Disturbing:
Oct. 21st, 2008 07:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pecuniumThis youtube is getting lots of play:
I am reasonably certain it's being seen by lots of people who support it, as well as those who are aghast when they see it. While the woman being interviewed disturbs me; her opinions (the only thing which matters in casting a vote is, "who has greater faith in the Lord" [which "should be make or break for everybody] and that I have a real problem with a president being named "Obama", and I'm not the only one. [scare quotes to try and show the way she says the name)] and that the Obamas aren't Real True Christians&tm; practicing, "the Christianty that's in the Bible) are troubling, but not for themselves alone. Not even primarily for her opinions.
What realy bothers, is the her position gets from this clip. I don't know how long the segment with her husband was, but right at the beginning her basis (a cultic "gut-check" based on the religious beliefs of Obama's parents: his mother's atheism is only worsted by his father being a Muslim) isn't cast as removing thought from the decision, but as one of measured consideration, "For Tracy Kerlie, this election is not so much about policy, as it is about values."
Which is, again, that pernicious meme that "Values™" are somehow the exclusive property of the whack-jobs, the ignorant, and the intolerant; the Dobsons, the Hagees, the people who don't want to trouble their little heads with the difficulties of policy.
Well guess what, it's bullshit. I have values. I like 'em. I use them to make up my mind when voting. Eric Rudolph has values, he shares some of them (the ones for which he is known) with Ted Kaczinski. Values are cheap.
The press keeps say people have "values", and as the philosopher Montoya said, "You keep using that word... I don't think it means what you think it means."
Values does not mean, "Traditional Western Modes of Life and Thought as Idealised by the Religious and Cultural Conservatives of the American Right."
It means, if I narrow it to the sort of definition the press is using (tossing out the references to money, color, music, etc.):
We've all got values. There is no touchstone set of them which ought to come to mind when someone is said to be, "Voting their values".
When I step into the little semi-cubicle and make my mark in the NO column on Prop 8, I'll be voting my values. When I look down the list and see, "For President, and Vice President of the United States: Choose one" I will take the pen, find Obama/Biden, and vote my values.
When I vote for the slates of judges (voting, by and large, against anyone who has been a prosecutor, and esp. against one who has been a "gang" prosecutor) I will be voting my values.
But... and this is where I hope, and pray, there aren't so many like this woman, I will be, using my values in concert, to quote Nero Wolfe, with my judgement, and experience. The press telling us that using the tools of reason is to abandon "values" is a lie, it's a nasty little lie at that.
Because it makes it easier for those who are voiting for the narrow-minded values of race/tribe/cult to look at the rest of the nation as valueless heathens. Those who don't "vote our values" not only not members of the group, but are against the group.
This casting of values not as things one cares about but as some touchstone set which one believes in enough to vote for, or one is against, feeds the idea of persecution. When one is voting for one's "values" and losing, then one's "values" are being slapped around.
It stops being about the best course for the nation, the better policies, the better politicians (or "leaders" if you prefer. I don't, but it's quite the fashion. I want leadership from them, yes, but they are not my "leaders", they are my employees; and that, really, needs to be pounded into their skulls;often) and becomes some odd referendum on beliefs.
Which is no small part of the polarisation of the nation. The Right has used this trick to keep the atrocious affects of their policies from rebounding against them (Reagan said he hated unions, and went on to prove it... Union country went on to vote for Bush, and then Bush again; with some strong pockets of Dole voting in the interim. They filled their House delegations with Republicans too. I can't believe it was because of how well the economy flourished under Reagan/Bush and how much it tanked under Clinton /sarcasm).
For those who think "faith in the Lord" is the be all and end all of such choices, "Render unto Caesar those things wich are Caesars's," because The Lord will know his own. If you believe Him, the values he cares about are, "Doing justly, loving mercy and walking Humbly with Thy God." For those who want a more detailed list of the criteria for making it to Heaven (in the afterlife... you want Heaven on earth, you gotta work for it here), might think to look at Matt. 7.
I am reasonably certain it's being seen by lots of people who support it, as well as those who are aghast when they see it. While the woman being interviewed disturbs me; her opinions (the only thing which matters in casting a vote is, "who has greater faith in the Lord" [which "should be make or break for everybody] and that I have a real problem with a president being named "Obama", and I'm not the only one. [scare quotes to try and show the way she says the name)] and that the Obamas aren't Real True Christians&tm; practicing, "the Christianty that's in the Bible) are troubling, but not for themselves alone. Not even primarily for her opinions.
What realy bothers, is the her position gets from this clip. I don't know how long the segment with her husband was, but right at the beginning her basis (a cultic "gut-check" based on the religious beliefs of Obama's parents: his mother's atheism is only worsted by his father being a Muslim) isn't cast as removing thought from the decision, but as one of measured consideration, "For Tracy Kerlie, this election is not so much about policy, as it is about values."
Which is, again, that pernicious meme that "Values™" are somehow the exclusive property of the whack-jobs, the ignorant, and the intolerant; the Dobsons, the Hagees, the people who don't want to trouble their little heads with the difficulties of policy.
Well guess what, it's bullshit. I have values. I like 'em. I use them to make up my mind when voting. Eric Rudolph has values, he shares some of them (the ones for which he is known) with Ted Kaczinski. Values are cheap.
The press keeps say people have "values", and as the philosopher Montoya said, "You keep using that word... I don't think it means what you think it means."
Values does not mean, "Traditional Western Modes of Life and Thought as Idealised by the Religious and Cultural Conservatives of the American Right."
It means, if I narrow it to the sort of definition the press is using (tossing out the references to money, color, music, etc.):
values n : beliefs of a person or social group in which they have an emotional investment (either for or against something); "he has very conservatives values"
We've all got values. There is no touchstone set of them which ought to come to mind when someone is said to be, "Voting their values".
When I step into the little semi-cubicle and make my mark in the NO column on Prop 8, I'll be voting my values. When I look down the list and see, "For President, and Vice President of the United States: Choose one" I will take the pen, find Obama/Biden, and vote my values.
When I vote for the slates of judges (voting, by and large, against anyone who has been a prosecutor, and esp. against one who has been a "gang" prosecutor) I will be voting my values.
But... and this is where I hope, and pray, there aren't so many like this woman, I will be, using my values in concert, to quote Nero Wolfe, with my judgement, and experience. The press telling us that using the tools of reason is to abandon "values" is a lie, it's a nasty little lie at that.
Because it makes it easier for those who are voiting for the narrow-minded values of race/tribe/cult to look at the rest of the nation as valueless heathens. Those who don't "vote our values" not only not members of the group, but are against the group.
This casting of values not as things one cares about but as some touchstone set which one believes in enough to vote for, or one is against, feeds the idea of persecution. When one is voting for one's "values" and losing, then one's "values" are being slapped around.
It stops being about the best course for the nation, the better policies, the better politicians (or "leaders" if you prefer. I don't, but it's quite the fashion. I want leadership from them, yes, but they are not my "leaders", they are my employees; and that, really, needs to be pounded into their skulls;often) and becomes some odd referendum on beliefs.
Which is no small part of the polarisation of the nation. The Right has used this trick to keep the atrocious affects of their policies from rebounding against them (Reagan said he hated unions, and went on to prove it... Union country went on to vote for Bush, and then Bush again; with some strong pockets of Dole voting in the interim. They filled their House delegations with Republicans too. I can't believe it was because of how well the economy flourished under Reagan/Bush and how much it tanked under Clinton /sarcasm).
For those who think "faith in the Lord" is the be all and end all of such choices, "Render unto Caesar those things wich are Caesars's," because The Lord will know his own. If you believe Him, the values he cares about are, "Doing justly, loving mercy and walking Humbly with Thy God." For those who want a more detailed list of the criteria for making it to Heaven (in the afterlife... you want Heaven on earth, you gotta work for it here), might think to look at Matt. 7.
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no subject
Date: 2008-10-21 10:24 pm (UTC)I DON'T UNDERSTAND THESE PEOPLE ...
no subject
Date: 2008-10-21 10:52 pm (UTC)The others, they aren't Real True Christians™, so they don't count.
One wonders, if God is so active in the day to day of the world; that he will look out for her, and hers, why she needs to vote at all? God will surely see to it the country gets the gov't it deserves.
no subject
Date: 2008-10-21 11:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-21 11:33 pm (UTC)1: They aren't voting for McCain. They way they flocked to the flag only after Palin was announced is sign of that.
2: Obama is eeeevil, so Palin gives them a crutch to prob the rest of it on. If it weren't for her then they'd have to stay home.
After all, they don't care that Biden wasn't unfaithful, and put his kids first after his wife died.
Her issues are a narrow band of identity politics. Palin's over the top religiosity is the thing they care about.
And the press tells us that's what counts as "values".