Family Values - A Fresh Look

Family values. Can you list them? Can you quantify them? Are they one value, principle, moral, or idea; or are they a list of separate but equal values, principles, morals, or idea's? I like to think of family values as a set of values, principles, and morals under which I live my life, and in turn teach my children. Their underpinnings are my heart and my soul guiding me through the landmine of life, fed by the teaching of my parents, and their parents before them, and their parents before them and so on.

The politicians in their zeal to court our votes but not our opinions, trot out "family values" whenever it comes time to secure our collective vote. But do they themselves know what the term means; do they live it and teach it to their children? Or is it just a catch phrase to them they wave in front our faces so that we respond to the call like modern day Pavlov's Dogs? I for one do not think we should be looking to Washington, or Richmond, or Albany, or Atlanta, or Springfield (especially not Springfield; those who live in Illinois will know what I mean!), for our moral inspiration; that guidance should come from the family, and again from the heart and spirit of a person.

Most politicians, sad to say, are not now, nor have they ever been, paragons of virtue, or vessels of honesty and, or integrity. In other words, they are not by and large people you want to emulate. One has only to witness the debacle caused by the President in which he committed adultery and proceeded to lie not only his family but to us as well, about the whole sorted business. Can we now look to this man for anything without suspecting his motives no matter how sincere his words may sound? And in the resulting impeachment, how many members of Congress fell from grace because of the same transgression, or worse behaviors, after lambasting the President for his sins?

And what about presidential candidate George W. Bush the compassionate conservative (what is that anyway? A conservative who finally cares what happens to his less fortunate brother?), who journeyed to Bob Jones university a bastion of intolerance, and proceeded to make nice with the "good Christians" therein just to get their vote? What family values was he upholding by associating with such people, could it be love, tolerance, or is it compassion? Yes they are voters, and yes they are Americans, and yes they deserve to have a voice, but at the same time they need to know that their "family values" are not, and should not be those we all rally around, and shine a light upon.

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