Liberals do everything wrong

Interesting interview with George Lakoff here:

http://www.theguardian.com/books/201...koff-interview

"The left has cleaved moderately well to established principles around the politics of the individual – women are equal, racism is wrong, homophobia is wrong. But everything else: a fair day's work for a fair day's pay, the essential dignity of all humans, even if they're foreign people or young people, education as a public good, the natural world as a treasure rather than an instrument of our convenience, the existence of motives besides profit, the pointlessness and poison of privatisation, the profundity, worth and purpose of pooling resources … this stuff is an embarrassment to centre-left parties, even when they're in government, let alone when they're in opposition."

"... equivalent rightwing positions – that efficiency is all, that big government is inefficient and therefore inherently bad, that nothing must come between a business and its pursuit of profit, that poverty is a lifestyle choice of the weak, that social breakdown can be ascribed to single mothers and immigrants – have been subject to no abatement, no modification, no modernising."

"Progressives want to follow the polls … Conservatives don't follow the polls; they want to change them. Political ground is gained not when you successfully inhabit the middle ground, but when you successfully impose your framing as the 'common-sense' position."

"Blair conceded ground on the left, but the right didn't concede any; as things are, free-market rules evaluate human importance based on wealth, and as such are plainly ideological, in a strict-father frame."