Seems everyone's trying to perfect the list. It's a great and critical discussion. As of now, over 850 comments on three mainpage threads and counting. Probably many diaries to come. Since I didn't want to just post a list without making an argument for some words over others, and I had a hard time making it shorter, I figured I'd go ahead and make a diary.
Responsibility, Privacy, Opportunity and Smart National Security
I started with all the suggestions people made in the 3 threads.
Major alternatives others suggested for:
Responsibility - accountability, community, good government, integrity, honesty, reform, conservation and sustainability.
Privacy - freedom, choice and liberty.
Opportunity - equality, justice, fairness, progress, civil rights and future.
Smart National Security - security, safer world, protection, leadership
Why does one value word encapsulate in a way another does not? What are the cultural connections? What are the traps?
My list and rationale in the extended.
Here's my list:
Responsibility
Fiscal Responsibility
Accountability
Anti-corruption
Transparency/Open Process
Election/Electoral Reform
Upholding whistleblower protections
Lobbying reform
Tort laws, strong SEC, etc. to protect corporate abuse
Environmental protection
Social Security protection
Protecting cultural heritage
Independent investigative press
Responsible gun ownership
Predatory lending protection
Taking care of our teachers, police and first responders
Taking care of our soldiers, veterans, and military families
Privacy
Choice rights
Contraception access
Freedom of/from religion
Freedom to marry
Opposition to regulation of morality
Opposition to Patriot Act
Right to die
Right to gun ownership
Consumer privacy
Medical marijuana
Opportunity
Access to health care
Educational opportunity
Equal opportunity in employment, housing.
Equal pay for equal work
Affirmative action
Worker rights/occupational safety
Access to the courts
Entrepreneurialism/small business support
Scientific innovation
Immigration (Land of opportunity)
Fair trade laws
Living wage
Non-regressive tax laws
Smart National Security
Strong, non-hollow military
Adaptable, technologically savvy military
Strategic Energy Independence
Nuclear non-proliferation
Champion of human rights at home and abroad
Smart, coordinated intelligence community
Protection of ports, chemical and nuclear facilities
Wise homeland security spending (not pork for AK and WY)
Leadership in science and technology programs
Leadership on global issues (terrorism, global warming, landmines, etc.)
Thoughtful, constructive ally relationships (strong U.N.)
I am sure a few things can be added and even moved, but it feels pretty balanced. Allow me to explain why I chose these values over others.
Why Responsibility?
First, it has an immediate gut connection. It has deep community and religious meaning. Ask not what your country can do for you, said Kennedy. I am my brother's keeper, noted Obama. Those resonate.
Responsibility is about relationships and duty. Individual responsibility to neighbors and to children and grandchildren. Individual responsibility to community, taking care of those who take care of us - first responders, teachers, police, soldiers, veterans. Responsibility means not acting selfishly and greedily at the expense of others. Contribution back. The Democratic core value says individuals should make progress, and leave the world a better place than when you found it. Responsibility says: I am part of a larger whole.
But responsibility goes the other way. Government has responsibilities to the citizenry: fiscal responsibility, open process, ethical behavior, and regulation of markets where corruption has traditionally proven easy. Corporations have responsibilities not to exploit workers, consumers, or the environment. The press has responsibility to investigate the truth. Nations have responsibilities to each other, and to safeguarding the global environment.
Second, as to why this word and not the other similar ones. Within the group, I thought "Accountability" covers the government and corporate functions well, covers reform, but doesn't get at the deeper why the way responsibility does, nor does it encompass the community aspects as well. Likewise, "Community" doesn't get at reform and gov't accountability as well as does responsibility. "Integrity" is a loaded gun because all you need is allegations (you always have to remember we have enemies) and integrity is going to backfire. "Conservation" is part of responsible behavior; but accountability and reform don't fall as easily under conservation.
Third, the word offers tremendous policy contrast opportunities. What's the opposite? Irresponsibility. Recklessness. Corruption. Arrogant risk-taking. There are all sorts of ways to pose the Democratic value of responsibility in opposition to Republican behavior. DeLay's corruption, Bush and Reagan deficit spending, Bush lies about war, profiteering, corporate exploitation, environmental destruction, Social Security privatization. Even extremism in the form of renegade judges and rampaging Boltons is irresponsible.
Why Privacy?
First, when you hear privacy, you know what it means: "Don't tell me what to do!" Everybody relates. Americans understand individual rights. It's a wonderful flip side to the social contract of responsibility: I'll do my part but in return, government agrees to regulate itself honestly, watch my back and not tell me what to do with my own body and in my own home. Subtly, the word also conveys a rebuke to theocrats - keep your religious chauvinism and "moral values" out of our faces, schools and government.
Second, why privacy instead of freedom? It's the accessibility, IMO. Freedom feels vague. It feels like something you would then need further words to talk about and distinguish from the way Republicans use the word, whereas privacy needs nothing else to explain it. When I think of freedom, even as a Democrat, my first instinct is to think freedom of movement - am I incarcerated? Then free society. Freedom of expression (first amendment). These sort of things. Freedom feels a little too easy to me - like ice cream. I wish I could express this unease with freedom a little better than I am doing right now.
I read somewhere a comment that privacy implies you're hiding things. I disagree - it all depends on the stories you're connecting to the value word, of course, but I see the story as we Democrats trust you to make up your own minds about your religion, sexuality, body control choices and personal morality. We don't think Washington should be deciding what you can and can't do or poking around into the affairs of honest people.
Third, the opposite is immediately accessible. The opposite of privacy is intrusion. Intrusion by government, intrusion by moralists. Privacy is extremely well understood by libertarians in the Republican party, the people who are really turned off by the Republican Taliban element that dominates the party. Unlike freedom, privacy is both a core value and can exploit the wedge in Republican politics very nicely. Someone in a comment worried that privacy sounds like you're hiding something. But any American who distrusted privacy on that basis would still not want the government intruding on him or her. That's the story. And with the Republican Taliban not going anywhere any time soon, that story can be told for a loooooong time.
Why Opportunity?
First, opportunity connects with a big American cultural ideal - the American Dream. It brought millions and millions of people here in search of individual destiny. America aspires to be a meritocracy, and our great cultural tragedies occur when people don't succeed because the opportunities just aren't there. Where people are denied their rightful shot at the good life because of structural hindrances and discrimination. The reason we love equality is not just because it's morally right, but also because it means greater opportunity leads to a stronger nation, a more innovative nation, a more economically powerful nation.
Second, I think opportunity is more flexible than equality, clearly including equality while covering more issues in a more clear and direct fashion. For example, equality doesn't cover immigration, education or entrepreneurialism as smoothly. Like "fairness," it also doesn't at all touch innovation, whereas opportunity does. And innovation is key in things like stem cell research, biotechnology, alternative energy development, etc. Considering Kos' tailoring-to-local audiences point, it is better to have a bigger umbrella word. There aren't a whole lot of black people in Maine, for example, so opportunity issues
Third, not only does it cover more topics more smoothly, opportunity also avoids an unfortunate pitfall that Republicans are masters at slanderously exploiting. Some people who should be voting Democrat but wind up voting Republican have been marketed the idea that when Democrats say equality and justice, what they really mean is bitching on behalf of special interest groups and minorities. When they hear equality they think, gay marriage. The point is that when some people hear "equality," they have been exploitatively convinced by Republicans that Democrats don't care about their interests because they're white. They mean gays, blacks, women, "special interest groups." They hear equality and think, ah, Democrats want government to be running around trying to fix everything and it plays into the Republicans' completely hypocritical "small government" branding. Howard Dean wants to win the guy driving a pickup truck with a Confederate flag on it, then he'll be saying "opportunity" not "equality."
Anticipating resistance, please, I beg you, don't hear me wrong. If I had to peg one reason I'm a Democrat and not a Republican, it starts with civil rights and equality. I'm not advocating abandoning the principles of equality and civil rights by choosing one value word over another. At all. I just think opportunity covers more, does it more smoothly, and avoids certain pitfalls.
Why Smart National Security?
And why not just Security? Although word economy is important, security still sounds a little brawn-only and defensive-oriented. It also becomes the Johnny-come-lately of battling terms with the Republicans' "national defense." Security sounds like you got some guys stationed at a post, waiting for an attack. In an age where it's going to take assertive, coordinated intelligence work to thwart the people seeking to do us harm (and I have few illusions that terrorism is going anywhere over the next several decades), security means winning the race for information and quickly and correctly interpreting it, free from political manipulation. That takes smarts. In an era of nuclear proliferation, there's no room for error.
Importantly, smart national security implies more than just a strong, adaptable military. It also requires forward-thinking strategy on the central challenge of the next 30-50 years - transitioning to energy independence. It has been written much more eloquently elsewhere, but energy independence IS a national security issue, an environmental issue, a science issue and a domestic economic issue (training an American generation of engineers and scientists and entrepreneurs to reestablish America as the leader in scientific innovation). Since Bush is abdicating leadership on this even as some neocons clamor for it, Democrats MUST get out in front of this. Simply put, you can toss all the value branding out - if Dems don't make this issue theirs, they'll fail at reestablishing themselves as the top national party.
I think it works better than American Leadership, as Kos recently suggests. I like Leadership, but if you use it then you haven't said anything about security. I think Kos was right with his initial instinct that some mention of security needs to be in here. Without it, Republicans can make the accusation that none of the values say anything about safety. Someone mentioned Maslow in one of the threads and safety ranks higher than the need for leadership. Smart National Security implies wise leadership. Leadership without saying security worries me.
I picked it over "safer world," for example, because safer world sounds like a trap to me. There are a lot of moving parts beyond the Democratic Party, and if you declare yourself the Safer World party, you open yourself up to take blame that isn't rightfully yours when things happen that are beyond your control. Smart National Security implicitly accepts that security challenges will arise from time to time, and the most important thing is anticipating such events with smart planning and responding to such events with wisdom and foresight.
Anyway, this is a great topic of discussion - let's keep it going.