George Lakoff

Why Ultra-Conservatives Like the Sequester

2013-02-26T08:54:29-05:00

Paul Krugman, Joe Stiglitz, Robert Reich and other major economists have pointed out that the deficit is not an urgent economic problem and that, to the contrary, the economy would be helped by an increase in public investment and harmed by drastic cuts. The Sequester would hurt the economy, millions of people, and the country as a whole.

President Obama has detailed the vast range of harms that the sequester would bring. They are well-known. And they are not necessary. The president sees the sequester, if it happens, as an enormous self-inflicted wound, inflicted on America by a Republican-dominated House elected by Americans.

But pointing out Republican-caused harms to millions of people -- many of them Republicans -- does not sway the ultra-right. Why? Democratic pundits say that Republicans want to hurt the president, to show government doesn't work by making it not work, and to protect "special interests" from higher taxes. All true. But there is an additional and deeper reason. Ultra-conservatives believe that the sequester is moral, that it is the right thing to do.

Progressives tend to believe that democracy is based on citizens caring for their fellow citizens through what the government provides for all citizens -- public infrastructure, public safety, public education, public health, publicly-sponsored research, public forms of recreation and culture, publicly-guaranteed safety nets for those who need them, and so on. In short, progressives believe that the private depends on the public, that without those public provisions Americans cannot be free to live reasonable lives and to thrive in private business. They believe that those who make more from public provisions should pay more to maintain them.

Ultra-conservatives don't believe this. They believe that Democracy gives them the liberty to seek their own self-interests by exercising personal responsibility, without having responsibility for anyone else or anyone else having responsibility for them. They take this as a matter of morality. They see the social responsibility to provide for the common good as an immoral imposition on their liberty.

Their moral sense requires that they do all they can to make the government fail in providing for the common good. Their idea of liberty is maximal personal responsibility, which they see as maximal privatization -- and profitization -- of all that we do for each other together, jointly as a unified nation.

They also believe that if people are hurt by government failure, it is their own fault for being "on the take" instead of providing for themselves. People who depend on public provisions should suffer. They should have rely on themselves alone -- learn personal responsibility, just as Romney said in his 47 percent speech. In the long run, they believe, the country will be better off if everyone has to depend on personal responsibility alone.

Moreover, ultra-conservatives do not see all the ways in which they, and other ultra-conservatives, rely all day every day on what other Americans have supplied for them. They actually believe that they built it all by themselves.

So for them the sequester is not a "self-inflicted wound." It is justice. The sequester is not merely about protecting "special interests." It is about the good people who pursued their self-interest successfully, got rich, and have acted "morally" in avoiding taxes that pay for public provisions by the government.

They are not merely trying to harm their own constituents just to hurt the president politically. Yes, they think hurting the president politically is moral, and they believe that any constituents they are hurting need to become more personally responsible. They see the sequester as serving that purpose.

In short, the sequester is not just about money and political power for the Republicans in the House. It is mostly about what they see as the right direction for the country: maximal elimination of the public sphere.

In short, they have an ideology that partially, but only partially, fits what half of our population believes. Overall, it actually fits what about 20 to 30 percent of the population totally believes. Both total progressives and partial progressives don't want to see millions of folks hurt and the economy hurt as well. But thanks to Republican gerrymandering at the state level, progressives and partial progressives do not control Congress.

This is the real picture and few people in public life dare to tell it. It is more convenient, and less scary, to think that all that is involved is money and politics as usual. That's what current Democratic messaging says. Democratic messaging hasn't gotten to the heart of the problem: the real moral divide in America. Democratic messaging, in blaming Republicans in Congress for the harm to come, just offends Republicans and fails to speak to moral divide at the heart of our public life.

Would addressing it help? I think so, if it is done with the appropriate sensitivity.

How the State of the Union Worked

2013-02-15T08:27:38-05:00

Political journalists have a job to do -- to examine the SOTU's long list of proposals. They are doing that job, many are doing it well, and I'll leave it to them. Instead, I want to discuss what in the long run is a deeper question: How did the SOTU help to change public discourse? What is the change? And technically, how did it work?

The address was coherent. There was a single frame that fit together all the different ideas, from economics to the environment to education to gun safety to voting rights. The big change in public discourse was the establishment of that underlying frame, a frame that will, over the long haul, accommodate many more specific proposals.

Briefly, the speech worked via frame evocation. Not statement, evocation -- the unconscious and automatic activation in the brains of listeners of a morally-based progressive frame that made sense of what the president said.

When a frame is repeatedly activated, it is strengthened. Obama's progressive frame was strengthened not only in die-hard progressives, but also in partial progressives, those who are progressive on some issues and conservative on others -- the so-called moderates, swing voters, independents, and centrists. As a result, 77 percent of listeners approved of the speech, 53 percent strongly positive and 24 percent somewhat positive, with only 22 percent negative. When that deep progressive frame is understood and accepted by a 77 percent margin, the president has begun to move America toward a progressive moral vision.

If progressives are going to maintain and build on the president's change in public discourse so far, we need to understand just what that change has been and how he accomplished it.

It hasn't happened all at once.

In 2008, candidate Obama made overt statements. He spoke overtly about empathy and the responsibility to act on it as the basis of democracy. He spoke about the need for an "ethic of excellence." He spoke about the role of government to protect and empower everyone equally.

After using the word "empathy" in the Sotomayor nomination, he dropped it when conservatives confused it with sympathy and unfairness. But the idea didn't disappear.

By the 2013 Inaugural Address, he directly quoted the Declaration and Lincoln, overtly linking patriotism and the essence of democracy to empathy, to Americans caring for one another and taking responsibility for one another as well as themselves. He spoke overtly about how private success depends on public provisions. He carried out these themes with examples. And he had pretty much stopped making the mistake of using conservative language, even to negate it. The change in public discourse became palpable.

The 2013 SOTU followed this evolution a crucial step further. Instead of stating the frames overly, he took them for granted and the nation understood. Public discourse had shifted; brains had changed. So much so that John Boehner looked shamed as he slumped, sulking in his chair, as if trying to disappear. Changed so much that Marco Rubio's response was stale and defensive: the old language wasn't working and Rubio kept talking in rising tones indicating uncertainty.

Here is how Obama got to 77 percent approval as an unapologetic progressive.

The president set his theme powerfully in the first few sentences -- in about 30 seconds.

Fifty-one years ago, John F. Kennedy declared to this Chamber that 'the Constitution makes us not rivals for power but partners for progress...It is my task,' he said, 'to report the State of the Union -- to improve it is the task of us all.' Tonight, thanks to the grit and determination of the American people, there is much progress to report. ...

First, Obama recalled Kennedy -- a strong, unapologetic liberal. "Partners" evokes working together, an implicit attack on conservative stonewalling, while "for progress" makes clear his progressive direction. "To improve it is the task of us all" evokes the progressive theme that we're all in this together with the goal of improving the common good. "The grit and determination of the American people" again says we work together, while incorporating the "grit and determination" stereotype of Americans pulling themselves up by their bootstraps -- overcoming a "grinding war" and "grueling recession." He specifically and wisely did not pin the war and recession on the Bush era Republicans, as he reasonably could have. That would have divided Democrats from Republicans. Instead, he treated war and recession as if they were forces of nature that all Americans joined together to overcome. Then he moved on seamlessly to the "millions of Americans whose hard work and dedication have not yet been rewarded," which makes rewarding that work and determination "the task of us all."

This turn in discourse started working last year. Empathy and social responsibility as central American values reappeared in spades in the 2012 campaign right after Mitt Romney made his 47 percent gaff, that 47 percent of Americans were not succeeding because they were not talking personal responsibility for their lives. This allowed Obama to reframe people out of work, sick, injured, or retired as hard working and responsible and very much part of the American ideal, evoking empathy for them from most other Americans. It allowed him to meld the hard working and struggling Americans with the hard working and just getting by Americans into a progressive stereotype of hard working Americans in general who need help to overcome external forces holding them back. It is a patriotic stereotype that joins economic opportunity with equality, freedom and civil rights: "if you work hard and meet your responsibilities, you can get ahead, no matter where you come from, what you look like, or who you love."

It is an all-American vision:

It is our unfinished task to make sure that this government works on behalf of the many, and not just the few; that it encourages free enterprise, rewards individual initiative, and opens the doors of opportunity to every child across this great nation.

"Our unfinished task" refers to citizens -- us -- as ruling the government, not the reverse. "We" are making the government do what is right. To work "on behalf of the many, and not just the few." And he takes from the progressive vision the heart of the conservative message. "We" require the government to encourage free enterprise, reward individual initiative, and provide opportunity for all. It is the reverse of the conservative view of the government ruling us. In a progressive democracy, the government is the instrument of the people, not the reverse.

In barely a minute, he provided a patriotic American progressive vision that seamlessly adapts the heart of the conservative message. Within this framework comes the list of policies, each presented with empathy for ideal Americans. In each case, we, the citizens who care about our fellow citizens, must make our imperfect government do the best it can for fellow Americans who do meet, or can with help meet, the American ideal.

With this setting of the frame, each item on the list of policies fits right in. We, the citizens, use the government to protect us and maximally enable us all to make use of individual initiative and free enterprise.

The fact that the policy list was both understood and approved of by 77 percent of those watching means that one-third of those who did not vote for the president have assimilated his American progressive moral vision.

The president's list of economic policies was criticized by some as a lull -- a dull, low energy section of the speech. But the list had a vital communicative function beyond the policies themselves. Each item on the list evoked, and thereby strengthened in the brains of most listeners, the all-American progressive vision of the first section of the speech. Besides, if you're going to build to a smash finish, you have to build from a lull.

And it was a smash finish! Highlighting his gun safety legislation by introducing one after another of the people whose lives were shattered by well-reported gun violence. With each introduction came the reframe "They deserve a vote" over and over and over. He was chiding the Republicans not just for being against the gun safety legislation, but for being unwilling to even state their opposition in public, which a vote would require. The president is all too aware that, even in Republican districts, there is great support for gun safety reform, support that threatens conservative representatives. "They deserve a vote" is a call for moral accounting from conservative legislators. It is a call for empathy for the victims in a political form, a form that would reveal the heartlessness, the lack of Republican empathy for the victims. "They deserve a vote" shamed the Republicans in the House. As victim after victim stood up while the Republicans sat slumped and close-mouthed in their seats, shame fell on the Republicans.

And then it got worse for Republicans. Saving the most important for last -- voting reform -- President Obama introduced Desiline Victor, a 102-year spunky African American Florida woman who was told she would have to wait six hours to vote. She hung in there, exhausted but not defeated, for many hours and eventually voted. The room burst into raucous applause, putting to shame the Republicans who are adopting practices and passing laws to discourage voting by minority groups.

And with the applause still ringing, he introduced police officer Brian Murphy who held off armed attackers at the Sikh Temple in Minneapolis, taking twelve bullets and lying in a puddle of his blood while still protecting the Sikhs. When asked how he did it, he replied, "That's just how we're made."

That gave the president a finale to end where he began.

We may do different jobs, and wear different uniforms, and hold different views than the person beside us. But as Americans, we all share the same proud title: We are citizens. It's a word that doesn't just describe our nationality or legal status. It describes the way we're made. It describes what we believe. It captures the enduring idea that this country only works when we accept certain obligations to one another and to future generations; that our rights are wrapped up in the rights of others; and that well into our third century as a nation, it remains the task of us all, as citizens of these United States, to be the authors of the next great chapter in our American story.

It was a finale that gave the lie to the conservative story of America, that democracy is an individual matter, that it gives each of us the liberty to seek his own interests and well-being without being responsible for anyone else or anyone else being responsible for him, from which it follows that the government should not be in the job of helping its citizens. Marco Rubio came right after and tried out this conservative anthem that has been so dominant since the Reagan years. It fell flat.

President Obama, in this speech, created what cognitive scientists call a "prototype" -- an ideal American defined by a contemporary progressive vision that incorporates a progressive market with individual opportunity and initiative. It envisions an ideal citizenry that is in charge of the government, forcing the president and the Congress to do the right thing.

That is how the president has changed public discourse. He has changed it at the level that counts, the deepest level, the moral level. What can make that change persist? What will allow such an ideal citizenry to come into existence?

The president can't do it. Congress can't do it. Only we can as citizens, by adopting the president's vision, thinking in his moral frames, and speaking out from that vision whenever possible. Speaking out is at the heart of being a citizen, speaking out is political action, and only if an overwhelming number of us speak out, and live out, this American vision, will the president and the Congress be forced to do what is best for all.

By all means, discuss the policies. Praise them when you like them, criticize them when they fall short. Don't hold back. Talk in public. Write to others. But be sure to make clear the basic principles behind the policies.

And don't use the language of the other side, even to negate it. Remember that if you say "Don't Think of an Elephant," people will think of an elephant.

Structure is important. Start with the general principles, move to policy details, finish with the general principles.

George Lakoff is Professor of Cognitive Science and Linguistics at the University of California at Berkeley and is the author, with Elisabeth Wehling, of The Little Blue Book.

The Price of Our Freedom

2012-12-17T07:45:47-05:00

"Are we prepared to say that such violence visited on our children year after year after year is somehow the price of our freedom?" -- Barack Obama, Newtown Address, December 16, 2012

That sentence, uttered by President Obama in his Newtown Address, may turn out to be a turning point in American history. The president, in one sentence, turned the beautiful faces of the 20 first-grade children murdered brutally by assault weapons into the moral measure of our nation. Conservatives have argued that guns = freedom, and that there should be no limit on such freedom. The president trumped their argument: The price of not protecting the nations' children is too high. Permitting the mass murder of our children is not freedom.

It comes as a shock at a certain point where you realize no matter how much you love these kids, you can't do it by yourself. That this job of keeping our children safe and teaching them well is something we can only do together, with the help of friends and neighbors, the help of a community, and the help of a nation.

And in that way we come to realize that we bear responsibility for every child, because we're counting on everybody else to help look after ours; that we're all parents; that they are all our children.

This is our first task, caring for our children. It's our first job. If we don't get that right, we don't get anything right. That's how, as a society, we will be judged.

Democracy, as the president has said, begins with the people taking care of one another responsibly, importantly through government as an instrument of freedom. That how we get our public schools, our roads, our sewers, our patent office, our scientific research, our energy, communication and transportation systems, our food safety, our protectors, and all the rest that we need to be free in our private lives. It is a truth: the private depends on the public. We, all together, constitute the public. Unless we take care of one another and one another's children, we can't get democracy -- and freedom -- right.

The gun lobby rests on conservative ideology: Democracy supposedly gives each of us individually the "liberty" to seek our own self-interests with no responsibility for the interests or well-being of anyone else. After and Obama's Newtown Address, the whole idea of such "liberty" makes no sense.

The time is ripe to end the conservative grip over nearly half of America. That starts with an all-out effort to put in place responsible gun safety laws. Total registration, just like with cars. An end to automatic and semi-automatic weapons. And an end to blaming massacres on crazies. Gun massacres require guns that can massacre. Eliminate them.

The president set just the right tone. We're in this together. We bear joint responsibility for one another and all our children. If you accept this, really accept it, you can't keep conservative ideology, not just on guns, but on anything.

George Lakoff is Goldman Distinguished Professor of Cognitive Science and Linguistics at the University of California at Berkeley. He is co-author, with Elisabeth Wehling, of The Little Blue Book.

Michigan's New Corporate Servitude Law: It Takes Away Worker Rights

2012-12-13T09:00:00-05:00

Michigan has just passed a corporate servitude law. It is designed to take away many of the worker rights that unions have conferred throughout their history: the right to a living wage. The right to equal pay for women. The right to deferred payments in the form of pensions. The right to negotiate workplace standards and working conditions. The right to overtime pay.

The law is intended to destroy unions, or at least make then ineffective. It says simply that workers do not have to pay union dues to take a job -- even if they get benefits previously negotiated by a union. Most workers who don't have to pay dues won't pay, and that will defund the unions, killing them and taking away rights unions have fought hard for over generations. Without workers negotiating as a unified group, corporations will not have to grant those union-created rights. Corporations will have take-it-or-leave-it power over individual workers. In short, this is corporate servitude: You do what you are told and take what you are offered.

The deeper truth about unions is that they don't just create and maintain rights for workers; they work for and create crucial rights in society as a whole. Unions created weekends, the eight-hour workday and health benefits. And through their politics, they have been at the center of support for civil rights and other social justice issues. In short, unions don't just work for their members. They work for all of us. Including businesses: Workers are profit creators.

Since Democratic candidates tend to support the same progressive views, defunding unions would take away their power to campaign for Democratic candidates. The new Michigan law is thus also a partisan law supporting the Republican party.

Language matters. Republicans understand this better than Democrats. Republicans have called their corporate servitude law a "right to work" law, as if the law conferred a right instead of taking many away. The first principle of political and social communication in cases of conflict is: avoid the other side's language. The Democrats keep violating this principle, using the Republicans' name for this law. In this way they are helping Republicans, because using the Republican language activates Republican framing, not just for this law, but for conservative ideology at the deepest level.

Progressives and conservatives have opposing views of democracy. For progressives, democracy is based on citizens caring about each other and acting responsibly on that care, with both individual and social responsibility, to provide through the government protection and empowerment for all. Government thus becomes a means by which citizens pay for public provisions to benefit all: public infrastructure (roads, bridges, hospitals, public buildings), public education, public health and safety (clean air, clean water, safe food, disease protection), a patent office to protection innovations, a justice system, and networks for energy, communication, and transportation. Without all these public provisions, we are not free: Business cannot thrive (if it can operate at all) and we cannot live decent, civilized private lives. It is a deep truth about our democracy: our freedom depends on such public provisions and the private depends on the public. Unions both defend these freedoms and add to them the worker rights unions have created.

Conservatives don't accept this truth, if they perceive it at all. They tend to see democracy as providing "liberty" -- the liberty to pursue one's own interests and well-being through personal responsibility, without being responsible for the interests or well-being of others and without others being responsible for them.

From this conservative perspective, businessmen should have the liberty to run their businesses as they please to maximize their profit, and workers should rely on only their personal responsibility to get and keep a job. Unions, for conservatives, thus violate (1) the liberty of business owners to offer workers what is most profitable for the business, (2) the personal responsibility of workers, and (3) the liberty conservatives think workers should have to work without paying union dues.

From the progressive perspective, the new Michigan law is a corporate servitude law, while from the conservative perspective, the law is a "right to work" law.

Language works so that the conservative name "right to work" evokes the conservative political ideology in the brains of those who hear it without wincing. The more an idea is activated in the brain the stronger it gets. Thus, the use of the conservative name strengthens the conservative ideology in the brains of the public.

The press is not being neutral in using the Republican name for the law. Journalists too, in just using the name, are supporting both the Republican framing of the law and conservative ideology. The press is not being balanced -- which is what journalists typically claim to be. Balance would be to use both the names "corporate servitude law" and "right to work law" and to explain the differences in the progressive and conservative understanding of what the law is and does.

Of course, to do so would change a false view of language that journalists too often internalize, namely, that language is neutral. To see that it isn't, just try speaking or writing of "Michigan's corporate servitude law" and listen to conservatives scream bloody murder over a truth that does fit their view of democracy. And listen to them keep screaming because it is important to keep repeating the true name of the law if the public is to understand what the law really does.

George Lakoff is Goldman Distinguished Professor of Cognitive Science and Linguistics at the University of California at Berkeley. He is the author, with Elisabeth Wehling, of The Little Blue Book: How to Think and Talk Democratic.

Why It's Hard to Replace the 'Fiscal Cliff' Metaphor

2012-12-03T07:48:52-05:00

Writers on economics have been talking since the election about why the "fiscal cliff" metaphor is misleading. Alternative metaphors have been offered like the fiscal hill, fiscal curb, and fiscal showdown, as if one metaphor could easily be replaced by another that makes more sense of the real situation. But none of the alternatives has stuck, nor has the fiscal cliff metaphor been abandoned. Why? Why do some metaphors have far more staying power than others, even when they give a misleading picture of a crucial national issue?

The reason has to do with the way that metaphorical thought and language work in the brain. From a cognitive linguistics perspective, "fiscal cliff" is not a simple metaphor bringing "fiscal" together with "cliff." It is instead a linguistic metaphor that is understood via a highly integrated cascade of other deeper and more general conceptual metaphors.

A cascade is a neural circuit containing and coordinating neural circuits in various parts of the brain.

Because we think with our brains, every thought we have is physical, constituted by neural circuitry. Because about 98 percent of conscious thought has an unconscious neural substrate, we are rarely aware of conceptual metaphors. And because the brain is a physical system governed by conservation of energy, a tightly integrated cascade of neural metaphor circuits is more likely to be learned, remembered, and readily activated.

Let's take a look at the metaphorical complexity of "fiscal cliff" and how the metaphors that comprise it fit together. The simplest, is the metaphor named MoreIsUp, which is a neural circuit linking two distinct brain regions, one for verticality and one for quantity. It is a high-level general metaphor widespread throughout the world, and occurs in a vast number of sentences like "turn the radio up," "the temperature fell," and so on.

The economy is seen as moving forward and either moving up, moving down or staying level, where verticality metaphorically indicates the value of economic indicators like the GDP or a stock market average. These are indicators of economic activity such as overall spending on goods and services or the sale of stocks. Why is economic activity conceptualized as motion? Because a common conceptual metaphor is being used: ActivityIsMotion, as in sentences like "The project is moving along smoothly," "The remodeling is getting bogged down," and so on. The common metaphor TheFutureIsAhead accounts for why the motion is "forward."

In a diagram of changes over time in a stock market or the GDP, the metaphor used is ThePastIsLeft and TheFutureIsRight, which is why the diagram goes from left to right when the economy is conceptualized as moving "forward."

When Ben Bernanke spoke of the "fiscal cliff," he undoubtedly had in mind a graph of the economy moving along, left to right, on a slight incline and then suddenly dropping way down, which looks like a line drawing of a cliff from the side view. Such a graph has values built in via the metaphor GoodIsUp. Going down over the cliff is thus bad.

The administration has the goal of increasing GDP. Here common metaphors apply: SuccessIsUp and FailingIsFalling. Hence going over the fiscal cliff would be a serious failure for the administration and harm for the populace.

These metaphors fit together tightly in the usual graph of changes in economic activity over time, together with the metaphorical interpretation of the graph. From the neural perspective, these metaphors form a tightly integrated neural cascade -- so tightly integrated and so natural that we barely notice them, if we notice them at all.

There is, of course, more content to the "fiscal cliff." Imagine driving toward a cliff with the possibility of going over. The car you are in is out of control. The cliff is a feature of the natural environment. If the car goes over, everyone in it would be harmed or killed. Thus, if the economy is a vehicle moving forward without control toward the cliff, there is great and immediate danger, and so the "fiscal cliff" metaphor engenders fear. Thus, knowledge about driving out of control toward a cliff, together with the metaphors cited above, characterizes the implications of the "fiscal cliff" metaphor.

Because the conceptual metaphors constituting the fiscal cliff fit together so well and so naturally, it is hard to just jettison it and replace it with an even better integrated metaphor for our economic situation.

Progressive economists like Paul Krugman and Robert Reich have rejected the fiscal cliff metaphor, but with different arguments and different alternative metaphors. Krugman points out that the idea of the fiscal cliff is tied to an economically false argument about the dangers of the deficit. He argues instead that the deficit is too small and that we need to invest more, not less, in the development of the economy. The real danger, he argues is that what is called the "fiscal cliff" is really an "austerity bomb." The result would be dangerous cuts in necessary economic investments and safety nets, which would hurt many people and the economy as a whole as well, just as austerity programs in Europe have done. And Krugman has correctly pointed out that using the fiscal cliff metaphor helps conservatives because it accepts their economic theory of deficits.

Reich suggests "bungee-jumping over the fiscal cliff." He argues that President Obama should be willing to accept the drastic fiscal cliff cuts in the budget as of January 1. This could either be a "bluff" to scare the Republicans into believing the cuts would be pinned on them. Or it could be his "trump card," since the new Congress could reverse the cuts after January 1.

I agree with Krugman's economic analysis and think that Reich's political strategy is well worth considering. But from a cognitive linguistic perspective, their alternative metaphors, whatever their policy value, are not going to make it. Take "austerity bomb." The Austerity Frame is about self-denial. As used in Europe, it assumes two conceptual metaphors, TheNationalBudgetIsAFamilyBudget and TheNation'sWealthIsTheGovernment'sCashOnHand. Both are terribly misleading. Great Britain is richer than it has ever been, just as America is, if you count the total wealth of their corporations and citizens. The nations are far from broke, but the requisite money is not in the government's coffers. A family budget is nothing like a national budget, because the nation has vastly more resources and possibilities than any typical family. These are the austerity metaphors. The causal structure of austerity contradicts the causal structure of bomb. Austerity implies a long-term responsible form of self-denial that makes your situation better. Bombs blow up instantly and harm or kill you.

The idea is that austerity as a national policy would be destructive, and it most likely would be, but the metaphor doesn't have anything like a tightly integrated cascade of component metaphors.

Reich's "bungee-jumping" contradicts the inferences that arise from the tightly fitting component metaphors of the "fiscal cliff." And though Reich's "bluff" and "trump card" metaphors are instances of the commonplace BargainingIsGambling metaphor, it suggests a political strategy, but does not characterize our economic situation.

There are two morals here. First, metaphors cannot be proposed at will and be expected to work, even if they are intended to fit reality better than existing metaphors. Second, when metaphors are tightly integrated, they are going to be hard to replace and we may have to live by them, as misleading as they may be. The national economic debate will most likely continue to be about the misleading fiscal cliff, not the reality that "austerity bomb" is intended to convey. This is a sad scientific truth.

George Lakoff is coauthor with Mark Johnson of two of the classic books on the contemporary theory of metaphorical thought and language, Metaphors We Live By and Philosophy in the Flesh. He is Goldman Distinguished Professor of Cognitive Science and Linguistics at the University of California at Berkeley.

Global Warming Systemically Caused Hurricane Sandy

2012-10-30T11:04:39-04:00

Yes, global warming systemically caused Hurricane Sandy -- and the Midwest droughts and the fires in Colorado and Texas, as well as other extreme weather disasters around the world. Let's say it out loud, it was causation, systemic causation.

Systemic causation is familiar. Smoking is a systemic cause of lung cancer. HIV is a systemic cause of AIDS. Working in coal mines is a systemic cause of black lung disease. Driving while drunk is a systemic cause of auto accidents. Sex without contraception is a systemic cause of unwanted pregnancies.

There is a difference between systemic and direct causation. Punching someone in the nose is direct causation. Throwing a rock through a window is direct causation. Picking up a glass of water and taking a drink is direct causation. Slicing bread is direct causation. Stealing your wallet is direct causation. Any application of force to something or someone that always produces an immediate change to that thing or person is direct causation. When causation is direct, the word cause is unproblematic.

Systemic causation, because it is less obvious, is more important to understand. A systemic cause may be one of a number of multiple causes. It may require some special conditions. It may be indirect, working through a network of more direct causes. It may be probabilistic, occurring with a significantly high probability. It may require a feedback mechanism. In general, causation in ecosystems, biological systems, economic systems, and social systems tends not to be direct, but is no less causal. And because it is not direct causation, it requires all the greater attention if it is to be understood and its negative effects controlled.

Above all, it requires a name: systemic causation.

Global warming systemically caused the huge and ferocious Hurricane Sandy. And consequently, it systemically caused all the loss of life, material damage, and economic loss of Hurricane Sandy. Global warming heated the water of the Gulf and Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean, resulting in greatly increased energy and water vapor in the air above the water. When that happens, extremely energetic and wet storms occur more frequently and ferociously. These systemic effects of global warming came together to produce the ferocity and magnitude of Hurricane Sandy.

The precise details of Hurricane Sandy cannot be predicted in advance, any more than when, or whether, a smoker develops lung cancer, or sex without contraception yields an unwanted pregnancy, or a drunk driver has an accident. But systemic causation is nonetheless causal.

Semantics matters. Because the word cause is commonly taken to mean direct cause, climate scientists, trying to be precise, have too often shied away from attributing causation of a particular hurricane, drought, or fire to global warming. Lacking a concept and language for systemic causation, climate scientists have made the dreadful communicative mistake of retreating to weasel words. Consider this quote from "Perception of climate change," by James Hansen, Makiko Sato, and Reto Ruedy, Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences:

...we can state, with a high degree of confidence, that extreme anomalies such as those in Texas and Oklahoma in 2011 and Moscow in 2010 were a consequence of global warming because their likelihood in the absence of global warming was exceedingly small.

The crucial words here are high degree of confidence, anomalies, consequence, likelihood, absence, and exceedingly small. Scientific weasel words! The power of the bald truth, namely causation, is lost.

This is no small matter because the fate of the earth is at stake. The science is excellent. The scientists' ability to communicate is lacking. Without the words, the idea cannot even be expressed. And without an understanding of systemic causation, we cannot understand what is hitting us.

Global warming is real, and it is here. It is causing -- yes, causing -- death, destruction, and vast economic loss. And the causal effects are getting greater with time. We cannot merely adapt to it. The costs are incalculable. What we are facing is huge. Each day, the amount of extra energy accumulating via the heating of the earth is the equivalent of 400,000 Hiroshima atomic bombs. Each day!

Because the earth itself is so huge, this energy is distributed over the earth in a way that is not immediately perceptible by our bodies -- only a fraction of a degree each day. But the accumulation of total heat energy over the earth is increasing at an astronomical rate, even though the temperature numbers look small locally -- 0.8 degrees Celsius so far. If we hit 2.0 degrees Celsius, as we may before long, the earth -- and the living things on it -- will not recover. Because of ice melt, the level of the oceans will rise 45 feet, while huge storms, fires, and droughts get worse each year.

The international consensus is that by 2.0 degrees Celsius, all civilization would be threatened if not destroyed.

What would it take to reach a 2.0 degrees Celsius increase over the whole earth? Much less than you might think. Consider the amount of oil already drilled and stored by Exxon Mobil alone. If that oil were burned, the temperature of the earth would pass 2.0 degree Celsius, and those horrific disasters would come to pass.

The value of Exxon Mobil -- its stock price -- resides in its major asset, its stored oil. The weather disasters arising from burning that oil would be so great that we would have to stop burning. That's just Exxon Mobil's oil. The oil stored by all the oil companies everywhere would, if burned, destroy civilization many times over.

Another way to comprehend this, as Bill McKibben has observed, is that most of the oil stored all over the earth is worthless. The value of oil company stock, if Wall St. were rational, would drop precipitously. Moreover, there is no point in drilling for more oil. Most of what we have already stored cannot be burned. More drilling is pointless.

Are Bill McKibben's and James Hansen's numbers right? We had better have the science community double-check the numbers, and fast.

Where do we start? With language. Add systemic causation to your vocabulary. Communicate the concept. Explain to others why global warming systemically caused the enormous energy and size of Hurricane Sandy, as well as the major droughts and fires. Email your media whenever you see reporting on extreme weather that doesn't ask scientists if it was systemically caused by global warming.

Next, enact fee and dividend, originally proposed by Peter Barnes at Sky Trust and introduced as Senate legislation as the KLEAR Act by Maria Cantwell and Susan Collins. More recently, legislation called fee and dividend has been proposed by James Hansen and introduced in the House by representatives John B, Larson and Bob Inglis.

Next. Do all we can to move to alternative energy worldwide as soon as possible.

Liderazgo moral: lo que tiene que demostrar Obama en el debate, y muy en serio

2012-10-16T10:46:15-04:00

Según Nate Silver, experto en encuestas de The New York Times, "las encuestas instantáneas hechas tras el debate sugieren entre un empate y una modesta victoria para el vicepresidente Joseph R. Biden Jr".

Biden aguantó el tipo y quizá incluso más. Y era importante. Pero el presidente Obama tiene que ir mucho más allá. Tiene que dejar de ser el empollón político para volver a ser el líder moral. He aquí cómo lo explica Jennifer Granholm en el vídeo de su programa en Current TV. En general, los ciudadanos, en especial los votantes indecisos, no siguen al detalle la política ni los números. Lo peor que puede hacer el presidente es limitarse a comparar datos concretos. Solo contribuirá a situar a Romney en condición de igualdad, capaz de responder con unas mentiras que sonarán igual de bien, si no mejor, a oídos de esos indecisos.

Lo más importante en los debates televisados no son los detalles estratégicos ni las cifras. Como demostró Ronald Reagan, el objetivo de los debates es elegir a un líder moral. Y para eso tenemos que contemplar una representación.

Reagan no discutió sobre detalles estratégicos ni sobre cifras. Lo que hizo fue:

Proclamar sus valores

Proyectar una empatía que le sirvió para conectar con los telespectadores.

Comunicar con claridad.

Parecer auténtico, dar la impresión de que creía lo que decía.

Ser positivo y optimista.

Estas son las normas básicas de esas representaciones que llamamos debates presidenciales. El contenido que acompaña a la actuación es demostrar que el candidato va a ser un líder moral. Las discusiones estratégicas y los datos pueden rellenar huecos, pero esas son las reglas fundamentales.

Romney se preparó al estilo Reagan, para proyectar la imagen que se necesitaba en esta representación. El presidente, no. Obama necesita seguir las normas básicas, sobre todo porque ES auténtico, TIENE los valores apropiados y POSEE empatía.

Además, esos valores morales son realmente lo que se juega en estas elecciones. El presidente considera que la democracia se basa en unos ciudadanos que cuidan unos de otros y utilizan el Gobierno como instrumento de ese cuidado, un instrumento que nos protege y nos refuerza a todos, en igualdad de condiciones, mediante los servicios públicos. Estados Unidos empezó con la construcción de carreteras, puentes, escuelas públicas, un banco nacional, una oficina de patentes, un registro público, etcétera. Hoy el ciudadano está dotado de muchos más servicios: aire limpio, agua potable, medicinas y alimentos seguros, alcantarillado, policía, control de enfermedades, una reserva federal, investigación científica básica, préstamos para poder ir a la universidad. Ahora necesitamos y tenemos más cosas que también nos proporcionan. Piensen en un teléfono móvil. No podría existir sin lo que los ciudadanos han proporcionado a través del Gobierno: investigaciones en informática, internet, el sistema de satélites, el sistema GPS.

Cuando uno tiene todas estas cosas, tiene ciertas libertades fundamentales: puede vivir bien y tal vez poner en marcha una empresa, o trabajar como empleado en una, gracias a lo que todos los ciudadanos nos han dado. Estoy hablando de libertad, de la libertad material real que nos han proporcionado otros ciudadanos. Solo se puede construir a partir de lo que otros estadounidenses han construido para nosotros.

Cuando el presidente metió la pata con su "Usted no ha construido eso", se dejó intimidar y no siguió hablando sobre la verdad que acababa de decir. Pero esa es la auténtica verdad de su campaña. Los ciudadanos han construido todos los mecanismos para que todos tengamos acceso a ellos. Si una persona se ha esforzado en crear una empresa, ha tenido que usar todo eso para empezar. El presidente debe volver a esa profunda verdad y esta vez decirla bien. Vosotros, nuestros ciudadanos, habéis levantado todo esto no solo para vosotros sino para todos los norteamericanos. Eso es lo que hace que Estados Unidos sea Estados Unidos.

Vosotros, los ciudadanos, utilizáis el Gobierno de todos para convertir este país en lo que es.
Veamos el ejemplo del estudio sobre el 96% de Mettler y Sides, en Cornell University. Muestra que el 96% de los estadounidenses emplean la ayuda que les ofrecen sus conciudadanos a través del Gobierno, y en su mayoría ni siquiera son conscientes de la intervención del Gobierno ni de que sus conciudadanos les están ayudando. Una deducción detallada en la declaración de impuestos de una persona significa que otros ciudadanos están pagando más para compensar el volumen de la deducción; le están ayudando. Casi todos los propietarios de viviendas se acogen a una deducción por sus hipotecas. Sus conciudadanos les están ayudando con su casa. Si alguien se deduce la cuenta de ahorro para la universidad de sus hijos, sus conciudadanos están ayudando a sus hijos. Si está en paro y vive del subsidio de desempleo, si se ha retirado del ejército y vive de las prestaciones para los veteranos, otros ciudadanos le están ayudando. Le están ayudando, y él a ellos. El Gobierno es el intermediario, el que nos ayuda a ayudar o a ser ayudados. La mayor parte del tiempo, la gente, en general, no se entera de que le ayudan el Gobierno y otros ciudadanos. Pero el 96% de la población acepta con gusto esa ayuda, y se la merece. ¿Quiénes forman el 4% restante? Sobre todo, los que todavía son demasiado jóvenes para necesitar la ayuda; pero pronto la necesitarán. Casi todos la necesitan.

Los conservadores radicales -no los moderados- tienen una idea distinta de democracia: la definen como un sistema que nos da la libertad de perseguir nuestros propios intereses sin tener ninguna responsabilidad por los intereses ni el bienestar de otros, y sin que los demás nos ayuden. Consideran ilegítimas todas las cosas que los ciudadanos hacen por todos los ciudadanos del país. Y si ganan Romney y Ryan, toda esa cadena quedaría eliminada.

La diferencia moral es evidente: ¿Tenemos una responsabilidad personal y social, o solo personal? ¿Estamos en este lío juntos, o cada uno por su cuenta? Los conservadores dicen que estamos como deberíamos estar, por nuestra cuenta. ¿Somos Estados Unidos o Estados Separados, o millones de individuos aislados que no se preocupan por nadie más?

La respuesta a estas preguntas repercute en todos los temas. Si Romney y Ryan ganan, nuestra nación nunca volverá a ser la misma. Hay que dejar claro, en todas las discusiones sobre cualquier asunto, que este es el valor moral que sirve de base a esas cuestiones: ¿cuál es nuestro carácter moral nacional? Cuando Romney miró a Jim Lehrer y dijo, sonriente, que le caía simpático y le gustaba Big Bird, pero que los despediría a los dos, reveló una profunda mezquindad de espíritu que es todo lo contrario de nuestro carácter nacional.

El destino del país, y en muchos sentidos del mundo, depende de estas elecciones.

Señor presidente, esta es una importante representación que significa algo: es mucho más que un debate sobre política en el que la mayor parte de la gente no entiende o no recuerda los detalles. Necesitamos que muestre a Estados Unidos lo que es el genuino liderazgo moral.

George Lakoff es catedrático distinguido en la cátedra Goldman de Ciencia Cognitiva y Lingüística en la Universidad de California, Berkeley.

Traducción de María Luisa Rodríguez Tapia

Leadership: ce qu'Obama devra montrer lors du second débat

2012-10-16T01:38:53-04:00

ELECTIONS AMERICAINES - Comme Nate Silver, l'expert en sondage du New York Times, l'a résumé: "Les sondages instantanés conduits juste après le débat ont eu un résultat oscillant entre le match nul et une modeste victoire pour le vice-président Joseph R. Biden Jr."

Biden s'est bien défendu seul et a peut-être même marqué des points. C'était important. Mais le président Obama doit faire bien mieux que cela. Il doit dépasser son côté premier de la classe en politique pour redevenir une fois encore un chef spirituel. C'est ainsi que l'a décrit Jennifer Granholm lors de son émission sur Current TV.

Dans l'ensemble, le public et surtout les électeurs indécis n'ont pas en tête les détails politiques et ignorent quels sont les bons chiffres. La pire chose que le Président pourrait faire serait de simplement comparer les détails des programmes. Cela élèverait alors Romney à un statut d'égal et ce dernier pourrait du coup revenir avec ses mensonges qui paraîtraient aussi bien, voire mieux, aux yeux de tous les indécis.

Tout d'abord, les débats télévisés ne sont pas faits pour évoquer les détails des programmes ou les chiffres en eux-mêmes. Comme Ronald Reagan l'avait montré en son temps, les débats sont là pour permettre de choisir un chef spirituel. Et nous le faisons en observant sa prestation.
Reagan n'avait pas débattu de détails de programmes ou de nombres. A la place, voici ce qu'il a fait :

Enoncer ses valeurs.

Etablir un lien avec les téléspectateurs en leur montrant son empathie.

Communiquer clairement.

Avoir l'air authentique, avoir l'air de croire ce que l'on dit.

Etre positif et combatif.

Voici les règles de base des prestations qu'on appelle "débats présidentiels". Le but de la prestation est de montrer comment vous pouvez être un chef spirituel. Les discussions autour des programmes et des faits peuvent étoffer ce débat, mais ce n'est pas l'essentiel.

Romney a été préparé à la manière de Reagan - pour avoir l'apparence nécessaire afin de réussir cette prestation. Pas le Président. Le Président Obama doit suivre les règles de base, encore plus parce qu'il est VRAIMENT authentique, qu'il défend VRAIMENT les bonnes valeurs, qu'il ressent VRAIMENT de l'empathie.

De plus, les valeurs morales sont vraiment le sujet de cette élection. Le Président considère la démocratie comme étant fondée sur des citoyens prenant soin les uns des autres et qui utilise le gouvernement comme un moyen de cette prise en charge, nous protégeant et nous responsabilisant tous à parts égales. L'Amérique s'est créée en construisant des routes, des ponts, des écoles publiques, une banque nationale, un bureau des brevets, des archives publiques, etc. Nous avons désormais bien plus d'équipements publics - de l'air de qualité, une eau propre, de la nourriture et des médicaments sains, des égouts, des forces de l'ordre, un contrôle des maladies, une réserve fédérale, des organismes de recherche scientifique, des bourses universitaires. Maintenant nous avons besoin et possédons plus que tout ce qui est déjà fourni.

Considérez le téléphone portable : il n'existerait pas sans ce que le gouvernement a permis aux citoyens d'offrir la recherche informatique, l'Internet, le système satellitaire. Une fois que vous avez tout cela, vous avez certaines libertés fondamentales -vous pouvez vivre bien et peut-être lancer une entreprise, ou travailler pour l'une d'elles, grâce aux bases fournies par d'autres citoyens. La vraie question est celle de la liberté, les moyens que vous ont donnés d'autres Américains pour y parvenir. Vous pouvez seulement la construire à partir de ce que d'autres Américains ont construit pour vous.

Quand le Président a commis cette gaffe d'affirmer: "Vous n'avez pas construit cela", il était intimidé par cette vérité. Mais c'est pourtant la vérité essentielle de cette campagne. Les citoyens ont bâti les mécanismes auxquels nous avons tous accès. Si vous travaillez durement pour lancer une entreprise, vous utilisez tout cela pour commencer. Le Président doit revenir à cette vérité fondamentale et l'exprimer comme il faut cette fois. Vous, citoyens, avez fourni tout ceci non seulement pour vous, mais pour tous les Américains. C'est ce qui fait que l'Amérique est l'Amérique.

Vous, citoyens, utilisez notre gouvernement pour faire de ce pays ce qu'il est.

Considérez les 96% de l'étude conduite à Cornell par Mettler and Sides. Elle a montré que 96% des Américains utilisent l'aide fournie par d'autres citoyens à travers le gouvernement, sans avoir conscience de cette implication. Une déduction particulière dans vos impôts signifie que d'autres citoyens payent pour compenser cette déduction ; ils vous viennent en aide. La plupart des propriétaires ont un abattement sur les intérêts du prêt de leur logement. D'autres citoyens vous aident à acquérir ce bien. Si vous avez une déduction sur les frais universitaires de vos enfants, d'autres citoyens aident vos enfants. Si vous êtes sans emplois et vivez grâce à une allocation chômage, ou si vous êtes un vétéran dépendant des allocations pour les vétérans, d'autres citoyens vous aident. Ils vous aident comme vous les avez aidés. Votre gouvernement est l'intermédiaire, celui qui vous aide à aider ou qui vous aide. La plupart du temps, la plupart des gens ne voient même pas l'aide du gouvernement ou des citoyens. Mais 96% d'entre vous acceptent avec joie cette aide -et vous la méritez. Qui sont les 4% restant ? En grande partie ceux encore trop jeunes pour en avoir besoin -mais ils en auront besoin bientôt. Presque tous les Américains sont dans ce cas.

Les conservateurs radicaux -pas les modérés- ont une idée différente de la démocratie: ils la définissent comme un don de la liberté pour poursuivre vos propres intérêts, sans vous soucier de ceux d'autrui, ni de leur bien-être. Ils considèrent comme illégitimes toutes ces choses que les citoyens font pour les autres citoyens américains. Et avec Romney et Ryan, tout ceci disparaîtra.

La différence morale est claire: avons-nous une responsabilité personnelle et sociale, ou juste une responsabilité propre? Sommes-nous tous ensemble ou est-ce chacun pour soi ? Sommes-nous les Etats-Unis ou les Etats Séparés -dans lesquels des millions d'individus isolés se fichent de tous les autres?

La réponse à ces questions influence chaque problème. Si Romney et Ryan l'emportent, notre nation ne sera plus jamais la même. Il devrait être clair, pour toute discussion de chaque point, qu'il y a une valeur morale derrière : quelle est notre identité morale nationale ? Quand Romney a regardé Jim Lehrer en souriant et en lui disant qu'il l'appréciait lui ainsi que Big Bird, mais qu'il les virerait tous les deux, il a révélé un mauvais esprit fondamental qui est tout le contraire de notre identité nationale.

Le destin de la nation, et de bien des manières, celui du monde, est suspendu à ces élections.

M. le Président, c'est une grande prestation qui signifie quelque chose. C'est bien plus qu'un débat politique dont les gens ne comprendront pas ou ne se rappelleront pas des points de détails des programmes. Nous avons besoin que vous montriez à l'Amérique ce qu'est un vrai chef spirituel.

George Lakoff est le Goldman Distinguished Professor en sciences cognitives et linguistiques à Berkeley, université de Californie.

LIRE AUSSI:

» Obama: la peur de gagner

» Obama se prépare au second débat, alors que ses supporters angoissent

» Sondages pour les élections américaines: le point avant le second débat

» L'Ohio au centre de tous les débats!

Moral Leadership: What Obama Has to Show Tomorrow in the Debate Performance, and for Real

2012-10-15T08:15:00-04:00

As Nate Silver, NY Times polling expert put it, "Instant polls conducted after the debate are suggestive of something between a tie and a modest win for Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr."

Biden held his own and maybe a bit more. That was important. But President Obama has to do a lot better than that. He has to go beyond the policy wonk to be a moral leader once more. Here's how Jennifer Granholm put it on her Current TV show video.

On the whole, the public and especially the undecided voters don't keep track of policy details and which numbers are right. The worst thing the president can do is to just compare details of policy. That just elevates Romney to the status of an equal, who can come back with lies that will sound just as good if not better to most of the undecideds.

The TV debates are not primarily about policy details and the numbers in themselves. As Ronald Reagan showed, the debates are about choosing a moral leader. And we do this through a performance.

Reagan didn't debate policy details and numbers. Instead he did the following:

Stated his values.

Connected with the viewers by projecting empathy.

Communicated clearly.

Appeared authentic, appeared to be saying what he believed.

Was positive and upbeat.

Those are the basic rules of the performances called presidential debates. The content that goes with the performance is to show that you will be a moral leader. Policy discussions and facts can flesh that out, but those are the ground rules.

Romney was prepped the Reagan way -- to project the necessary appearance for this performance. The president was not. President Obama needs to follow the ground rules, especially because he IS authentic, he DOES have the right values, he DOES have empathy.

Moreover, those moral values are really what this election is about. The president sees democracy as based on citizens caring about each other and using a government as an instrument of that care, protecting and empowering us all, equally, through public provisions. America started out with building roads, bridges, public schools, a national bank, a patent office, public records, etc. We now have many more citizen provisions -- clean air, clean water, safe food and drugs, sewers, policing, disease control, a federal reserve, basic scientific research, college loans. Now we need, and have, more that is provided for all. Think of a cell phone. It couldn't exist without what citizens have provided via the government: the computer science research, the Internet, the satellite system, the PDF system. Once you have all these things, you have certain basic freedoms -- you can live well and maybe start a business, or work for one, on the basis of what your fellow citizens have given you. The issue here is freedom, the real material freedom that other Americans have provided us with. You can only build it starting from what other Americans have built for you.

When the president made his "You didn't built that" gaffe, he was intimidated out of talking about this truth. But this is the central truth of this campaign. Citizens built all the mechanisms for each of us to access. If you worked hard to build a business, you used all that to start with. The president needs to go back to that deep truth and say it right this time. You, our citizens, have provided all this not just to yourselves but to every American. That's what makes America America.

You, the citizens, use our common government to make this country what it is.

Consider the 96 percent study by Mettler and Sides at Cornell. It showed that 96 percent of Americans make use of the help provided by their fellow citizens through the government -- and most don't even know that government is involved and that their fellow citizens are helping them. An itemized deduction on your taxes means that your fellow citizens are paying to make up for the amount of the deduction; they are helping you. Most homeowners take a home interest deduction on their mortgages. Your fellow citizens are helping you out with your home. If you take a deduction on college investments for your children, your fellow citizens are helping out your children. If you are out of a job and living on unemployment insurance, or if you are a veteran depending on veterans' benefits, your fellow citizens are helping you. They are helping you, and you have been helping them. Your government is the intermediary, the one who helps you help or be helped. Most of the time, most people do not even see the government helping, or their fellow citizens helping. But 96 percent of you gladly accept that help -- and you deserve it. Who are the other 4 percent? Mostly those of you who are still too young to need it -- but you will, and soon. Almost all Americans do.

Conservative radicals -- not moderates -- have a different idea of democracy: They define democracy as providing the liberty to seek your own interests without any responsibility for the interests or well-being of others, and without others helping you. They consider illegitimate all the things citizens do for the citizens of our country as a whole. And under Romney-Ryan, all of that would be eliminated.

The moral difference is clear: Do we have both personal and social responsibility, or just personal responsibility? Are we in this together, or are we on our own? The conservatives say we are, and should be, on our own. Are we the United States or the Separate States -- or millions of isolated individuals who don't care about anybody else?

The answer to these questions affects every issue. If Romney and Ryan win, our nation will never look the same. It should be made clear, in every discussion of every issue, that this is the moral value behind the issue: what is our national moral character? When Romney looked at Jim Lehrer, and said, smiling, that he liked him and loved Big Bird, but that he would fire them both, he revealed a deep meanness of spirit that is the very opposite of our national character.

The fate of the nation, and in many ways the world, hangs on this election.

Mr. President, this is a grand performance that means something; it is much more than a policy debate where most people won't understand or remember the fine details of the policies. We need you to show America what real moral leadership is.

George Lakoff is the Goldman Distinguished Professor of Cognitive Science and Linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley.

Why Obama Lost the First Debate

2012-10-04T08:20:29-04:00

Coauthor (with Elisabeth Wehling) of The Little Blue Book: The Essential Guide to Thinking and Talking Democratic. www.thelittleblueblog.org

You don't win a presidential debate by being a policy wonk. Obama violated all the basics of presidential debating. The best defense is a good offense. You have to set the terms of the debate and press those terms. Obama failed. Here are those basics:

State your moral values. Contrast them with your opponent's.

Project empathy and enthusiasm. Connect.

Communicate clearly and simply.

Be authentic. Say just what you believe.

Project trust.

Present an authentic view of yourself that the public can identify with and be proud of.

Obama did none of this. Instead he talked about policy details.

He needed to come on strong from the first sentence.

Democracy is based on citizens caring about and taking responsibility for both themselves as for the well-being of all. Government is the instrument that citizens use to guarantee protection and empowerment for all. We all, together, provide what is needed for a decent life. Individual accomplishment rests on what other Americans have provided and keep providing.

Building the economy requires public investment -- in public infrastructure, education, research, and much more.

Success is much more than money. It is your contribution to America as a whole -- whether it is teaching, raising children, providing food, healing the sick, making useful products, guaranteeing our rights and our safety, or running businesses that make life better. America needs us all. And we all depend on each other. Personal responsibility is necessary. But it doesn't

Obama made a lame attempt to correct Jim Lehrer's use of "entitlements." He should have pointed out that such money is earned through a life. People have worked for, and contributed earnings.

All policies rest on morality -- upon being the right thing to do. Obama needed to make the case that it is right, as well as to support women's rights, and gay rights, safe food, education, basic research, and on and on.

Obama believes this. To win, he needs to say what he believes, and press Romney.

What to Watch for in the Presidential Debates

2012-10-02T08:49:13-04:00

Co-author (with Elisabeth Wehling) of The Little Blue Book: The Essential Guide to Thinking and Talking Democratic

I've been applying cognitive linguistics and neuroscience to politics in six books over the past two decades. The ideas in those books were on display in many of the speeches at the Democratic National Convention. Look for them in the debates. They include:

All politics is based on moral values, with strict conservatives and progressives having different moral values.

There are also morally complex voters -- moderates, independents, swing voters -- who are progressive on some issues and conservative on others. The activation of one marl frame turns off the other.

All issues are conceptually "framed" -- that is, they have a mental structure that fits one's moral system.

Facts matter, but only when they clearly fit one's morally-based frames. Facts and figures, when used, should create a moral point in a memorable way. And if the facts don't fit your frames, the frames stay (since they are in your brain) and the facts are ignored or ridiculed.

Political language is rarely neutral. Because all words are defined in conceptual frames, all political language is defined in terms of morally-based frames.

Effective political speech uses language based on one's own frames and avoids language based on the opponent's frames. The opponent's language, even if negated and argued against, activates his frames in the brains of the public.

If the moderator uses the other side's frames, shift to yours.

The best defense is a good offense: a narrative based on your frames. Always go on offense.

Tell why your views are patriotic.

Tell the truth.

Repeat. Repetition is necessary.

The presidential debates have other vital constraints as well. Here is the basic advice for candidates in the debates.

State your values as the basis of any policy discussion. That tells why you think the policy is right. Be positive.

Limit discussion of policy details. Policies -- and the facts and figures behind them -- should only be discussed when they exemplify your values. Avoid isolated facts and figures. Tell stories with clear morals.

Be clear and to the point. Connect empathetically with your audience.

Say straightforwardly what you believe. Be authentic. Tell the truth. Authenticity matters.

Values, clarity, connection with empathy, and authenticity lead to trust. Trust is absolutely vital. Can you be trusted to do what you say you'll do?

Present an authentic view of yourself that the public can identify with and be proud of.

Presidential debates are not won or lost on how good a policy wonk a candidate is. The above list is what counts.

In this election, there are a few basic ideas that are absolutely crucial:

Democracy is based on citizens caring about and taking responsibility for all citizens, as well as for themselves. The American government is the instrument that the people use to guarantee protection and empowerment for all.

We all, together, provide what is needed for a decent life. Individual accomplishment rests on what other Americans have provided. No one makes it without the rest of America. The private depends upon the public.

Building the economy requires investment -- in public infrastructure, education, research, and much more.

Success is much more than money. It is your contribution to America as a whole -- whether it is teaching, raising children, providing food, healing the sick, making useful products, guaranteeing our rights and out safety, or running businesses that make life better. America needs them all.

A number to remember: Most people may not be aware of it, but 96 percent of all Americans make use of what other citizens provide through our government: 96 percent of us have received tax deductions for mortgages, education, and dependent children, business subsidies, unemployment insurance, veterans' benefits, as well as all the other benefits that we all enjoy because of what we give and have given each other. This applies to almost all Americans, rich or not, Republican or Democrat. If your work contributed, or will contribute, to our country, you have earned, or will earn, whatever you have gotten. You are the 96 deserving percent. The other 4 percent are youngsters -- to young to have benefited yet, but they will inevitably join the 96 percent soon.

These are largely progressive, not conservative ideas. They are about citizenship, not about going it alone, about a commitment to our country, not just a commitment to oneself.

That is the central issue in this election. It is a moral issue. Who are we as Americans? Are we citizens who join together to form a great nation? Or are we isolated individuals, with no commitments to each other, at the mercy of corporations whose central goal is their short-term profit.

www.thelittleblue.blog.org

Romney's Apology Frame

2012-09-17T10:20:52-04:00

TheLittleBlueBlog.org

Authors of THE LITTLE BLUE BOOK: The Essential Guide to Thinking and Talking Democratic

Mitt Romney responded to the recent Cairo events with an apology frame. America, he said, must never apologize for its values, and he claimed that the Obama administration was apologizing when it pointed out a moral constraint on free speech.

One of the things Americans are taught in grammar school about free speech is that there are legal and moral limits to it. The example usually given is: "You don't shout 'Fire!' in a crowded theater." There are legal and moral constraints on incendiary free speech.

In the case of the recent anti-Islamic video, The Innocence of Islam, which was certainly incendiary, the legal framework doesn't apply. However, the moral framework does. The video not only violated the American principle of freedom of religion, it was intended to incite violence in the Islamic world. It did, and the chain of causation led to the killing of our Ambassador to Libya and three other Americans, as well as the death of at least two demonstrators in Tunisia, three in Sudan and one in Lebanon.

The American legal principle of free speech does not cover such cases of immoral incendiary speech. We have no laws against them. Indeed, our laws protect even immoral cases like the present one, lest too tight a line be drawn around our freedom of speech.

The Cairo embassy, President Obama, and Secretary of State Clinton responded appropriately to the events. They rightly condemned the content and intention of the video on the grounds of the American principle of freedom of religion, and they rightly condemned the violence against our embassies. Clinton drew a clear line between verbal and physical attacks, saying that violence is never sanctioned as a response to verbal attack. And she pointed out that, in America, freedom of speech is so fundamental a value that it extends even to such immoral cases.

Mitt Romney used the occasion of the Cairo and Libyan events to attack President Obama and the Administration for what he called "apologizing" for American principles and thereby showing weakness. Other conservatives, especially Fox News commentators, backed him up and adopted the apology frame. Here is the sequence of events that led to Romney's first use of that frame.

In response to the video before any violence occurred, the Cairo embassy tried to head off violence with the following statement:

The Embassy of the United States in Cairo condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims -- as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions. Today, the 11th anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States, Americans are honoring our patriots and those who serve our nation as the fitting response to the enemies of democracy. Respect for religious beliefs is a cornerstone of American democracy. We firmly reject the actions by those who abuse the universal right of free speech to hurt the religious beliefs of others.

After the violent breach of the embassy and before the events in Libya, the Cairo embassy released the following on Twitter: "This morning's condemnation (issued before the protest began) still stands. As does our condemnation of unjustified breach of the Embassy."

In short, to head off the violence, the embassy issued a condemnation of the video and of any degradation of religious beliefs, upholding "the universal right of free speech." After the violence, the embassy confirmed the statement and condemned the violence.

Romney framed this embassy statement as "the White House response," accusing Obama and the administration of "apologizing for American values." He called this "a disgraceful statement on the part of our administration to apologize for American values," and said that the embassy statement was "apologizing for the right of free speech."

Here is Romney's logic: The embassy -- and the President -- should have defended the video absolutely on the basis of the American principle of free speech, despite its content and intention, instead of condemning the video with a defense of the American principle of freedom of religion -- even though the content and intention of the video led not only to four American deaths, but also the deaths of protestors and injuries of both protestors and security personnel. In Romney's frame, anything short of a complete defense of the video on free speech grounds is an "apology."

For Romney, this framing is anything but new, given his 2010 book, No Apology: The Case for American Greatness, which argues at length that greatness is constituted not through diplomacy but through "strong leadership" that amounts to military and economic intimidation. Romney used the exact same framing when he argued that Obama's initial diplomacy tour in 2009 was "an apology tour."

Later on, when the facts about Cairo and Libya came in, Romney switched to the administration's position. But his apology rhetoric is still to be found on Fox News and conservative blog comments. The apology frame is not going away because it fits a general conservative frame for international policy.

For Romney and other conservatives, diplomacy is more often than not a sign of weakness. Anything short of America imposing its will, its interests, and its values on other nations is a "failure of leadership" and weakness. Moreover, the Christian right has been waging an attack on Islam in general, stereotyping it unfairly in extremist terms. To defend the anti-Islamic video as "free speech" without condemning its content is implicitly supporting the right-wing stereotyping of Islam.

The media on the whole has rightly criticized Romney as jumping the gun and using a national tragedy for political purposes.

But Romney's remarks are even worse than that. They violate what legal philosopher Jeremy Waldron has called democracy's "affirmative responsibility for protecting the atmosphere of mutual respect against certain forms of vicious attack."

Romney's use of "apology" for diplomacy will continue to surface. Here is what Romney said in his book: [Obama] "has apologized for what he deems to be American arrogance, dismissiveness, and derision; for dictating solutions, for acting unilaterally, and for acting without regard for others; for treating other countries as mere proxies, for unjustly interfering in the internal affairs of other nations, and for feeding anti-Muslim sentiments; for committing torture, for dragging our feet on global warming and for selectively promoting democracy." A great many other Americans agree with Obama that such an approach to foreign policy must end because it does not lead to peace.

There is a clear division here on what American foreign policy should be. America, Romney suggests, should continue those behaviors that characterize a foreign policy based on force and intimidation as opposed to treating other nations with the respect required for effective diplomacy and the protection of human life around the world.

The Heritage Foundation, when discussing President Obama's diplomacy efforts in 2009, used the apology frame that also Romney adopted: "Apologizing for your own country projects an image of weakness before both allies and enemies. It sends a very clear signal that the U.S. is to blame for some major developments on the world stage. This can be used to the advantage of those who wish to undermine American global leadership."

Romney's statement has to be seen in this larger context. It does not merely reflect Romney's attitude and it is not just about this political moment. The frame he chose reflects a core belief among extreme conservatives about foreign policy, diplomacy, and America's role in the world.

Romney's framing of the events goes far beyond an attempt to score political points in the midst of a national tragedy. It is intended to strengthen extreme conservative beliefs about American foreign policy. Why no apologies? Because America, operating under conservative ideology, is seen as the world's ultimate legitimate authority, whose actions define what is right. Therefore, there should be no need to apologize for doing what is right, and since that authority must be maintained, it would be wrong to apologize even if an apology were warranted. Even operating diplomatically, with real mutual respect, would be showing weakness by giving up the authority that should be maintained in all negotiations. That is a view that poses a real danger to peace both in the US and abroad.

Read more about the framing of current political events on The Little Blue Blog.

Romney, Ryan and the Devil's Budget: Will America Keep Its Soul?

2012-08-22T08:22:32-04:00

America was born with a great soul, a moral view of Democracy in which citizens care about their fellow citizens and join together to take responsibility
not just for themselves but for each other, for America as a union, a joint enterprise. The government's job was to carry out that moral vision and to do
so it created what we call The Public, the provision of basic protection and empowerment for all.

From the beginning of America, the Public provided roads and bridges, public schools, hospitals, a national bank, a patent office, police, a justice
system, public buildings and records, and more. Since then the Public has expanded as public needs have expanded -- sewers, clean water, public
transportation, public health and disease control, scientific research, the internet, GPS, an energy grid, parks, and much, much more.

The Public provides freedom, the freedom to use what the Public provides to live a decent life and to start businesses. Without the public, there would be
no American way of life, no freedom to live a decent life, to run or work in businesses, or work as a public servant. The Public carries out the work of
America's soul.

Budgets are moral documents. National, state, and local budgets are commitments about where and how to carry out the work of America's soul, or to abandon
it. A national budget that abandons the Public and the freedoms it gives us is selling America's very soul. Such a budget is the Devil's Budget. It uses
numbers for an evil purpose: to rob us of our basic everyday freedom.

Who would propose a Devil's budget, and why?

First, why? A significant number of Americans do not share America's founding moral vision. They have a different one. Democracy in America provides the
liberty to seek one's own interests and well-being, without being responsible for the interests or well-being of anyone else. It's a morality of personal,
but not social, responsibility. The only freedom you should have is what you can provide for yourself, not what the Public provides for you to
start out. America's soul, the provisions that represent citizens' moral commitment to each other, would be no more. Those who have this different moral
sense will want a Devil's Budget. Let's call them extreme conservatives, who see the conservative moral vision as their highest priority.

Second, who would propose a Devil's Budget? Paul Ryan. Who wants to put it in effect? Mitt Romney.

The Devil is seductive. He is handsome, strong, charming, sincere, engages you in gentlemanly and respectful debate. He says he is on your side, that you
are in a crisis. He offers to solve your crisis and makes it sound good. You too can be in the top 1 percent, part of the group with 40 percent of the
wealth. He offers you freedom, freedom from dependency on The Public, freedom to care only for yourself, liberty from your fellow citizens caring for you,
providing a starting point, freedom from you paying for anyone else.

The Romney-Ryan Budget is a Devil's budget. It guts The Public, America's soul -- The American Way of Life that we provide for each other.

A standard American budget has a way to deal with economic problems. First, extremely wealthy Americans whose wealth has depended on The Public's
provisions should pay a fair share to restore and maintain the Public. Second, the Public should invest in the American economy by putting people to work
rebuilding our infrastructure, educating our young, doing research for innovation, providing better forms of energy -- in short, restoring as many as
possible of the freedoms that people need to live and make a living.

The money is there. America is richer than she has ever been. But much of America's wealth has been transferred from those whose labor secured it to
wealthy investors and corporate managers. A sufficient portion of that wealth needs to be used by The Public for investments in our future, not drained
from The Public when it is needed most. A standard budget would restore and maintain America's soul. But that is not what the Devil's Budget would do.

What Evil -- with a capital "E" -- would a Devil's Budget do? So far Democrats have been pointing to its cruelty: its horrific effects on individuals --
death, illness, suffering, greater poverty, and loss of opportunity, productive lives, and money. All true and more. But there is a larger and worse
overall Evil, one that deserves the capital "E."

America's soul resides in our relation to one another, the way citizens have from the beginning joined together to form a government whose mission is to
protect and empower everyone equally, and to use that government for the sake of The Public, the system that provides the basic means for our freedom to
live decent lives and pursue happiness of all kinds, whether it comes from wealth or making music, or becoming a doctor, a scientist, a businessman, an
athlete, a teacher, or whatever you find fulfilling. The Public is what unites us in a common enterprise, and the destruction of The Public is a
destruction of the bonds that hold us together.

The destruction of those bonds creates Evil with a big E because it institutionalizes the you're-on-your-own view of democracy, democracy as providing the
"liberty" to pursue your own interests with no responsibility for the interests or well-being of others. It enshrines greed, selfishness, and dog-eat-dog
competition as the governing principle of American life. The intentional severing of our human bonds is the big Evil.

Whatever callously divides communities into sets of disconnected individuals and tries to hide or erase our interdependent humanity, that is what human
cultural, religious, literary and folktale traditions have long labelled Evil. We think the Devil's Budget has earned its name.

Those who advocate for such a budget may not be individually evil. That is an independent issue. Demonizing others is its own kind of evil, and we do not
apply the name to Romney, Ryan or others. Perhaps many who advocate a Devil's Budget know not what they do.

The big Evil is even bigger than you might think, because it is hard or virtually impossible to reverse once it has gone on for a while.

Let's take "a while" to be until 2050. Derek Thompson, in TheAtlantic.com on March
21, 2012, surveyed The Congressional Budget Office's projection of the Ryan budget estimates to 2050. Defense spending would be kept relatively constant,
while what the government has left would be "0.75 percent of GDP - about 100 billion for everything besides defense that the government does." That's what
is devoted to education and vocational training now. Suppose that was kept.

"It would leave nothing for infrastructure. Nothing for unemployment insurance. Nothing for food stamps. Nothing for border patrol. Nothing for the FDA,
FAA, or FBI. Nothing for research and development. Nothing, even, to pay people to work in government! Do you think it's important to support our veterans
with health care, education, and retirement security? Sorry. Veterans programs currently cost more than 1% of our GDP. There would be no room."

The Congressional Budget office estimates that Ryan's "long-term budget, if you project forward defense spending, would cut 91 percent from these
and all other non-defense programs. Ninety-one percent." That's 91 percent of The Public gone: Medical and scientific research. Pell grants. The EPA. The
NIH. NPR. The small business administration. Unemployment insurance. Regulation of corporations. Money to help state and local governments. Highway repair.
Air traffic controllers. And all government employees doing everything The Public does.

This work is done by institutions that have been built up over a long time, with people who have learned to do their jobs over a long time. You don't just
get the institutions back after you destroy them. They are gone. If they are replaced, they will be privatized -- run for corporate profit, not for public
benefit. You will pay through the nose for what you need, if you can get it at all.

The destruction of The Public is not reversible. It would be the death of the very idea of America. Here's what it would mean.

Even more, a lot more, of the nation's wealth than the current 40 percent going to the top 1 percent. Poverty up. Opportunity gone. No way for the poor and
middle class to get a college education, and maybe not even a decent K - 12 education, and certainly not public pre-schools. As unemployment rises,
competition for jobs gets greater, and so wages get even lower and pensions and health benefits disappear. As the public control of the airwaves disappears
with the FCC, the corporate control of news rises, and objectivity of reporting gets much lower. Freedom of the press becomes meaningless. When the
military controls almost all of the budget, it gets immensely strong in society, threatening civilian control of the military. When the EPA and FDA
disappear, say goodbye to clean air, clean water, and safe food. Wilderness in the National Parks will not exist: it will be destroyed in the race to get
at our natural resources -- wood, minerals, oil and gas.

Along the way, there will be all the cruelty that Democrats are now warning against -- the elderly, children, and the poor going without medical care, and
so suffering and dying. The unemployed losing their homes. Our young people unable to get the education what would give the freedom to "pursue happiness" --
and thus being forced into lives the keep them from being fulfilled. And much more.

In the outrage over Rep. Todd Akin's "legitimate rape" statement, the role of the Devil's Budget is getting drowned out. Rep. Akin, together with Rep. Paul
Ryan, has supported kinds of budgetary legislation that would eliminate funding not only for abortion, but also for family planning, birth
control, sex education, including in that legislation a provision that would define a fertilized egg as a legal person, and thus define abortion as murder.
In some circumstances, even miscarriages might be viewed as crimes. It is an attempt to use budgets to exert male control over women's bodily freedom, in
some cases over her very life, and over a family's freedom to decide on how many, if any, children to have.

The budget is not just an economic document. It does not just reflect an economic theory about deficits or jobs or building the economy. It is a moral
document and it can be so Evil as to kill the heart of America.

America would no longer be America. Humpty Dumpty cannot be put back together again, because all the pieces will either be destroyed or owned by
corporations with most of the wealth generated going to wealthy investors and corporate managers.

That is Evil with a capital E. That is what the Devil's Budget is about.

The biggest lie is that there is, or should be, no Public. The biggest lie is that Democracy is about personal freedom alone, about the "liberty" to seek
your own interests with no responsibility for the interests or well-being of your fellow citizens. The biggest lie is a moral lie. If believed and carried
to the conclusion defined by a Devil's Budget, it means Evil with a capital E and the loss of the American soul.

The idea of American Individualism is a moral lie. There can be no Individualism without The Public. Individualism can only begin where The Public leaves
off. Individualism begins after the roads are built, after individualists have had an education, after medical research has cured their diseases, after the
individualists have received from The Public land grants, grazing, water, and mineral leases, oil and agriculture subsidies, after they have received
crucial patents.

Are individualists willful liars? We doubt it. To lie, you have to know that you are lying and intending to deceive. We take most individualists at their
word, that they really do believe that they did everything without help from The Public. They believe it so strongly that they can't even see the hand of
The Public in their success. And there is a reason for this blindness that follows from the way brains work.

You think with your brain; all thoughts are physical, a matter of the activation of brain circuits called "frames." Everything you understand uses
frame-circuits that structure how you think. Without the right frame-circuits, there are facts you just will not be able to make sense of. The frames come
in hierarchies, with moral frames at the top. With an extreme conservative morality, you will have an Individualism frame governing your political and
economic frames. The fact that real individual achievements depend on what The Public provides to give them their start and help them along will not be
comprehensible to extreme conservatives. Why? Because they do not have the American moral frame that requires both personal and social responsibility; the
conservative moral frame has only personal responsibility, and the closest thing to social responsibility is imposing personal responsibility alone
maximally in every area of life. This requires eliminating as much as possible of The Public. The mechanism for this is the Devil's Budget.

Paul Ryan is a personable individualist and extreme conservative. And he is smart -- seen as an intellectual by his conservative colleagues because has
mastered budget policy enough to construct a Devil's Budget with all the right numbers. Not the right numbers to eliminate the deficit, as Paul Krugman has observed. But the right numbers to eliminate The Public,
which is the real conservative goal.

Mitt Romney knows about Devil's Budgets from Bain Capital, whose goal was to make as much money as possible for investors and major management by squeezing
human values out of businesses: treating employees as resources for profit, maximizing profits by outsourcing, minimizing skill levels, eliminating unions,
ending pensions, seeking tax loopholes, moving profits to tax havens, eliminating factories and firing employees, moving jobs abroad, devastating
communities -- whatever was necessary to maximize profits for Romney and other managers and investors. Liberty for Romney has meant applying Devil's Budgets
in corporate life. The Romney-Ryan ticket is ideal for destroying the American ideal of The Public and the freedom that it provides for all of us.

In what was perhaps the first statement of the morality that lit the Soul of America, John Winthrop told his fellow passengers on the New World-bound
Arbella in 1630:

...that every man might have need of others, and from hence they might be all knit more nearly together in the bonds of brotherly affection. From hence it
appears plainly that no man is made more honorable than another or more wealthy etc., out of any particular and singular respect to himself...

This is the morality that informs the Declaration and the Constitution. It is the morality that led to emancipation, to universal suffrage, to the New Deal
and the Great Society, and Franklin Roosevelt's Four Freedoms -- freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, freedom from fear -- with the
recognition that we are all in this democratic experiment together. It is what, from the beginning, has informed the formation of The Public. It is that
sense of morality that we must maintain.

George Lakoff is co-author with Elisabeth Wehling of The Little Blue Book: The Essential Guide to Thinking and Talking Democratic. Postings
following up on the book can be found at www.thelittleblueblog.org. Glenn W. Smith is the author of The Politics of Deceit.

Obama Defends Freedom of Religion: Be Not Afraid of Mitt Romney

2012-08-10T21:14:44-04:00

Do you believe in freedom of religion? President Obama does, and he is defending Americans' freedom of religion against Mitt Romney and Fox News in the administration of his health care bill.

The president allows each woman to decide for herself whether or not to ask her insurance company to cover contraception. If this violates a woman's religious principles, she would never ask. A woman would make such a request only if contraception fit her principles. In short, the president has guaranteed that each woman can act according to her religious principles. He has made a strong defense of freedom of religion.

In difficult cases, he has extended freedom of religion even further, beyond people to churches and houses of worship. Insurance companies are required to cover contraception with no co-pays for the women whose health care they are covering. This guarantees freedom of religion for the women covered, and does not affect insurance companies, which are neither people nor religious institutions.

What about hospitals, charities with a religious affiliation, and religious employers who have a moral objection to contraception? Women getting health care paid through these institutions will be able to obtain contraception from the insurance companies, not the religious institutions. Thus the president has found a way to extend freedom of religion not only to all women, but even beyond people to churches and religious employers.

This makes President Obama a remarkable champion of freedom of religion in contemporary American history.

Moreover, President Obama is very much in touch with the values of Americans. A recent Gallup Poll has shown that, in the U.S., 82 percent of Catholics think that birth control is "morally acceptable." Ninety percent of non-Catholics believe the same. Overall, 89 percent of Americans agree on this. In the May 2012 poll, Gallup tested beliefs about the moral acceptability of 18 issues total, including divorce, gambling, stem cell research, the death penalty, gay relationships, and so on. Contraception had by far the greatest approval rating. Divorce, the next on the list, had only 67 percent approval compared to 89 percent for contraception.

Mitt Romney and Fox News, on the other hand, are proposing a huge backward step on freedom of religion. Romney has said he would support a bill that would allow employers and insurers to deny their female employees insurance coverage for birth control and other health services, based on the religious beliefs of the employers and insurers. As far as employers are concerned, this fits with President Obama's policy. But the extension to insurance companies violates the freedom of religion that the President guaranteed to women.

In addition, Romney has said he would "get rid of" Planned Parenthood, an organization that allows women freedom of religion by supplying contraception if they choose to ask for it. This would be another major blow to freedom of religion.

In short, Romney is advocating, and would take, a big backward step to deny freedom of religion to women.

Incidentally, Romney's ad, which falsely accuses the president of what Romney himself is advocating, namely denial of religious freedom, is entitled "Be Not Afraid," using Biblical language, as if he were God or a prophet.

Given that 89 percent of the American people support contraception, we have no reason to be afraid of Romney -- unless we let him get away with his attempt to frame the president as being against religion. The president's advance in promoting freedom of religion should be shouted from the rooftops.

George Lakoff and Elisabeth Wehling are authors of The Little Blue Book: The Essential Guide to Thinking and Talking Democratic

The Public: Obama's and Romney's Opposed Visions for a Free America

2012-07-30T17:22:03-04:00

Authors of The Little Blue Book: The Essential Guide to Thinking and Talking Democratic

TheLittleBlueBlog.org

America is divided about its future. Should it keep and expand the system that brought past opportunity, prosperity and freedom? Or should it dismantle that system?

President Obama recently reminded us that private life, private enterprise, and personal freedom depend on what the public provides.

"The Internet didn't get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet. (...) when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together. There are some things, just like fighting fires, we don't do on our own. (...) So we say to ourselves, ever since the founding of this country (...) there are some things we do better together. That's how we funded the GI Bill. That's how we created the middle class. That's how we built the Golden Gate Bridge or the Hoover Dam. That's how we invented the Internet. That's how we sent a man to the moon. We rise or fall together as one nation and as one people (...) I still believe in that idea. You're not on your own, we're in this together. (...) If you were successful, (...) somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. "

Obama is acknowledging an important truth about American private life and enterprise: It builds on the public. From the beginning, the American public jointly created the means for knowledge, health, commerce, and recreation: Schools and libraries, hospitals, public roads, bridges, clean water and sewers; a federal banking system, a system of interstate commerce, public buildings and records, a court system mostly for commercial disputes, an army and a navy, police and firemen, public playgrounds and parks. The American public has always provided such things to promote private business and individual freedom.

More recently, the public has added funding for food safety and public health, university research, telecommunications, urban development, and subsidies for corporate profit in corporate-run industries like energy, agribusiness, and military contracting. There are thousands of ways, large and small, in which the public, all of us acting together, provides the essentials for individual freedom and opportunity and thriving businesses.

That is what President Obama meant when he recently said, "If you've got a business - you did not build that," where "that" refers to the totality of what the public provides that empowered you, making available the conditions required for personal success.

The President states a simple truth here. Business owners across America do not build their own roads and bridges, sewers and water systems; they do not single-handedly maintain the health of their employees; they do not finance their own court system; and they did not build their own Internet to market and sell their products. The public provides these things, together. The government manages our shared financial resources to make these things happen. That's the government's job.

Obama could have communicated this fact better. When he says, "If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life," he does not stress the fact that the public is a commonly organized and maintained system that is built and maintained by all of us together, in a shared effort to protect and empower Americans to live freely, and to thrive in their private and professional lives.

Conservatives are up in arms about Obama's statement, and for good reason. In the conservative worldview, the public's role for personal success is largely hidden or ignored. Instead, conservatives have a different vision of what America should be: everyone ought to look out for him- or herself - for example, buy your own protection for your life via privatized health care, and buy your own empowerment to succeed via privatized education.

But the health and education of Americans is not an individual concern at all. First, the individual cannot acquire it without communal efforts. Second, we depend on the health and education of our fellow citizens, as well as our own health and education.

Individual health is a prime example of public protection. It is maintained not only via health care (for those who can afford to buy their health), it further depends on a range of preventative needs that are secured via public provisions - disease control, environmental protection, food control, the sewer system, and clean drinking water, to name some. Every American depends on these provisions. Being healthy starts with being protected from disease, poisonous products, and pollution. The public - our commonly financed protection system - keeps you safe and healthy via these means of preventing disease. Furthermore, it is de facto not the case that only your own health concerns you. If you are a business owner, you want your employees to fall sick as little as possible. And if they do get ill, it is in your interest that they get effective treatment - because they are profit creators in your business, you need them to be healthy, and if you care about them, you want them to be healthy.

Education, on the other hand, is a prime example of public empowerment. If you want to start a business or expand a business you already run, you will need to have access to educated employees. You do not pay for their education by yourself. You contributed to it via paying your fair share in taxes, together with your fellow citizens. You depend on educated doctors, lawyers, and engineers. Finally, the public provision of information - from access to the Internet to libraries and records to educational training - empowers you as an individual to thrive and succeed.

The notion of fair taxation is based on three ideals: First, taxes are a way to reimburse the community for what it has provided beforehand. This is about reciprocity. Second, taxes are a way to maintain freedom in America, by financing the system that allows the individual to flourish. Third, taxes have a moral function. Democracy is based on caring about one's fellow citizens, which requires maintaining high standards for humane treatment of our fellow Americans. This is about moral excellence. Some of our fellow citizens face more hardship than others, and it is simply right for all of us who constitute the public to guarantee humane treatment for all.

Extreme conservatives have a different morality. For them, democracy provides the liberty to pursue one's own self-interest and well-being without much responsibility for the interests or well-being of others. For them, individual responsibility is paramount.

As a result, they neglect the crucial role of the public for our freedom, private enterprise, and decent private lives.

Mitt Romney and other conservatives did not understand what the President was saying about the public. Or, if they did, they made it their mission to misportray Obama's ideals. First of all, they singled out the President's statement, "If you've got a business - you did not build that," claiming that the "that" in the statement refers to the business, not the public provisions. This is simply dirty politics.

But aside from this, it is interesting to see the conservative response. Here is Mitt Romney: "Do we believe in an America that is great because of government, or do we believe in an America that's great because of free people allowed to pursue their dreams and build their future."

Romney makes a distinction between government and the people. This is a common conservative argument, and it has to do with the fact that conservatives want as little protection and empowerment through commonly financed and organized provisions as possible. What Romney's statement neglects is the fact that maintaining public provisions is not a matter of the government versus the people. The public came about because "free people" decided to come together and organize a public system that allows them to "pursue their dreams and build their future."

Romney's idea of freedom is based on the notion that American citizens must sink or swim on their own and that they are free if they have as little social responsibility as possible. If all citizens are equally uncommitted to each other's well-being, protection, and empowerment, freedom is maximized.

From a progressive point of view, Romney has it backwards. The call for "small government" really translates into neglectful government. The continuous downscaling of tax contributions from those that gain the most capital in our economy disables the government to the point where it can no longer carry out its moral mission -- the protection and empowerment of everyone equally.

What the conservatives are missing, and what Obama and progressives and Democrats across the country should communicate clearly, is this: Maintaining a robust public provides the conditions for a decent life and for individual success. This is about giving citizens the freedom to succeed. And the contributions of individuals to the public are a way to show commitment to both their own continuous success and to the American nation as a whole.

This is a central issue, not a minor one. It underlies the political division in our country. Obama and the Democrats want to continue the public provisions upon which freedom and material success has been built in our nation. Romney and conservative Republicans want to dismantle the public, and would thereby end the freedoms, the opportunities, and the conditions for success that the public provides.

That is why the conservatives have distorted the President's remarks on the subject and have attacked him so viciously on the basis of that distortion. They do not acknowledge the importance of the public for private life and private enterprise. They do not acknowledge the fact that public provisions are a result of Americans organizing together to maximize personal and national success and maintain moral excellence.

The future of our nation is at stake. We must openly and regularly talk about the function of the public. And we must repeat the fact that the public constitutes the people working together to better their lives. The public is, and has always been, requisite for our freedom, our success, and our humanity as a nation. Every candidate for office and every patriotic American should be saying this out loud, over and over. The role of the public is the central issue in this election. It is the issue that will determine our future.

We dare not be intimidated by conservative misrepresentations. Our message is clear. It is obvious if you think about it. But it has to be repeated clearly and effectively. The president and all who believe in the promise of America need to go on the offensive on this issue. We cannot afford to be defensive about what is required for our freedom, our prosperity, and our sense of humanity.