What Do You Stand For

A month ago, I was in New York, visiting friends and family under the guise of a high school reunion. It was a great week, and I loved spending time with some of my nearest and dearest loved ones. One close friend took the opportunity to travel across the country with her youngest son – making stops in a dozen states, visiting points of interest and significance. One of those stops was in New York City to see Hamilton, on Broadway. And ever since she told me that, I’ve had this line from the musical running in my head "If you stand for nothing, Burr, what'll you fall for?"

It has been a burning question. What do I stand for? I have been writing this column for ten years. During all this time, I have made a point to avoid naming specific names except on rare occasions and I have tried to keep my political views off the page as well, though anyone who reads me regularly, has certainly gleaned by now the direction in which I tend to lean.

On the home front, my spouse and I have resorted to simply not talking about anything remotely political in the interest of extending our relationship past November. It is not good. My husband has been a high school football coach for nearly 30 years, but we have not exchanged a paragraph about a certain running mate who was also a football coach and what that character type might mean in a leadership position. I understand we are reading from a different playbook.

While visiting my home state, another friend and I danced around our different points of view and those of her partner. At one point she said it wasn’t about voting for a particular candidate but against the other option. It gave me pause.

I realize that I am more interested in voting for policy rather than against candidates. Part of the challenge in today’s world is sifting through all the opinions to get to the actual facts. National “news” sources are not always fact based and “news” feeds are often corrupt. Add artificial intelligence and foreign infiltrators and it is more and more difficult to discern truth from fiction and facts from inflammatory bias.

Until the late 1980’s, the FCC (the governing body for broadcasters) regulations included a little something called "The Fairness Doctrine”, which, in a nutshell, was a policy that required controversial issues of public importance to be reported in a manner that fairly reflected differing viewpoints. In other words, both sides of an issue were to be presented in balance. I miss that. I miss knowing news was verified by reliable sources before being reported. I miss the days when getting it right was more important than being first.

As a result, I rarely take anything I read online at face value and now take a secondary step to try fact checking. I tend to go to FactCheck.org, but there are many options available, just be sure to check for bias. It is a little more work but when it comes to something I believe in, I want to know the truth. Don’t you?

Back to that conversation with my friend about voting against rather than for a candidate. I looked at the issues I deem of greatest importance and did some homework to see where those policies are most likely to be protected or implemented. Sadly, there is no party or candidate running today who appears to support 100 percent of my values, but I see a clear choice.

So, what do I stand for? At the risk of alienating roughly half the population, I have decided to share the issues that touch the top of my value system.

First and foremost, I stand for equal rights. Equal rights without prejudice regardless of gender, race, age, religion, sexual orientation and a myriad of other factors. Equal rights for each of us.

I stand for protecting and promoting a democratic society.

I stand for autonomy over my body and for access to quality healthcare including reasonable caps on the cost of prescription drugs.

I stand for a living minimum wage, student loan debt forgiveness, and progressive taxation.

I stand for a clear path to citizenship for long time immigrants.

While these issues can be termed as complex, for me, they really come down to a biblical philosophy, widely known as the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. That is how I have tried to live my life and the example and expectation I set for my children.

In these times of divisiveness, in the world, in my community and even in my marriage, I come back to what we have in common rather than where we conflict. I think shared values are the most vital. Even when our opinions differ, if we can find common ground in our value system, we can certainly agree to disagree. That is the beauty of living in a democratic society.

In the coming weeks, there is bound to be a lot of misleading headlines and no lack of controversy. It’s important to know we stand for something, lest we fall for anything.

xo, Hollie