It's not the answer, it's the question


Sitting at the exit to our polling place yesterday was a bored looking young man at a card table, who was conducting an exit poll for the major networks. (The logos for ABC, AP, CBS, CNN, Fox, and NBC appear on the questionnaire). I always thought that the exit pollers picked people to question at random as they exited from the polls, but no, that's not how they work. Anyone leaving is free to fill out a questionnaire You deposit them in a box and then they pick some at random every hour and phone in results. So, many are called but few are chosen.

Naturally, I filled one out, since I'm always eager to express my opinion, even if, as usual, no one is listening. So I started checking boxes (this poll was for Americans after all, only multiple choice would do). I checked and checked until I got to this question:




Here, my friends, one question encapsulates all that is wrong with American discourse today. You see, I care deeply about values issues such as abortion and same sex marriage, and also about torture, free speech, constitutional liberties, etc. Only I happen to think that women should be able to make the abortion choice for themselves, that everyone should be accorded basic human rights, and that constitutional protections are worth keeping even in times of stress. These values are important to me. In fact, they are determinative when I vote. It also just so happens that most of my values are enshrined in the Constitution or are conditions precedent for a nation conceived in liberty, etc. The bedrock principle of a democratic republic is mutual respect for our fellow humans.

It should be a no-brainer, shouldn't it? I should check box 1.

But you know, and I know, that I can't check box 1. Because even though I feel strongly about these values, and even though the question is phrased in an objectively neutral fashion, recent history tells us that, so far as the media is concerned ,"values" are the exclusive domain of the right. When these results are reported, the box 1 checkers will be presumed to be the abortion opposing, gay hating, apologists for torture. In this country these are the people who have "values". Why? Because they say they do, and the media falls in line.

No, people of my ilk are expected to check box 4. We are all so conditioned to this abuse of our language that I, like all good progressives, was instinctively drawn to box 4 in order to express my opposition to people with Bush approved and media validated "values". But if I were to do that, I am proclaiming myself to be a person who doesn't care about "values", and why should I fall into that trap?

So I stopped myself, and skipped the question.
Posted: Wednesday - November 08, 2006 at 09:51 PM          

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