I have been tagged by Chartroose, who has taken part in a values meme, in which I get described as “appealingly strange, or strangely appealing”. Sounds good enough to me…

Basically, I have to say six things I support, six things I don’t support, and six bloggers to share this with.

So here goes.

Six Values That Are Important To Me

1. Tolerance of Others
2. A Sense of Humour. You need a sense of humour to get through life. Indeed, I believe that it is entirely possible that life itself is the cosmic joke.
3. Integrity in Public Life. I dislike the ‘spin’ that is frequently applied to things, and the desire to sweep things under the carpet. I expect public servants (and I specifically include elected representatives in this) to act with honour.
4. Love. We are nothing without our connections to other people: friends, family, and so on.
5. Freedom of Speech. “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” (which, according to Wikipedia, was Evelyn Beatrice Hall, rather than Voltaire)
6. Freedom from political and religious persecution.

Six Things I Do Not Support

1. People Who Are Being Patronising. This is when someone feels the need to explain something to someone, which they were perfectly capable of understanding themselves, as if they are stupid.
2. Scapegoating. It always seems when there is some cock-up in public life, that rather than the culture which led to that being identified as the problem and resolved (e.g. providing more resources to stretched Children’s Services teams) the appropriate response is to find some individual who is expected to shoulder the blame.
3. People Refusing To Accept Responsibility. Although in some cases it is of course the individual who is to blame. For example, George Bush has talked about the “disappointments” of his reign as president, rather than “mistakes” he has made.
4. Name Framing. Basically, this is choosing the name of your movement in such a way as to present a positive spin on it, and by inference a negative spin on those who do not share your views. “Pro-life” and “pro-choice” are two such types — who’d want to be “anti-life” or “anti-choice”? Similarly, the atheist movement “The Brights” (they object to the term atheist, but as far as I can tell they have a strict materialist outlook which to me is much the same thing) have a name framed in such a way as to imply those who do not share their views are “dim”.
5. Capital Punishment
6. Sunderland Football Club

Six Bloggers To Tag

I’m not entirely sure any of these people will want to take part, so if you don’t, don’t feel pressured. You’re more than welcome to simply ignore it!

1. Doctor Stainforth, the last man in Europe.
2. Shannon.
3. Jaybee
4. Cold Climate
5. the self-proclaimed Grumpy Old Man Of Saltwell
6. Rich Pedley