My Value Is Your Value

When it comes to current affairs, I consider myself fairly well-read. Maybe not as obsessive as some, and I certainly don't do this for a living (although anyone reading this that wants to pay me for reading and analyzing stuff online, give me a call), but I do keep up with events as they happen and try to read a broad range of materials.

That said, I'm not a fan of Republicans, conservatives, or right-wingers, and I tend to avoid their pieces, blogs, and venues for the most part. But I do check in from time to time, just to get a sense of what the other side is thinking, or to take their pulse on a particular issue. This includes occasionally sneaking over the fence into Free Republic, or checking out an esoteric blog here and there. When it comes to "mainstream" publications, such as Time or Newsweek, I read some columnists who span the entire range of the political spectrum (why is it that nearly every conservative writer out there is an aging white male? Oh, wait a minute-- I *am* an aging white male!). One such columnist I read every now and then is George Will.

Generally, Will and I do not see eye to eye on a lot of issues, but he wrote a column last week that I thought was particularly good. In "Who Isn't a 'Values Voter'?," Will chides conservatives and the Corporate Media for reserving the label "values voter" and "values voting" for certain issues "owned" by social conservatives. As Will points out, it "is arrogant on the part of social conservatives and insulting to everyone else because it implies that only social conservatives vote to advance their values..." Funny, that. Each time I write my opinion up in this blog, or dash off a letter to the editor, or carefully choose a candidate to vote for, I thought I was assessing my values and demonstrating my support of those values. My values (and the principles behind them) reflect my beliefs and my emotional and ethical commitment to issues and concerns in society that I'm involved in. But according to social conservatives and their media lapdogs, I apparently don't have any opinions, principles, or any kind of investment in the workings of our society.

When I argue for universal healthcare or healthcare reform in general, that's a value. When I disagree with capital gains tax cuts and corporate welfare, that's a value. When I advocate for deaf rights, that's a value. My casting a ballot in favor of these issues is just as much "values voting" as the social conservative who heads to the polls to formalize their opinions on religion, homosexuality, marriage, and abortion. Just because my neighbors and fellow citizens may disagree with me doesn't give them the corner on being "holier than thou;" as Will states, "The phrase "values voters"... subtracts from social comity by suggesting that one group has cornered the market on moral seriousness," and a complicit Corporate Media "are furthering the fiction that these voters are somehow more morally awake than others."

I agree- I remember reading something somewhere about casting stones at glass houses. So-called "values voters" should think twice about using labels to put themselves on a pedestal, and the Corporate Media should also follow suit by not taking the lazy way out and stereotyping or labeling various groups based solely on a certain set of ethics and beliefs, and thus suggesting no one else has values.