It's interesting - no, PATHETIC - how "values" actually means "Our values" but not "values" as it's described in the dictionary (a secular book, I know, but bear with me). Go to any conservative church this Sunday (g'head, I dare ya') and as ten-to-one I bet you'll hear prayers for our troops but no prayers discussing the fate of the
innocent casualties in
Fallujah:
US and Iraqi forces seized control of the city's main hospital, across the Euphrates river from Falluja proper, hours before the onslaught began.
Overnight US bombardments hit a clinic inside the Sunni Muslim city, killing doctors, nurses and patients, residents said. US military authorities denied the reports.
Interim Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said troops detained 38 fighters entrenched at Falluja hospital and accused doctors there of exaggerating civilian casualties.
Sami al-Jumaili, a doctor at Falluja hospital, said the city was running out of medical supplies.
"There is not a single surgeon in Falluja. We had one ambulance hit by US fire and a doctor wounded. There are scores of injured civilians in their homes who we can't move," he said by telephone from a house where he had gone to help the wounded.
"A 13-year-old child just died in my hands."
While Dems are scrambling around trying to figure out what exactly "values" mean, I'm wondering why they're not asking Republicans and Evangelicals what "values" means to them.
The philosphical underpinnings of "values" on the Religious Right is founded on Absolutism, "values" are unequivocal and universal. As such, one-hundred thousand Iraqi lives taken in the service of saving one American life is untenable. Yet, you won't hear this in any conservative American churches.
Indeed, the philosophical problem with Absolutism is that it's an all-or-nothing proposition and most conservatives aren't intellectually prepared to make that commitment. If Iraqi lives are somehow valued less than American lives, Absolutism becomes Relativism (and we know how much conservatives HATE relativism). If you're going to pray for American lives but forgo praying for Iraqi lives, then obviously some lives are less valued than others. As such, you're suddenly acknowledging that abortion must be peachy with God because some circumstances justify taking an innocent human life.
If you're going to discuss "values" you'd better be prepared to have all your philosophical ducks in a row and the Religious Right - our own homegrown Taliban - doesn't have the intellectual wherewithall to keep it together.
It's easy enough to call out the inconsistency of supposed Absolutists for their pick-and-choose "values". Why the Dems haven't had the smarts or the balls to do that is truly one of the most vexing issues of this or any campaign.