"Running to the Left of Obama", and language politics

[tdelcour]

I am a long time lurker, first time poster, and full supporter of Ron Paul. I am a homeschooler, private school philosophy director, and I have a background in political philosophy, economics, and linguistic philosophy. While I trust the campaign staff is on top of things, much of what we need to do on our end is education. Education is difficult to accomplish in 30 seconds, but this is where I think imagery, marketing, and Luntz-style language games come into play-- this is a war of ideas, and we need to promote our ideas. Here are some simple language suggestions I offer that I sometimes wish the campaign would focus on in their ads, as perhaps we can in our local educating and ground support:

Suggestion 1: "Running to the Left of Obama"
We need to put an end to this nonsense. There are some great clips of Both Bush and Reagan defending a non-interventionist foreign policy. Dr. Paul could attack the right-left paradigm, call it an up-down as Reagan and Goldwater did. He could talk about Big Government abroad being a liberal as it gets, and use words such as "Wilsonian-Imperialist", "Progressive", "Clinton-esqe". Emphasize "God-Given" individual rights and conservative foreign policy. For goodness sakes, keep calling it the "constitutionally conservative" foreign policy, "conserving" our rights domestically and limiting our spending. We need to disavow the hawk-dove paradigm and promote an "American Eagle" foreign policy. These words ring well with voters.

Suggestion 2: "Treat other countries as we would would to be treated"
Call this the "Golden-Rule" foreign policy, mention SAINT Augustine's "just war". This is pure red meat to conservative Evangelical voters, and I really do think we could gain some converts. Calling it the foreign policy of our founders is great, and it works-- call it the "Golden-rule" foreign policy, or the "Silver-rule", treat others how they treat you.

Suggestion 3: "Godfather of the Tea party"
We really ought to lock-down the tea-party vote. We can expand our base and reach progressives and independents, Occupiers, etc. in the general, but for the primaries, some states only allow GOP voters. I regret that we did not have a stronger advertising campaign for the tea party money bomb, but for now, I think that citing the "tea party before it was cool" could have really consolidated the Cain-esqe tea party folk. This is definitely where Rand comes in-- I think the use of surrogates in this campaign is great (and I can imagine utilizing Kuccinich, Nader, and Ventura in the general). For now, we need to focus on GOP bases: Tea partiers, evangelicals, conservatives, and yes, even neo-cons. We simply need to change our language so that we can build coalitions (I do think we have been doing a good job lately with neo-cons, e.g., STRONG national defense, SECURE OUR BORDERS, SECURE American Interests, Zionist stance towards Israel, etc. We need to keep this up).

Suggestion 4: "Veterans, retirees"
We need to emphasize veteran support, military service, and most importantly, Dr. Paul is the ONLY candidate with a plan to save Social Security and Veterans benefits. None of the other candidates have a viable plan to save this spending, and none of the other candidates address monetary policy and the inflation tax on seniors. We need to emphasize this language.

[Highstreet]

Agreed.

As to #1-- I have been doing the same. We all, including Dr. Paul and Mr. Wead, need to call his opponents' foreign policy the "liberal failed foreign policy of policing the world and bankruptcy".

Redefine them as left of Obama. Paul is the only candidate with the foreign policy of Reagan and Bush.

[Working Poor]

good ideas bump

[Voluntary Man]

Yeah. His foreign policy is "to the left of" President Bush, but not Candidate Bush.

Part of the problem is this whole neocon-defined left/right political orientation. That's what gives us an environment where we can have a Dick Morris, a former top advisor to President Bill "Slick Willy" Clinton, whom Clinton was forced to fire for being too sleazy, attacking the most hardcore paleoconservative presidential candidate since Barry Goldwater as a "lefty"? Even Morris doesn't really believe the audience its dumb enough to fall for it; he can't even say it with a straight face, but hey, that's what he gets paid to do, sell bull hockey to people too stupid to think for themselves.

You know, before the former-trotskyite neocons attempted to redefine American Conservatism as "somewhere between Hitler and Stalin, with a pro-Israel chaser," Ron Paul would've been the epitome of what is now known as "paleoconservatism" (pre-neocon, paleocons were simply known as "conservatives").

Prior to the dark days of neoconservatism, a conservative was one who held to the political tradition of America's Founders, that govt derives its power from the people, that people do not derive their rights from governments, and that governments can posses no powers that the people cannot by right give (i.e., if an individual doesn't have the right to do it, no such power can be transferred to the people's representative, government).

Sadly, these days, thanks largely to mass instruction, mass media, and passive parenting, the masses have come to accept the neocon version of conservatism, an authoritarian perversion which idolizes a domestic police-state with perpetual military intervention, and an increasingly blurred line between the two.

Of course, neocons don't state their political philosophy quite a plainly as I have expressed it, above. No, neocons use slogans, to bypass critical thinking: instead of "don't ask questions," they say "support the troops." Instead of "don't blame the politicians I support," they say "don't blame America." Instead of "bend-over and spread 'em," they say "pre-flight screening." Instead of invoking the fourth amendment, they say "I've got nothing to hide, officer." Instead of saying "he opposes unnecessary wars (regardless of how much those whose children don't participate in them may profit from them)," they say "he's to the left of a guy who only moderately supports unnecessary wars (as long as he personally can profit from them)."



I am a long time lurker, first time poster, and full supporter of Ron Paul. I am a homeschooler, private school philosophy director, and I have a background in political philosophy, economics, and linguistic philosophy. While I trust the campaign staff is on top of things, much of what we need to do on our end is education. Education is difficult to accomplish in 30 seconds, but this is where I think imagery, marketing, and Luntz-style language games come into play-- this is a war of ideas, and we need to promote our ideas. Here are some simple language suggestions I offer that I sometimes wish the campaign would focus on in their ads, as perhaps we can in our local educating and ground support:

Suggestion 1: "Running to the Left of Obama"
We need to put an end to this nonsense. There are some great clips of Both Bush and Reagan defending a non-interventionist foreign policy. Dr. Paul could attack the right-left paradigm, call it an up-down as Reagan and Goldwater did. He could talk about Big Government abroad being a liberal as it gets, and use words such as "Wilsonian-Imperialist", "Progressive", "Clinton-esqe". Emphasize "God-Given" individual rights and conservative foreign policy. For goodness sakes, keep calling it the "constitutionally conservative" foreign policy, "conserving" our rights domestically and limiting our spending. We need to disavow the hawk-dove paradigm and promote an "American Eagle" foreign policy. These words ring well with voters.

Suggestion 2: "Treat other countries as we would would to be treated"
Call this the "Golden-Rule" foreign policy, mention SAINT Augustine's "just war". This is pure red meat to conservative Evangelical voters, and I really do think we could gain some converts. Calling it the foreign policy of our founders is great, and it works-- call it the "Golden-rule" foreign policy, or the "Silver-rule", treat others how they treat you.

Suggestion 3: "Godfather of the Tea party"
We really ought to lock-down the tea-party vote. We can expand our base and reach progressives and independents, Occupiers, etc. in the general, but for the primaries, some states only allow GOP voters. I regret that we did not have a stronger advertising campaign for the tea party money bomb, but for now, I think that citing the "tea party before it was cool" could have really consolidated the Cain-esqe tea party folk. This is definitely where Rand comes in-- I think the use of surrogates in this campaign is great (and I can imagine utilizing Kuccinich, Nader, and Ventura in the general). For now, we need to focus on GOP bases: Tea partiers, evangelicals, conservatives, and yes, even neo-cons. We simply need to change our language so that we can build coalitions (I do think we have been doing a good job lately with neo-cons, e.g., STRONG national defense, SECURE OUR BORDERS, SECURE American Interests, Zionist stance towards Israel, etc. We need to keep this up).

Suggestion 4: "Veterans, retirees"
We need to emphasize veteran support, military service, and most importantly, Dr. Paul is the ONLY candidate with a plan to save Social Security and Veterans benefits. None of the other candidates have a viable plan to save this spending, and none of the other candidates address monetary policy and the inflation tax on seniors. We need to emphasize this language.

[GuerrillaXXI]

Since liberalism has often been associated with the phrase "tax and spend," I suggest that people hammer that home with respect to foreign policy. For example:

"Ron Paul is the only real conservative in this race. All the others are tax-and-spend liberals -- they want to spend huge amounts of money on foreign military aggression, and that will either require huge tax increases or cause the country to go bankrupt. Big spending is big spending, whether it's on the military or on domestic social programs. And big spending is NOT conservative."

[Working Poor]

And big spending is NOT conservative."

Amen