framing

December 4, 2012April 18, 2020

Dictionary Battles Are So Much Fun

One aspect of the current fake fiscal cliff argument and one that has existed since the 2012 elections (and I would say long before that) is the need of the GOP to want to cut “entitlement” programs. How they frame that argument points to how dishonest Republicans can be in budget battles. It is all about the window dressing and nothing about the contents.

During the current debate about the fake fiscal cliff, one of the issues we have been hearing about “entitlement reform” which include any government program for the poor, seniors, and the disabled.

March 12, 2012April 18, 2020

Framing Humanism Is Okay But Not At The Expense Of Honesty

Humanism is a strange collection of individuals in a stew of rationality, all of us looking for the truth for our world view. We, as Humanists, know we must work with believers and other theists to find common ground with the goal of bettering the human condition. Andy Norman, writing for the Humanist Network News, an e-zine of the American Humanist Association, tries to offer tips for dialogue on Humanism to non-humanists but does so by giving up honesty in the process.

Norman, in his essay “Framing Humanism, or How to Win the Culture War”, starts out great by explaining how we as Humanists could do a better job of bringing in new people or at least getting our message out by the use of Framing (where we control the meaning of our message), but then my alarm bells start going off when I read this: