How the GOP Has Changed the English Language
According to the Bing definition Liberal means: 1.broad-minded: tolerant of different views and standards of behavior in others 2.progressive politically or socially: favoring gradual reform, especially political reforms that extend democracy, distribute wealth more evenly, and protect the personal freedom of the individual 3.generous: freely giving money, time, or some other asset Now, all these qualities sound good to me. Yet, when the first George Bush ran against Michael Dukakis, he and his trainers managed to turn “liberal” into a dirty word. I will admit that I was furious with Dukakis with not coming back with something like, “Yeah, I’m a liberal and proud of it because that means I’m (see above definitions).” But did he? No. He was almost apologetic about being a liberal. He let the GOP redefine liberal into a negative.
And, the GOP did so well then that they’ve continued on. Many of us, if not most, have heard Socrates admonition, “Moderation in all things.” taught to us as being a good thing. Now, the GOP has changed the definitions of moderate: “2.reasonable: not excessive or unreasonable 3.middle-of-the-road: not extreme or radical”, which sounds like a good way to be, into being synonymous with ‘wimpy’.
Compromise has become another dirty word in the GOP lexicon. Definition: “a settlement of differences by mutual concessions; an agreement reached by adjustment of conflicting or opposing claims, principles, etc., by reciprocal modification of demands.” This, to me sounds like a reasonable course of action, but the GOP has redefined it as ‘selling out’ (see ‘wimpy’ above).
But the one that angers me the most is their attack on being intelligent. “The intelligentsia” is their scornful putdown. Definition: “1.intellectuals: the most intelligent, intellectual, or highly educated members of a society or community, especially those who are interested in the arts, literature, philosophy, and politics.” I’ve had ‘smart lib’ thrown at me as an insult.
When I was growing up in the 50s and 60s, people WANTED to be intelligent and well-educated. That’s why so many jumped at the GI Bill.
It is unbelievable and appalling that the GOP is turning their backs on the older generations’ veneration of intelligence and is making being smart and well-educated negatives. Maybe that’s why they seem to be so eager to cut funding for education.
Now, I will admit that sometimes the ‘intelligentisia’ comes across a little strong. Maybe even a little bossy. However, considering the above definition, since they are intelligent and well-educated, they may very well be right.
George Hunsucker
Northland
8 months, 2 weeks agoSuzanne,
You misinterpret what I mean by “smart lib”. It has nothing to do with a person’s innate intelligence. What is has to do with is the liberal’s belief that they know what is best for someone else, and their use of government FORCE to install their liberal belief system on me, or, in the posting you and I have been doing this week, forcing their liberal beliefs that businesspeople should spend their money the way the liberals want them to, in this week’s case, demanding businesses pop for birth control pills when the businessperson for whatever reason they have, would prefer not to.
“Smart lib”, in this case, is this unconstitutional use of force to obtain some liberal desired end. In the end I could say overbearing lib, or “all-knowing lib” or some other adjective to describe the liberal behavior—I just choose to call it “smart lib”….
Jon Whitten
8 months, 2 weeks ago…”distribute wealth more evenly”.
Enough said.
Suzanne Conaway
8 months, 2 weeks agoChuck, It’s amazing. I feel the same way about your misinterpretations! However, I think YOU’RE certainly overreaching if you think you know what I believe. Also, rather presumptuous.
I don’t believe the Dems have a monopoly on anything. However, I don’t think the GOP has shown much thought and concern for the less fortunate lately. Unless, of course, the ‘less fortunate’ make more than $250,000 a year.
George, my cousin, Glen, felt that maybe the adjective you’re looking for is ‘pushy’ rather than ‘smart’.
Pappy, can you direct me to the name of this psychologist? I’ve read several studies that show just the opposite.
George Hunsucker
Northland
8 months, 2 weeks agoNo Suzanne, pushy is too soft an adjective. I want a harsh word to describe the utter contempt I feel for people who are taking away my constitutionally guaranteed freedoms. Remember the phrase “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”? This is a very dear statement to me that I take to heart…..
For the record, the GOP passedcivil rights laws, your beloved donkeys wanted no part of it… Remember Little Rock with a donkey Governor Suzanne????
JR Beillenhouser
8 months, 2 weeks agoThe Righteous Mind” by Jonathan Haidt, who is a liberal states:
“Moderates and conservatives were adept at guessing how liberals would answer questions. Liberals, especially those who described themselves as “very liberal,” were least able to put themselves in the minds of their adversaries and guess how conservatives would answer.”
His research says” Results indicate that people at all points on the political spectrum are at least intuitively aware of the actual differences in moral concerns between liberals and conservatives: they correctly predicted that liberals would care more than conservatives about the two individualizing foundations and that conservatives would care more than liberals about the three binding foundations. The results also confirm previous studies of partisan misperception (e.g.?Chambers, et al., 2006) by showing that, in general, people overestimate how dramatically?liberals and conservatives differ. Remarkably, people even morally stereotype their own ingroup,?with liberals overestimating liberals? strong individualizing concerns and underestimating?liberals? weak binding concerns, and conservatives exaggerating conservatives? moral concerns?in the opposite directions.
Pappy puts it succinctly as ” Liberals he found, could not even understand a point of view other then their own. While conservatives could.”
Pennee Atkinson
8 months, 2 weeks agoI see people reporting things with no links or references. Here are some.
. Conservatives spend more time looking at unpleasant images, and liberals spend more time looking at pleasant images. Reliance on quick, efficient, and “low effort” thought processes yields conservative ideologies, while effortful and deliberate reasoning yields liberal ideologies. Conservatives react more strongly than liberals to disgusting images, such as a picture of someone eating worms. Liberals have more tolerance to uncertainty and conservatives have more sensitivity to fear. Conservatives have stronger motivations than liberals to preserve purity and cleanliness. Liberals follow the direction of eye movements better than conservatives. Republicans are more likely than Democrats to interpret faces as threatening and expressing dominant emotions. When making risky decisions, Republicans consider external consequences while Democrats weigh internal considerations Genetics influence political attitudes during early adulthood and beyond. Compared to liberals, conservatives are less open to new experiences and learn better from negative stimuli than positive stimuli. Conservatives tend to have a stronger reaction to threatening noises and images than liberals. Liberals are more open-minded and creative whereas conservatives are more orderly and better organized. When faced with a conflict, liberals are more likely than conservatives to alter their habitual response when cues indicate it is necessary. http://2012election.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=004818
Steven Fetter
66223
8 months, 2 weeks agoSuzanne: I believe Aristotle, not Socrates, made the moderation quote. However, I do like Socrates self analysis; “I know nothing”. He conducted interviews with the intelligentsia of his day; artists, statesmen, poets. He concluded that each man thought himself wise but was not. His conclusion was only those that are aware of their ignorance have a path to wisdom.
The liberals of our day deem themselves very wise. They tell us who is racist, who is uncaring, who is hypocritical, and who is deserving. A person can be wise today by virtue of their ethnicity, hence the wise Latina.
George Bush, he of dual Ivy league degrees was labeled dumb. So was Ford, Reagan, and Quayle. Palin and Backmann should at least be appreciated for their tenacity in combining work and family. Instead, they are dismissed as uninformed bimbos.
Nobody is turning their back on education. College enrollment is at an all time high and manual work tends to be disdained by the younger generation.
Perhaps we all need to be a little more humble.
Steve Alleman
Kansas City
8 months, 2 weeks agoIt was Haidt’s The Righteous Mind that Pappy Jeanneret was alluding to? His description of its conclusions are so over-simplified as to be unrecognizable. His claim that “This study of course did not get much press” is ridiculous. The book was widely reviewed and discussed.
JR Beillenhouser has simply selected the bits of the book’s argument that are most flattering to him and his fellow conservatives. There’s plenty of hard advice for conservatives in that book as well.
JR Beillenhouser
8 months, 2 weeks agoSteve, funny know how Haidt saw enough wrong with liberals in his studies to now define himself as a centrist as opposed to a liberal (as he did before his studies)
And I just pulled some quotes of off a book review site. I’m sorry if it offended you that the reviewer felt that this was the most important parts of the book.
Here is a very in depth article about it
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/books/review/the-righteous-mind-by-jonathan-haidt.html?pagewanted=all
Key points regarding liberals and conservatives:
“You don’t have to go abroad to see these ideas. You can find them in the Republican Party. Social conservatives see welfare and feminism as threats to responsibility and family stability. The Tea Party hates redistribution because it interferes with letting people reap what they earn. Faith, patriotism, valor, chastity, law and order — these Republican themes touch all six moral foundations, whereas Democrats, in Haidt’s analysis, focus almost entirely on care and fighting oppression. This is Haidt’s startling message to the left: When it comes to morality, conservatives are more broad-minded than liberals. They serve a more varied diet. ”
“Toward this end, Haidt applauds the left for regulating corporate greed. But he worries that in other ways, liberals dissolve moral capital too recklessly. Welfare programs that substitute public aid for spousal and parental support undermine the ecology of the family. Education policies that let students sue teachers erode classroom authority. Multicultural education weakens the cultural glue of assimilation.”
“Another aspect of human nature that conservatives understand better than liberals, according to Haidt, is parochial altruism, the inclination to care more about members of your group — particularly those who have made sacrifices for it —than about outsiders. Saving Darfur, submitting to the United Nations and paying taxes to educate children in another state may be noble, but they aren’t natural. What’s natural is giving to your church, helping your P.T.A. and rallying together as Americans against a foreign threat. ”
“The hardest part, Haidt finds, is getting liberals to open their minds. Anecdotally, he reports that when he talks about authority, loyalty and sanctity, many people in the audience spurn these ideas as the seeds of racism, sexism and homophobia. And in a survey of 2,000 Americans, Haidt found that self-described liberals, especially those who called themselves “very liberal,” were worse at predicting the moral judgments of moderates and conservatives than moderates and conservatives were at predicting the moral judgments of liberals. Liberals don’t understand conservative values. And they can’t recognize this failing, because they’re so convinced of their rationality, open-mindedness and enlightenment. ”
Phil Cardarella
8 months, 2 weeks agoAt the risk of returning to the actual subject?
Orwell warned about the hijacking of language in politics. “War is Peace,” remember?
My wife once observed that in social policy we may be the last two “liberals” in America, because we are willing to allow others to do what we have no interest in doing ourselves.
Take drugs. (No, not literally. It really is best to just say NO.) Right-wingers want to lock up dopers because drugs are “evil” and offend God (or “Allah”, if you are an ayatollah hanging dopers). Left-wingers want to lock up dopers “for their own good”. The fact that locking up dopers has done nothing to reduce the number of dopers and has only made illegal dealers occcasionally rich and intermittently violent — that the POLICY IS A FAILURE — deters neither side.
Right-wingers want to lock up flag-burners. Left-wingers want to manufacture felons by more harshly punishing the drunks or bigots who think or say politically-incorrect things while commiting minor crimes.
Words like conservative, moderate and liberal used to be addressed to specific policy issues. They used to describe a spectrum of opinion on how best to achieve common goals, not conflicts of doctrine.
You see, conflicts of doctrine allow neither moderation nor compromise. Only burning the heretics.