Values

Values.

Christian values. American values. Family values. These are all emotionally evocative phrases, employed pretty much interchangeably by those who use such terms without irony or sarcasm. 

Because to those who champion such 'values', the words 'Christian', 'American', and 'family' are also pretty much interchangeable. Christian means American, American means Christian, and family means both. 

Yet what sort of values are such people talking about? What, exactly, are 'Christian/American/family values'?

I don't know. Apparently, these values are entirely subjective, and largely defined in the negative. We may not be sure what these values are, but we certainly know what they are not -- they are not homosexual, they are not Muslim, they are not feminist, they are not about immigrants or non-English speakers or weirdos or hippies. 

They are not even remotely tolerant. 

They are about 'decency'. They are about 'patriotism'. They are about puppies and kittens and NASCAR races and proud soldiers carrying our flag across bullet torn, bombed out battlefields and church on Sunday morning and prayer in schools. 

And they are about internment camps in World War II and Guantanamo Bay, and firebombed Planned Parenthood clinics, and Abu Ghraib, and 'rendition', and fagbashing, and slut shaming, and hate. Always, always, always the hate. The liberals want to take our guns. We hate them. The one world United Nations government wants to steal all our water and ruin our golf courses. We hate them. The Kenyan Muslim Socialist pretender Nobama with his invisible black helicopters wants to force everybody to have health insurance and buy votes with his free Nobama phones. And we hate him. 

And that hatred, of course, is born of fear -- fear that our sons will be gay, our daughters will be sluts, people in turbans will blow up our houses, people who don't speak our language will move in and play loud Mexican music at all hours of the day and night, foreigners in black helicopters will force us to ration our water so that some dumb fucking raghead somewhere can have a drink without getting malaria. 

And most of all, what we hate and fear most, is the thought that people who don't look like us will be treated with the same respect that we feel we are entitled to. That we will no longer be deferred to, that we will no longer be a privileged class here in our own nation, that our ancestors built with their own hands, with their own toil, and blood, and sweat, and tears. That ours will no longer be the only voice that anyone hears, that our ideas and our values and our choices and our lifestyles will no longer be the only ones allowed here, in Christian family America. 

Because America is a nation that was built by white Christian heterosexuals -- and the bodies and blood of enslaved blacks and Asians and Hispanics, and murdered and displaced Native Americans, are the bricks and mortar that nation was built on. 

Christian/American/family values are, essentially, hate and fear. And the murderous violence those things seem to inevitably lead to, when indulged.