Notes to the "Values Racket"

We have just passed through a presidential campaign that heavily emphasized the notion of “values”. Indeed to hear Messr’s Bush and Kerry tell it, nigh on every policy matter is defined and shaped by one’s own personal values.
It follows then, that all contemporary political debates are merely discussions about values. This is where the GOP screws us every time. The praetorian class in America always defines a value as a stark and bilateral choice between good and evil. Since no one rationally choses to do evil in public life, (Unless of course you are Ming the Merciless) the right thinking conservative always chose to do good. Therefore both his motives are good (since they are defined by values) and his policies are good because they too are indicative of the right values.
Since there can never be a real debate between good and evil, the GOP uses the term “values” to a means to stifle discussion. Ghod forbid anyone should have a simple disagreement about politics, no, our differences must always run deep according to the conservative zeitgeist and indeed are articulations of the gulf between right and wrong. This is a perfect catastrophe since our elections are now reduced to the repeated chanting of certain focus-group tested power words.
See how they do it? The drunks, drug fiends, and pervy market worshippers of the GOP pre-rig the debate by using a definition that automatically favors them. This is how a heartfelt man of goodwill like John Kerry gets tarred with brush of indecision and vacillationb (among other things)-because the "values debate" he is forced to participate in is sham from start to finish. The very term favors conservatism by definition.
Back in the 1950’s the term “sincerity” got worked to death by the jurassic spin doctors around Eisenhower and Nixon. In our era, “”values” is rapidly becoming one of those ominous Orwellian terms whose meaning is controlled by the intentions of the user. Frankly I think the term ought to be stricken from the political lexicon, the whole reign of values has done nothing but bring down on us the iron fist of the crudest, ugliest, and greediest bastards in the country.