22 Jan 2012 09:16 PM PST
NoisyRoom
By: Terresa Monroe-Hamilton

The Overton Window:

The Overton Window, in political theory, describes a “window” in the range of public reactions to ideas in public discourse, in a spectrum of all possible options on a particular issue. It is named after its originator, Joseph P. Overton, former vice president of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.
At any given moment, the “window” includes a range of policies considered to be politically acceptable in the current climate of public opinion, which a politician can recommend without being considered too “extreme” or outside the mainstream to gain or keep public office. Overton arranged the spectrum on a vertical axis of “more free” and “less free” in regard to government intervention. When the window moves or expands, ideas can accordingly become more or less politically acceptable. The degrees of acceptance of public ideas can be described roughly as:

• Unthinkable
• Radical
• Acceptable
• Sensible
• Popular
• Policy

The Overton Window is a means of visualizing which ideas define that range of acceptance by where they fall in it. Proponents of policies outside the window seek to persuade or educate the public so that the window either “moves” or expands to encompass them. Opponents of current policies, or similar ones currently within the window, likewise seek to convince people that these should be considered unacceptable.
Other formulations of the process created after Overton’s death add the concept of moving the window, such as deliberately promoting ideas even less acceptable than the previous “outer fringe” ideas, with the intention of making the current fringe ideas acceptable by comparison.

I look at the current crop of conservative candidates from which we have to choose and I can’t help but think, is this the best we can do? Really?? The most conservative of the lot that also believes in our military and protecting the US is Rick Santorum. He’s still my candidate and I pray fervently that he will prevail and win the nomination. But the odds are against him. The two front runners are both Progressives and it just makes my stomach ache to think of pulling the lever for one of them, all in the name of saving what is left of America from full-blown Marxism. It’s depressing.

Read More: http://www.trevorloudon.com/2012/01/revolution-moves-into-the-overton-window/