"Values". What the heck are they?

The presidential campaign is rife with the "values" thing. Both Democrats and Republicans claim they understand the importance of "values", the need to defend our "values", to have strong "family values", ad nauseum.

What vague, meaningless tripe. What do they mean? Values are like belly buttons: everyone has them. Radical Islam has values, Al Capone had values, Brittany Spears has values. Even I have values.

What we don't hear much is a definition for "values." Unfortunately, most of the traditional values we've long held are out of vogue and the brunt of jokes and disdain. Traditional families, traditional gender roles, traditional moral behavior are all out of favor. The big pop-value now appears to be absolute tolerance of just about anything. A word for that is amorality. A made up synonym is "avalueity". This gets close to the meaning of most political messages.

Could this be why we don't hear any definition given on the stump: We've lost our "value-system" in this nation? Absolute tolerance for anything results in a valueless culture. A valueless culture is difficult to defend or promote. This explains, in part, why a large portion of our population cannot sustain a war more than a few months. We think that our values (whatever they are or used to be) are no better, maybe worse than, anyone elses. We are into self-loathing. Unfortunately, there are major populaton groups on earth who love their values more than we love ours (even if we could agree what they were), who believe their values are worth fighting for, and literally blowing themselves up for.

Granted, our military and many conservatives have a strong traditional value system that motivates and sustains them. But a large, influential, and growing portion of our population has lost their values compass.

How well does this scenario bode for our nation: A culture without values to motivate and sustain its' will, perseverance, and endurance versus a culture with values so strong and deeply held that they turn themselves into human bombs and are numerically the fastest growing population group and religion on the planet. I am speaking of Islam.

We are in a "values" war. And we will be on the losing end if we cannot rediscover values worth defending and promoting. The three decades of mocking and joking and ridiculing (e.g. Garrison Keillor, famed liberal, culture-mocking star of "A Prarie Home Companion" and late night comedy generally) and challenging the deeply held values of the past 200 years is not helpful to our survival. Nothing of any great society-sustaining ability has replaced those values that we have ACLUed out of existence.

I'm all for not taking ourselves too seriously and the occasional joke about our culture. The problem is, these jokesters and mockers and challengers really mean it. They really do seem to hate our historical culture and the values that founded our nation.

An excellent book well worth reading or listening to is "America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It" by Mark Steyn. He identifies our "values" problem as the greatest challenge to our success in the face of Islamic resurgence. To all of our valueless libs, can you say "Dhimmi" dummy?

"Core Values Training": Reqired of wrong group

While our troops in Iraq get blown up, shot up and decapitated by the vilest amoral bunch of dogs to roam the earth, we are requiring them all to go through "core values training", which is the military equivalent of anger management training in civilian life. We want them to be sensitive to the culture of those they are fighting.

What is that culture again? The culture that values decapitating those who show cartoons of Muhammad, the leader of the "religion of peace" (gag). The culture that removes freedom of speech and other rights from anyone who practices a different faith from their own. The culture that becomes absolutely psychotic if they are offended in any way. We want to make our troops sensitive to these behaviors? Wow!

Expectations of our society don't seem to match the realities of this war and our enemy.

I deplore killing babies (if, in fact, our soldiers did that), unlike the values of the enemy they are fighting. I deplore the senseless killing of "innocents" (if, in fact, our soldiers did that), unlike the values of the enemy they are fighting.

Core values training. I think our President and Congress could use some "core values training" to remind them of the core values of our own culture. How about our core value of not killing our own babies through the unmitigated practice of abortion? How about our core value of enforcing our own laws and not letting them be ignored for the sake of cheap labor and enhanced corporate profits? How about our core value of respecting our culture and our own heritage and not letting who we are get diluted by rampant, cultural diversity that places a higher value on illegal aliens than on our own citizens?

I think "Core Values Training" for our leaders in Washington should be a much higher priority than Core Values Training for our troops in Iraq.