Not long ago there was some idiotarian running around saying that the political right had been winning key political battles in recent decades because it had begun using what he called "framing." Left-wingers being thoughtful intellectual idea-oriented people, you see, in his view this meant that everyday people were being bamboozled by the trickery of the word games of the right. As opposed to the thoughtful but complicated ideas of the left.

(You have to wonder where the left gets its reputation these days for elitism, don't you?)

But anyway, let's take an honest look at this idea of "framing." It's another way of saying, "words which concisely capture an idea, and put a subtle spin on them." There is no doubt that the political right does this. But the left is and always has been good at it. All that's really happened, if anything, is that the right finally started to learn how to do it more effectively--quite possibly as a result of the mass movement of a number of liberals in the 1970s and 1980s into Republican ranks. In any case, we now have plenty of "framing" on both sides.

Here are some examples:

On the political left: Welfare. The old word for this was "relief." If someone was poor and you handed them food or rent vouchers, you were giving them "relief." Eventually, the word "relief" came to take on negative implications. So the left looked around for a new word, and what did they find? Why, right there in the Constitution: Welfare! The preamble states that we're supposed to "promote the general welfare!" So we'll make "relief" sound patriotic that way. (It worked pretty well for a while, although it eventually just made "welfare" sound bad.)

How about an example of the right doing this? Well, due to the heavy influence of Marxist thought in America's universities, especially since the 1930s, the term "capitalism" has taken on a negative connotation. A capitalist is a selfish, greedy, oppressor of the people. Eventually, the right picked another term for it: Free Markets. Freedom! And markets, where you shop! Sounds much nicer. How can you not like free markets?

Here are a few other examples, left and right:

Reproductive Freedom: This phrase was invented so the left could avoid saying the word "abortion." Why? Because, while only a tiny minority opposes birth control, a majority of American women consider themselves pro-life. For the last 40 years at least, very consistently, 60-70%, or more, of American women have believed that there need to be more legal limitations on the abortion procedure than the Supreme Court allowed in Roe v. Wade. Women who want these greater limitations include atheists, agnostics, and religious types. They include women who've had abortions and women who haven't. So the left long ago learned that to win their arguments on this, they had to soft-peddle words like "abortion," and instead rely on euphemisms. Actually, they have two other terms for this: Women's Health and Choice. 90% of the time, all they ever mean by these terms is abortion, although once in a while they'll slide in cancer treatment or something in with "women's health," so they can conveniently tie them together.

School Choice: having noticed just how powerful this word "choice" is here in America, the school voucher movement was renamed the "school choice" movement. Which not only allows its advocates to use that all-American concept of freedom of choice, but also allows them to rope in a bit of support from the home-schoolers, who have been frequently beleaguered by education bureucrats who want to outlaw what they do.

Affirmative Action: Affirmative Action programs are a form of racial discrimination. You may think they are a desirable and justifiable form of racial discrimination (I don't, but you might), but let's just face it: for decades, Americans have believed that racial discrimination is bad, and so we needed a new, happy-sounding term for it.

War On Terror: If it were truly a "war on terror" it would never end, because terrorism has been with us as long as we have had civilization, and it will always be with us. Sometimes it will come from radicals within civilization, and sometimes it will come from barbarians outside it. But we don't want to call it a war on radical Islamists, or the focus becomes a little blurry, and we might start confusing it with a war against all Islam. So we call it the "War on Terror" to remind people that it's the terrorists who attacked America on 9/11, and the regimes that nurtured and often supported those radical islamists.

Social Security: Is it a welfare scheme? Is it a retirement pension? Both? Neither? Whatever it is, it sure sounds like a happy and good thing! Who wouldn't want a little Social Security?

Gun Control: Do we mean we want to ban guns? Restrict who can have them? Restrict which ones can be owned? Don't know, but guns are at least potentially dangerous, so "controlling" them seems like a good idea right?

Uninsured: This implies that people without insurance are going without health care. But, regardless of whether you have insurance or not, here in the US anyone can get all the basic medical care they need either for free or at reasonable cost. Being "uninsured" does not mean you don't get health care, it means there are some kinds of health care, primarily tests, that are tougher to get, and you might wind up in debt if something major happens to you. Our real argument is how much health care people should get without having to pay.

Deregulation: Regimented, controlled, ordered around. Who wants to be regulated? Isn't that kind of unAmerican?

Tax Relief: Well it sure would be nice to be relieved of so many taxes, wouldn't it? Sounds nicer than tax cuts, which make us ask what we might be sacrificing if we cut them. Of course, we might also derive significant economic benefits from cutting them. That's where the debate really should be.

Women's Groups: Always means groups like NOW and NARAL, rarely the Concerned Women of America, which is bigger than both of the other two combined.

Civil Rights Groups: Only counts if you're left-wing. The NRA, the Center for Equal Opportunity, and the American Civil Rights Institute are almost never included.

Patriotic Groups: Usually means a right-wing group of some sort.

Living Wage: Rather than supporting a "minimum wage," some on the left now advocate for a "living wage," by which they mean to mandate that all employers pay every employee enough money to support a family. Effectively doubling or tripling the current minimum wage is what they're really after.

As it happens, I don't think "framing" is a bad thing. I do not think it brainwashes people. In fact, I think it is often a very useful, very compact way of conveying a complex idea in a pithy phrase. I do think, however, that it's good if we're aware of it when it's happening, so we can more precisely understand what we are arguing about.