Values Diversions

More values diversions from the Rapid City Journal today in "Candidates talk values in District 33 races."

Democrat candidate Paula Long Fox says "Improving public education would be a top legislative priority for her." As I said in a previous post, in political circles "improving public education" is a euphemism for throwing more money at an educational bureaucracy with no accountability for results.

She also said "the 2006 Legislature spent too much time passing a controversial abortion ban."

Of Jeff Nelson, the article said he too was interested in throwing money at a bloated, inefficient educational bureaucracy, but also forcing wage increases on private businesses.

Everyone except liberals understand that "values" are transcendent moral principles, not a socialist wish-list.

Attempts to claim that a bunch of spending measures--most of which are unconstitutional on a national scale and ill-advised on a state level--are "values" are simply a diversion from the erosion of our moral fabric as a society. If you lose your moral base, everything else will crumble. And the moral foundation is what liberals not only care least about, but in many cases are working tirelessly to destroy.

As George Washington said in his farewell address:

Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked: Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice ? And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.