I thought of myself as a values voter before this became an over-discussed topic after the 2004 election. In other words, I sometimes voted based upon my values, even if this conflicted with my economic interests. While this is the often said of recent Republican voters, my situation was the reverse of theirs. By values I did not mean the same thing as those who attributed moral values to conservative Republicans. The values I was concerned with are those values upon which this nation was founded: individual liberty, a Constitutional republic limited by the Bill of Rights and kept in check with separation of powers, religious freedom (including separation of church and state which is necessary to guarantee this), and free enterprise as opposed to corporate welfare and use of government to transfer wealth to the ultra-wealthy.
Recent years have created new challenges for those who hold liberal values. Conservatives demonized the word liberal to often mean big government, and even some liberals forgot the roots of liberalism in liberty. Organizations which have fought for our civil liberties, such as the ACLU, were placed under attack. The religious right has attempted to impose their views on the nation, trying to restrict a woman’s rights to control her own body, limiting stem cell research, and restricting education when scientific knowledge contradicted their fundamentalist views. Following the attacks of 9/11, and the decision of the Bush Administration to play politics rather than act to ensure our nation’s safety, liberals became the advocates of a strong and sensible foreign policy rather than one which weakens our standing in the world and undermines our national security.
In recent years I have fought these battles in the blogosphere at the Unofficial Kerry Blog, Light Up the Darkness, the Democratic Daily Blog, and DemBloggers (where many of my posts will continue to be cross posted). In developing this blog I intentionally stressed values rather than the name of a political party. While we are at an unusual moment when one political party has been taken over by extremists of the far right, I recognize that members of one political party do not necessarily have all the answers. It is my hope that this site appeals not only to Democrats, but to socially liberal Republicans who are unhappy with the direction their party is going, as well as to libertarians. As was the case at The Democratic Daily, I also plan to continue to blog about totally non-political topics from time to time.
Welcome to the Liberal Values Blog.
Great blog! Can’t wait to see more 🙂
Lamont Defeats Lieberman in CT Primary, its a beginning. The voice of the majority is loud and clear thank the Lord.
kangaroo,
You were a little too early–I was working on a post about Lamont beating Lieberman as you posted your comment.
Sorry about that Ron, but that is good news for this Kangaroo Down Under. Waited for it for a long time even if I cant vote.
No problem.
I’m just trying to figure out why the spam filter keeps picking up your comments. I guess there’s still a lot of bugs to fix around here.
Ron,
Good-looking blog! I am looking forward to your continued writing and insight into today’s political challenges.
Thanks for all of the great work that you do!
Bob
Good start Ron. Good luck on the new blog!
Hi Ron,
Great blog, and I look forward to reading it in the future. I’ve always enjoyed your POV, which doesn’t always toe the party line — I related to a lot of what you posted. Your new blog is bookmarked!!
Hi Ron.
I like your blog. You have a lot of homes these days but the logic never changes.
It is great the Lamont won. it will be interesting to hear what other Dems have to say. It seems to me that Joe’s money train from the Dem party is gone.
I hope this is a lesson for other elected Dems.
Ron,
I got these massages when I posted my last entry..
[Now that this is fixed I edited out all the garbage which interferes with the flow of the thread. Thanks for the info.]
battlebob,
Thanks. I deactivated the plugin which appears to be causing this until I can figure out the problem.
Looks like that problem is solved for now.
Next hopefully I can figure out why some of the above comments went into moderation and some went thru immediately.
I hope people are also appreciating some of the plugins and widgets I’m adding (and I’m sure there will be a lot more modifications of the blog).
Perhaps the most useful is the ability to subscribe to get email notification if someone responds to a post you are following. You can also translate the blog into several different languages. I’m hoping to add a spelling checker but so far the ones I found have problems with WordPress version 2+.
Ron! Love your new home. 🙂
Glad to see you are up and running. I look forward to many lively discussions in the coming months.
Good luck Ron! Sounds like an interesting site.
I’m THRILLED Lamont won! I think it will give all the Dem’s the shot in the rear that they needed to stiffen their spines for once.
Most of them have not only been rolling over for Bush on a regular basis but have been handing him the Vaseline!!
Imagine FOX NEWS saying that the Democratic party has been hijacked by the fringe left!!!!! ROTFLMAO
Even Lieberman’s speech last night was an insult, totally condescending.
It’s a new and hopeful day as far as I’m concerned, I wish I was a fly on the wall of the NINE Martini lunches of the Dem’s leadership today!
As for Kerry – if I ran into him biking on the Esplanade along the Charles River in Boston I’d have all I could do to not push him in!!
I have grown angrier and angrier at him for not fighting the SECOND stolen election, just look at the mess the world is in now.
Looking forward to this next battle season!
Marcus,
I don’t know what more Kerry could have done under the circumstances. He had a very narrow window between the election and the counting of the electoral votes to prove fraud in a Repubican-dominated court system.
This far after the election and there is still not evidence that would stand up in court that the election was actally stolen. If the evidence couldn’t be established after this long, there certainly was no way Kerry could have proven it in the limited time he had.
We need voter registration by civil servants and maintained by civil servants.
We need vote by mail with paper ballots counted by civil servants, observed by both parties and election judges.
Ron
Congratulations! Your new blog is wonderful – a great addition to the liberal blogosphere and the circle of Kerry supporting bloggers!
Yay!
Sorry I’m late to the blog-warming party 🙁
Looks like you’re off to a great start Ron, as would be expected.