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ya know, I been watching political stuff for about 20 years now and I think I'm getting the handle on how they "spin" anything. Actually it's quite amusing to see how they do it - almost like trying to shove a round ball in a square hole. Here's some methods and rules I've seen.
rule #1 Any time there is a choice between two competing courses of action and you want to please both groups of people - argue for one choice but portray it as something to be avoided, kept to a minimum, or rare. Hillary Clinton's claim to want to keep abortion safe, legal, and rare. http://www.lifenews.com/2008/01/02/nat-3575/
So where the life of the fetus is in question Clinton manages to straddle both sides of the fence. Pro-lifers will hear Clinton want abortion to be rare while pro-choice will hear that she wants it to be safe. and legal. win win.
lemmee see if I can play that game.
I like higher taxes on the rich, but I want those taxes to be rare. I favor the right to engage in voter fraud but i want it to be rare. I favor the right to get a divorce but I want it to be legal and rare. I favor the right to assisted suicide but I want it to be rare.
Now I don't feel that way about all that stuff, but I thought I'd have a go at it and most people would look at that list and have mixed reactions. Some people would say that "yeah" the rich should pay more but most would ask me why I would even want to permit any voter fraud. Most would agree to allow divorce but keep it rare and save as many marriages as possible. I'm sure the majority would ask me why I would even want to keep assisted suicide rare. Would I not want to make it even rarer than that?
That's the thing about the rule that Hillary is using here - it's an attempt to avoid the debate by essentially arguing that you are permitting both the allowance of something and the rarity of it and hence no debate or conflict at all. However, few would want to permit voter fraud because the very presence of some diminishes the purity of all votes and is unacceptable. However, I would surmise the majority of people would support the allowance of divorce even though we try to keep it minimal as possible. It's a necessary evil.
What the "I support the existence of X but want to keep it to a minimum" rule does not do is tell us anything about why we are supporting the very minimal existence of X. What Hillary should be answering is why she wants to maintain the minimal existence of abortion and not just keep it rare. Some things we permit but keep rare and some things we strive to eliminate even though they are rare.
rule #2 any time there is a dissenting group of people straying from your political party line - portray them as as collection of - whatever - in order to immediately brand their thought as unworthy of consideration.
Again, to pick on Hillary, she once criticized her opponents as members of a vast right wing conspiracy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uI_SqqJIU14
http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2007/3/13/124750.shtml
So rather than deal with the merits of their case, we deal with them as a group and then throw their comments under the bus all at once.
Martin Gardner and Steve Allen, both skeptics of religion, played that game in Allen's book Steven Allen on the Bible, Religion, and Morality where the terms "fundamentalists" "ultra-fundamentalists" "reconstructionists" and "ultra-extreme fundamentalists" joust for the main position of representing the people whose viewpoints they hate - Christians. i did a review of this book at http://www.tektonics.org/guest/allenstjs.html
rule #3 People who want to keep more of their money are called greedy while those in government who want to keep more of people's money are not.. Increasing taxes to be spent by the whims of politicians are considered investments. Furthermore, those who believe that wealth ought to be taken by others feel no need for their wealth to be taken and distributed for the common good.
you've undoubtedly heard about the 80s as the decade of greed when people had more of their money to keep - but apparently keeping more was greedy.
this book on that can be mined for profit on those politicians who don't practice what they preach
http://books.google.com/books?id=F77O2NyqSGIC&printsec=frontcover&dq=liberal+hypocrisy&source=bl&ots=xZ-Ys1Wk_P&sig=zcI1qo2OHoV63lpot57_VT6KJ64&hl=en&sa=X&ei=3sz8T8elKIilrQHpkuGLCQ&ved=0CDYQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=liberal%20hypocrisy&f=false
rule #1 Any time there is a choice between two competing courses of action and you want to please both groups of people - argue for one choice but portray it as something to be avoided, kept to a minimum, or rare. Hillary Clinton's claim to want to keep abortion safe, legal, and rare. http://www.lifenews.com/2008/01/02/nat-3575/
So where the life of the fetus is in question Clinton manages to straddle both sides of the fence. Pro-lifers will hear Clinton want abortion to be rare while pro-choice will hear that she wants it to be safe. and legal. win win.
lemmee see if I can play that game.
I like higher taxes on the rich, but I want those taxes to be rare. I favor the right to engage in voter fraud but i want it to be rare. I favor the right to get a divorce but I want it to be legal and rare. I favor the right to assisted suicide but I want it to be rare.
Now I don't feel that way about all that stuff, but I thought I'd have a go at it and most people would look at that list and have mixed reactions. Some people would say that "yeah" the rich should pay more but most would ask me why I would even want to permit any voter fraud. Most would agree to allow divorce but keep it rare and save as many marriages as possible. I'm sure the majority would ask me why I would even want to keep assisted suicide rare. Would I not want to make it even rarer than that?
That's the thing about the rule that Hillary is using here - it's an attempt to avoid the debate by essentially arguing that you are permitting both the allowance of something and the rarity of it and hence no debate or conflict at all. However, few would want to permit voter fraud because the very presence of some diminishes the purity of all votes and is unacceptable. However, I would surmise the majority of people would support the allowance of divorce even though we try to keep it minimal as possible. It's a necessary evil.
What the "I support the existence of X but want to keep it to a minimum" rule does not do is tell us anything about why we are supporting the very minimal existence of X. What Hillary should be answering is why she wants to maintain the minimal existence of abortion and not just keep it rare. Some things we permit but keep rare and some things we strive to eliminate even though they are rare.
rule #2 any time there is a dissenting group of people straying from your political party line - portray them as as collection of - whatever - in order to immediately brand their thought as unworthy of consideration.
Again, to pick on Hillary, she once criticized her opponents as members of a vast right wing conspiracy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uI_SqqJIU14
http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2007/3/13/124750.shtml
So rather than deal with the merits of their case, we deal with them as a group and then throw their comments under the bus all at once.
Martin Gardner and Steve Allen, both skeptics of religion, played that game in Allen's book Steven Allen on the Bible, Religion, and Morality where the terms "fundamentalists" "ultra-fundamentalists" "reconstructionists" and "ultra-extreme fundamentalists" joust for the main position of representing the people whose viewpoints they hate - Christians. i did a review of this book at http://www.tektonics.org/guest/allenstjs.html
rule #3 People who want to keep more of their money are called greedy while those in government who want to keep more of people's money are not.. Increasing taxes to be spent by the whims of politicians are considered investments. Furthermore, those who believe that wealth ought to be taken by others feel no need for their wealth to be taken and distributed for the common good.
you've undoubtedly heard about the 80s as the decade of greed when people had more of their money to keep - but apparently keeping more was greedy.
this book on that can be mined for profit on those politicians who don't practice what they preach
http://books.google.com/books?id=F77O2NyqSGIC&printsec=frontcover&dq=liberal+hypocrisy&source=bl&ots=xZ-Ys1Wk_P&sig=zcI1qo2OHoV63lpot57_VT6KJ64&hl=en&sa=X&ei=3sz8T8elKIilrQHpkuGLCQ&ved=0CDYQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=liberal%20hypocrisy&f=false
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