TomPaine.com - The Democrats' V-Word

Liberals talk about "values" but the public won't buy it because in American "values" doesn't mean moral convictions--it means constraint, promoted through coercion and backed by punitive policies.

My university advertises itself as "values driven." What this means to parents is that we will supervise their children, see to it that they do their work and prevent them from engaging in risky adolescent behavior. We do no such thing, but parents still believe that sending them to a Catholic college will keep them in line, and that is what they mean by "values."

No matter how enthusiastically Democrats wrap themselves in God and the flag and profess their deep moral convictions about promoting economic equity and supplying health care, "values driven" Americans are not going to be impressed because that is not what they mean by "values." What they mean are boot camps to keep people marching single file down the strait and narrow path together with regulations to suppress overt sexuality, off-color language, wildness and unconventional behavior, and enforcement mechanisms to see to it that everyone gets his just deserts.

Americans don't like liberalism because it is--liberal.