political language

[cantdog]

Daniel Redwood: Why have conservatives been more effective than liberals in framing American political discourse in recent years?

George Lakoff: First, they’ve been working at it and have invested in it for a lot longer. Conservatives have spent over $2 billion on 43 think tanks over the past 30 to 40 years and they have invested heavily in a language apparatus that’s very effective. Overall, the result is that they have been able to frame all the issues their way for some time, to get it out to the public and to control a great deal of the media, partly through ownership of the media.

Redwood: What do you mean by a “language apparatus”?

Lakoff: An organization that designs language. For example, [Republican pollster and consultant] Frank Luntz’s organization puts out a handbook each year about 600 pages long, on how to argue each issue, what words to use, what words not to use, how the other side argues, sample speeches, and so on. Then they have a system for training people who are in their think tanks, people who are running for office, officeholders, judges, and so on, in how to use conservative language and how to use these argument forms. That also includes reporters. So they have a large training apparatus that the Democrats don’t have.

In addition, there’s a problem within the conceptual system of liberals and progressives that has made it difficult for them to understand what has been happening to them. In their conceptual system, it’s assumed that you can simply talk literally, that you can just say what you mean, just state the facts, tell the facts to the public, and the public will come to the right conclusion. Conservatives have understood that you need to frame issues, and they’ve learned to frame them their way. Reasoning occurs within a given framing of the issues, and conservatives have learned how to do that very effectively. Democrats have not learned the same lesson.

Here's the interview.

It's a completely partisan source, and you may certainly discount it. I was struck only by the references to the deliberate creation of the newspeak we now see being used to talk about our little civilization's immediate future. We used to laugh at the CPUSA's diatribes about "running-dog lackeys of the capitalist establishment," and clumsiness of that kind, despite the accuracy of the sentiment. This so-called conservative movement of radical anti-statists use a similar set of words and phrases every bit as characteristic. True, ordinary conservatives ought to know better than to help employ these Orwellian terms, but they seem to like the power aspects of it. I know a lot of you skipped the Phil Agre article which described how he deciphered what was being done to the language of political talk, but I think this is important.

We are being manipulated constantly by everyone, from our mothers to our presidents. I do as much manipulating, maybe, as some people do. It's normal human behavior, and it beats the hell out of brute force or blackmail as a tactic.

Resisting being manipulated is often as easy as recognizing it when a number is being run on you. My little girl would of course try to manipulate me, for example, and I would sometimes spot the wheels turning. These words are the wheels.

See how often the gops use "robust" lately. It's one of the words on Luntz's list, his newspweak for the current season. Last presidential election we were whining and we should get over it. The wordmill is still working, and I think we ought to peer behind the screen and see the wheels.

cantdog

 

[Guest]

Thinking would be a good thing.

I am so tired of well-educated people believing the daily rhetoric spews.

And what an incredible spin machine. Imagine what the GOP could have accomplished if they'd spent that time working on something positive. (Budget balancing, health care issues, military woes, tax relief????)

When (and why) did people stop THINKING for themselves?

 

[Weird Harold]

Re: Thinking would be a good thing.

When (and why) did people stop THINKING for themselves?

I'm not sure that the "common man" or "man-on-the-street" ever has thought for himself.

However, I think that the answer to your question as it applies to voters in the USA is "the televised Kennedy/Nixon Debates" That's when American politicians started treating political campaigns as advertising a product instead of addressing issues.

There are earlier examples from around the world -- Hiltler and Goebels come to mind -- but Kennedy/Nixon is where the US began to look at applying the science of advertising to politicians.

 

[gauchecritic]

During my very short and self curtailed political career I did exactly the same thing (but without the specific training). In conjunction with friends I even went so far as to load audience questions during a local party address.

When I resigned from the party my letter contained very emotive and scathing rhetoric about the running of it. They managed to lose the letter (which I didn't copy).

I've only just now realised (thankyou very much Cant) that I was doing exactly what I was denouncing.

It seems that in the same way that power corrupts, ambition will mould.

Funny how those millions of dollars spent behind the scenes are not included in election expenses when that is exactly what they are.

But what can you expect when those expenses mount to millions anyway and preclude the 'man in the street' from any serious chance of running.

As recently as recently, over here, they raised the 'entry fee' for standing in elections probably in order to have only 'serious' candidates. But one of the great things about elections (over here) is having 'Raving Loony' candidates. These days my vote is cast by not voting.

Gauche

 

[oggbashan]

Rhetoric is an old tradition

Rhetoric used to be taught in schools along with elocution.

I was taught rhetoric at my school in Australia. It was a part of the compulsory English Expression module that all candidates had to pass to get any University entrance. That module also included logic. The two disciplines together should enable you to detect the use of rhetoric and false logic in your own and your opponents' speeches.

Rhetoric is no more than a tool to express what you want to say clearly and unambigously in a way that will appeal to the audience. It can be used to lie. Hitler was the prime 20th century exponent of false rhetoric but he was a very effective speaker to small groups or to large crowds.

The use of logic to analyse some politicians' speeches can reveal that although they have spoken for a long time they have actually said NOTHING substantive. That is an art that takes practice.

Og

 

[cantdog]

Re: Rhetoric is an old tradition

The use of logic to analyse some politicians' speeches can reveal that although they have spoken for a long time they have actually said NOTHING substantive. That is an art that takes practice.

Og

You're smooth, Og!

Now, while we're right here. Is the use of these associative tags-- as, for instance, "robust," "relief," "hard"-- to direct the attention and create the approval or disapproval of the listener as you go, called "semantic" or "semiotic" or what? I was frankly daunted by the size and number of the books about that shit and I have so much to read right now, anyway. What's the difference between the two words? I hate using words in ignorance of their meaning.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

“Semantics” deals with the associative power and hiden meanings of language. “Semiotics” is more general and looks at the power and meaning of all sorts of signs in everyday life: the hidden messages we send and receive.

A great example of semantics came from the anthropologist Benjamin Lee Whorf who had a day job as an insurance inspector. Trying to find out why there were so many fires in a manufacturing plant that used a lot of drums of flammable solvents, he found that when the contents of the drums were used, they were marked “Empty”. The drums weren't "empty" though. They were empty of usable contents but not empty of flammable fumes, and so all sorts of accidents happened.

Because of Whorf, most chemical plants now label used-up-but-still-dangerous containers as “MT”, which means something quite different than “Empty”.

What the right has done goes beyond semantics. It’s more like branding in the advertising sense: consciously associating a spectrum of values with words, invariably negative. Thus liberals have become “tax-and-spend liberals” and funding social programs has become “throwing money” at them, while wasting billions of dollars on useless weapons programs is being “strong on defense” and “supporting our boys in the field”.

The fact is, slogans are easier to understand than ideas, rational discourse is always difficult, and shouting someone down is unfortunately effective

---dr.M.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

I had to copy&paste this from the interview. It's pretty much right on the money:
-----------------------
Redwood: How does the conservative set of values differ from the liberal set of values?

Lakoff: It’s not simple, but here’s how it goes. We all have a metaphor that we use in everyday thought, in which the nation is a family. We speak of the Founding Fathers, for example, and of sending our sons and daughters to war. That metaphor, linking the nation to a family and understanding it that way, maps two very different conceptions of ideal family life onto political life: a Strict Father family and a Nurturant Parent family. The result is two utterly different moral systems for how the country should be run.

In a Strict Father family, there’s a background assumption that the world is a dangerous and difficult place; that there is competition; that there always will be winners and losers, and that this is a good thing; and that children are born bad and have to be made good. “Bad” meaning that they will just do what feels good rather than what’s right. The assumption is that the only way this situation can be dealt with is through a Strict Father who protects the family in the dangerous world, supports it in the difficult world, wins the competitions, and teaches his kids right from wrong.

Redwood: How does the Strict Father teach these lessons?

Lakoff: There’s only one way to do that, which is punishment when they do wrong -- painful punishment. The idea is that this will cause them to get internal discipline, so that they will discipline themselves to do right, not wrong, and that this internal discipline will serve in a secondary way to allow them to pursue their self-interest and become self-reliant. That is, to make their way in a difficult world.

What this does is to bring morality and prosperity together in the Strict Father family. It also defines two kinds of children: the good children who are the disciplined ones, who will be able to support themselves and be independent as well as moral, and the bad children who aren’t disciplined, cannot follow moral precepts, and are not disciplined enough to support themselves. The idea is that after these children have become old enough that they go out into the world, they either can take care of themselves or they are subject to the discipline of the world. That is, they get “tough love.”

This family model then maps onto politics in a very important way. It says, for example, that all social programs are immoral because they make people dependent. They give people things that they haven’t earned and therefore make them dependent. It says that in foreign policy, the president is the moral authority and doesn’t have to ask any neighbor countries or allies what to do, or to ask for advice. He knows what’s right and wrong and will do what’s right. And other people should just follow suit. It says many more things about political policy, which are in my book, Moral Politics.

Redwood: What about the liberal model?

Lakoff: The liberal model of the family, the progressive model, is what I call the Nurturant Parent model, in which there are two parents equally responsible, whose job is to nurture their children and to raise their children to be nurturing of others. They assume children are born good and can be made better. Nurturance means two things: empathy (meaning you connect with your child and figure out what your child needs and what all those cries are when babies cry at night) and responsibility. You can’t take care of anybody else if you’re not responsible to yourself. That means self-responsibility as well as teaching responsibility for others.

From these two values, empathy and responsibility, a whole complex of values follows. If you empathize with your child, then you’ll want to protect your child. In progressive politics, this turns into consumer protection, environmental protection and so on. If you empathize with your child, you want your child to be treated fairly. This comes out in politics as a desire for equality and fairness in social life. In the family, if you empathize with your child, you’ll want your child to be fulfilled in life. So fulfillment becomes a progressive value. There’s no fulfillment without opportunity, and no opportunity without prosperity, so opportunity and prosperity become progressive values.

Then, any child is raised in a community -- as Hillary Clinton says, it takes a village -- and you don’t function in the community without serving that community, so public service becomes a progressive value. And in any community, you have to cooperate, and there’s no cooperation without trust and no trust without honesty. So cooperation, trust, and honesty become progressive values, as does open communication, which is required in any community. So what you find is that there is a progressive understanding of how to responsibly raise children, for both parents, and that this maps onto politics.

Now there’s a misrepresentation of this by the right. In the Strict Father model, there’s mommy as opposed to daddy. And mommy is not strong enough to protect the family, not able to support the family, and not disciplined enough to teach the kids right from wrong. So there’s the phrase, “Wait ‘til daddy comes home,” which is from such families. They then caricature the Nurturant Parent model as if it were a “weak mommy” model, which it isn’t, because any nurturant parent is going to raise his or her child to be responsible. You have to be strong to be a nurturant parent. Parenting isn’t for weaklings.
----------------------------

Fascinating article, Cant.

---dr.M.

 

[cantdog]

Thanks for the appreciation, first of all. I also thought the analysis of the two kinds of family models was insightful. Not to mention helpful and useful!

I feel better using semantics and semiotics now, too. And now that I focus on it, Weird is right. It was the Kennedy campaign when we all first heard the word charisma, wasn't it? And in the post-mortem, the reps began to discuss the notions of a television-friendly candidate, which sweaty, twitchy Nixon really wasn't (they said.

 

[Virtual_Burlesque]

Thanks, Cant & Doc.

Prior to this exchange I considered that semantics was concerned with the meaning of words — denotation.

While alternately, semiotics was concerned with the interpretation of words — connotation.

Now you’ve gotten me all confoozled

 

[amicus]

"Daniel Redwood: Why have conservatives been more effective than liberals in framing American political discourse in recent years?"

posted/pasted by Cantdog..threadstarter...


Sighs...I should just refrain...but in the disaster than has become the Kerry/Edwards campaign 2004....this rationalization is simply silly.

It is my opinion that those who advocate a free system (conservatives, in your context) from Goldwater to Reagan to Bush 2....have done the worst possible job in explaining and advocating the fundamentals of a free society.

The only saving grace has been and continues to be that the (liberals in your context) those who advocate a slave society, are too ashamed of their Marxist roots to admit it. Thus they offer no agenda at all, but remain in the 'attack mode' and have for many years.

The mindset of the left has become so set in its ways so as to become a 'faith' in which one need not clarify, just expect and demand adherence to the dogma....

Let me offer one example....'healthcare'...the left means by that, 'free health care to all, paid for by government programs.'

Socialized medicine, national health care...call it by whatever name you choose...it means free access to any medical procedure, (approved by government) to each and every citizen.

Advocates of the left 'believe' that this free healthcare is a 'humane right' that all citizens should enjoy.

They do not even comprehend of anyone who would challenge the moral rightness of that position. Good health and adequate care is essential, they say, to a healthy, progressive society.

Even though the left does not have the courage to assert that in so many words...that is one of the Ten Commandments of the Left, a commandment that is to be accepted as faith, without question, as a moral imperative.

So, you ask, why is socialized medicine such a bad thing?

I will do my best to give you a few clues...

Number one...Doctors...it takes about 10 years of education after high school to become a medical doctor.

Number two...It costs a great deal of money to finance 10 years of formal education and the regimen is so difficult the outside work is usually not an option. Thus money is borrowed to complete the eduation.

Number three, it takes a goodly level of intelligence, along with the other personal requirements to become a physician of value; perhaps only about 10 percent of the population has sufficient IQ levels to even attempt the profession.

Now....as a summation of those first three: Under socialized medicine, the Government chooses who will become doctors; pays for their education and chooses the course of their studies, determines where they will work, what treatments they will prescribe and offer and determines how they will be compensated.

Now, you tell me if you think a 130 plus IQ, usually an introverted personality, is going to subject himself/herself, to the whims of an average or below average bureaucrat with an IQ of between 100 and 110 (the average of government workers) to determine the quality of his/her professional career?

If you doubt my assertions, do your own research about Canadian and European medical doctors who flee those countries in such numbers that they have been forbidden to even leave the parent country on vacation. Read what the doctors themselves say about government controled medicine.

There is much source material available for those of you who would like to read of the horrors of government administered healthcare, in more than a dozen countries.

If it is free...no one respects it...and it is used far in excess of that which is needed...which leads to restrictions about what procedures will be 'permitted' by government.

Being forced to perform procedures or forbidden to perform other procedures, these highly intellectual physicians slip into sloppy procedures, turn to acohol and drugs and quckly lose the ability to function as a professional.

The overall cost skyrockets as quality care declines, the people become angry and government wrings its collective hands and cries, 'but this is what you wanted! free medicine for all!"

I does not work...never has and never will.

Yet this remains a 'plank' in the liberal left agenda.

Truly, the Emporer has no Clothes....


(ps...apply the same to social security, public education, and ecological protectionism....and begin to see the true bankruptcy of the left.)

amicus the incorrigible....

and I too have gone a couple of days with no email notification concerning activity on several threads....

 

[mismused]

Good morning, ami cus

Socialized medicine, national health care...call it by whatever name you choose...it means free access to any medical procedure, (approved by government) to each and every citizen.

Advocates of the left 'believe' that this free healthcare is a 'humane right' that all citizens should enjoy.

Now....as a summation of those first three: Under socialized medicine, the Government chooses who will become doctors; pays for their education and chooses the course of their studies, determines where they will work, what treatments they will prescribe and offer and determines how they will be compensated.

The overall cost skyrockets as quality care declines, the people become angry and government wrings its collective hands and cries, 'but this is what you wanted! free medicine for all!"

======================

Hope all is well with you, and please do forgive this intrusion into your arguments.

Firstly, allow me to say that I do not consider myself to be conservative, liberal, moderate, nor even an anarchist. I'm simply a wonderer, and I hope you will take this as such.

You speak of the "free" medicine that the left, or the people demand, but isn't there a balance to be struck, however minute any may consider it?

Does not the medical industry, particularly the pharmaceutical industry, benefit from "free" research from the government, paid for by you and I, and all others, and with no royalties?

Why? And why not balance the "right" of those not so able to claim such largesse with all that the "industry" lays claim to, however minute this may be considered by you, or anyone else?

Please, a little balance. Is it too much to expect from your marvelous mind?

Thank you for your consideration.

mismused

 

[amicus]

Dear mismused...if I may ...

I would be remiss not to acknowledge the imperfections in a free market...for sure...

I am apalled that people suffer because of copyright privileges to drugs the permit monopolistic high prices for dosages.

I am concerned that pharmaceutical giants profit in terms of billions while people in africa suffer blindness and death needlessly...

I am fully aware that government and military funded research often benefits private enterprise in ways perhaps not foreseen or intended.

But were I to concentrate on, or even publicly announce my reservations, then I could not be the absolute amicus I have chosen to be.

Thus...I must continue to advocate the concept of individual freedom, free enterprise and limited government as the best possilbe solution my studies have uncovered.

If I did not, then who else would you 'cus' at?

regards......ami cussable...

 

[thebullet]

Thus...I must continue to advocate the concept of individual freedom, free enterprise and limited government as the best possilbe solution my studies have uncovered.

Amicus your problem is that you are too fucking trusting. Or you are blind. Or perhaps you just haven't studied very hard: just enough to form a half-cocked opinion which you hold to vociferously without the intrusion of common sense.

Your concept of individual freedom and free enterprise allows the foxes into the henhouse with free reign. We apparently are at a pivotal point in US history. Throughout our country's lifetime there has been a halting progression towards a kind of universal prosperity and a more inclusive society.

Most of the country's founders excluded more than 50% of the population when they mis-stated their opinion that "all men are created equal". White male land owners were who they were referring to. Women weren't even considered. Blacks of course were merely property. Native Americans were savages.

I trust, Amicus, that you agree that a world where the female and the non-white has an equal share is a more equitible world. Of course in 21st century America, that world still doesn't exist. But we have edged closer to it over the last 225+ years. Amicus, it was government that held us back from equality, and finally government that forced some form of equality for women and non-whites onto the white male-controlled majority. Would you not agree that this is a good thing?

In your world, Amicus, the wealthy are the only ones capable of making decisions for the whole. Those born to privilege or those very few who can earn their way to privilege are the masters in your society, Amicus.

It sounds so neat and clean the way you put it. Let people be free, you say. Free enterprise: let the market determine its own destiny. Amicus, don't you understand that Free Enterprise is the last thing that Big Business wants? There will ALWAYS be collusion at the top: 'A loose affiliation of millionaires and billionaires'. It is in business's best personal interest to limit competition as much as possible in order to maximize profits. Amicus, the less competition, the less Big Business needs to worry about pleasing the common man. Quality? Who needs it? Truth in advertising? What a joke! Workers' safety? Too costly!

Big Business profits most by producing a low-quality product at the lowest cost possible and charging the highest price for it. That's reality. It has only been through the efforts of your hated 'progressives', Amicus, that quality controls have become part of American industry and business, otherwise you would still be eating mice turds along with your hot dogs.

Do you remember Los Angeles in the '60s and '70s, Amicus? People lived under a curtain of perpetual smog. Many days it was unsafe to leave one's house. The air itself was unhealthy to breath. How do you solve a problem like that, Amicus? I know your solution. High pollution would kill many people, thus cutting down the number of people driving, thus ending the air pollution problem. But the government came up with a less Malthusian solution. Government set emmission standards for automobiles. Government started requiring industry to cut the pollution emitted from factories. Government started monitoring and limiting chemical waste that was dumped by factories into the people's water supply. The result of course was cleaner air and cleaner water.

Amicus, without the intervention of government, today would our air be breathable? Would our water be drinkable? What is your opinion of the Bush Administration's efforts to destory the Environmental Protection Agency? By your stated standards, this is a good thing. Let's make government smaller and less intrusive by killing the EPA. Who cares if we are also killing our children at the same time? For the time they were alive, they were living in a 'free' society.

Amicus, you just haven't considered the implications of your bogus arguments. You live in a dream world. And no amount of logic will wake you up.

 

[Guest]

. . . I trust, Amicus, that you agree that a world where the female and the non-white has an equal share is a more equitible world.

But he does not agree, bullet. Any argument with ami must take that fact into account. He enjoys the whole "barefoot and pregnant" and "keep the little woman in her place" mindset.

Amicus, you just haven't considered the implications of your bogus arguments. You live in a dream world. And no amount of logic will wake you up.

I enjoyed reading your post, bullet. However, your last comment demonstrates the futility of arguments with ami. He won't consider another opinion - ever. Despite proof to the contrary, he won't budge. AND he never offers proof for his own views.

You can't let it frustrate you. Just smile and pat him on his beanie little head.

 

[cantdog]

Amicus incorrectly identifies the current administration with free market advocacy. They have no such goal. Amicus may, but not them. The UK had to threaten Bush to get him to flipflop on his protectionist law only a few months ago, famously.

There is in fact a wide array of protectionist and anti-competitive measures influencing trade to and from this country, including proscriptions on any competition from our client states in Latin America. If an American company owns the factory, the Dominican Republic may send us manufactures; otherwise, they are to send agricultural products (coffee, tobacco, sugar). That's on their own law books, but (significantly, to my mind) the marines were there when their law was adopted.

They are prohibited also from erecting their own protectionist barriers, or collecting tariffs on our goods, setting quotas, anything. Amicus approves of that, but the "free market" is all one way, and was never intended otherwise. Far from being an attempt at free markets, those prohibitions are simply another set of protectionist provisions on behalf of American companies, written by American companies to be included in their country's laws, and installed into their law books by the liberal use of invasions by our armed forces. The picture is not in any sense congruent with a free market stance. They do say it is, though. Perhaps Amicus is very gullible.

cantdog

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

Well, I'm a little late to this party.

Not much catches me, Amicus is being highly, highly idealistic (which isn't to say good or bad) again. The whole "government cleaned the air and saved us" thing is worth commenting on, though.

Did the government clean the air, and set the emission standards, and make the environment better so that we can live longer and healthier lives? Yes. Surely, I don't think anyone's going to argue that.

Are we better off--in the long run--for it? That's the really hard question.

 

[thebullet]

Hey Joe:
No offense intended, truly. But that Avitar of yours makes someone want to grab you by the throat and beat the living shit out of you. --- just an off-the-cuff comment.


Cantdog correctly picked up what I was trying to say about business. A free market is anethema to business. GW has his head so far up big business' ass that he can't breath without a snorkle. ERGO: GW has no interest in a free market.

Amicus is such a fanatic about the purity of his beliefs that he will probably never live in the real world. I just worry that he will in some way influence some totally politically innocent reader into thinking he knows what the fuck he's talking about.

 

[cantdog]

The democratic party has no plans to change any of this. Rank-and-file dems may, but the Senator is as much a slave to the business interests as the Resident. We need a second party in this country.

 

[GingerV]

There's something horrifically cynical about people who are more interested in how to sell an idea, rather than improving the idea and letting it sell itself.

What I don't understand is how, given the amount of marketing we absorb daily, Americans aren't more resistant to this sort of manipulation? Or is it that we're not as immune to advertising as we think we are, and it's always having an impact....political or otherwise?

G

 

[thebullet]

cantdog said:

The democratic party has no plans to change any of this. Rank-and-file dems may, but the Senator is as much a slave to the business interests as the Resident. We need a second party in this country

No, not much to argue with there. Unfortunately we don't have a true opposition party. Yes, the Dems and the Repubs usually are clones of one another. But that was before the neocons took over the GOP. No matter how self-serving, servile and mamby-pampby the Dems are, they are MILES better than than the Republicans. The Republicans are turning into Nazis. Truly. And the Dems would undoubtedly restore the EPA, back away from the wars for conquest, and tone down or repeal the Patriot Act.

Don't waste your vote, cantdog, on a 3rd party or interloper like Ralph Nader. Until we have a true 3rd party, or until the Republicans return to the party of Barry Goldwater rather than the party of Joseph Geobbels, if you want your country back you MUST vote for Kerry, no matter how puerile, no matter how tedious, no matter how disheartening.

Sorry, but now we are voting up and down on America. We can't be bothered by petty issues such as quality of candidate.

 

[mismused]

Thank you, ami cus

Dear mismused...if I may ...

I would be remiss not to acknowledge the imperfections in a free market...for sure...

I am apalled that people suffer because of copyright privileges to drugs the permit monopolistic high prices for dosages.

I am concerned that pharmaceutical giants profit in terms of billions while people in africa suffer blindness and death needlessly...

I am fully aware that government and military funded research often benefits private enterprise in ways perhaps not foreseen or intended.

But were I to concentrate on, or even publicly announce my reservations, then I could not be the absolute amicus I have chosen to be.

Thus...I must continue to advocate the concept of individual freedom, free enterprise and limited government as the best possilbe solution my studies have uncovered.

If I did not, then who else would you 'cus' at?

regards......ami cussable...

======================

Such a fantastic mind you have, ami cus, and that is not a cus. However, is it the perfection of the form such as you word it, that is of the utmost importance to you, that it conform to your preset idea and conclusion, since you seem to deplore the imperfections of the "market?"

(Hmm! What "market" when it is rigged much as our wonderful stock market has been exposed to be rigged, and our president precluded that most American of all things, competition in pricing -- the drugs for medicare of course? But I digress. Forgive me.)

It would, of a habit, I think, make for a much better argument on your part to include all the facts, and then cull for us those which are salient to your learned opinion. Give us the benefit of all of your wonderful mind, and not just your final product on the issue at hand.

(Favorable taxation, or non taxation, I should say, etc., etc., etc., I'm sure.)

Have a wonderful day in the great services you perform, ami cus.

mismused

 

[Pure]

Amicus said,
I must continue to advocate the concept of individual freedom, free enterprise and limited government as the best possilbe solution my studies have uncovered.

It's unfortunate amicus does not understand 'freedom' and continually *assumes* that limited government (if there is such a thing these days) gives/allows it.

As several posters have noted, he doesn't understand the *reality*-- the living realization, as opposed to the ideal--of 'free enterprise.'

Oddly, he has noted predatory pricing of drug companies as an issue, but within his conceptual framework, there is no mechanism for dealing with corporate predation (ravishment, etc.).

In this, he resembles GWB and co. The only remedy, for instance to the economy, is *more* tax cuts. The only remedy to predatory pricing is, according to amicus, LESS government control, FEWER laws regarding monopolies, and NO laws that deal with pricing by any commercial entity.

 

[amicus]

Being patronized and patted on my 'beanie head', excoriated and dismissed as naive...this thread is almost as good as "The Feminine Mistake" of some months ago.

It is quite true however, I do not dwell in the 'real' world of mixed capitalism. It is true that I am an idealist, but I choose to be that way, it is not a default position.

In my novel Chief, a future volume, not written yet, two families of stone tool makers come before the Chief of the tribe and the Elders of all the families that make up the tribe.

There is no vote, there is no democracy, the society is in transition from nomadic to agricultural.

The issue is that the size of the tribe will only support one tool maker. The question before the Chief and the Elders is 'which' tool maker will be permitted to continue....as is the way of the people when a conflict arises.

Now this is, of course, an hypothetical situation. Two producers of an essential and needed commodity in competition with each other and half the market will not support either.

What is the solution? What would your solution be to this basic question in economics?

In my novel, the Chief is a just and honest leader. In other situations, the leader may not be.

In the scenario, the Elders divide in their support along subjective lines of influence, one tool maker is better liked than the other by some and not by others.

The Chief is faced with a decision based on what?

Rather than present my resolution of this conflict as it will appear in the novel, I ask you, the reader of this post, to offer your solutions.

Let us stipulate, as much as possible, that all else being equal, the quality of the stone tools from each tool maker is simular. Let us also stipulate that the claims by one or both tool makers, that only one can survive economically, are basically true.

Also know that the way of the people is and always has been one of 'authoritarian rule' the decision of the Chief is final and absolute.

Amicus runs this post up the flag pole and muses over what the response might be...


amicussable....

 

[amicus]

JoeW said:

"Did the government clean the air, and set the emission standards, and make the environment better so that we can live longer and healthier lives? Yes. Surely, I don't think anyone's going to argue that."


Dear JoeW et al...I lived in Los Angeles in the 1950's and can attest to the tears in my eyes from the pollution.


However, did Government clean the air or make the environment better...?" No, my friend, Government did not.

You should take into consideration that city, country, state and federal regulations apply to just about every activity of mankind.

If six or eight lane highways are built right through the center of a major metropolitan area, it is with the approval of government at all levels.

If a coal fired energy producing plant is built and the pollution coats the residents with residue, it is done so with government approval at all levels.

If dikes and levees are built along the Mississippi as a 'flood control measure' it is done so with government approval.

If a TVA Tennessee Valley authority dams a river, creates a huge lake and destroys the history of 20 thousand people, it is done with government approval.

If a pharmaceutical company produces a drug such as thalidomide, with tragic and fatal side effects, it does so with government approval.

The upshot of this is to state, clearly and openly, that 'government' not only does not 'fix' a situation, is is often responsible for it in the first place.

And even if government could be seen as the ultimate solution to all problems, is there one among you who would deny that government is only people and people can be are are corrupted, lazy and insensitive and uncaring in many cases?

The L.A. basin is described as an 'inversion layer area', in which air is not circulated as it is in other locations and becomes stagnant and does not naturally refresh and dispell pollutants.

Now when LA was founded and when it grew exponentially following the midwest diaspora during the drouth and great depression of the 20's and 30's, no one, government or otherwise, had a clue as to 'inversion layers.'

The Hanford reactor complex in Eastern Washington State has allegedly polluted hundreds of square miles of water table which has affected millions of people all the way along the Columbia River to the Pacific ocean. All with the permission of Government.

DDT was used as a pesticide for years and years...all with the permission of 'government'

No, JoeW et al...government is not the solution, in most cases, it is the cause of injustice.

Is there a better way?

I think so.

Every square inch of real property within the borders of the United States should be privately owned.

According to our Constitution, the main function of our form of government is to 'protect' the rights of the individual.

Protecting the 'property rights' of each property owner would have, in theory, eliminated most of the effects I alluded to before.

Is it a perfect system...free market, protection of rights...? No it is not perfect.

But if ones basic political and philsophical imperative is to protect the right of the individual to be free, then it is the only system that upholds human dignity.

"Give me Liberty or give me Death..." is not just a buzz phrase, it really has a meaning.

There are those who will not live in a society there Liberty is abridged.

Yes, I know, always the idealist...but then, I do recall there was a Revolution once upon a time in America for just that very reason.

amicus...