Newsgroups: bit.listserv.politics
Date:         Wed, 26 Aug 1992 19:37:00 EDT
From:         "Peter J. Schledorn" <UNCPJS@UNC.BITNET>
Subject: Re: What is family values?

> Okay:
>
> "Family values" are not values *about* families, they are the values
> you are supposed to learn *in* a family--hard work, honesty, compassion,
> integrity, standing up for what's right (even when it's unpopular to
> do so) thrift, virtue, chastity, loyalty, fidelity, obedience,
> selflessness, good manners, reverence for God and respect for the
> nation)--not necessarily in any particular order.

Okay.  Gotcha so far.  I don't know anybody who doesn't value a set of
traits like these and want to pass them on.

> (Same values the evil, racist, sexist, homophobic boy scouts teach?
> Could it be?  Naaah.)

Here's where it gets tricky.  After all, one of those values is
compassion, and it doesn't seem so compassionate to me to reject an
entire class of people out of hand.  So what do you do if you're a Boy
Scout, and gay?  Well, if you want to remain a Boy Scout, and you offer
no evidence that you are unfit to be a Boy Scout, and everyone who knows
you thinks you are a fine example of a Boy Scout, and you are an
exemplar of what the Boy Scouts tell you is the model of the good Boy
Scout (except for this one trait that nobody can ever know about if you
don't tell them), you have to violate those values the Scouts are
supposed to be teaching.  You have to lie.  And IF you lie, the Scouts
have no problem with you.  But if you have honesty and integrity, out
you go.

BTW, I notice you left "tolerance" out of your list above, but I'm
attributing that to a memory lapse.  So that's another value that seems
a little dented.

> The very fact that there *is* a discussion about this should tell us
> something.  These are things *everybody* used to understand.
> *That's* why the Republicans can't understand the Democrats and the
> media.  They *know* what they mean by family values, and they are
> genuinely bewildered (and more than a little frightened) that others
> could somehow have missed these very basic aspects of socialization.

Actually, what they are puzzled at is how the Republicans can look them
straight in the eye and make the totally asinine (note correct spelling)
assertion that Democrats or Liberals or even representatives of the
Media don't share those same values.  Most of us, when we deal with the
rest of the world and maintain our own integrity and try to bring up our
kids, try to encourage these values in others.  I have no problem with
the idea that Republicans want their kids to grow up honest,
compassionate and generous.  But I get the distinct impression that the
Republicans want to convince the nation that I, as a registered if
rather crochety Democrat, don't want to bring up my kids that way.  And
if they knew how much to the left of the standard Democratic line I
really am, they wouldn't hesitate to tell the world how unfit and poorly
socialized I am.

Now, such an effort is so totally opposed to the way a person who really
lives by these values can be expected to act, that you can't blame folks
for thinking that there is some subtle message being offered here that
they are just missing because they don't have the right codebook.  That
is why people ask what is meant by "family values."  Because the idea
that people who profess to live by these shared values should be so
intolerant, uncompassionate and poorly-mannered as to deny that those
they oppose politically should also live by them, and even to declare
"war" on them, their ideas and even their very right to live their lives
unmolested, is a bit too much to take in all at once.

Besides, you should give people the benefit of the doubt, right?

Best,
Peter

> --Missy P 2 B
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