George Lakoff on “What Conservatives Really Want”

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• Monday 21st February 2011

Dr. Lakoff lays it out in this short piece.

Excerpt from the Huffington Post:

“In conservative family life, the strict father rules. Fathers and husbands should have control over reproduction; hence, parental and spousal notification laws and opposition to abortion. In conservative religion, God is seen as the strict father, the Lord, who rewards and punishes according to individual responsibility in following His Biblical word.

“Above all, the authority of conservatism itself must be maintained. The country should be ruled by conservative values, and progressive values are seen as evil. Science should not have authority over the market, and so the science of global warming and evolution must be denied. Facts that are inconsistent with the authority of conservatism must be ignored or denied or explained away. To protect and extend conservative values themselves, the devil’s own means can be used again conservatism’s immoral enemies, whether lies, intimidation, torture, or even death, say, for women’s doctors.”

George Lakoff is the author of The Political Mind. His website is GeorgeLakoff.com.

Lots of Lakoff on YouTube; here’s a long piece on the difference between liberal and conservative thought, if conservatives can be considered thinking entities.