Government
The Ring of Doom Political Values, Ideologies, and Public Opinion
The Lord of the Rings, the One Ring, and the Debate at the Council of Elrond
The Lord of the Rings books focuses on the peoples of Middle Earth trying to decide what to do with the One Ring – a ring created by the Dark Lord, Sauron. The Ring grants the wearer the power to dominate all life and thus, control Middle Earth.
Frodo, a hobbit, brings the Ring to the elven city of Rivendell where its lord, Lord Elrond, holds a council to decide the fate of the One Ring.
Boromir, a man from the kingdom of Gondor, argues that the Ring should be used against Sauron to remove his threat.
Elrond and Gandalf, a Wizard, argue that destroying it would end the conflict.
Political Values
To put it simply, political values are values that can be seen in a political context.
Some examples of commonly held American political values are: freedom, equality, morality, justice, opportunity, responsibility, health, education, security, and so on.
Political Ideologies
Everyone’s political values are different. There are certain ones I probably care about that you don’t, and there are some that I care about more than you. That’s okay.
A person’s unique set of political values is known as their political ideology.
While everyone’s ideology is different, they tend to fall into the two major ideological frameworks….conservatism and liberalism.
A Brief Note About Political Ideologies
One of the most frustrating things I hear as a government professor is that either conservatives or liberals are ‘good’ or ‘bad’, and that IS NOT TRUE.
If there were no good reason to be a conservative or a liberal, people wouldn’t identify as one or the other. Both have both positive and negative attributes, just like all people have character strengths and flaws.
Conservatism
Conservatives are often referred to as ‘right wingers’, because they are on the right wing of the political spectrum. Most conservatives also belong to the Republican Party, and they tend to read the Constitution as a literal document.
Conservatives tend to value freedom, security, morality, opportunity, and responsibility before the other political values (though obviously, this varies from person to person).
Issues conservatives fight for are abortion restriction, gun rights, ending same-sex marriage, lowering taxes, protecting the homeland by providing for the military, and so on.
Liberalism
Liberals are often referred to as ‘left wingers’, because they appear on the left of the political spectrum. They tend to view the Constitution as a living document.
The values liberals tend to care about are freedom, equality, health, education, fairness, and so on.
Issues liberals tend to fight for are abortion access, environmental protection, access to healthcare and education, equality, and peace.
Where the Council of Elrond Fits In…
So, at the Council, Boromir disagreed with Elrond and Gandalf regarding what to do with the Ring.
Boromir’s culture taught men to seek victory in battle, so it makes sense that Boromir would want to do just that with the Ring.
The elves and Istari (the Wizards of Middle Earth) sought to bring about peace, so it also makes sense that Elrond and Gandalf would take the positions they did.
The Ideological Frameworks, Political Values, and Issue Positions
Similarly, each ideological framework has specified positions on the issues facing out country, and those positions are held because the values that framework employs.
We will look at a few issues and discuss how this is true.
Abortion
Conservatives want to heavily restrict (or ban) abortion. They feel this way, because they believe that abortion is morally wrong. They think it is murdering a baby.
Liberals want to allow women to make the choice to keep or abort their future child. They see this as a freedom issue as well (often) as a moral one.
Gun Rights
Conservatives want people to have open access to most firearms, because the 2nd Amendment says that people have the right to keep and bear arms. They see this as a freedom and security issue.
Liberals think that conservatives have taken gun access too far and created a security/safety problem. They want to see expanded background checks, mandated gun safety courses, restricted access to certain types of firearms and ammunition, and harsh punishments for people who commit crimes with firearms.
Most of Us Aren’t Extremists
The media portrays all liberals and conservatives as crazy extremists, but that is NOT REAL.
Most people are moderates. They hold some conservative positions and some liberal ones. Roughly 85% of the American electorate are moderates.
The other 15% are staunchly conservative or liberal and are known as idealogues. That DOES NOT mean they have extreme positions. Instead, it means that their positions on most issues fall within the boundaries of one of the two ideological frameworks.
Public Opinion
The media does measure how we as voters feel about certain issues, and they do that through polling and surveys.
Oftentimes though, the media does so in a biased manner.
Sometimes, the bias is intentional, and sometimes, it’s not.
4 Ways Public Opinion Polls and Surveys Display Bias
They use a non-random sample. This means that the people who are surveyed are chosen for a reason. Some people are more likely to be surveyed than others.
Their sample size is not representative of the population. You can’t sample 30 people and mathematically represent 300 million.
They word the survey questions in a biased way. You can’t word your question in an attempt to lead your survey participant to answer the way you want them to.
They fail to report the margin of error. You MUST report the statistical percentage by which you could be wrong.
Questions?
If you have any questions (as always), please do not hesitate to email, call, or text me.
I apologize that this is being posted so late, but for some reason, the version of this that I created on Wednesday last week didn’t save onto my flash drive, and I didn’t find out until stupid o’clock this morning.
Don’t forget to complete the discussion board called ‘Ideologies’ and respond to two of your classmates.
Also, don’t forget to submit your two current events under the board called ‘Current Events Week of September 28’ and comment on two of your classmates’ questions.
Have a good week and
May the Force be with you!