Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I found this book very enlightening, but also a bit depressing. I now understand exactly why it is pointless (as a liberal) to argue with conservatives about issues such as the deficit or corporate welfare, or about what I perceive as other inconsistencies within their own beliefs. Lakoff argues quite convincingly that our political views (liberal and conservative) are based not on some objective evaluation of the opposing sides of various issues, but on deeply internalized feelings about the rightness of one's "worldview." Once I understood his argument, a great many things started to make sense to me that had never made sense before. I was never comfortable with characterizing all conservatives as "stupid" or "selfish," but now I understand why, while they are not necessarily stupid or selfish, I can never, ever agree with them! His prescription for liberals to "reframe" the issues by reclaiming the language of morality from conservatives is intriguing, but his two examples at the end of the book ("The Two-Tier Economy" and "The Ecology of Energy..."), while powerful and convincing to a liberal like myself, would, I think just elicit the usual eye-rolling from conservatives - but maybe that's not the point. I just wish he had devoted even more of the book to specific recommendations like these, instead of confining them to the Afterword. On the whole, I would highly recommend this book. It expanded my thinking in a way that I did not expect, and that I believe will prove useful in staying sane during the coming election.