Neocon Antidote: Framing the Debate

I've been getting over a fairly nasty cold this weekend, and I can't say I'm completely back up to spec, although I'm heading back to the ol' grind tomorrow. But I did want to briefly post something pointing you to a post, "'Republican-Lite', Or, 'Losing the Abortion Rhetoric War'", on a hereto undiscovered blog called "This May ... Or Not":

Those that are attempting to make abortion illegal once again, have taken the labels for themselves of "pro-life" and "anti-abortion." This is very clever. For, if they are pro-life and anti-abortion, then their opponents must surely be anti-life and pro-abortion. Very few people would ever want to take those latter labels upon themselves. So long as the pro-legalists do not challenge the implication that to be in favor of legalization is to be anti-life, they will never succeed in regaining the moral upper-hand and controlling the dialogue.


The post itself is pretty wise in many respects, but it also addresses something I hope to write more about in the future, something which I feel is going to determine the future of the Democratic Party -- the concept of "framing."

If you'd like to read more about before I get to posting my own thoughts on it (which won't be for a while -- I'd like it to be an intelligent post, thankyouverymuch), you might want to go and spend $7.50 and buy Don't Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate, which will be the best $7.50 you've spent in a while. If you want, you can get Moral Politics instead or in addition -- it's a more textbookish version of the same concepts, but goes into much greater depth.

If you'd like to dip your feet in the concepts before spending money on it (understandable), you can check out Wikipedia's articles on Lakoff and Moral Politics, which'll give you an introduction to the concepts involved. It answers some questions I've long wondered about, frankly. (It should also go without saying that I have no financial stake in the recommendation of the books. I didn't even set up one of those Amazon Affiliate whatchamacalits.)