What's the difference between "values" and "family values"?

[zanana]

Are they one and the same, or simply a case of political semantics? Liberals have values, too. We fight for them every day. Are our values of less importance than "family" values? Are "family" values "religious" values? Are these values mostly about sex, or do they include tolerance, equality and fairness? Any ideas, people?

[Bronco69]

1. "values" and "family values" are just code words.

If what the right wing nut jobs practice is considered "values", I personally don't want any part of it.

[lectrobyte]

8. Exactly. Code for "no homosexual anything" typically, depends on the

setting.

[BOSSHOG]

2. Family Values is a code

used by preachers and religious zealots to keep the lemmings in line. They are told conservatives have family values and that is a shield which prevents them from being recruited by the evil forces of liberalism. However with most things connected to conservatives there exists an extremely large fault line. Conservatives in red states display their family values with high rates of divorce, incest, spousal abuse and teen pregnancy while attempting to amend the constitution to "protect" the sanctity of marriage by preventing homosexuals who love each other from getting married. The lemmings are told they will feel good by voting against evil liberals like John Kerry. Their family values help stretch the welfare checks and food stamps. Bizarro world indeed.

[readmylips]

3. Silly question...Family Values to Repigs means MONEY....

People born into wealth and power,like little bush, are considered to have Family Values. Elites worthy of ruling our nation. Their motto; lift yourself up from your own bootstraps. Yeah, Right.

People born poor but rise into wealth and power, like President Bill Clinton and maybe all citizens of this nation, are considered flukes and not worthy of of running our nation. Their motto; we all need a helping hand in times crisis, according to Jesus. Repigs call it Welfare.

Real Family Values are the ones good parents, family and friends give us, like love, tenderness, care, food, shelter, guidance, hopes and dreams into reality. It has nothing to do with foking religion or politics.

[liberalnurse]

4. It depends on your base......

that meaning your culture and/or social ground. Today, what we are hearing is the solo voice of the religious right lead by the greedy, manipulative, neo-cons, Pat Robertson and Falwell. They have high-jacked the voting public, the media and political right to serve their own agenda; power and control. They speak out of both sides of their mouth.... they use the pulpit style venue to spread a shamed base message, a punishing God if you don't comply to their rules...

If you have never watched the HBO series, Carnivale, I then suggest you watch it. it takes place during the Depression in the 30's. There is a remarkable parallel of good vs evil theme. One is an evil minister, Justin Crowe, who speaks to the people via radio and his radio sermon is sooooo neo-con it scares me.

Here see the re-cap of season one. They just started the second season.

http://www.hbo.com/carnivale/video/index.shtml

Here is season two's trailor.

http://www.hbo.com/carnivale/video/index.shtml

[kweerwolf]

5. Values vs. 'family values'

Values are what each of us have to help us determine how we interact with the world.

'Family values' are what Repugnantcans, bigots, scumdamentalists and other lower lifeforms impose on everyone else to enforce how the rest of the world should interact with them.

[seabeyond]

6. well i have tried to share on this board what is preceived

as lack of family values that are really bothering a lot of parents. i am dismissed. i am called prude fundamentalist and all kinds of things. i am told i am suppose to embace all the shit (sexual and so much more) that is fed to my kids because this is the real world. i am told by a few parents, hey, we let our kids watch all this crap you ought to too. or else something is wrong with me.

there is a serious issue with what is happening to our society is brainwashing and feeding kids that dems absolutely do not want to seriously chat about. they would rather dismiss the person as an extremist. feels the same as a repug does.

people ask, why adults with children are voting republican, and then when i try to explain, they shut me up fast.

until we honestly want to look at this issue without a dismissive they are prudes or whatevah.......it will grow.

but i am not going to go into battle once again on this board trying to explain


but yes, their is a difference in the two issues. i would like to see the democratic party take this issue as their own and actually help the parent today. they would gain a lot of votes, wuldnt take much, not hurt anyone, just show that we understand.

or we can keep saying, no..........we want to do it our way and insist you believe as us

[kweerwolf]

7. Brainwashing

"there is a serious issue with what is happening to our society is brainwashing and feeding kids that dems absolutely do not want to seriously chat about."

Of course there's a lot of "brainwashing" going on. Just turn on Faux .... oops, I mean "Fox" news or switch on one of those fundie windbag televangelists who pollute the airways by peddling prejudice as piety these days.

Now THERE'S the kind of brainwashing Democrats absolutely want to do something about.

[seabeyond]

11. this is a perfect example. turn away from the dem issue

and harp on the repug. and then we dont have to deal within party, we can continue, without doing any of the thought or work, and point the finger out

of course there is conditioning from fundamentalist and repug and fox and all of msm. i am advocate of fighting against it. i dont like it. i dont allow it with me nor my children. as i teach my children to recognize between universal, god, energy....law, and mans interpretation or mans law they easily see and recognize when society, tv, preacher, or just a grandparent is conditioning. i teach my children, they are that good, they can take it within and decide for themselves. i give them the power rather than convince them to listen to others, especially if it doesnt feel true

because we can clearly see the manipulation on the right and it is in face in this moment taking over this country, doesnt mean we ignore our own conditioning and extremism we have in this party

but whatever, we will continue to have adults, parents that in all essense should be voting dem, vote repug cause we dont want to address it

[housewolf]

10. Such a good point

I have noticed that on this board, also.

It seems that many Americans have a serious character flaw - and that is that they refuse to look at their character flaws. So busy defending ourselves through our own self-righteousness.

Remeber that old phrase from childhood - "it takes one to know one?" When you point your finger outward, three other fingers point back at yourself.

Look, we're good - we have the edge when it comes to values of equality and social justice. But we are not perfect. Just as the world is telling America "you are being a bully" and it is in America's interests to pay attention to that criticism, so the right is telling the left "this is important and you dismiss and discount it" it might be in our interest to pay some attention to that criticism.

[sandnsea]

21. Nanny party

It's funny though, when we talked about family values, we got labeled the nanny party. How did we lose on an issue we were the first to confront?

[Cleita]

9. Both the word "value" and phrase "family values" are

Republican hot air as far as I'm concerned. Those people haven't a clue about real ethics, morality and spirituality. Isn't there a saying about "knowing them by their actions, not their words"?

[seabeyond]

12. when we have people going into schools encouraging stripping

as a profession. and a number of people come on the board and say ya. damn right. that is a good thing. and fathers saying oh i would be proud of my daughter strippin, yes put that out there for youth. this is a good thing. and all you parents that have issue, you have a problem, look at europe. sexual freedom. it is a good thing. we want sluts. we want our 12 year old girls to be sluts. lets let them explore this them. and we will teach them how to be our sluts. (our old males) and then we will teach our young boys how to see females. so then when they create family, the male doesnt have to value female, and the female doesnt have to be nurturing, all she has to do is be a self absorbed slut. without self respect, then male can once again have dominence over female, but what the hell, no one will be sacrificing and raising kids. kids will totally be on own

i say f* you. i am thinkin voting repug. but what the hell

now a lot of this is extreme, i grant you, but......someone did go into school encouraging girls to be strippers cause of money after all, forget self respect, the money is worth it, and a lot of males did come on board and say, oh boy, ya do it.

[punpirate]

13. Virtually every political slogan...

... is advertising, purely and simply. It doesn't add value itself, and it doesn't describe the value it professes to have (part of the reason why I've been having a protracted discussion with the pro-Lakoff people in GD: Politics).

In fact, "family values" and "pro-life" are code words, meant to get a small segment of society making as much noise as possible, so that, to the media, they sound as if they are a majority.

Random House defines "value" foremost as the "relative worth of something," indicating its prevalent usage. Buried way down among various usages are these two:

"10. Sociol.the ideals, customs, institutions, etc., of a society toward which the people of the group have an affective regard. These values may be positive, as cleanliness, freedom, or education, or negative, as cruelty, crime, or blasphemy.

"11. Ethics.any object or quality desirable as a means or as an end in itself."

In this sense, Lakoff is correct--from a PR and marketing perspective, the Republicans are indeed "framing" an issue. The reality behind that framing is less candid than they would admit. The pro-Lakoff forces insist that doing a better job of framing will solve the Democrats' political problems.

What this approach ignores is the political reality behind the words used to frame the issue. When an unknown Republican political candidate says, "I'm for family values," Democrats inevitably say, "We are, too." A certain segment of the voters know they aren't, at least not in the ways approved by those voters--on a raft of fundamentalist religious issues, which the phrase "family values" signifies to them.

The important consideration to me is that that segment of voters wasn't brought to think in a certain way about family values by use of the phrase. In other words, it didn't have the effect of reshaping their thinking about families and policy. It did not change their preconceived notions, notions which are reinforced by religious belief and their church communities. The use of the phrase merely acts as a rallying point for a segment of the population whose ideas are fixed, and as a coded message for that segment--"he's for family values; he's one of us."

The Republicans have gotten very good at this sort of thing, but they are not changing minds of voters with this tactic--they are, instead, encouraging the least flexible and the least tolerant in our society to be more vocal and to join them. The Lakoff admirers believe that "reframing" issues such as "family values" will reshape the thinking of this group of people, and of people with a subset of the same sentiments, and convince them of the Democrats' ability to meet their needs.

It won't. They also believe that trying to describe "family values" in different terms will persuade the more flexible thinkers in society to support Dems or progressives or whomever. Those people already are Dems or progressives.

Republicans are using sophisticated marketing techniques principally to round up as many single-issue voters as humanly possible and tell them Republicans support them in that one issue of importance to them, whether it be guns, or gays, or abortion, or covert racism, or war, or taxes, or theocratic rule, or any of a host of other hot-button issues. Such people aren't looking to have their minds changed--they're looking for someone in power to legitimize their views and for consensus. While that's nothing more than pandering on the part of the Republicans, it has also worked. It has brought more people to the polls for the Repugs.

What Democrats/progressives/others will not do is examine their political roots for decay, for fear of what they may find there. Lakoff's is one more attempt to say to the public we have values, too, when the one single value that has defined Democrats over decades has been its support for the rights, political and economic, of the common man. It has ignored that political philosophy, in large part because of the corruption of the political process by big money.

That value validates all the other values of which you imply.

Part of examining those roots would be comprehensive surveys of those who do not vote. My bet is that many of those people who do not vote share at least some of your same values, but who see no one in political life who lives them on the floor of his or her legislative chamber.

Jefferson, the progenitor of the Democratic Party, was adamant in his belief that an educated, economically supported, politically aware common man was the bedrock of democracy, and without that, the United States would fall victim to the moneyed classes, the pseudo-aristocracy, as he called it. He was one of the first in the country to advocate progressive taxation, to further that end. That's just one of the Democrats' political roots which has become decayed.

The central problem of the Democrats is not that have no values, or that theirs are not more legitimate than the phony ones espoused by the Repugs. Their problem is that their core political heritage--best found in Jefferson and revived by FDR--is now just the party's distant reputation, rather than its philosophy in action.

Cheers.

[Nobody]

14. I remember a discussion with a Republican during election 92

Where the Republican said that he was voting for GHW Bush becasue he's against crime.

My response was "Is anyone FOR crime? Can you find any politician who is? You're going to have to do better than that to convince me."

I got a lot of um....uh.....er...well's.

Don't you just love words that could mean anything?

But...but...but... it's just semantics

This is why semantics are vitally important.

On the point of living one's values, Mark Dayton, one of my senators, made a stab at it.

He proposed that seniors should have the same medical care as senators, intending that their health coverage should be improved. Some senators assumed he meant to imply that he wanted to cut the bennies to the senators.

Tells you a lot about that other senator. Equalizing to Dayton means giving to, equalizing to the others meant taking away from.

[punpirate]

15. I am thinking, mostly...

... of what I consider the seminal point in the decline of the Democrats as a party with a coherent national view. That was when they permitted Reagan's tax cut for the wealthy, which reduced the top rate from 70% to 28%, to pass. It was the beginning of a steady decline in services to the poor, very high deficits (which created high interest payments on the debt which further shrank services), allowed a massive and unnecessary defense budget, all of which started a very rapid redistribution of wealth upwards. They bought the lies about trickle-down again with changes in tax law which were to the benefit of corporations, which made all budget problems (and social problems) even worse. Democrats and Clinton compounded a number of problems by not insisting that educational requirements and benefits be built into welfare reform.

Everything after that point seems to me to be window dressing, rather than effecting structural change. I'm glad to see Dayton not voting for the Medicare reform bill, but it passed because eleven other Democrats did....

Cheers.

[seabeyond]

16. man this is tough and gonna try to be clear

but this is good. it is not a little subject and to be easily dismissed in a soundbite. it is huge, it is essence of who we could be. and with that, all we would gain

you are right: "was adamant in his belief that an educated, economically supported, politically aware common man was the bedrock of democracy, "

this is like the feel of the top looking down at the whole.

lets look from the bottom, or self, out. from experience as a normal joe. a mother. an older mother. from calif most of life and living in texas for decade and half. the only people i know and interact with are all fundamentalist and three catholic. mothers with younger children. a lot of moms, this is my world. all are church goers. wealth of information. i am not a church goer and have challenged all of them to say i am not a christian, lol.

i will not dismiss the family value as you suggest. because being in this space and having little ones i am raising, boys in an angry male world. for you to tell me it is a political code word, ya........and look how it is being abused, by both friggin sides. it gives parents a lot of work helping our children to survive in a healthy manner, all the things being thrown at them. and such a young age.

why cant we bring our value for all, to our value of self.

now, how i would like to walk life and allow for my children is not going to be the same as all. respectfully i understand that

and i dont ask a single one of you to see it my way, or do it my way. cause i know you wont

what i will do is address each one of them my children bring to me. and we will stop, and do the work of what society throws our way. and we will move on. some parents are getting tired is what i am saying. the left is throwing a lot of crap out their, to wrestle these children from the right

i say.,/............fuck you all. not my battle, yours. quit bringing it into my world and my childrens. we dont have all these retarded views on voyerism and becoming sexual at 5, homosexuality, loving others, we dont want your messed up life.

yet then i am told to shut up in some way.

i am saying a lot of people in my community that is see all over the place, school, kid function, country club, neigborhood. we are tired. we will do it, but we are tired. many women do not see a lot of difference between bush and kerry. and many women i know just say, hey, we need help from the conservative, family value advocate on our side, we need help.

but we dismiss them.

i try to point out to them, yes you are right, but it has so swung to right, the right is the one we need to shield from child more.

now.

i tried to explain out of love, for those we love. our issue in family value. not judging any. not the tired mom who knows single intellectual, person who tells me tv doesnt hurt our child is full of shit,..........

or a bunch of youth in their 20's just exploring the sex. and like a child at christmas says oh look sex cool, look all sex. like i dont know what it is. and then expects me to sit and watch as they do, cause they are so wow'ed by it. i have been there and done that. was a blast and cool. youth wants us to watch. lol lol i dont need to nor want to thanks. further, neiter does my 5 year old.

ask the edwards, they are old parents, tired parents, they want it to stop too.

[punpirate]

18. You would not be...

... as tired as you are if you were both politically and economically empowered as early Democrats knew was necessary for you to thrive. That's my point, not that family values, as you understand them, are to be denigrated. If anything, the Repugs have distorted that phrase to mean a great many things which you would find very unhealthy for democracy and for your way of life if they became the law of the land.

If you mean John Edwards and his wife, as I'm guessing you do, they are, compared to you or I, of much greater financial security, fit, have excellent health care, and very good circumstances in which to live. Those are excellent family values. From those things, parents have the time and the energy to raise their children to become exemplary individuals and to be good citizens.

Cheers.

[seabeyond]

19. what makes you assume i dont have what the edwards have

my exhaustion has nothing to do with my financial situation. i am exhausted, lol (this is getting absurd, because the basis that you dont understand, i am doing great. life is good. i dont have you or they telling me who i need to be to be a good person. i know me better than anyone else, and me and my family kick ass. we do the work, and we do the play) but...........my exhaustion we talk has nothing to do with money. it has to do with embracing the fundamental crap being fed, the angry male crap, the war crap, the whole bush fascism election crap.........it is dealing with the teaching our five year olds sexual crap 20 year olds want to do for all.

money and things have never been indicitive of my happiness. things dont have a lot of draw. this isnt what i am talking, though i am totally empathic to those dealing with those issues. lordy, how much do we want to put on ones back

regardless, you didnt even get close to understanding or being accepting of my experience and many others in this nation

that is why i dont often bother putting time and effort into this, though it keeps coming up, over and over and over. a clue it hasnt been resolved. but then what do i know, just a mom

[punpirate]

23. Hopefully, I can make this clearer....

You seem to think that because I deride the Repugs for their use of the phrase "family values," I am somehow not in favor of them--that's what they want you to think--they want to define those values for you, rather than letting you define them for yourself, within your own family.

I do think it is a code word meant to attract people to the Republican Party who, in whole or in part, would like to make second-class citizens of gays, or who would like to see Biblical law incorporated into governmental law, or who would like to see the establishment of a national religion, or who would use law to restrict the rights of others, or who are comfortable with the Old Testament acceptance of slavery, or who use xenophobia and fear to attain their ends, or who hypocritically declaim everything bad in society as "liberal," or who would like to make the public school system conform to their views about science, history, politics, or who want a conformity in all things as defined by only them and their interpretation of the Bible, or who would undo the social contract and place many people in peril. In short, they intend it to mean some or all of the things you describe as "fundamental crap."

You have the power--and the right--to define, within your own family, what is right, what is wrong, and what constitutes family values to you. There are some legal limits to that (one cannot legally act, for example, on a self-defined family value of pedophilia or theft or jointly beating up anyone in the neighborhood you dislike), but you have broad latitude in how your family life is conducted. That's as it should be. That's actually how it is today in this country.

What I am saying is that the Democrats' attempts to redefine "family values" and other such catch-phrases of the Republican right wing aren't going to help a bit unless they first get back to their core values, one of which is ensuring an economically strong, educated and politically aware middle class.

Cheers.

[kweerwolf]

20. I see bigotry has raised its head.

Ya know, while I was running errands I was thinking maybe I was a little harsh in my earlier reply.

Now it's clear to me I wasn't nearly harsh enough.

To quote: "we dont have all these retarded views on voyerism and becoming sexual at 5, homosexuality, loving others, we dont want your messed up life."

As a gay man, I deeply resent your bigotry. What makes it worse is that you go on a few sentences later to mention "not judging any" after asserting that those like me have messed up lives.

Frankly, I hope you take your hateful bigotry wrapped in the banner of "family values" and vote Republican along with the rest of the American Taliban. Your "values" may work for your family, but how dare you try to impose them on other families. While you may be offended by sex on TV and in the movies, I find the level of violence shocking. That doesn't mean I go around trying to ban Mel Gibson's S&M jerk-off fantasy that's more interested in showing how Jesus suffered than what he taught. I leave decisions on what is appropriate for families up to the families themselves.

It's amazing to me that the folks who defend the party that promises "to get the government off our backs" are so eager to put the government in our bedrooms, libraries, theaters, etc., etc.

[seabeyond]

22. wow again, wow.

homosexuality. and this is what you preceive. i have issue with the right teaching their young homosexuality so they can make sure they see it as an evil, judging others, who is christian and going to hell. and then feeding it to my kids. i have issue with combating it by teaching my 5 year old about the sexuality of homosexuality......when they are at an inappropriate age to be getting into it and dont wanna know

as i have two brother in laws that are gay, and teaching my boys about difference in people and the grandness of it, and how there isnt a chance in hell we arent going to love the uncles. one of which will raise my two boys if husband and i die

so i am really thumbs up with you knowing exactly what i am thinking and am about

but again, if you want to dismiss me,...........cause of preconceived notions, go for it. you are wrong

told husband during this whole battle with republicans and gays, i am fighting harder for his brothers rights than his own parents. you dont need to lecture me

btw, i think i have a gay nine year old, though i am letting him figure it all out appropriately............or he isnt. he is a sensitive heterosexual

but as i say, i dont trust you to tell me who i am. i am quite sure i know better

[UdoKier]

17. Doesn't "values" mean self-interest & fake piety, absent any ethics?

That's kinda how I read it. Add the word "family" and it's understood to be self interest and piety for white christians only and the rest of us can go to hell.