Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
The media villagers love their political labels, even though the labels they use are outdated by a couple of decades or more. Political scientists they are not.
They are lazy and frequently repeat what they hear from the conservative noise machine in the mainstream media echo chamber. "Libruls" and "progressives" are spoken with the same sneering disdain that hate radio host Rush Limbaugh and his cadre of wannabe immitators use on a daily basis.
So this is a fun new POLL: 'Progressive' Is The Most Positively Viewed Political Label in America | ThinkProgress:
A new poll from the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press out yesterday shows that “progressive” is the most positively viewed political label in America, with 67 percent holding a positive view compared to just 22 percent who view the term negatively:
The poll found that the term progressive is viewed positively by a majority of all partisan groups — including 55 percent of Republicans, 68 percent of Independents, and 76 percent of Democrats.
So lazy media villagers, you can stop taking your cues from Rush Limbaugh and his merry band of haters, and you can stop using "progressive" as a pejorative now. Even "liberal" has a 50% positive association after decades of abuse from the right.
This poll demonstrates why you hear all the Tea-Publicans refer to Democrats as (choose one): socialist, communist, marxist, fascist. Tea-Publicans are not using these terms in their classical political science definition. I seriously doubt that any of them even know the difference. Rather, these terms are used universally to describe anyone who does not share their political views.
Tea-Publicans are using these loaded words with negative associations to rebrand Democrats with those negative associations, to move Democrats away from any positive association with "progressive" and, yes, even "liberal." You just know there is a memo from Frank Luntz on this strategy out there somewhere.
The lazy media villagers should be calling out the Tea-Publicans for this smear. They will not. The lazy media villagers will continue to repeat whatever Tea-Publicans say in the mainstream media echo chamber.
I keep asking for input but never get answers from Bess. Oh well. Looks like only the two of are scrolling down this far for this posting, so its time to move on.
See you all at a future posting.
How long? I don’t know. Long enough for a nut with a gun to prove you wrong. Perhaps it’ll be an Iraq vet with PTSD, like the one who killed a park ranger this week, or another Jared Loughner who’ll take out more innocents. Maybe it’ll be a do-gooder, who attempts to thwart a shooting, misses, and kills a bystander. Frankly, given your previous career in law enforcement, I find it interesting that you’ve staked out this position. But then, that would refer back to my post about Arizona, wedge issues and pandering. Have a nice day. You have your position staked out, and it doesn’t seem you really want input.
How long need it be in effect to allow conclusions to be drawn from the experiences in the four states?
Nice dodge, and back to the wedge issue. In the states that allow concealed carry, the legislation is too new to draw your conclusion or a causal relationship. If you think the people of Arizona support this idea, send it to the ballot and let the voters decide.
I appreciate Bess1919’s comments, especially her unintended but present anyway support of my original posting that “Maybe it has a positive perception because the majority of people do not know what the word means.”
I appreciate her qualifying her Republicans are stirring the pot opinion with “I think” because that is intellectually honest and suggests a mind that knows it is difficult to ascribe motives to others. We need more of that, especially in left and right wing blogs where demonization is popular.
However, everybody is still dodging my question. It was, “If all these horrible things will occur should guns be allowed on college campuses, then why haven’t they occurred in the four states that permit guns on campuses? This is an important question because the proof is in the pudding. All of the other arguments melt, if when guns are allowed on campuses, nothing bad happens. So will someone address that issue. Please.
I appreciate you blogging here. Thanks. That said, based on your voting record, and your comments, I disagree with you on most things.
Gallup says Americans don’t know what the term progressive means. I’ll add a Newsweek study,
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2011/03/20/how-dumb-are-we.html
which noted 29% of respondents couldn’t name the current vice president of the United States; 44% could not define the Bill of Rights; and 73% couldn’t correctly say why America fought the Cold War. This civic ignorance is how and why people vote against their own best interests. (I’ll call it what it is.)
I think the Republican Party in AZ has been stirring the pot with wedge issues pretty well. As evidence, I present your yea votes on some of the 357 bills passed in last year’s 100 day session: HB 2230, censoring the 9/11 memorial, SB1610, selecting a state gun, SB1406, building a border fence, and SB1187, extending the waiting period for a divorce. None to my knowledge created any jobs. I could go on, but you get the picture. With that mindset, it is no surprise to me that a bill allowing guns on college campuses, although misguided, would be top business for this year’s session.
One last comment. You say regarding a correlation of money and student achievement, “Obviously, what happens at home is a major factor that we have little control over. I think that that is the real issue to be addressed.” Well, let’s call that issue what it is, sir. It’s poverty. Twenty five percent of children in Arizona live in poverty, and your votes in the 2011 session did nothing to improve their situation. In fact, you made it worse.
I’ll agree with you on one thing, the American culture does need a tune-up, but not the authoritarian ones you and your party propose.
Thanks,
signed,
Another Rutgers Grad School Alumnus and Public Servant (no spin)
I would like to respond to a few points. First, no offense take to anyone.
Second, while I read the arguments written here and stated on the Brady website against guns on campuses, nobody addressed the question that I posed. It was, “If all these horrible things will occur should guns be allowed on college campuses, then why haven’t they occurred in the four states that permit guns on campuses? This is an important question because the proof is in the pudding. All of the other arguments melt, if when guns are allowed on campuses, nothing bad happens. So will someone address that issue.
Third, regarding, Michael’s post, I was surprised that you appear to be ok with guns on college campuses, if concealed and being carried by a CCW permit holder and I believe that that is what the Gould bill proposes. He adds the option of gun checking at the main building entrances. Sounds like an unmanageable compromise that might also be dangerous, if nobody is guarding the gun lock boxes. I agree that the guns on college campuses should be concealed and the bearers have CCW permits. I also agree that they should not be extended to K-12 institutions, except maybe by specially trained employees, training beyond the CCW permit.
I do not disagree that Arizona’s ed funding is low but everybody needs to be disturbed by the lack of correlation between spending and achievement. Obviously, what happens at home is a major factor that we have little control over. I think that that is the real issue to be addressed. Kids in Washington DC and Newark perform dismally in spite of spending topping over $20,000 per student. Yet the children of recently arrived immigrants, often Asian, become national science foundation award winners, often after limited years in this country. By the way, its not race but culture and the American culture needs a tuneup.
On ‘guns on campus’ topic:
Several studies show that the majority of people reach emotional maturity after the age of 22. Before that age, fully intellectually developed young adults commit impulsive acts (peer pressure is a factor too). Binge drinking, petty crimes of all kinds, suicide, etc occur against one’s best judgment, but DO occur mostly in that very window of time we call college years.
There is another problem: in Arizona, one must be 18 to own a gun but 21 to purchase a gun or ammunition. So, only a few would be able to pack on campus since the majority of students are 17-21.
Rep. Kavanagh, First I want to thank you for coming and expressing your views among what you know is a tough crowd. Unlike some in your party, your willingness to defend your views in public to those who disagree with you is laudable. I will note for those not aware, you have even posted on BfAZ in the past; you are welcome to do so in the future. You always stimulate a vigorous dialog.
As to the subject of this post, I agree with you that Progressive is often code for Liberal. Liberals should re-embrace that label for views and policies where it fits. It is not a negative. But Progressive also means something other than just Liberal. You will recall that at the turn of the last century there were Progressives in BOTH parties – in fact, the original Progressive reformers were Republicans. Progressivism also stands for the proposition that we can reform our political and economic systems to produce better, more fair, and more democratic outcomes. Progressives today look at an America that in many respects is failing to meet its potential and want to make fundamental reforms that make America a more fair, more equal, more free, and more prosperous nation. I hope that there are still some Progressives left in the GOP. I know there are many who consider themselves Independents, because they see the current political system is marginalizing their views and needs – so they reject the two party system, or worse, don’t participate in politics at all, because they don’t see their values and needs reflected in our politics.
As to guns on campus, I’ve always felt that college students are adults and should be treated as such. Adults can carry weapons, and being on a campus should not affect that. I do think that removing the need for licensure to carry a weapon concealed has undermined the position that concealed carry be allowed on campuses – I agree with many that open carry in an educational institution can be unsettling and distracting. As to primary and high schools, I don’t think asking our teachers and administrators to become armed guards is fair or wise. If you want better security on those campuses by allowing firearms, hire more cops and put them in the schools. A lot of folks on the left will reject my views on guns generally, and on this particularly, but my civil libertarianism reaches deep enough to make me somewhat more tolerant of weapons in our society than my general Liberal philosophy would indicate, and less tolerant of gun control measures that might restrict access to guns by law-abiding, responsible, and demonstrably skilled adults. I am a gun owner and (until you guys made it superfluous) a CCW permit holder. I’m not convinced that giving just anybody guns makes anyone safer, but I do think that trained and experienced citizens with guns can at least help protect the public. Police can’t be everywhere.
As to ed funding, you cite national trends, when you should be concerned with Arizona. Money isn’t always the answer, I agree, but being near dead last in ed funding can’t be helping Arizona’s children. When states with the highest per capita spending are consistently at the top in educational outcomes, and those who are lowest in per capita spending are consistently near the bottom, denying that money has any correlation with outcomes is absurd. Adequate money doesn’t improve students, it improves teachers, lowers class size, improves equipment and materials, makes facilities better, safer and more comfortable, and provides the opportunity for students to develop their potentials more fully. Arizona has been failing miserably, and a large part of the failure is the Legislature’s failure to fund education adequately.
As I indicated in the very first sentence of this post, “The media villagers love their political labels, even though the labels they use are outdated by a couple of decades or more. Political scientists they are not.”
The political labels that are commonly used and how people self-identify themselves with those labels has been out of whack for decades. I have posted about this previously. As a political scientist I find the media’s use of these labels laughably meaningless and the public largely confused by them.
“Conservative” no longer means what it used to mean either; modern-day conservatives are a brand of authoritarianism, not traditional conservatism. As I have said many times, “this is not your father’s GOP.” Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt (a “progressive”), Dwight D. Eisenhower, and I suspect even Richard Nixon would be appalled by today’s GOP.
I knew Barry Goldwater in his later years and even the “father of movement conservatism” was appalled by the modern-day GOP, especially Jerry Falwell and the Christian Right.
That should be Luntz. Sounded like his line of work
Did Frank Lutz write that book? Spin meister himself?
As to the guns on campus…start here. http://www.keepgunsoffcampus.org/brady.html
SERIOUSLY? You don’t want to engage in civil discussion here. You come here and quote Krauthammer? Are you KIDDING ME? I’ll need to construct my questions before I ask them, now is not the time, because I’m not done having the coffee squirt out my nose from laughter. As a signing member of ALEC, as are nearly ALL of the lunatics you “work” with are…I now take your “open mindedness” with a grain of salt.You are bought and paid for, and not representing your constituents, but your masters. Shame on you!
My apologies to you, Rep. Kavanagh….your responses had not posted when I asked if you were going to come back and address the questions here. I’m glad that you did. Thank you.
“If by a “Liberal” they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people — their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties — someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a “Liberal,” then I’m proud to say I’m a “Liberal.” ~ John F. Kennedy, 1960
I’m with Jack! Proud of it, too.
I find it curious that you haven’t revisited this blog to answer the questions that readers have put forward for you. It is rare that we get the chance to engage our legislators in this manner.I certainly hope that it was not your intent to insult our intelligence, and leave.
As promised
3. Regarding guns on college campuses. Four states currently allow it and I am waiting to see what evidence of carnage opponents of the bill can present. I have not heard of any but I am open minded. Maybe one of you can offer up some. I am also confused about how every day people mix together in supermarkets, malls and other public venues with some among them possessing guns and the result is not carnage. Do you folks believe that people on college campus are less responsible than the general population? (Warning: a straw man has entered the room! All progressives to your battle stations!) I do not think so.
Finally, a closing point on why progressive is deceptive. If you read a book that might be out of print but worth the hunt called Logic and Contemporary rhetoric, the author in discussing logical fallacies talks about the use of emotive language. In particular he singles out spin words. These are words that possess a positive or negative spin and are used to sway people not with facts but with the emotion of the spin. Government workers are government employees. That is the neutral term. If you are trying to portray them in a positive light, you use the spin word public servant. If you are attacking them, call them bureaucrats. People getting financial or related help from the government are getting public assistance. If you oppose it, call it welfare and conjure up all the negative images that have attached to that word. If you support it, call it an entitlement. But in the end recognize that when you choose a spin word over a neutral word, you are being deceptive and non-transparent.
Regarding the comments:
1. I am not calling anyone ignorant. I cite Gallup who found in a poll that most people do not know what the word progressive means. That does not make one ignorant. Nobody knows the definition of every word but that does not make everyone ignorant. Of course, I know that Bess knows that that is not what I meant to say and she said it to make me look bad. That’s creating a straw man argument and is a great debater’s trick but it does not advance civil and productive discussion.
2. Regarding ed funding, I think columnist Charles Krauthammer gives us cause to stop and think before we assume that the answer to all education problems is more money when he said in a recent column, “Where to begin? A country spending twice as much per capita on education as it did in 1970 with zero effect on test scores is not underinvesting in education. It’s mis-investing.” That is not to say that I do not support more ed funding, but I do not have as much faith in its power to improve students as you progressives do – Oops, I meant liberals.
More to follow
Agreed, Bess…it’s called PROJECTION. They have that down pat.
Yes, I agree. I’m glad Rep.Kavanagh reads this blog. However describing the description of progressives as deceptive and non-transparent could equally describe the Tea Party and their benefactors. Grassroots? Not quite. Pot calling the kettle black. I think so.
My point about being liberal aside, I’m glad that you came to this site and hope that you will engage us and answer questions that we may have.I am in agreement with Bess1919, in asking your fellow Rep. to drop the guns on campus idea. As a retired policeman, I would think that you might agree with that idea. Would be interested in what you have to say on that subject.
Synonyms
1. progressive. 7. broad-minded, unprejudiced. 9. beneficent, charitable, openhanded, munificent, unstinting, lavish. See generous. 10. See ample.
Antonyms
1. reactionary. 8. intolerant.
Are you saying you have a problem with liberals?
He’s hoping!
Perhaps that means that more funding for public education in Arizona would be warranted, then?
Also, tell your colleague Ron Gould to drop the guns on campus idea. Arizonans don’t want it.
Are you suggesting that the majority of people are ignorant?
Maybe it has a positive perception because the majority of people do not know what the word means. See Gallup http://www.gallup.com/poll/141218/americans-unsure-progressive-political-label.aspx
Progressive is a positive “spin word” for liberal. as such, it is deceptive and non-transparant.