Yeah, well, you didn't really read it, did you?
Interestingly, the author recommends as a response to the insidious thought-programming of modern conservatism a re-appropriation of language for use by liberals, something I've been hearing on liberal channels a bit lately.
Quote:
Rebut conservative arguments
This is my most important prescription. Liberals win political victories through rational debate. But after a victory is won, liberals tend to drop the issue and move along. As a result, whole generations have grown up without ever hearing the arguments in favor of, for example, Social Security. Instead they have heard massive numbers of conservative arguments against liberalism, and these arguments have generally gone unrebutted. In order to save civilization, liberals need a new language, one in which it is easy to express rebuttals to the particular crop of conservative arguments of the last few decades. And the way to invent that language is just to start rebutting the arguments, all of them. This means literally dozens of new arguments each day.
Do not assume that rebutting conservative arguments is easy, or that a few phrases will suffice. Do not even assume that you know what is wrong with the conservative arguments that you hear, or even indeed what those arguments are, since they are often complicated and confusing in their internal structure. Do not just repeat a stock response that worked for some previous generation of liberals, because your audience has already heard that response and already knows what the counterargument is. Conservative rhetors have invested tremendous effort in working around liberals' existing language. In the old days, racists were racists and polluters were polluters. But those old labels do not win arguments any more. Liberals must now provide new answers in plain language to the questions that ordinary citizens, having heard the arguments of conservatism, now have. Do environmental regulations work? Why do we protect the civil liberties of terrorists? Are liberals anti-American? What do we need government for anyway?
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For example, one person was recommending associating non-liberal ideals with the word "unAmerican" and liberal ideals with the word "American". This is no different than what modern conservative think tanks do -- see the article's reference to Newt Gingrich's "word list".
Could it work?
And, well, to anyone else, don't bother responding unless you've actually read at least SOME of the article. Calf, your point of him reducing it to liberalism vs. conservatism is entirely irrelevant. He's speaking on theoretical terms here. Set of arguments X belong to conservatism, set of arguments Y belong to liberalism. Argument set X has these predominant themes and features.
The article is called "What is conservatism and WHAT IS WRONG WITH IT." Were you expecting a critique of liberal ideology? It's not what it purports to offer, and it's not what it offers. It's assumption is "conservatism is wrong". It then does, in my mind, a very good job of explaining that assumption and why it was made.
Oddly enough, you're doing precisely a certain kind of conservative argument outlined in that article: projection. You are dismissing the article on the grounds it is dismissive. Personally, I don't believe that's true. Additionally, since you didn't even read it, you're talking out your ass.
If you want to try an actual rebuttal of it, perhaps try reading it.