politically sensitive labels

[Laurence Horn]

At 11:09 PM -0500 3/10/04, Duane Campbell wrote:
>On Wed, 10 Mar 2004 21:59:38 -0500 David Bergdahl <einstein at FROGNET.NET>
>writes:
>>  I think the use of "democrat" by Republicans antedates Gingrich--I'm
>>  sure
>>  Reagan used it and maybe even Nixon and Ford, if not Goldwater.
>
>Possible. But I don't think it gained currency until Gingrich and his
>C-SPAN speeches to an empty gallery.
>
>A word on the utility of the change. I had a talk just this evening about
>the counties in Florida that were in contention in 2000, and I mentioned
>that all had an election commission with a Democrat majority. That was
>accurate and clear. Had I said that all three had a D(or d)emocratic
>majority, it would have taken on overtones that the opposite would have
>not been small-d democratic.

Another illustration the disambiguating "Democrat" was Bob Dole's
favored use in his 1988 campaign of the notion of "Democrat wars"
(e.g. WWI, WWII, Korean War, all of which we joined in on under a
Democrat(ic) administration).  Referring to these as "Democratic
wars" wouldn't have had the same effect, and might have been
misconstrued.  As for the practice of attributing such wars to the
party controlling the adminstration at the time, however that party
is referred to, Dole's usage provides a neat instance of Aristotle's
observation:

Another [fallacy] is taking a noncause as a cause, for example when
something has taken place at the same time or after [something else];
for people take what happens later as though it happened because of
what preceded, and especially people involved in politics, for
example Demades [regarded] the policy of Demosthenes as the cause of
all evils, for the war took place after it.

(Rhetoric 1401b30ff.)

Larry Horn