A few quick pointers to some articles / blog posts talking about "Framing" of arguments on the Left and Right of the spectrum.   Let's start the debate with  this article which just barely avoids equating the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy with Orwellian thought police:

If you have been framed, the only response is to reframe. But you can't do it in a sound bite unless an appropriate progressive language has been built up in advance. Conservatives have worked for decades and spent billions on their think tanks to establish their frames, create the right language, and get the language and the frames they evoke accepted. It has taken them awhile to establish the metaphors of taxation as a burden, an affliction and an unfair punishment – all of which require "relief." They have also, over decades, built up the frame in which the wealthy create jobs, and giving them more wealth creates more jobs

The author contends the essense of Right Wing success recently was by deftly managing political rhetoric and using tools which he, as a card carrying Cognitive Scientist, is singularly able to rise above. 

He constructs 2 "frames" for viewing the world:

• Strict Father = a system for creating / rewarding alpha males in the image of the father
• Nurturant Parent = a joint system for love, peace, happiness

His big mistake is that he takes Wealth as granted (or at least equivalent between the 2 systems) and instead dwells on comparing systemic intentions for how that wealth is distributed (for that matter, he's also conflating "social conservatives" with Libertarians) .

Given that the 2 systems are portrayed as equivalent in their results, in his mind, it's a simple, moral choice that we make to "think" in one system or the other.... (and it's clear which one he considers more moral).   To him it's a social "choice" that we choose to outrageously reward the entrepreneur and that equivalent social wealth effects can be garnered from an alternate social choice.

To folks like me, it's the inherent rules of econ, game theory, risk, and so on that determine the entrepreneur's playoffs - and these rules constrain "society's" options (e.g. the Government) as much as the entrepreneur.... But I digress.

The debate was picked up on CalPundit and Godless Capitalist retorted here:

Framing is being discussed at Calpundit. The basic thesis is that the Republicans are much better at "framing" their message than the Democrats, and that the victimized left needs to fight back. (This is Zizka's view as well.)

My response? Come on, now. Democrats have been champion framers and demagogues.

This morning, Thomas Sowell has this to say (and he heartily agrees w/ Godless -- even to the extent that he chastises the Right for doing a piss poor job of framing):

Give credit where credit is due. The political left is great with words. Conservatives have never been able to come up with such seductive phrases as the left mass produces.

While conservatives may talk about a need for "judicial restraint," liberals cry out for "social justice." If someone asks you why they should be in favor of judicial restraint, you have got to sit them down and go into a long explanation about constitutional government and its implications and prerequisites.

But "social justice"? No explanation needed. No definition. No facts. Everybody is for it. Do you want social injustice?

One guy's truth is another guy's rhetoric.

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