Liberals - Practice Conservative Argument Techniques

No, they don't have a plan. You win.

Now, can we re-rail this thread away from SS discussion and back to the original topic?

CYcloptichorn

The Contract ON America failed and Gingrich resigned.

Under #5..."be utterly shameless"...insist there is vast evidence for your open-minded and deeply liberal approach to matters political.

The Contract With America paved the way for the Conservative Sweep of the Executive and BOTH Houses. It could not be considered a failure by anyone who knows much about American politics. You may not like what's in it--but it was a huge success.

Thank you, cyclo. Not being in a ..you lose, I win mode.. The lack of a plan is what makes the Dems look so bad. It's so easy to take potshots, and not have to have anytning helpful to offer. Not many people would vote for a group who's only contribution is to disagree with everything that is offered as a solution. But, I appreciate you finally saying what we all know.

Hi TheAnti-B,

I invited you to this thread when I started it because I saw a post you wrote and thought you might be interested. I thought you'd add to the discussion. So far, you have and I appreciate it.

You wrote:



Can you tell me what is immoral about what I'm suggesting we learn how to do? It's PR pure and simple. I'm not advocating the Machi actions of the Bush Admin. Nor am I suggesting we carry out any of the underhanded, in some cases illegal, certainly immoral actions of Karl Rove, the Hard Right and the neocons.

But I think we need to figure out how to beat these people. In athletics, it's often true that one should play one's own game in order to win. But in this case, we're deep into the age of PR and we better learn how to do it. Otherwise we can sit back and let them advertise themselves into total control of this country, our personal lives and the rest of the world. The analogy would be more like trying to be competitive with an antique wooden racquetball racquet against a new high tech, tennis racquet size racquet.

I think we should learn how to do the marketing stuff. We should have figured it out a long time ago. Talk to any successful fund raising, direct mail marketing person. Those companies, or non-profits who think they can just build a better mouse trap and they will come are always very disappointed in the result. No exceptions.

Thanks for coming by, but if you're not interested, you're not required to stay.

Nothing. I was objecting to the fact that this thread degenerated into insults against the right rather than any strategic work for the left.



You're going to come up against some major challenges here, unfortunately there is minimal power on your side. To put it quite simply the cons mostly take care of rich people and the... progressive... (my country's conservative party is called the liberals so I'm going to avoid that term) mostly take care of poor people. This means that the funding available to a conservative party is going to be immensely more.

This doesn't make it impossible though, it simply means that the progs has to draw upon their own strengths rather than attempting to mimic those of the cons.

If you want to win.

1. Make sure you have a firm moral position and stick to it. The people who follow you do so out of morality and they can only do that if you establish their respect.

2. Don't allow your image to be set as the "opponents of the conservatives", such an image has no power whatsoever. Instead form a strong image. Be for something, not against it.

3. Treat the vocabulary that the conservatives invent with derision rather than accepting them into your policies.

4. Reach out from the party into the grassroot activism organisations. These people are one of your power bases and what they can achieve out of enthusiasm parrallels what the conservatives spend enormous ammounts of money for.

5. Establish friendships with religion. While the extremely religious tend to be drawn to conservatives there are plenty of moderate followers of religion or followers of those religions that have been excluded which will become your allies. Often not even out of any desire for reward (much of the con's motivation) but rather out of disgust against the extremists.

6. Establish friendships with atheism. Atheists feel excluded from modern society, if you can give them a bit of respect here and there you'll get some people on your side. Often these are the more educated of people who will join you without requiring personal benefit.

7. Build up a trusting relationship with other progressive political parties. The greens and democrats could work together as a powerful body if they were allied.

8. Build up a trusting relationship or at least a truce with less conservative political parties. The libertarians for instance often become drawn to conservative parties because of the liberty in their finances, but remind them of the personal liberties that the left wing promotes and you may be able to get some of their support.

9. Establish support in other countries without making yourself look foreign. Remember that media and opinion trickle in from the rest of the world and by creating a positive image of your party in other countries will reflect back into your own.

10. Understand that your followers have more difficulty in accessing the voting system and use what power you can in ensuring that the election will flow smoothly, preventing farses like that which occured in 2000 and assisting your people to reach the voting booths successfully.

11. Establish a liason with the media. This is important for obvious reasons.

I could go on, but I think that'll do for now. Hope my input helps.

Hey Liberals, Why do you people get so offended by christianity?.....again the US was founded on Christian ideals.

because not only do we detest christains we also detest america and all it stands for after all we are liberals! personally I'm offended by your question.

If "Liberals" practiced "Conservative" argument techniques it wouldn't be long before they were practicing Conservatism.(Whoops! They already do.
Mr Blair did it and won and he's now well to the right of our conservatives.Mr Kerry didn't get the chance.)

One could go along with antibuddha if he wasn't so utopian.It is a big mistake not to take into account the imbecility of human behaviour.

Come on dys:-

"Personally offended " by a question.That's a bad state to be in.You would need to commit a crime against my person to offend me and it would have to be a serious one at that.
Do you not know that giving signs of personal offence over a word pile is likely to goad the offender to see if he can make the veins in your neck distend and your eyeballs pop out.Keep your cool man.
Too many people seek to control others by the strategy of taking offence.It's too easy.

dys:-

Who is this "we" you are referring to.It certainly isn't me.America is a great country.It has its rust spots I know but which country hasn't.

well then spendius I can only assume you are not a liberal as we all know liberals detest everything american, only true conservatives have the depth of heart and soul to truely love america.

Lola:-

In essence you are talking about the art of rhetoric.
Now it can be immoral to refine that skill as Hitler,and many others,have shown.You ought to be able to win the argument by the sheer weight of sense.A coalition of greed so to speak.

Duke of Lancaster wrote:



Offended by Christianity? I am not offended by real Christianity. Like Christ, I AM offended by the money changers and the people that bear false witness.

Your question is NOT a christian question Duke. It is antithetical to Christianity as I know it and as Christ taught. If you really wish to have a discussion about Christianity and its place in US history then don't start by accusing others of hating Christians. Being a "christian" is not an excuse to behave badly.

As for your idea that "your version" of Christianity is what the US was founded on, that is complete bunk. Logic and reason is the basis of this country not blind attacks on anyone that disagrees with you. If the founders had been ignorant followers of religion we would never have won our independence or been able to keep it. One of the philisophical arguments of religion was (and is) that God gave us a brain and logic and reason and expected us to use them to better ourselves and our world. When you read the Federalist papers nowhere will you see the argument that anyone that disagrees is not a good "Christian".

Well, Duke of Lancaster posted on a couple of threads some peculiar funny ideas.
I must have missed this one.

Taken, that 'Social-Democrats' are 'liberals' in most US-American's eyes (N.B.: our center-right conservatives would fit better here to be compared with the Democrats), I'm a Christian myself (Catholic), like lots of others on the left site. (I admit: more Protestant/Evangelical Christians are left than Catholics).

I've never seen a sign that any was offended by Christianity.

Well I agree Walter except that, while many Protestant denominations are quite liberal--a few extremely so--those Christians identifying themselves 'evangelical' are almost always on the conservative side (American definition) of most issues. It would be impossible to put any one denomination, let alone Christians in general, into one set mold about anything though.

Since the terms Evangelical and Protestant are used identically here (the Lutheran churches are assembled in the "United Evangelical Lutheran Church of Germany", while the Protestant and Evangelical Churches have formed the 'Evangelical Church in Germany'), we actuall have the same 'problem' here as well - you even can't tell it by region.

Lol! This must be irony heaped upon irony, no?

I cannot believe that Spendius has forgot his Irony 101!

Spendius,

I think you have a contradiction here. Do you see what it is?

I don't agree with "imbecility." But I do think that the average American is too busy, often with making a living and having some little bit of fun to spend as much time as we do observing and following political arguments. Plus, I think most of them are not intellectually inclined. So the message has to be simple, repetitive, direct and clear. But most importantly we have to use the body of knowledge known as of Public Relations because the other side is and we better start. I see no evil in it, in and of itself. It's what one is trying to sell that can be either destructive or constructive. Hitler was committing genocide. And I'm certainly not suggesting we do that. The conservatives are selling anti-enlightenment propaganda. We need to sell the values of the enlightenment. It's not the technique that is bad. Lying, cheating or stealing, breaking the law to manipulate is Karl Rove and I don't advocate that. But word smithing, as you know so well yourself, is what we have to learn how to do. Advertising technique.

Oh, and you know very well that Dys is tongue-in-cheek. You called him a cuddly bear yourself. You'll never get the best of him, or rarely, that is. He just rolls with the punches and you never see him coming until it's too late.

And AntiB,
I agree with everything you said. I'm emphasizing here the need to learn how to frame our arguments. It has to be repetitive, not too complicated and be presented as something everybody wants. We need to sell our values.

we need to sell our values
we need to sell our values
we need to sell our values
our values are the values of the enlightenment
our values are the values of the enlightenment

So then, why aren't we practicing then? Is it so hard for liberals to take their complicated, sophisticated ideas and package them so they are easy and clear? I know it's hard folks. But we have to learn to do it. And I know we can. Look at Hemingway. He could pack a lot of good meaning into a concise and clear sentence that was both pleasing and felt good too. So let's take his example and learn to edit ourselves. We want our communications to be distilled to the most basic and inspiring of our message. We need to pack a wallop.

And Dys,
I did notice that you were practicing on the previous page. And you did it very successfully. So keep it up. You get a kiss on the cheek and a pat on the fanny for that one. Everyone follow Dys's lead.

" You get a kiss on the cheek and a pat on the fanny for that one. Everyone follow Dys's lead."

Dear oh deary me.

You can have no concept of how that reads in Oz!!!!!