McCain Chooses Palin as Running Mate

[GregBurch]

Your post left the chance open, that there could be a legal way for ID to enter the school system, but actually, that is pretty unlikely - even if the proponents argue against it, ID is religion per definition of many courts, who used a standard legal test on it, as far as I understand the articles about the court decisions.

The history of this issue is long and relatively complex and, since it exists at the intersection of religion -- a subject that is inherently infected with irrationality -- and law -- a subject about which everyone is entitled to an opinion, but also involves technical questions, the possibility of calm debate is practically nil.

The clear fact is that the modern "Intelligent Design" movement was started as a reaction to earlier court decisions that the teaching of creationism was a violation of the establishment clause of the 1st Amendment. Leaders of the ID movement deny this, but there have been a few "defectors" from their ranks who have essentially "blown the whistle" on their confidential writings and discussions that prove this beyond doubt. The strategy of the founders of the modern ID movement was to recast the idea as "science" and therefore to skirt the earlier decisions. It's not going to work so long as I have one penny left to spend and, after that's gone, so long as I have a law license that allows me to do the damned work myself. If I lose that, there's always pro se.

... LATER ...

Foolish me ... sitting here working and took a break to surf some political stuff. I came across an item I'm going to paste in its entirety below. Why not just post the link? Because one of the things I've noticed everyone -- including myself -- does is immediately judge the substance of political commentary by the source. One of the things that Nomad and I agree about in principle is that people should expose themselves to material from all points on the political spectrum, especially from sources with which they disagree. But the "pre-filters" are hard to disengage. So, I offer the following as something that Obama supporters are unlikely to see, and if they do, might well dismiss before they even read it because it comes from a source with which they know they disagree. I don't offer it in the hope that hard-core Obama supporters will find it persuasive, any more than I would offer my views on the negative impact of teaching creationism in public schools to a religious fundamentalist in hopes that I would convince them. Rather, for those who will support Obama no matter what, I offer it merely as a snapshot of the kinds of things that "hate-filled, gun-loving, SUV-driving racists" like me read when they are exposed to their own side's views, but with the "pre-filter" somewhat turned down:

Rudy Giuliani had me in stitches during his red-meat keynote address at the GOP convention. I laughed out loud when Giuliani laughed out loud while noting Barack Obama’s deep experience as a “community organizer.” I laughed again when VP nominee and Alaska governor Sarah Palin cracked: “I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a ‘community organizer,’ except that you have actual responsibilities.”

Team Obama was not amused. (Neither were the snarky left-wingers on cable TV who are now allergic to sarcasm.) They don’t get why we snicker when Obama dons his Community Organizer cape. Apparently, the jibes rendered Obama’s advisers sleepless.
In a crack-of-dawn e-mail to Obama’s followers hours after Giuliani and Palin spoke, campaign manager David Plouffe attempted to gin up faux outrage (and, more importantly, donations) by claiming grave offense on the part of community organizers everywhere. Fumed Plouffe:

Both Rudy Giuliani and Sarah Palin specifically mocked Barack’s experience as a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago more than two decades ago, where he worked with people who had lost jobs and been left behind when the local steel plants closed. Let’s clarify something for them right now. Community organizing is how ordinary people respond to out-of-touch politicians and their failed policies.​

Let me clarify something. Nobody is mocking community organizers in church basements and community centers across the country working to improve their neighbors’ lives. What deserves ridicule is the notion that Obama’s brief stint as a South Side rabble-rouser for tax-subsidized, partisan nonprofits qualifies as executive experience you can believe in.

What deserves derision is “community organizing” that relies on a community of homeless people and ex-cons to organize for the purpose of registering dead people to vote, shaking down corporations, and using the race card as a bludgeon.

As I’ve reported previously, Obama’s community organizing days involved training grievance-mongers from the far-left ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now). The ACORN mob is infamous for its bully tactics (which they dub “direct actions”); Obama supporters have recounted his role in organizing an ambush on a government planning meeting about a landfill project opposed by Chicago’s minority lobbies.

With benefactors like Obama in office, ACORN has milked nearly four decades of government subsidies to prop up chapters that promote the welfare state and undermine the free market, as well as some that have been implicated in perpetuating illegal immigration and voter fraud. Since I last detailed ACORN’s illicit activities in this column in June (see “The ACORN Obama knows,” June 19, 2008), the group continues to garner scrutiny from law enforcement.

Last week, Milwaukee’s top election official announced plans to seek criminal investigations of 37 ACORN employees accused of offering gifts to sign up voters (including prepaid gas cards and restaurant cards) or falsifying driver’s license numbers, Social Security numbers, or other information on voter registration cards.

Last month, a New Mexico TV station reported on the child rapists, drug offenders, and forgery convicts on ACORN’s payroll. In July, Pennsylvania investigators asked the public for help in locating a fugitive named Luis R. Torres-Serrano, who is accused “of submitting more than 100 fraudulent voter registration forms he collected on behalf of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now to county election officials.” Also in July, a massive, nearly $1 million embezzlement scheme by top ACORN officials was exposed.

ACORN’s political arm endorsed Obama in February and has ramped up efforts to register voters across the country. In the meantime, completely ignored by the mainstream commentariat and clean-election crusaders, the Obama campaign admitted failing to report $800,000 in campaign payments to ACORN. They were disguised as payments to a front group called “Citizen Services, Inc.” for “advance work.”

Jim Terry, an official from the Consumer Rights League, a watchdog group that monitors ACORN, noted: “ACORN has a long and sordid history of employing convoluted Enron-style accounting to illegally use taxpayer funds for their own political gain. Now it looks like ACORN is using the same type of convoluted accounting scheme for Obama’s political gain.” With a wave of his magic wand, Obama amended his FEC forms to change the “advance work” to “get-out-the-vote” work.

Now, don’t you dare challenge his commitment to following tax and election laws. And don’t you even think of entertaining the possibility that The One exploited a nonprofit supposedly focused on helping low-income people for political gain.

He was just “organizing” his “community.” Feel free to laugh out loud.

 

[Usonian]

Yawn... Keating Five. Blah, blah, blah.

Another blogosheric "authority" spins some "facts." These "authorities" operate on both sides of the political divide, of course, and I am getting tired of both. (I confess I rather liked the military-contributions-favor-Obama-over-McCain-six-to-one yarn until YOU goaded me into looking at the real numbers. Once burned, twice cautious - not that the McCain side can take any comfort in the un-spun facts.)

Now when blogo-crap actually sticks - and a canidate is forced to acknowledge some naughtiness, recant some lie (i.e. Edwards' affair) - then it might be worth paying attention to. But that seems to be the outcome of one blog "revelation" in every 1,000. The other 999 revelations are passing wind.

EDIT - Come to think of it, the Edwards revelations were not blog-crap, but rather old fashioned, newspaper journalism - from that font of solid information, The National Enquirer! Score one for the tabloids!

 

[GregBurch]

Yawn... Keating Five. Blah, blah, blah.

Another blogosheric "authority" spins some "facts." These "authorities" operate on both sides of the political divide, of course, and I am getting tired of both. (I confess I rather liked the military-contributions-favor-Obama-over-McCain-six-to-one yarn until YOU goaded me into looking at the real numbers. Once burned, twice cautious - not that the McCain side can take any comfort in the un-spun facts.)

Now when blogo-crap actually sticks - and a canidate is forced to acknowledge some naughtiness, recant some lie (i.e. Edwards' affair) - then it might be worth paying attention to. But that seems to be the outcome of one blog "revelation" in every 1,000. The other 999 revelations are passing wind.

EDIT - Come to think of it, the Edwards revelations were not blog-crap, but rather old fashioned, newspaper journalism - from that font of solid information, The National Enquirer! Score one for the tabloids!

We do live in interesting times regarding the media of expression of political ideas. The monopoly on political "discourse" (oh, how I love to play with that pomo word ...) has been broken, but one of the results of that for now is that over-all trust in ANY kind of political information and discussion has decreased. I honestly don't know which is worse -- a univocal monopoly on political discussion, as we had in the US for a long, long time, or the cacophony we have now.

At any rate, masking the source of the piece I quoted above didn't seem to have any effect ... oh well ...

 

[Usonian]

At any rate, masking the source of the piece I quoted above didn't seem to have any effect ... oh well ...

The tone of the posting screamed blog-crap. Someday bloggers will learn to use the dispassionate, authoritative tones of older media types. Then innocents like me could be sucked into thier partisan ploys. (On the other hand, the loss of partisan edge might render most blogs irrelevant and readerless.)

The current media free-for-all looks like a throw-back to 19th century journalism - Will some blogger emerge as the e-Hearst of the 21st centruy?

Eagle Forum Alaska archive

11. Are you offended by the phrase “Under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance? Why or why not?
SP: Not on your life. If it was good enough for the founding fathers, its good enough for me and I’ll fight in defense of our Pledge of Allegiance.

Nicely done. When I tried to track this down I found it quoted on various Liberal blogs, but the links to Eagle Forum that invariably turned up blank! Hard to trust a blog when their source links shoot blanks. (It seems that most blogs draw their stuff from other blogs.)

 

[simonpro]

The one thing that amazes me about the election is that people seem a lot more bothered over bickering between the candidates than they do about what the candidates actually propose to do once in office.
Is this because the candidates haven't said what they want to do, or is it just the way of US politics?

(edit)

On the other hand, the loss of partisan edge might render most blogs irrelevant and readerless

Blogs have readers? Don't think I've ever met anyone who reads a blog. I know plenty who write them though, it's led me to believe that blogs are just public diaries for whoever writes them

 

[Donamy]

The media are the ones focussing on the bickering, the candidates have said plenty(some of it meaningful). They only report sound bites, with the spin, over and over and ...

 

[GregBurch]

Nicely done. When I tried to track this down I found it quoted on various Liberal blogs, but the links to Eagle Forum that invariably turned up blank! Hard to trust a blog when their source links shoot blanks. (It seems that most blogs draw their stuff from other blogs.)

I'm pretty sure (~better than half-sure) she really answered the questionnaire that way. It's also quite possible that her answer was based on the mistaken belief that the pledge of allegiance 1) was actually something the Founders contrived (it wasn't) and 2) that the "under god" language had been in the pledge from the beginning (we all know it wasn't). Naturally the explanation will be that she meant that holding the OPINION that the US was "one nation, under the (thundering sky) God" was an opinion held by a majority of the Founders, which it was.

As much as people like me would like to believe that people like Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, with their rational attitudes toward the thundering sky god, were in the majority of the Founders, the truth is that they weren't. On the other hand, I think the evidence is pretty clear that the over-all religious attitudes of the Founders were, on average, more rational and tolerant than what one finds among the rank and file of the religious right. This is a historical reality that the religious right hates and does its best to misrepresent. Unfortunately, getting to the truth of this matter is a task that requires a little more study than 99.99999% of the electorate will ever be willing to do ...

The one thing that amazes me about the election is that people seem a lot more bothered over bickering between the candidates than they do about what the candidates actually propose to do once in office.
Is this because the candidates haven't said what they want to do, or is it just the way of US politics?

(edit)

Blogs have readers? Don't think I've ever met anyone who reads a blog. I know plenty who write them though, it's led me to believe that blogs are just public diaries for whoever writes them

As for your second point, you're wrong. Blogs have become hugely influential in US politics. How and why this is so is a fascinating matter.

As for the first point, the kind of "personal bickering" you're noticing has come and gone in US politics. It depends greatly on a number of factors, chief among them the personality of the candidates, how ideologically polarized the electorate is, and how consolidated or diverse media outlets are. All of these factors have varied a lot over the course of US political history. Many people with limited knowledge of US political history will express amazement when presented with facts from previous eras that demonstrate almost identical personalistic politics to the kind we see today.

 

[n0mad23]

I can't resist offering up a brief history here, as in some ways it's quite ironic. The Pledge was written in 1892 and published in a popular children's magazine titled, "The Youth's Companion," as part of the 400th anniversary of Columbus' landfall.

Originally, the Pledge read, "I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

The ironic part (for me anyway) was that it was written by a Baptist minister who was also a Christian Socialist, which indicates just how much politics can mutate over the years.

It was in 1923 that "my Flag," was changed to "the Flag of the United States," and "of America" was added a year later. It wasn't until 1942 that Congress made it the official national pledge.

My 75 year old father still tells anyone who'll listen that when he was a kid, they saluted the flag with outstretched arm, then called the Bellamy salute. This all changed after the Nazi's used it.

Flash forward to the Eisenhower years, and that's when "under God" finally gets appended to the Pledge. It's 60 years after the original Pledge was created that these words are officially added.

So as you can see, the Pledge is a dynamic statement that's subject to revisions over the years as demands on it change.

 

[replicant]

First, I'm not aware that she has claimed to be running on "a platform of the good Christian wife and mother" or "[t]he platform of the Dobson family model," or that McCain or his campaign team has claimed that she is running on such "platforms."

No, there has been no OFFICIAL statement of such a platform, but it is very much IMPLIED, one might even say OBVIOUS. However, since I myself have have been attacked for implications and OBVIOUS meanings, I will defer to the fact that if there is no EXPLICIT statement, then I cannot prove such a platform.

I did note that she got a VERY big applause out of "Maybe they like to cling to religion too."
Possibly meaning "The correct religion?" "Our Religion?" "The religion that should be all of ours?" No way to know for sure. By the way, I could go into a whole dissertation about faith and religion and how different they are. Suffice it to say I embrace faith but despise religion.

I fact, one might even say that McCain is EQUIVOCATING with Ms. Palin. Yes, I realize without a doubt almost all if not all politicians do that, including Obama. I did note that McCain spent a great deal of his nomination speech apologizing for the last eight years without directly apologizing for George Bush. Talk about being deliberately vague or misleading.

Instead, my observations have been that her "platform" seems to be that she is a "politically conservative" woman with executive experience and political courage in opposing governmental corruption, and that her political activities will particularly include the pursuit of low taxation, the elimination of superfluous and corrupt governmental behaviors and the development of domestic energy sources.

Indeed. How does that fit in with the Bridge to nowhere? Or the direct lie in her acceptance speech about it. And even if it was not a DIRECT lie, it was an omission, because she forgot to mention that she once secured earmarks for it. In addition, what about all the other earmarks for her hometown? As well as her lobbying ties?

The point is she is being sold as a breath of fresh air, and everything to date seems to point to the fact that she is the same old stale smog.

In fact, my observations have been that "conservatives" tend to be quite straightforward in acknowledging that they do not claim that they are morally perfect.

My observations have been quite the opposite. Go to any small town and visit it's churches, stores, or restaurants, especially it's churches. Not all of them, but a great deal of them will play themselves off as very righteous and holy, and be quick to judge anyone they perceive is not.

But merely that they value some traditional moral standards, and that they try to exemplify them, and that they wish others to exemplify them.

More than WISH others to exemplify them. They wish to IMPOSE their ideas of the bible on others, and in the legislative process. Quite a different matter. I read a letter from a local yocal in my newspaper stating how he feels we are not "real" christians because we are not executing gays as it says to in the old testament. He went on to say that at least Saudi Arabia follows its own holy book in its laws.

This is the kind of invidual who exemplifies the need for the separation of church and state. Because when does it end? There is no way that you can convince me that the church does not have as its agenda the control of the government. Some of my own In-laws have stated that is their objective. So if they do get it, then which one of the over 13,000 sects will be the ones who run it? Maybe the above mentioned whacko's sect? Then the next laws will about stoning adultresses...maybe about being put to death for working on the sabbath, or my favorite, children executed for disobeying their parents.

So yes, I get VERY touchy when I hear even the slightest whisper or allusion to the idea of passing laws based on some else's VERSION of the Bible.

 

[Usonian]

I will allow for a (very small) possibility that Palin was joking. It's just the sort of ironic, bantering humor that can work face-to-face -- and effectively get your point across in a way that is hard to counter (Regan and Clinton could pull off that sort of thing).

But it appears that Palin was submitting written responses to a questionaire, in which case no one could know if she was joking (sans emotocon :lol:, :dry: or ).

Under the circumstances, I have to conclude that she was serious, and therefore rather seriously ignorant of U.S. history - more ignorant than I would like to see in a President.

 

[n0mad23]

Another ironic observation:

The separation of church and state was originally conceived by a small group of radical Calvinists back in England who wanted protection. It's a historical situation that is entirely lost by those who'd like to make the US more friendly to a particular religious position.

Though it's far too easy to mythologize the original framers and their intent, ultimately it's important to understand history to keep from making the same mistakes.

 

[David]

She uses her family as reason to elect her and McCain. She did not speak much about her politics, but about her good conservative family. She should be elected because she is a mom, her husband does this and that, her son goes to the army *applause* and goes to Iraq *more applause*

I think not. It is typical, among (American) politicians, for a candidate to introduce and allude to his family, during a campaign. I think that the general purpose of this, is to emphasize that "this candidate is a real person, with a typically human life - with a home, with bills to pay and a family to care for - like you, Mr. Voter; this candidate is not simply a set of policy proposals, but a responsive human being, likely to sympathize with you and your circumstances and your human condition."

That is the extent to which a candidate "uses her family as a reason to elect her" - it is an allusion to her common humanity. A candidate is not, however, seeking to have her family elected to anything. She alludes to her love for her husband, her pride in her children, her concern for the circumstances that they will face, as she would expect voters to have similar concerns.

I don't suppose that anybody actually bases his voting behavior on the details of the candidate's family. Former President Jimmy Carter had a brother who was kind of a lout, and there were occasional jokes about his loutishness; but nobody seems to have actually thought that this really had anything to do with Jimmy Carter's political policies or his Presidency, and I don't suppose that Jimmy Carter expected anybody to vote for, or against, him based upon his brother's qualities.

Now comes the problem: If her family would be the USA, 50% of all female teenagers would be pregnant early.

Well, the USA is not her family. This seems to be especially significant among "conservatives." They do not regard government as their parent, nor themselves as children to be cared for by the government, nor their children as belonging to the government, to be raised according to governmental standards. They regard government's purpose as securing a basically safe environment, so that they can pursue their own lives in their own ways, including the raising of their children; and they don't want government interfering in their lives or in their raising of their children. They do not necessarily have any interest, at all, in raising their children to be like the children of politicians, and a politician who suggested otherwise, would not likely be popular among such voters.

you have to say, that her politics of no sexual education for teenagers must have had some important effects (and even outside her family, there is a correlation between lack of or bad sexual education for teenagers and the teenage pregnancy rate - nature finds it's way).

I know nothing wrt Sarah Palin's opinions about sex education. If she is like many "conservatives," then I would suppose that she regards sex-education (and moral education, generally) as a job for parents, for better or worse (by which I mean that it is to be expected, that sometimes parents will succeed in getting their children to behave according to the parents' moral standards, and sometimes they will not). Here in the USA, there is widespread (government-controlled) school sex-education, and widespread teenage pregnancy.

 

[n0mad23]

Here in the USA, there is widespread (government-controlled) school sex-education, and widespread teenage pregnancy.

I think this is a bit of an over simplification, and ignores the influence of "abstinence education," Title V Abstinence Education funds. While the federal government does not punish schools financially for teaching "traditional" sex-ed, Title V does provide federal matching funds for schools that teach the abstinence program.

The exact language is as follows:
THE FEDERAL DEFINITION OF ABSTINENCE-ONLY EDUCATION
An eligible abstinence education program is one that:
A) has as its exclusive purpose, teaching the social, psychological, and health gains to be realized by abstaining from sexual activity;
B) teaches abstinence from sexual activity outside marriage as the expected standard for all school-age children;
C) teaches that abstinence from sexual activity is the only certain way to avoid out-of-wedlock pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, and other associated health problems;
D) teaches that a mutually faithful monogamous relationship in the context of marriage is the expected standard of human sexual activity;
E) teaches that sexual activity outside the context of marriage is likely to have harmful psychological and physical effects;
F) teaches that bearing children out-of-wedlock is likely to have harmful consequences for the child, the child's parents, and society;
G) teaches young people how to reject sexual advances and how alcohol and drug use increase vulnerability to sexual advances; and
H) teaches the importance of attaining self-sufficiency before engaging in sexual activity.
Source: U.S. Social Security Act, §510(b)(2).



I know I'm harping on Arizona a bit much lately, but again they serve to illustrate the point I'm trying to make here. Arizona's public sex education only teaches Abstinence, and I suspect for the financial reason I've shown above. Arizona's status for teenage pregnancies is actually higher than the national average.

The program's been in place long enough that some pretty interesting follow up studies have been published in the last year, and frankly it hasn't been terribly successful. I'm not terribly surprised by these findings as the program has really limited knowledge about a basic function of our species.

A quick Google search brings up a lot of opposing viewpoints, and I'll link a few for you here:
http://articles.latimes.com/2008/apr/24/nation/na-abstinence24
http://www.sexrespect.com/FundInfo.html
http://www.whitehouse.gov/government/fbci/grants-catalog-document.html
http://www.stateline.org/live/ViewPage.action?siteNodeId=136&languageId=1&contentId=70529

 

[David]

I did note that she got a VERY big applause out of "Maybe they like to cling to religion too."
Possibly meaning "The correct religion?" "Our Religion?" "The religion that should be all of ours?" No way to know for sure.

I don't recall the entire context of this remark, but it was clearly alluding to the publicized comments of Obama, in a speech that he gave in San Francisco, basically characterizing the devotion of rural Americans, to their gun-ownership Rights and religous beliefs (and alleged xenophobia), as being quaint - merely neurotic expressions of the "bitterness" that they feel, inasmuch as being economically desperate (due to GW Bush's allegedly having destroyed the U.S. economy). It was a sarcastic rebuke to Obama's insult toward (and either his misconception of, or his appeal to his San Franciscan audience's misconception of) such Americans.

The point is she is being sold as a breath of fresh air, and everything to date seems to point to the fact that she is the same old stale smog.

Actually, she is quite revolutionary, since if she becomes Vice-President, this will tend to destroy what is, for many persons, an enjoyable (and politically useful) stereotype of the Democratic Party's being the representative and advocate of "women's concerns."

I read a letter from a local yocal in my newspaper stating how he feels we are not "real" christians because we are not executing gays as it says to in the old testament. He went on to say that at least Saudi Arabia follows its own holy book in its laws.

This is the kind of invidual who exemplifies the need for the separation of church and state. Because when does it end? There is no way that you can convince me that the church does not have as its agenda the control of the government. Some of my own In-laws have stated that is their objective. So if they do get it, then which one of the over 13,000 sects will be the ones who run it? Maybe the above mentioned whacko's sect? Then the next laws will about stoning adultresses...maybe about being put to death for working on the sabbath, or my favorite, children executed for disobeying their parents.

You're not calming down, again.

The yokel/whacko to whom you allude, is an anomaly in a nation of ~300,000,000 persons. There's another guy (I do not recall his name), who runs a "church" consisting of members of his family, and who attends the funerals of KIA soldiers, celebrating their deaths and attributing them to God's welcome wrath against the USA, for being insufficiently Old-Testament Christian; he's an anomaly too, and nobody seems to like him, at all.

Your subsequent comments indicate an imagination that has slipped the tracks of popular American religious sentiments and ambitions, and has blithely driven off into a wilderness, on its way to a deep ocean, containing a small population of black holes, somewhere in the middle of it (sorry for mixed metaphor). Anything is possible, of course.

Religious people, like non-religious people, want the government to serve their concerns.

BTW, theocracy is not at all the only way to tyranny.

 

[replicant]

Actually, she is quite revolutionary, since if she becomes Vice-President, this will tend to destroy what is, for many persons, an enjoyable (and politically useful) stereotype of the Democratic Party's being the representative and advocate of "women's concerns."

This depends upon what women you are talking about. There are a lot of other women out there besides beauty queens.

You're not calming down, again.

Hard to do when I read my history concerning all the slaughter of people based on who are the only true servants of God.

The yokel/whacko to whom you allude, is an anomaly in a nation of ~300,000,000 persons.

Was Hitler an anomaly as well? Or were all or even most German people physcotic whacked out killers who WANTED people burned in ovens.

Even one or two anomalies can seize power over a very large group and do horrible things.

Your subsequent comments indicate an imagination that has slipped the tracks of popular American religious sentiments and ambitions,

Imagination? Do I have to recite every page of history concerning crimes committed against humanity based upon religion? Please Don't tell me Americans are not capable of the same acts, given the right glorious leader to follow. Or are you suggesting that Americans are somehow more special and less susceptible than all the Generations and other nations who came before?

Religious people, like non-religious people, want the government to serve their concerns.

It needs to serve all the peoples concerns, not just the most popular ones.

BTW, theocracy is not at all the only way to tyranny.

No, but it seems to be one of the most.....popular.


-----Posted Added-----


Here's some more good stuff:

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin told ministry students at her former church that the United States sent troops to fight in the Iraq war on a "task that is from God." -

Palin -
"Our national leaders are sending them out on a task that is from God," she said. "That's what we have to make sure that we're praying for, that there is a plan and that plan is God's plan." -

Associated Press

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080903/ap_on_el_pr/cvn_palin_iraq_war

WOW. If that doesn't frighten you, then nothing will. War is a task from God. I have read the bible from cover to cover, and one thing the New Testament makes very clear is that any task from God should not be accepted grudgingly, but that it should be embraced and loved. The old Testamant called upon people to kill for God as well, but Is Sarah Palin as a Christian following the New Covenant or the old? If she is following the Old Covenant, then she is not a Christian.

If she is following the new covenant, then that means she must love war.

That does not seem very "conservative" by the definiton of the word to me.

I seem to remember that John McCain stated that he hates war.

How many heartbeats does McCain have left?


Even More:

"But in the first major race of her career — the 1996 campaign for mayor of her hometown, Wasilla — Palin was a far more conventional politician. In fact, according to some who were involved in that fight, Palin was a highly polarizing political figure who brought partisan politics and hot-button social issues like abortion and gun control into a mayoral race that had traditionally been contested like a friendly intramural contest among neighbors."

"Four years later, she took on her former workout buddy in a race that quickly became contentious. In Stein's view, Palin's main transgression was injecting big-time politics into a small-town local race. "It was always a nonpartisan job," he says. "But with her, the state GOP came in and started affecting the race." While Palin often describes that race as having been a fight against the old boys' club, Stein says she made sure the campaign hinged on issues like gun owners' rights and her opposition to abortion (Stein is pro-choice). "It got to the extent that — I don't remember who it was now — but some national antiabortion outfit sent little pink cards to voters in Wasilla endorsing her," he says."


"Vicki Naegele was the managing editor of the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman at the time. "[Stein] figured he was just going to run your average, friendly small-town race," she recalls, "but it turned into something much different than that." Naegele held the same conservative Christian beliefs as Palin but didn't think they had any place in local politics.
"I just thought, That's ridiculous, she should concentrate on roads, not abortion," says Naegele."

"One thing all sides agree on is that the valley was in flux. The old libertarian pioneer ethos was giving way to a rising Christian conservatism. By shrewdly invoking issues that mattered to the ascendant majority, Palin won the mayor's race. But while she may have been a new face, says Naegele, she was no maverick — not yet. "The state party gave her the mechanism to get into that office," says Naegele. "As soon as she was confident enough to brush them off, she did. But she wasn't an outsider to start with. She very much had to kowtow to them." "

[Let's keep in mind that this "Christian conservatism" may be very popular in Wasilla, Alaska, it may not be more than 50% popular nationwide.]

"At some point in those fractious first days, Palin told the department heads they needed her permission to talk to reporters. "She put a gag order on those people, something that you'd expect to find in the big city, not here," says Naegele. "She flew in there like a big-city gal, which she's not. It was a strange time, and [the Frontiersman] came out very harshly against her."
Stein says that as mayor, Palin continued to inject religious beliefs into her policy at times. "She asked the library how she could go about banning books," he says, because some voters thought they had inappropriate language in them. "The librarian was aghast." That woman, Mary Ellen Baker, couldn't be reached for comment, but news reports from the time show that Palin had threatened to fire Baker for not giving "full support" to the mayor.
St. George, however, points out that Palin couldn't have seen everything through an Evangelical lens. She did, he says, notably resist calls to restrict operating hours for the bars in town. And even if faith did play an unusually large role in her decision-making as mayor, it may have only reflected the continued rise of Evangelicalism in the valley, a growth that continues to this day.
"We like to call this the Bible Belt of Alaska," says Cheryl Metiva, head of the local chamber of commerce. Churches proliferate in Wasilla today, and among the largest and most influential is the Wasilla Bible Church, where the Palins worship.
At the 11:15 a.m. Sunday service, hundreds sit in folding chairs, listening to a 20-minute sermon about the Book of Malachi and singing along to alt-rock praise songs. The only sign of culture warring in the whole production is an insert in the day's program advertising an upcoming Focus on the Family conference on homosexuality in Anchorage called Love Won Out. The group promises to teach attendees how to "respond to misinformation in our culture" and help them "overcome" homosexuality."

[I don't want the Bible belt of Alaska running my country]

http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1837918,00.html


Check out the cost of Cindy McCain's outfit:

http://www.vanityfair.com/online/politics/2008/09/cindy-mccains-300000-outfit.html

Granted these are estimates, but they are by industry pros who would
know.

No one knows for sure just how many VERY expensive properties the wealthy lord and lady John and Cindy McCain actually own. Apparantly they don't even know. I guess you could just throw another one on the pile and they would get to it.

I bet everyone who has lost a home knows EXACTLY how many they had.


-----Posted Added-----


Where is this going? Here it is:

John and Cindy McCain, the lord and lady, with their many manors.

Palin, the theocrat and the "Warrior Nobility" Talking about the warrior obligations of God.

Maybe not a feudal theocracy it it's MOST classical sense, but then are we a democracy in its MOST classical sense?

I want this feudal theocracy of McCain and Palin's stopped.

Sarah Palin will put on her personal liberty stomping boots and march this country right back into the Dark Ages.

 

[Urwumpe]

Was Hitler an anomaly as well? Or were all or even most German people physcotic whacked out killers who WANTED people burned in ovens.

To stop this wrong image (which I believed myself for a while): Hitler was not democratically elected into power. He became installed in a parliament plot when politicians got tired of the lack of a stable parliament. Before that, Hitler already lost two million votes in his last election. He was not the choice of the people, but the choice of three conservative parties in the German parliament. People should remember that Germany was already no true democracy at that point - the current chancellors had already been ruling the country over emergency laws, bypassing parliament.

That's why it is important to be careful, when a US president amends a law before signing it or uses other ways to make law without asking the parliament. While the concept of such government power is not bad, it gets bad when something, which was intended for short states of emergency, gets turned into long-time laws.

 

[GregBurch]

Take a look at this:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/ne...ns/article4687976.ece#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=797093

Try real hard. Imagine a similarly insulting caricature appearing in a mainstream paper about Obama. Imagine the nuclear firestorm.

I do realize this is a British paper. But it's only about an inch beyond what's already appeared in the American press. The tone deafness is amazing.

 

[dougkeenan]

A firestorm like the New Yorker cover?

 

[GregBurch]

A firestorm like the New Yorker cover?

I immediately thought of that ... and then wondered if someone would bring it up, because it so clearly illustrates my point. It was a left-oriented outlet that published that caricature of Obama -- as a statement of how they thought the other side perceived him. No one on the right would have dared do that, because they know it would have had the effect of immediately ejecting them from the game for going too far.

I know you read my "missing firebreak" post on the "sticks and stones" thread. This is an illustration of what I was saying better than I could have made up myself.

 

[simonpro]

Hugo is a genius, I used to read his stuff every sunday when I studied in the UK.