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The Overton Window

[Photo of Joseph P. Overton]

Beto O'Rourke (NOT the guy pictured here) has left the building, specifically, the Presidential campaign.

I begin that way because Beto's campaign always had a celebrity-celebrating Elvis-like aspect to it, Vanity Fair cover and all. If for that reason alone, I'm not sorry to see him go.

Before he left, he did give us a chance to think about what the term "Overton window" means, especially in the context of gun control in the US, and in more particular in Texas.

Joseph Overton, a free market oriented political scientist who passed away in 2003, and who IS the guy pictured above, originated the concept of a "window of discourse" encompassing all 'acceptable' positions on an issue, and since named after him by his admirers. The point is that only fringe thinkers believe proposition 'A,' and only thinkers on a contrary fringe, we shall say, believe 'E'.  The current policy is C and the more sensible not-so-fringe reformers say that C is wrong, we should move to D, or B, depending on their inclination. Anything beyond those five letters is outside the window.

One way to try to move discussion, and eventually policy, in your direction is to be the damned fool who says "F! Dammit F! FFF" while everyone around you points and laughs.

If you are going to play this role, you'll have to tolerate the laughter knowing that -- you've just moved the window. The guy saying 'E' can join in the laughter at your expense, and he's now become more respectable.

Beto may have moved the window (NOT in a direction of which Prof. Overton would have approved) Beto was the one shouting "F"! or, in this case, "Hell yes we're going to take your guns."  And then he left the campaign to sounds of derision.

The historians of posterity will judge.
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  1. HenryNovember 16, 2019 at 11:41 AM

    To clarify, the "guns" he was referring to were, according to an article I just found, "high-powered rifles like the AR-15 and the AK-47." If, as I understand, these are weapons of war, suitable in private hands solely for mass murder, then the derision was misguided, and, I suspect, driven by people who deliberately attempted to conflate such weapons with all guns (which I am not accusing you of doing). The deriders also probably did not mention that O'Rourke respected the weapon owners' right under the 5th Amendment to "just compensation" for their weapons.

    Confiscation, however desirable, may not now be feasible. but calling for it, as Elizabeth Warren calls for Medicare for all, which she acknowledges is also not now feasible, may shift the public debate and make lesser gun control measures and lesser forms of universal health insurance, more feasible.

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