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strict father model

North Korea, Juche, and Conservatives

As George Lakoff describes the strict father model of morality as applied to politics, self-discipline leads to self-reliance, which leads to success in a competitive world. Belief in this strict father hierarchy reinforces an admiration for the military, as well as a conservative view of small government where defense is …

Unworthiness and the Recession

It came to me as if in inspiration. Herman Cain told his less fortunate fellow Americans that if in the midst of this recession they didn’t have a job, it was their own fault. Newt Gingrich reinforced the message by telling the OWS crowd to take a bath and get …

Robert Reich on Social Darwinism

It seems like Robert Reich is channeling George Lakoff. In a recent article, The Rebirth of Social Darwinism, Reich describes the Republicans as harkening back to the social Darwinism of the late 1800’s. What’s striking is the language he uses, and the language he quotes. “To [William Graham] Sumner [professor of …

Democracy, Protests, OWS, and the Tea Party

I was reading a recent article by Phil Kerpen entitled ‘Occupy’ Movement Is Not What Democracy Looks Like. In the article Mr. Kerpen makes two major points. One is that democracy means free elections and culminates in representative democracy; the other is that the OWS movement is undemocratic, that it is about …