Quiz

Time for a citizenship quiz. Turn your order of service to the back and look at the bottom. I will now read an excerpt from each of the Republican, Democratic, New Party, Libertarian, Reform, Green, Democratic Socialist, Grassroots and Natural Law Party platforms or principles. See if you can guess which one is which and jot down the number on your order of service.

1. We believe that respect for individual rights is the essential precondition for a free and prosperous world, that force and fraud must be banished from human relationships, and that only through freedom can peace and prosperity be realized.[1]

2. Our Party's first priority is to "value-based" politics, in contrast to the politics of exploitation, consumption, and non-sustainable competition.
We believe in an alternative, independent politics, and active, responsible government. We believe in empowering citizens and communities. We offer hope and a call to action.[2]

3. We are the party of America's earners, savers, and taxpayers - the people who work hard, take risks and build a better future for our families and our communities. Our party believes that we can best improve the standard of living in America by empowering the American people to act in their own behalf.[3]

4. The _____ Party strives to establish a radical democracy that places people's lives under their own control - a non-oppressive, ... society in which people freely engage in cooperation at work, at home, and in the community.[4]

5. Today's _____ Party is determined to renew America's most basic bargain: Opportunity to every American, and responsibility from every American. And today's _____ Party is determined to reawaken the great sense of American community.[5]

6. Reduce the cost of campaigns by shortening the election cycle to no more than four months. Hold elections on Saturdays and Sundays - Not Tuesdays - So working people can get to the polls. Replace the Electoral College process for electing the President with a direct vote from the citizens - so that every vote counts.[6]

7. Government can solve problems at their basis through scientifically proven programs ... By accessing the full range of nature's intelligence and harnessing its power, individuals and nations can govern themselves with the same perfection in administration displayed by nature's government.[7]

8. The ____ Party believes that the social, economic, and political progress of the United States requires a democratic revolution in America -- the return of power to the people. Our basic purpose -- reflected both in our own governance and in our aspirations for the nation -- is to make that revolution happen. At present, in America, the people do not rule. And they must, if we and our children are to lead lives of dignity, decency, and fulfillment.[8]

9. The _____ Party is dedicated to personal freedom, justice, and peace. We continue to uphold the Bill of Rights and work to repeal drug prohibition, to restore civil liberties and environmental balance, and to ensure equality through the political process. The primary purpose of the [party] is the total legalization of cannabis and the pardon and release of all prisoners held on so-called "marijuana" charges.[9]

SERMON

First let me put your minds at ease. I'm not going to advocate any candidate or party. In fact I plan to be scrupulously fair to all of them. Second, I do not have time to live up to the sermon title and review all the candidates running for office and their values. As you may have grown to expect, I usually bite off more than I can chew Sunday morning.

What I do plan to discuss with you this morning is the platforms of the parties and how they relate to Unitarian Universalist values. The candidates more or less are in sympathy with their platform so each platform will provide a way for me to broadly discuss the values of the candidates from that party. This could be a problem when the platform doesn't matter to the candidate as former president George Bush said in a television interview during the Republican Convention, but this year the platforms were crafted by the presidential candidates with a great deal of care so they ought to reflect their values and most certainly they will not contradict them. Our task this morning will be to sift these values out of the political rhetoric and positioning in each platform and compare them with our Unitarian Universalist values. Where the candidates stand on the issues is important but their core values I believe are much more important to the many ways they will effectively govern. Approaches to issues are likely to change with new information and changing events but the candidate's values (at least we hope) should be more substantial and enduring.

Because the Democrats hold the White House at the moment, I'll begin with their platform principles. They slice up the principle pie into three sections this year: opportunity, responsibility, and community. If you listen to the stump speeches of President Clinton or Al Gore you will hear these themes again and again. They understand opportunity to be a chance to live out our dreams and achieve our God-given potential. Everyone should have an equal opportunity to create the quality of life they desire with special privileges for none. To provide the greatest opportunity, government must become smaller, education should be strengthened, and international free trade should be encouraged. To protect each person's opportunities, discrimination must be fought and civil rights protected.

If opportunity is what a society grants to its members, then responsibility is what it expects in return. The protection of law and order, welfare reform to increase the responsibility of those who receive it, and character development for our children in the public schools are the responsibility of the citizens and its government. Being the last superpower, we have a responsibility to the world be a primary force for peace and freedom.

Finally the Democrats embrace the value of the community. The platform describes this as a "coming together around our enduring values" and reawakening the great sense of American community. It stresses the importance of the family as the building block of any community. It identifies the importance of supporting cities by the development of community empowerment zones. It supports the protection of our environment for future generations.

As many of you might expect, this year's Republican platform shares many values expressed by the Democrats who some would say are behaving like stealth Republicans. The Republicans though are a little less general and more concrete in their platform using as its centerpiece the American Dream. Their statement paralleling the Democrats theme of opportunity is phrased as the freedom to pursue the American Dream of liberty, secure jobs, home ownership, personal security, education and fair and open trade. In gaining access to the American Dream, people should be judged by their ability rather than race, creed or disability. Once the Dream is had, it must be safeguarded through preserving law and order, family values, protecting the environment, opposing discrimination and supporting the equality of all people "before the law". The Republicans recognize our responsibility to maintain peace through military strength. The Government has a responsibility to foster hope and opportunity for the poor and disadvantaged.

Particularly highlighted in the platform this year was a trust in the American people and distrust of government. Rather than a friend serving the greater good, government is an inefficient, oppressive, regulatory leviathan in sore need of downsizing.

Much as Democrats and Republicans fight in legislative bodies, one might think that their values are starkly different. From my brief characterization, I hope you can see that their values are very similar. The Democrats opportunity plank and the Republican's praise for the American Dream arise from the same valuing of individualism and self sufficiency. Both Parties bow before the icon of the family, law and order, opposition to discrimination and support for equality, maintaining a strong military, caring for the elderly and the poor willing to grab hold of their own boot straps for a period of time. Both parties support protection of the environment and economic growth backed by free trade.

The differences are there to be sure. Republicans officially are pro-life and the Democrats pro-choice. The Republicans are for school choice and the Democrats don't want to deviate from support for the public school system. The Republicans want values taught at home and the Democrats want them taught in the school. Republicans support property rights whereas Democrats support government regulation to settle environmental issues.

Both parties are for life, for education, for values education, for environmental protection but they have different ways of enacting their values with Republicans leaning toward greater individualism and the Democrats leaning toward greater government control. Dole promises a 15% across the board tax cut for individuals to use as they wish and Clinton offers government directed tax deductions to select groups. Even though the Republicans are down on big government, they heartily support a strong defense and police force to protect property rights and government aid in building the infrastructure entrepreneurs can harvest for profit such as the concrete and electronic highway system. While the Democrats opine the need to come together around enduring values, they stress the rights of the individual to privacy and free speech which Hollywood and the media moguls exploit mercilessly.

With the notable exception of the Republican's anti-choice plank, Unitarian Universalist values are not in conflict with the values of either party. Where the parties agree, Unitarian Universalist values are affirmed. We value the individual. We value justice and equality. We value the environment. This may not seem significant but it really is. If one were to go to another democratic country, one would likely find a much greater diversity of political values supported than we find in the closely aligned Democrats and Republicans. Neither the Republicans (at least so far) nor the Democrats advocate a theocracy. Neither advocate white supremacist values. Neither advocates a military dictatorship. There are such political organizations all over the world.

Much as the two major parties are not in conflict with our UU values, they may not support our values as well as some of the third parties do. One of the ideas for my presentation this morning came from discovering the wealth of material available on the Internet. I have at my fingertips courtesy of the Christian Science Monitor web site not only the complete text of the Democratic and the Republican platforms but also the platforms of a number of less well known political parties. Let us take a short tour of these parties to see if any of them affirm our values better than the Republicans or the Democrats.

Probably no party stands up for the rights of the individual better than the Libertarians. They see themselves embroiled in a battle of the individual against the "cult of the omnipotent state." The core of these rights are the (1) right to life, (2) free speech and action, (3) right of property. "People should not be forced to sacrifice their lives and property for the benefit of others." Libertarians are strong advocates of free trade and free markets. Unfortunately the Libertarians are not strong on environmentalism declaring property rights a higher value and denouncing government interference "even if some bureaucrat wants to declare your backyard a wetlands." (The humor in the Libertarian platform (of the platforms I read) is the best). Whereas the Democrats and the Republicans prefer to shake their stick at the South American drug lords, the Libertarians are happy to declare the drug war a failure and decriminalize them. As strong as the Libertarians are on individual rights, they have little interest in any kind of coercion applied through the government. Libertarians are not fans of world government except as it can orchestrate trade. Reading their platform, it felt like many of their positions could be summed up as, "Just leave me alone!"

If you find the Bible thumping of the Christian Coalition and the obsequious references to God by both major parties objectionable, and are "warned against the idolatries of the mind and spirit", look no further than the Humanistic pragmatism of the Reform Party. The Reform Party sees government as a big machine that was poorly constructed and is being poorly maintained. The Reform Partly focuses less on grand ideas and visions and more on the nuts and bolts problems and solutions. For example, the problem with the environment isn't values, we just haven't come up with the right technical procedures. The reason we need a balanced budget isn't because it is wrong to deficit spend but the numbers don't work out when cranked through computers and analyzed. The government needs a management consultant and Ross Perot has volunteered his services.

Unlike the Libertarians, the Reform Party is deeply concerned about drug use. "The reason drug use is up is because we have become lax in fighting each battle of the drug war." The solution? "Make the war as efficient and successful as possible."

If you like the technical approach to government where a little tinkering can fix any problem, think seriously about the Reform Party and Ross Perot. Reading their platform you can hear him barking, "Reform it, test it, adjust it, fix it, get it done."

If "Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part" is your ruling UU principle, you will need to take a good long look at the Greens. You may need to do a fair amount of looking as they are a strongly grass roots oriented, decentralized group so each state seems to have its own independent Green party.

As their name indicates, the environment is central to the Greens movement. But more than just an appreciation of the beauty of flowers, trees and birds, the Greens see ecological wisdom as a guiding principle of life. We are not separate from nature but rather part of it. Just as a healthy ecosystem has robust diversity, so the Greens respect cultural, ethnic, racial, sexual, religious and spiritual diversity. Keeping with their decentralization value, they stress community based economics and economic justice and abhor the centralization of capital. The highest priority is put on keeping today's decisions future focused and centered around sustainability. One part of the platform I particularly liked was remembering what the purpose of society should be. Our purpose and quality of life doesn't come merely from surviving but rather by making our lives worth living. If improving the quality of all life is important to you, check out these Greens.

If I had more time, I'd love to share more with you about the Natural Law party who feel we should reorganize our society around education and promotion of good health using proven scientific ideas. We could talk about the themes of economic democracy of a worker and consumer centered society managed for the benefit of all humanity and not for private profit of the Democratic Socialists. And I haven't mentioned the New Party, the Peace and Freedom Party, the Patriot Party and several others.

Exploring and possibly supporting these third parties is valuable. The two dominant parties are constantly cribbing ideas from the political fringe. FDR took the wind out of the sails of the Socialists by borrowing their ideas. Today the Republicans and the Democrats cribbed from Ross Perot on balancing the budget. It is the same in the religious sphere; the mainline denominations have been borrowing our ideas for a long time. Given the donkeys and the elephants are always fighting for the middle, they tend to ignore both the left and the right. If we like what they stand for and encourage them, we may not get a third-party candidate elected but we may get their ideas onto the political agenda.

What I find affirming in this survey is to see the shared values expressed in all these platforms. All of them, even the Democratic Socialists prize individual freedom and a non-oppressive society. People are valued before ideology. All the platforms I could find value justice, equity and compassion in human relations (with the possible exception of the Libertarians). Most put a high priority on protecting the environment. Even if world community is not universally embraced, the values of peace, liberty and justice for all certainly are. All these parties are democratic and support separation of church and state.

So no matter how we vote this year, Unitarian Universalist values on the whole will be affirmed. But the way to affirm these values, depending on the party, is considerably different depending on how much you believe and trust in individual autonomy and how much you believe and trust in the authority of the community as represented by the government.

On election day the choice will be ours. SO BE IT.

Copyright (c) 1996 by Rev. Samuel A. Trumbore. All rights reserved.

[1] Libertarian elected officials: local = 170, state = 3
[2] Green Party elected officials: local = 79
[3] Republican (many elected officials)
[4] Democratic Socialist (data on elected officials unknown - most likely none)
[5] Democrats (many elected officials)
[6] Reform Party elected officials: state = 1
[7] Natural Law no elected officials
[8] New Party elected officials: local = 65
[9] Grassroots Party no elected officials