Cognitive linguistics professor George Lakoff, founder of the progressive think tank the Rockridge Institute, has argued, with respect to the phrase "War on Terror", "Terror is a general state, and it's internal to a person. Terror is not the person we're fighting, the 'terrorist.' The word terror activates your fear, and fear activates the strict father model, which is what conservatives want. The 'war on terror' is not about stopping you from being afraid, it's about making you afraid." He adds "...terrorists are actual people, and relatively small numbers of individuals, considering the size of our country and other countries. It's not a nation-state problem. War is a nation-state problem." Lakoff believes that the frame invoked by the phrase plays a key role in the political changes enacted by President Bush through the implication of the frame. [6]

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