What exactly are American values?

Philosophy Forums Society, Government, and Economics
1

In a poll done recently, 4 out of 10 conservatives/Republicans,
are willing to engage in violence to “preserve” the traditional
American way of life… but I will be willing to bet that when
asked to name those “traditional” values, conservatives
and Republicans couldn’t actually name any "traditional’’ values
so that is part one, conservatives, name the “traditional” values
that you follow?

that conservatives would fight for values they can’t even
name, I find astonishing…and what values would you fight for?
Oftentimes, I feel like Diogenes, searching for an honest conservative…

that the average conservative would resort to violence
to protect values that they can’t even name, doesn’t surprise me…for them
the answer to just about everything is violence… their answer to
gun violence is to have more guns, their answer to rising crime,
more guns or greater/longer prison sentences, their “answers”
to what ails society will increase violence, not decrease it,

One of their stock answers to violence is to say, we need god in
schools… but their method of bringing god into schools is by
the way of violence, forcing everyone to hold the conservative
beliefs in a set, certain, Christian god… to force everyone to hold
certain values and beliefs is doing violence to the beliefs of people…
to make prayer mandatory is to inflict violence on people’s beliefs…
pray to our god and to no other is committing violence to other people’s
beliefs…

but that doesn’t really answer the question, of what values
or beliefs are “traditional” American values and beliefs?

let us begin there…

Kropotkin

2

while conservatives try to think up what actually is
“conservative” values, I will offer up what I consider
to be “liberal” values…

one point to note is that depending on where one starts,
it changes what values are considered to be “liberal” values…

Liberal values: we generally support individual rights, (including
civil right and human rights) liberal democracy, secularism, rule of
law, economic and political freedom, freedom of speech, freedom
of press, freedom of religion… for me, I hold to the value of
justice, which is just another word for equality…

“that all men/people are created equal”

is a factual statement for me, but to hold to this equality,
we must also treat people equally before the law, in our
private and public transactions, but within a framework
of this… if two people are within the same class, say middle
class, we treat them equally… if we must step in to help someone
to be treated equally, that is what we do…so for example,
we have a child who has a disability, we don’t treat that child
as equal with a child who doesn’t have a disability… they aren’t
equal in their ability to learn, but we can by actions taken,
raise the child who is disable to be equal to the child who isn’t…
by helping the disabled child with extra services, with tutors,
with more personalized actions to help the disabled child become
equal to the abled child…having a handicap, places a child
at a disadvantage to the able child, and to make them equal,
we must help the disabled child with services that makes
them equal…

we cannot afford to have all children taught the exact same way,
one size doesn’t fit all… we must accommodate the needs of children
to allow them to learn equally… for that is the point, to learn
equally…to give every child an equal chance to learn…

so we can use the value of justice as a starting point to
ensure that we engage with others equally…

Kropotkin

3

How we think of the world, what values we hold, comes
from our point of view, our reference place…
if we hold man to be inherently evil, then that
is our starting point, and all values flow from
that starting point… as this is a conservative
starting point, I shall leave it to them to defend
this proposition…

if we hold that by the choices we make, we can be either
good or evil, that is the liberal position…
we can choose… and by that choice, we are either
good or evil…and for most, we can be good or evil,
weekly, monthly, hourly or even by the minute…
I can choose to be good or evil, with every choice
made every minute…

and Kropotkin, how do we know what is good or evil?

and that is the question, isn’t it…

we can hold to situational ethics in which the situation dictates
the ethics… and this seems to work for both liberals and conservatives…
for the conservative, the belief in “pro-life” is clearly situational
ethics… the situation dictates if one is ‘‘pro-life’’ or not
for now, the conservative holds that to be pro-life is to
be pro-fetus, but once a child is born, that belief no longer
holds true…so what values are being brought to light here?
that life only as value until one is born, and then that life
has no value? for to accept the idea of capital punishment is
to accept the idea of situational ethics… if one is against
abortion for “pro-life” reasons… but how does one hold to
being “pro-life” while advocating for capital punishment?

so what values are you actually advocating for?

Kropotkin