On Tue, 26 Apr 2005 08:19:18 -0400, JDG wrote > The problem with the above is that when a child needs to get a permission > slip for an activity, the child doesn't "seriously consider the opinions" > of his or her parents, the child gets, well, *permission.*
That's the point! Bush was saying that if the United States sought other nations' participation in the decision to go to war, we would be acting like a child, submitting to other authorities, disallowed to think for ourselves. We can't do that because we're a grown-up country, not a child. International relations cannot be modeled as a set of parents and children, so Bush and Cheney's use of the metaphor was wrong. But it was politically clever because the truth in the metaphor makes the whole statement seem true. Advertisers do this all the time -- say something true that is irrelevant... and say it again and again. The falsehood isn't *in* the metaphor, the falsehood *is* the metaphor because it implies that serious consideration of other nations' wishes would reduce us to the status of a child... which is baloney. It was not reasonable to reduce the whole question of how we cooperate with our *brother and sister* nations to "asking permission," since that is a context of submission, not negotiation. Nick _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
