Monday, September 08, 2008
Sarah knows best
Sarah Palin is making a lot of noise and USA Today is reporting that her performance at the Republican National Convention has given McCain's campaign a significant bump. Will it last? It's hard to tell, but the Republican embrace of this woman looks very much like a desperate attempt to establish their own cult of personality like that which has built around Barack Obama. That's to be expected, as conservatives are not immune to envy, regardless of their claims of religious piety, but Sarah Palin is no Barack Obama.
Sarah Palin is rigidly pro-life, to the point that she has gone on the record as believing that abortion should be illegal under all circumstances save those where the mother's life is in danger. In a promiscuous society where statistics would seem to indicate that plenty of Republican women are terminating pregnancies. The latest statistics I could find online seem to indicate that roughly 1.2 million abortions were performed in 2002…surely, not all of those women are Democrats. There is some evidence that the pro-life movement has made progress in recent years, but the teen pregnancy rate has recently showed an up-tick and Palin's own 17-years old daughter is knocked up, so there might be reason to believe the number of abortions is likely to rise once again. McCain is also anti-abortion, and with 3 Supreme Court justices set to retire within the next few years, a McCain presidency would very likely mean the appointment of 2-3 more anti-abortion justices, meaning a woman's ability to choose could be eliminated within the next 4 years. That will probably give some people pause, once it becomes an issue in the campaign.
Palin is a fundamentalist religious personality. She has been quoted as saying that the Iraq war is a task from God and that a massive oil pipeline is part of God’s will(see the video below). In a country that once prided itself on being intelligent enough to separate Church and State, a person who is stupid enough to believe war is a task from God is a danger to us all, particularly when she would be one McCain illness away from becoming Commander-in-Chief of the most powerful war machine the planet has ever seen. You would think Republicans would learn something by watching what fundamentalist religious figures have made of the world during the past 5,000 years, but it appears that a person who describes a pipeline through Alaska as “God's Will” is the type of person Republicans gravitate toward. If she were a Muslim, she would be hated, but because she is crediting Christ with a mission of war and a project to drill for oil, she is trumpeted as a hero. Do believers think Jesus is pro-War because he gets lonely in eternity? Last I checked, the 10 Commandments didn't make any exceptions or qualifications on that "Thou shalt not kill" thing, but maybe I missed the bylaws and small print. It seems that Sarah Palin, George W. Bush, and their ilk know the will of God, but isn't claiming to know the will of God a sin in and of itself? Maybe there is an exemption for neoconservative, authoritarian, American politicians…after all, Americans are God's Chosen. It seems every society of leaders and followers are "God's Chosen"…monotheists are always so sure! I guess we'll all just have to slaughter each other and find out who's right, once and for all.
In another interesting bit of potential authoritarianism, Sarah Palin also contacted Wasilla librarian Mary Ellen Emmons during her time as Mayor of the tiny, Alaskan city, and inquired about the possibility of banning undesirable books. Last I checked, book banning was not a function of government in an allegedly free society. For a lady who gives lots of lip service to small government, it sure seems like she is the type that wants to inject government deeper into everyday life. There is no excuse for allowing government to tell you what you can or cannot read and there is no intelligent explanation for allowing government to tell libraries which books they can or cannot have available to a public that is supposed to have the right to choose what they read. The fact that this woman would even think this was an acceptable course of action should raise red flags to anyone with any concept of what Freedom is supposed to mean. Strangely, Republicans are applauded her as the Second Coming (not literally of course, since everyone knows Jesus could only be a European looking Caucasian male).
So as the McCain-Palin ticket begins to metamorphose into a Palin-McCain ticket, what will Republicans do when faced with the knowledge that Palin is a woman who wants the government to tell every American woman what she can and cannot do with their body, and every American citizen who they can and cannot marry. She wants government to tell you what you can and cannot read, and she wants us to share her belief that war and oil drilling are part of God's will, His divine plan. So far, they're thrilled, which should worry the rest of us immensely.
The only true threat to freedom is government. No terrorist is ever going to take away or restrict our rights, only the government is capable of doing such things. Of course, the Constitution is supposed to stop the government from restricting our rights, but no one in government seems to be very concerned with that little piece of paper these days. So it should come as no surprise that Sarah Palin is the kind of politician that is becoming wildly popular among Republicans, who have overseen the dismantling of many supposedly inalienable rights during the past 8 years. Combined with John McCain's continued waffling and his creeping subjugation to the religious right (Republican America's favorite religious fundamentalist voting bloc!), for which Palin is an obvious champion, it seems inevitable that Palin would become the dominant figure on the Republican ticket.
As a religious fundamentalist, she is also against gay marriage, as is John McCain. It seems like these people are very into restricting the activities of American citizens. Here's to smaller government! It looks like someone of Sarah Palin’s mindset is what Republicans really want. I'm afraid even their pro-war God won't be able to help us, should she be what we all end up getting.
Labels: politics
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I don't have too much to say, honestly, because I don't like her and think she was the wrong choice, however, I do have something to say about abortion.
I think abortion should be illegal, EXCEPT for medical/health reasons. Having had children and seeing their hearts beat at SEVEN weeks into the pregnancy... that is a life growing and to kill it because you screwed up and forgot to use a condom and are to stupid town up to your mistakws and raise your child is murder.
People are using abortion as a form of birth control and that is rediculous and we need to do something to stop the killing.
Abortion is a tough issue for me, and one I thankfully haven't had to think about. In a perfect world, it would be totally unncessary, but in the real world, I feel like it has to remain an option. I disagree with it on principle, but the issue of when life begins is still debatable, and until a universal definition is put into law, the issue will continue to be contentious. If I were ever to get a woman pregnant, I would do what I believe is the right thing, which would be to try and convince her to keep the baby while committing myself to being a part of its upbringing. But that is easy for me to say, because I have so little sex that the idea of me getting anyone pregnant is almost absurd. For someone with a normal or promiscuous sex life, it's a very different circumstance.
They probably see sex as a recreational activity and will be more likely to see pregnancy as an unfortunate side effect. In the end, such a person is probably not the type of person we want to be parenting in a world that is already seeing most traditional values destroyed in favor of immediate gratification. And I still believe the woman should have an element of choice, especially where rape, incest, or molestation are concerned. Where do the potential mother's rights end, and the rights of a developing embryo begin? Answer that question definitively for everyone, and you change the face of American politics forever. :)
All I can say is when you do have children, and you go to that first ultra-sound and see that little heartbeat flickering on the screen, you will instantly realize that it is not an embryo, it is your child, a living part of you and to kill it would just be murder.
I will admit that before I had the girls I felt differently, I used to be pro-choice, but when I realized just how early that little heat started beating, my outlook changed.
I understand that experience is a powerful thing, and I don't diagree with the core of your argument, but not everyone sees it that way and there are valid arguments being made in favor of choice. In the end, I'm glad this is one issue I will not ever have to deal with, as I would not want something like supporting or paying for an abortion on my conscience, but I do believe people should have that choice. That said, I do believe its use should be more restricted. Abortion should not be used as extreme birth control, particularly in a world where the morning-after-pill is readily available to the public.