Reply #46: You can apply Lakeoff's lessons in language, and i bet you do. I bet

[John Q. Citizen]

you say "election fraud" instead of "voter fraud." If I'm right in my bet, then you do enbrace what Lakeoff is saying about framing an issue.

Just because Lakeoff writes about the tendencies of some progressives to attribute incompetence to the problems created by the bush administrations instead of blaming a conservative agenda, is no reason to throw the baby out with the bath water.

For instance, your use of the phrase "democracy is broken in this country," isn't very effective to bringing about the changes I assume you might want.

I would switch to saying "our election process is broken."

For one thing, the US is not now, nor ever has been a democracy. So the fact that something that never existed is broken doesn't worry me too much.

Second, democracy, which doesn't now and has never existed here, isn't a thing which can be broken, it's an idea, a concept. So how does an idea or concept become broken?

I do feel our election process is broken and has been for a long time. It is just more broken now with the advent of computerized vote casting and tabulation. However, the fact that 95% percent of the time the candidate spending the most money wins office (and has for years) is disturbing also. That points to the electorial process as being broken for a long time. The fact that we are statutorily limited essentially to 2 parties is also anti democratic, it's a form of intentionally limiting democracy. And gerrymandering is anti democracy.

So my advice is to learn from Lakeoff instead of attacking him because he dared to write about a subject which isn't your number 1 issue.