Don't think about an elephant behind bars

Before advancing one more line, we are going to establish some very brief certainties on the subject.

Thomas Osborne
Thomas Osborne
06 February 2023 Monday 01:55
450 Reads
Don't think about an elephant behind bars

Before advancing one more line, we are going to establish some very brief certainties on the subject. The Comprehensive Guarantee of Sexual Freedom law is an essential update of the regulations whose benefits concern the legal treatment received by the victim, avoiding the ordeal of proving an assault, while making disappear that cat flap for family and related aggressors called "abuse". Criminal law is not only interpretable but also expressly offers sentencing brackets so that judges can assess the circumstances of the cases and adjust the sentences. The good criminal law of a liberal society, say the academics, must be very specific when typifying criminal conduct, but not so much when establishing the penalties. The punitive discussions, those that revolve around the fact that a rule is all the better the longer the sentences it establishes, is a framework for debate of the conservative or reactionary right, always losing for the progressive formations. Like tax cuts: if a progressive walks into it, they've already handed rhetorical victory to their conservative rival.

Considering all these certainties, it is difficult to stop being amazed at the hyperactivity on social networks of the followers of all the Spanish progressive formations about whether it is true or whether the slight reduction in sentences that some judges are applying to prisoners who have not fulfilled their sentence and who want to take advantage of the lower part of the penalty ranges. Supporters of the PSOE, Unidas Podemos, Esquerra, Compromís and even Más País have been engaged in this discussion for almost two weeks, while the right wing rubs its hands because it believes it has already won it, even if it does not say anything.

What is surprising is that the political modernization that took place from 2015 in Spain basically consisted of the incorporation into political positions and the advice of a new generation of political scientists who had read Lakoff -and his famous paradox "do not think of an elephant ”– and who postulate that debates are not won by choosing the arguments, but by choosing the debates themselves.

Joshua Lyman, an adviser to outgoing President Jed Bartlet, in The West Wing of the White House, joins Congressman Matt Santos' team of advisers to try to make him president. In the first meeting with the team he recites: “People believe that a campaign consists of two opposite answers to the same question. And it is not like that. It's about fighting for the right question." Lyman wanted Santos to talk about the economy, not security. "If the campaign is based on that, we lose." The fact is that, finally, Santos decides not to avoid the security debate, advised by his communication director, Louise Thornton.

"We have a different idea of ​​campaigns," Lyman protested.

–Of course: I win them.