Kerry / Edwards big on values -- I'll give them values

[hansolsen]

Here is a list of what might be called "Sectarian" values that I believe could form the basis for a long term Democratic party platform that retains a separation of church and state. See if you don't agree.

It is a short read of twenty four bullet points, and if it sounds boring, try numbers (4 and 5) and (20 and 21). And see if Teresa wouldn't like number 24.

Thanks, Hans

STATEMENT OF HUMAN VALUES
GUIDING PRINCIPLES IN FORMING A JUST SOCIETY

1. Every child born into this world enters life with equal human rights and these include "the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Some believe these rights come from our Creator. Others believe these rights have been earned by the sweat of the brows of our ancestors and passed on to each of us. Either way these rights stand. Either way these rights must be defended.

2. Liberty in particular must be defended because freedom is never given; freedom must be taken, and once taken, must be guarded. Free people everywhere deeply understand, "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance."

3. Every child also enters life with the right to love and attention from their mother and from their father. Providing this love and attention is the highest duty and the greatest joy of every parent on Earth.

4. There are no inherent adult rights to the material things in this life. It is common sense that food, shelter, education, health care, security, and comfort must all be earned through work in an organized society. This world is not a Garden of Eden.

5. Anyone who works in an organized economy in a just society, earns the right to a fair measure of food, shelter, education, health care, security, and comfort. These material benefits accrue to adult citizens through their work in proportion to their contribution. Measuring that contribution is a mighty challenge in human affairs . Determining that fair measure is a great matter involving both economics and politics. Battle lines get drawn here.

6. Once earned, these material benefits must be fully and equitably shared with every child, and with every childlike person in need. The just society will take its own best measure by how well this obligation is met. We will know ourselves in the bright shining eyes of all the little children.

7. There is dignity in all work and there is enough work for everyone. There is no such thing on this earth as a shortage of work. There is, however, considerable difficulty in organizing work. Great are the organizers.

8. In a free nation, it is a role of the economy to help organize work. A just society can freely choose how to establish and manage its own economy. Fairness and equity are high goals of a great economy. Prosperity is also a high goal, but it is not the ultimate, overarching goal of a great society.

9. The carrying, birth, and raising of small children is certainly work of the highest order, and needs to be recognized as such.

10. And sadly, the right to love and attention expires with the attainment of adulthood. Adult love and attention must be earned. Love and attention can be captured by charm, beauty, and wealth, but are quickly lost when charm, beauty and wealth fade away. Love and attention are best earned by the development of character. Character can best be attained by education, work, sacrifice, suffering, adventure, and art. Raising children, of course, involves education, work, sacrifice, suffering, adventure and art.

11. Good and evil exist in this world.
Each person struggles to know good and evil in themselves, and may claim that struggle as their own. They may choose to share that personal struggle with their priest, but almost never with their governor. Free people do not welcome politicians peering into their souls.


12. Society, on the other hand, knows good and evil in the public acts of every citizen by their effect. Good is marked by profound respect for human rights. Evil is marked by calculated and callous disrespect for human rights. Public policy is to be guided by this distinction.


13. Life is a great circle, and every human action and reaction travels around that circle. Every chapter of recorded human history gives stark testimony to the fact that:
> Acts of goodness are returned many fold, over time, accruing to us, our children, and our grandchildren into infinity.
> Acts of evil are returned many fold, over time, accruing to us, our children, and our grandchildren into infinity.

14. Knowing this, people in a just society treat others the way they want to be treated, and expect the same in return. This is the golden rule. There is no higher rule on this earth. There is no higher rule in this life. Any law which contradicts this rule is an unjust law.

15. All peoples of the world, living in nation states large and small, have the right to govern themselves, in the way they freely choose. Free choice in government requires freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, and respect for law.

16. For America to secure its own freedom, it must defend freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, and respect for law, throughout the world. The march of human history has conspired to make this our great responsibility and high duty.
> This nation must not shirk that role. History will judge each and every generation of Americans by this measure.
> As a matter of simple practicality defending freedom of the press throughout the world may offer the best chance of securing these goals.

17. Liberty, of course, does not exist without freedom of religion. Yet freedom of religion is always tenuous and is so even here in America.
> Freedom of religion requires that every citizen of the world must be free to choose or reject any religion, and must be free to seek his or her own connection with human spirituality.
> Human spirituality predates and underlies organized religion, and is an unalloyed good that must be allowed to flourish and coexist with religion.
> The history of the human race abundantly records that when organized religion resides in a person's heart, in their home and in their place of worship, good comes of it. When religion is dragged into politics and governance, evil comes of it.

18. Freedom, we know, cannot long endure without respect for law, and respect for law cannot long endure without respect for authority in public affairs. To our great regret authority has fallen into disrepute and needs to be replenished.
In order to ensure respect for authority and the rule of law, this nation must stop making laws that cannot be enforced, and must enforce the laws that are made. There is no higher national priority.


19. The present legal system creaks and groans under the weight of unreasonable expectations. The search for perfect justice has landed us in a great bramble patch. America must turn back and resume the search for simple justice.
> Simple justice requires that there be some "lines in the sand". The cultural wars of the recent past have obliterated many lines that had been poorly drawn. It is now time to set down new lines. Freedom and liberty do not mean the elimination of all lines between right and wrong.
> Any legal system that comes to be seen as a giant lottery cannot long command respect of the citizenry. Immense monetary fines may well be justly attached to great perpetrators, but must never be awarded to individuals and their solicitors. The spoils of great litigation belong to all citizens collectively.
> A nation that values freedom and liberty cannot imprison millions of its own citizens and still call itself the greatest nation on earth. Every day that this is allowed to continue we admit failure as a free nation.
> Free nations around the world have abandoned the use of the death penalty knowing that life is a great circle.

20. Liberty requires that citizens have a right to privacy in their personal lives, but liberty does not entitle any citizen to anonymity in public. Anonymity is not a human right any more than is invisibility. Anonymity is a recent invention of the large city state, and is at best a minor convenience, not a right. The world is still a small village where people in a just society retain a right to collectively know each other in our public interactions.

21. The practice of abortion is a public act which involves a man, a woman, a doctor, an unborn child, and a life altering choice. Knowing this, a just society will accept a woman's right to choose, but will insist that choice be made known as it has always been known in every small village on this earth. Women have a right to chose, but the unborn child has the right that choice be made known.

22. In times of great national danger, when war looms on the horizon, liberty also demands that the American people have the right to be wrong, even when "Old Guard Patriots" know the people are wrong. The people must be free to learn from their own mistakes. Surely this Republic is strong enough to survive the mistakes of the people.

23. The greatest threat to freedom is rarely the threat of external enemies, but rather the corruption of power, the corruption of old men in high places. Lord Acton said, "Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely." Only fools believe American leaders are so pure of heart they can never succumb to this great reality. Knowing this, American patriots will stand guard:
> Patriots will guard the right to bear arms with their last breath.
> Patriots will guard the constitution against midnight amendments done in the dark of the night without benefit of due process. They will not let this nation go to war without a Declaration of War by Congress. They will demand that reporters return to the front lines.
> Patriots will guard against the slow curtailment of civil liberties in the name of national security. Patriots know that our freedom lies in spreading liberty throughout the world, not in turning America into one grand, gated community.
Patriots will see our absolute military dominance of the world for what it is, both a blessing and a curse. They will buy more lamp oil and take their turn at the watch.

24. American patriots will also stand guard over the environment. The "soul of America" isn't "in a church," as some leaders would have us believe. The soul of America is in the mountains and the prairies, and the lakes and the streams. America's soul is an outdoor soul. And we will weep bitter tears if it turns out that we melt the polar ice caps while America is burning 25% of all the fossil fuels on earth, or our actions create other irreparable harm. Some American patriots come dressed in a uniform or wrapped in a flag, other American Patriots wear hiking boots, wind pants, and fleece. They know how to use a map and compass, and they enjoy wind and rain and cold. America's magic lies not only in the lights of that "city on a hill", but also shines in the light of myriad campfires in the dark.

Hans Olsen