College of Political Knowledge

Subject:  Politics/Government/Society

Lecture #7

I recently wrote a thing on what are “traditional values”, at least to the American people….I found that not many people thought of the concepts that I had, which were Liberty, Freedom and Equality….I got lots of anti-abortion or anti-gay or immigration, both sides of the spectrum….all, in my opinion, are emotional issues and not what I would categorize as a “traditional value”….with this done I got to thinking about what use to be called “Core Values”….those values that people think are the essence of the American democracy…..I spent a couple of weeks talking with college students at a local Jr. college…the ones taking American Gov 101…..their answer were a bit surprising, at least in my mind……I did NOT ask what political leanings they had…I wanted to get a honest non-partisan answer……what I found in my survey….

The students say these are the core values…..as they see them…..

Democracy…but they were not sure why….

Patriotism….loyalty to the country and the flag…but few said they would join the military right now…or even mentioned American exceptionalism

Freedom….they say we have freedom of speech, movement, and that of achievement……

Charity…..to help those who need help

There were some others but they were not important….these were the most common answers…..but what I found missing were the exclusion of religion and equality….only 1 out of 25 said equality and no one mentioned religion, at all……

If something is to be a ‘core belief’ then it has to be a standardized list…these would be the issues that the country stands for and fights for when a fight is necessary.  If you belief that society is organic, by that I mean ever changing, does that mean that values and so-called ‘rights’ are ever changing?  Or is it necessary for the ‘core values’ to remain the same so that the country has a foot in reality?