Hours after I make a post about how I won't probably post about politics much, I read the syndicated op-ed column by Clarence Page in my local paper. In the JG-TC, it is titled "Taking Stock of Conservatives and Their Lists of Cliches," but on website of the Chicago Tribune, it is called "Cliches Conservatives Say."
Page is responding to a book by Jonah Goldberg titled The Tyranny of Cliches: How Liberals Cheat in the War of Ideas.
I find it interesting that Goldberg thinks that liberals and progressives cheat by using cliches because conservatives and libertarians use them too. We're human after all.
In addition, and I know Jay Heinrichs who wrote Thank You for Arguing and Word Hero would agree with me on this supposition, I would argue that conservatives and the GOP, on the whole, are typically better at rhetorically/linguistically framing issues than Democrats and liberals are.
A good example are the slogans of "pro-life" and "pro-choice." Sure, people like to have their choices, but "pro-life" is difficult linguistic trap to escape.
Damn reality and its "liberal bias."
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