Watch Your Damn Mouth!

First of all, I have to admit that I was genuinely interested in what I read... which kind of scares me because I usually hate everything that has anything to do with politics. But anyway, from what I understand after reading the three articles, apparently, nobody can say anything without pissing somebody else off.

Luntz's article makes him out to be a pompous ass. It seemed completely irrelevant for any ordinary "American citizen" to read. Instead, it was basically a guide for Politician X to use so that he doesn't get beat up when discussing the "Illegal Immigration 'Issue.'" A great portion of it was about using the "Words that Work" so someone can better sway their audience and not offend them. It lacked COMPASSION for illegal immigrants, which is in direct contradiction to what he writes. He even says on the first page, "Compassion: This is the component lacking in much of the Republican messaging on illegal immigration thus far." It's kind of ironic that he puts an emphasis on this, yet fails to follow his own rule when talking about immigration himself. Reading his "Guide to Immigration PREVENTION" makes me not want to believe or listen to anything he says. I think he failed with this one.

Lakoff's article was basically the complete opposite of Luntz's. He discusses how the "immigration issue" is not an issue, but a "complex melange of social, economic, cultural and security concerns." He also (intelligently) explains that pretty much doing anything that Luntz says is the "correct" thing to do will not solve the problem, but only lessen the debate of it. Lakoff showed a lot of compassion for illegal immigrants, and put a large emphasis on the fact that they are still people who are working toward the American Dream, just like we are.

One thing that Lakoff mentions in a much of the article is that there is pretty much no "right way" to address illegal immigrants. He says that calling them almost anything is unethical or wrong. The truth is, I don't think there is a nicer thing to call them than "illegal immigrants." Yes, they are here illegally as of right now. Also, they are immigrants from another country. While this term is better than saying "Temporary or Guest Worker," I think this is the best we can come up with.

And that kind of brings me to the Lemann article. This article had more to do with "The Persuaders" DVD we watched last week than with the other two articles assigned for today. Lemann spent a great deal of time WITH Luntz (who I now think is an idiot) learning about Luntz's strategies when having focus groups. Pretty much, Luntz just takes what people say and tells politicians that they should say the same thing to better connect with the voters. Luntz spends a great deal of time coming up with new words or phrases to use to help sway the audience and to make them agree with politicians more.

Honestly, I think Luntz is full of it. One man who helps prove that is Robert K. Merton, the man who invented focus groups. He says how Luntz's techniques don't prove that his strategy is effective. Merton explains that the purpose of a focus group was to basically do the opposite of what Luntz does. Instead of an audience giving effective words for a politician to use in a speech, the politicians speech should be given to an audience to see how effective his words are. Lemann puts the whole "Word Lab" process down by saying that it "leads to politicians' being shaped by, rather than shaping, public opinion."

The whole point of hearing a speech is not to listen to what we already think, but to listen to ways to solve current issues we have and help better society effectively.