Once again the people of America are exposed to a U.S. Representative from Louisiana who campaigned on family values and was caught on camera in a situation deemed not to represent those values. The act that was caught on camera does not in itself convey the real problem or issue. The real story here is that conservatives have used family values in their campaigns in order to appeal to a certain base like they do with other issues such as religion, abortion and sexual orientation.
Those issues are used in a way to make their opponets seem morally corrupt. There are so many politicians who have had to eat crow on the family values issue. One should think a lesson would have been learned by now. Conservatives really started to use the family value story after Reagan was elected President. They found themselves unable to compete as a party and therefore came up with a phony way to divide and conquer. Television evangelist use the same tactics and reel in millions of dollars in contributions from their T.V. base.
It never seems to fail when a politician preaches family values or character, he himself ends up being the person with out character of family values. The response from some elected officials in Louisiana concerning this latest fall from grace was that the errant representative should resign. Some compared his actions to a U.S. Senator and said the republican party let that sin ride and did not seek his resignation.
This repeated story is a prime example of our political systems failure to attract serious public servants who are not afraid of campaigning on the issues facing the country and its people. You either have family values or you lack them. Those who do need not talk about it. Those who don't and say they do are as phony as the Fox News Network who say they are fair and balanced.
This commentary written by John Lucia
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