fear of the “illegal immigrants.”
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p>I’m sorry sir or madam, but your dog isn’t much good at hunting.
Lakoff may be a linguist by trade. But when he writes these books, he is no more a scientist than he is Holy Roman Empereor. Whn writing about politics, Lakoff seems to be little more than a polemicist. His position is that conservatives are conservative because they are,to an extent, mentally ill. A PhD doesn’t make this sort of junk any more credible from the pen of Lakoff than it does the junk that issues from the pen of Noam Chomsky.
…when you read something by someone outside of his area of expertise, consider taking it with a huge mound of salt.
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p>An example. William Shockley, co-Nobel prize winner in physics for the discovery and explanation of the transistor effect. I actually met the man at a science fair in 1965 when I was 15, and he was quite affable. It turns out that he shifted his area of interest, and at some point became quite the racist. I didn’t bother with his racist theories, but that didn’t mean that I wasn’t interested in his theories in physics.
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p>Getting back to the topic at hand, Lakoff is a lingust. And he is quite correct on the issue of “framing.” Read his works on other topics if you wish–I’m not particularly interested in doing so–but consider that he may be be spouting, as Harry Frankfurt might put it, bullshit when he does.
You are correct that conservatives — well, some conservatives — do look to the market and to cultural tradition as big systems that provide the best possible results in this imperfect world. The idea seems to be that tampering with either will have unintended consequences which will overwhelm whatever benefits motivated the tampering.
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p>While AFDC, for example, has had bad side-effects, it has also been a bridge for a number of women out of poverty and into the middle class. Even a rational actor receiving AFDC would conclude that more money could be acquired by other routes or that AFDC was unlikely to be a good life-long solution. Unfortunately, this is an area where my knowledge is more anecdotal than statistical and perhaps better informed commenters will weigh in. (Or at least, I hope.)
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p>”Those stupid conservatives think Reagan sunk the USSR all by himself.” Well, some conservatives say stuff like that. Lakoff is looking at the web of metaphors, categories, frames, narratives, and metonymies within which liberal discourse and conservative discourse take place. He is not analyzing the best, most careful, and most nuanced conservative or liberal thinking. In fact, the best liberal or conservative thinking could be expected to stray outside those boundaries on occasion. I think liberals, at least, work best when they take uncomfortable data very seriously.
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p>Lakoff has an extensive discussion of markets in chapter 5 of Thinking Points which might even be online at Rockridge. The style is undisguisedly liberal. Skimming it, I might suggest you CMD not read it after spicy food. One of his main points is that conservatives tend to regard the market as a purifying moral force: it rewards discipline; it punishes lack of initiative or diligence. Liberals tend to be instrumental toward the market: we like that the market distributes goods, encourages initiative, and so on; we don’t like what it does to the minimum wage, greenhouse gases, or labor standards.
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p>
I found that discussion of causation particularly interesting. To me, it seems at least plausible. When I read left-right tussles here and elsewhere it is one of the things I keep in mind. It’s something I want to test because it’s very neat and a bit hard to believe.
Funny thing, PP should respond as I often note exactly this difference between her views and my own.
I admire blockquotes that have to be typed in by hand rather than pasted from a web source.
By pathlogizing conservatives, I refer to his notion that the enire worldview of conservatives can be summed up as needing an authoritarian father
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p>The reason that I object to the term “pathologizing” is that that term has had a long and not very nice history in regards mental disorders. If you need evidence for that, look here and do some research over the Internet regarding Thomas Szasz, a professor of psychiatry at Columbia and author of the 1960 book The Myth Of Mental Illness.
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p>Let’s get away from the “pathology” lingo, OK? Let’s get to the point. It does appear to be the case that religious conservatives need to have an authoritarian father. I used to have a link to an active page that explained why, but that page seems to have been taken down. It isn’t necessarily the case for social conservatives or economic conservatives, but it is definitely the case with religious conservatives. I have various speculations as to why religious conservatives feel a need to have an “authoritarian father”, but I won’t bore you with them.
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p>Yes You are referring to his points about framing. that’s precisely what I’m referring to.
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p>Regarding Regarding liberals and their systems, I was referring to a penchant for social engineering without regard to unintended consequences. it would be nice to have an example or six. It is difficult for a pragmatist like myself to respond without knowing what you are referring to.
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p>Regarding
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p>Any good systems manager (mechanical, computer, whatever) will adjust the system as results become undesirable.
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p>…um maybe. As far as I can tell, engineering managers (which I presume is what you are referring to) are responsible for bringing in a product, on a budget, that will sell in a particular price range. The last is the most important–the price range.
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p>Note to KBusch: since Nietzsche had nothing to do with Naziism, I’m not going to respond.
Then, don’t respond. Ask for clarification or be silent.
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p>You are not required to respond.
I didn’t respond, and asked for clarification.
… the idea of being price centric is just semantics on what constitutes desirable results. The axiom still holds.
You point with respect to mental illness is precisely the reason I take exception to Lakoff, because this is exactly what he does, in my view, with his strict parent, nurturing parent thesis.
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p>Framing, while an interesting concept, is used by L:akoff in a preposterous manner. Not taxes (‘bad”) but “membership fees” (good!). There is no tax “burden” because we are all happy to fork thousands and thousands of our dollars to fund the Robert Byrd Memorial edifice or a gazebo in Braintree: those are our membership benefits! Our estate tax, even though it taxes the estate of a dead person, rather than the bequest received by a living person, is not a death tax. And on and on.
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p>As far as social engineering plagued by unintended consequences: Off the top of my head: Urban renewal, which destroyed working class neighborhoods and replaced them with glowering edifices that became racially segregated ghettos. Cabrini Green. The South Bronx after the detsruction of the El. AFDC, which was bitterly defended by the left even though it was manifestly an abject failure as a means to move people out of poverty. The impossible-to-kill New Deal subsidies to farmers. The bitterly defended, manifestly failed urban education policy. Affirmative action employed to the point that it increases, rather than decreases, racial tension, which is then used to justfy more affirmative action.
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p>Doubtless those to my right who post here have others.
I find Lakoff’s basic research pretty credible and see examples that illustrate his theory every day. I think his application of his own work is weak, however.
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p>His theory isn’t that conservatives need an authoritarian father or they can’t understand complex ideas. The basic idea is that we sometimes think in metaphors, using more familiar constructs to understand larger, more complicated phenomena, and that thought process is both revealed and triggered by metaphoric language. The nation as family metaphor that is the basis of his work simply says we use what we know about family relationships to try to make sense of what goes on in larger social groups.
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p>I’ve read don’t think of an elephant, Moral Politics, and Whose Freedom?. I recommend Moral Politics for those who want to look into this stuff further (I had thought this was all required reading after the 2004 election!). elephant is a bit too thin on details and Freedom makes more sense if you’ve read Moral Politics first.
Hooray! Someone else says it too.
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p>I’ve been beating the drum for a while that Moral Politics is worth reading. I’m more likely to reread Lakoff’s large work on categories (Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things) than I am to reread Don’t Think.