Core Values

Our Core Values, Part II
by kos
Daily Kos
Sun Jun 12th, 2005 at 22:29:00 PDT

Let me make one thing clear -- I'm not advocating that the party or anyone take my values outline and adopt it party-wide. It's not my role to do so, and I don't feel particularly qualified to make that sort of decision or even suggestion.

What I AM advocating is that someone DO this sort of thing. It wasn't hard for me to come up with a quick outline of my own value structure. The trick is for someone with authority to do so.

In any case, if you're new to this discussion, please read the first post on this topic two posts down below. You need that primer for this to really make sense.

Here is my original proposed values outline, based on the values that are important to me:

Smart Government
Anti-corruption
Responsive govt
Accountability
Transparancy
Electoral Reform
Fiscal responsibility

Privacy
Choice
Opposition to regulation of morality
Opposition to Patriot Act
Right to die
Medical marijuana
Consumer privacy
Freedom of/from religion
Access to contraceptives

Conservation
Protecting our environment
Protecting our cultural heritage
Energy policy

Opportunity
Education (pre-K, primary, secondary, college)
Worker rights
Social Security
Health Care
Gender equality (same pay for same work, etc)
Affirmative action
Tort laws to protect the little guys from Big Corp
Non-regressive tax laws
Gay marriage
Fair trade laws
Small business support

US Leadership
Strong (not hollow) military
Leadership on global issues (e.g. terrorism, landmines, global warming, etc.)
Champion of human rights, at home and abroad
Leadership in science and technology (e.g. stem cells, alternative energy, etc.)
Strong United Nations/Internationalism
The biggest problem with this outline is that it's got too many values. We need this to be three or four items long. To that end, "conservation" could probably be slotted under "smart government", though it's not perfect.

Given feedback from the previous thread, people seem to think something along these lines might work better:

Community
Responsive govt
Anti-corruption
Accountability
Transparancy
Electoral Reform
Fiscal responsibility
Protecting our environment
Protecting our cultural heritage
Education (pre-K, primary, secondary, college)
Worker rights
Social Security
Health Care
Gender equality (same pay for same work, etc)
Affirmative action
Tort laws to protect the little guys from Big Corp
Non-regressive tax laws
Gay marriage
Fair trade laws
Small business support

Privacy or Personal Freedoms
Choice
Opposition to regulation of morality
Opposition to Patriot Act
Right to die
Medical marijuana
Consumer privacy
Freedom of/from religion
Access to contraceptives

Security
Strong (not hollow) military
Leadership on global issues (e.g. terrorism, landmines, global warming, etc.)
Champion of human rights, at home and abroad
Leadership in science and technology (e.g. stem cells, alternative energy, etc.)
Strong United Nations/Internationalism
Energy policy
A lot of the economic security items could also be slotted under the "security" value, as in "economic and national security".

Again, I'm not going to take sides (though I'm not a big fan of "community", since I see that as too abstract for these purposes). I just think it's high time the party and its allies put together a coherent, unified, statement of values.

I don't want to have to be the one to do it. But someone better do it. And quick.

One more thing -- people want to quibble with the words used to describe these values. That's framing. I think we need values first before we can properly frame them. So whether it should be "smart government" or "effective government" is really irrelevant unless we decide that the value itself is something worth incorporating into the party's core.