Sarah Palin selected by McCain for VP slot

[ewv 0]

Palin's goofy church has a lot to do with her politics. She supports the war in Iraq not because she gave it much thought, but because "God" told her it was important to fight the war. What else has "God" told her to do?

Sarah Palin support the war in Iraq because "God" told her to? Am I to take that comment seriously? Do you know Gov. Palin's view of the war? I don't. ...and I don't think you do either.

This is a rumor being spread by the left. She said she prays for the troops and for us to do the right thing in the usual Christian terms of a God whose thoughts and 'plans' we will never know explicitly. She never said that God told her to fight a war. She is proud of and approves of her son going to Iraq, and approves of the war in general terms, but I don't know how she thinks of it in terms of proper goals for the war, criterion for victory, etc.

The intensity of [KPO'M's] condemnation of Sarah Palin accepting, and spending, the pork-barrel money for the bridge to no-where are a little bit out-of-context. Sarah Palin's vice in this area does not set her apart from other politicians, making it a reason why we should not vote for her to become Vice President.

No politician rejects all Federal money. The process by which she came to realize that the bridge subsidy was a bad project has yet to be reported in detail. The notion that she somehow hypocritically wanted the money for it then claimed after the fact that she didn't is another fabrication.

If you want to dig into Sarah Palin's false "small government" image, take a look at the lease "agreements" she extorted from oil companies drilling in Alaska and the mechanism by which she forced owners of natural gas leases to accelerate their plans for construction of a new pipeline. Gov. Palin is very proud that she increased the "dividend payment" by $1200 per year to all "tenured" Alaska residents. Each now gets a check for $1654 per year from the state government...money taken from oil companies for exploiting resources that they should have had the opportunity to develop as their own private property.

Sarah Palin did not extort lease agreements instead of recognizing private property. The state constitution does not permit such private ownership. This was a condition of statehood imposed by Washington in 1958. As part of that, mineral resource rights are not attached to the land and may not be transferred: The state is prohibited from transferring the oil rights, let alone allowing those who find and develop oil fields to own them. The oil rights that belong to the state are therefore literally permanently owned by the state.

The "dividend payment" is also not taken directly from oil lease payments. The so-called "Permanent Fund" was established in the state Constitution (pdf file page 156) in 1976 to manage and invest income from oil and other minerals. This was done in reaction to the fact that the state politicians had begun to squander the money on spending following the opening of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline in the late 1960s. At least a quarter of the proceeds from oil (in the form of sales, rent and royalties but not taxes) must be invested in the Permanent Fund. In accordance with statute, much of the income from the invested fund is distributed to the citizens as dividends. This year the amount is about $3500 per person, with this history. Given that the state owns the resource, most people find it preferable to pay the public at least some of the income in "dividends" on the income earned rather than have the politicians spend it. The "dividends" are related to, but not the same as the recent change in tax rate on some aspect of the oil company's operations from 20% to 22% (the Democrats wanted 25%) in the context of a publicly perceived corruption scandal in which lobbyists were caught on tape promising to take care of campaign expenses in exchange for not raising (exhorting) higher taxes.

Companies were not forced to accelerate building a gas pipeline. The plans for a gas pipeline had been stalled for years. Palin got Trans-Canada to bid on the pipeline while other major companies who had expected the contract failed to bid. Palin outsmarted them and got the project moving. (There are technical reasons, however, to doubt that natural gas production will begin any time soon because the gas is being used to pressurize the oil fields as long as oil production is still feasible.)

Your [KPO'M's] anti-rural attitude, I don't get it...

This is not to idealize rural society...where drug abuse and alcoholism and juvenile delinquency are at least as common as in the big city. ...and where the multitudes who get the majority of America's unemployment and welfare payments live. ...and where it is much harder to run into interesting mind.

But cities, suburbs, and rural society have no monopoly on either virtue or vice. That's why I don't understand your view. And your view has been no accident; no slip of the tongue. You've been very insistent on it. I must assume it's not a joke...

Please go easy on people in rural America. There are a lot of good, self-supporting, self-respecting, independent people out there. Some are even interesting, successful people. Some -- typically ex-urbanites -- are even intellectuals.

One of the more refreshing features of the rural areas in Maine is the intelligent, independent people who have not been "educated" into what universities do to people these days. This is the independent "conservative" middle class that is so resented and hated by the left and which is being progressively stamped out.

As Jack says, some of the intelligent rural people are intellectuals who have moved there full or part time, but there is also an influx of well-off or grant-subsidized leftist authoritarians who have been moving into scenic areas. This follows on top of a whole cadre of progressive left hippy back-to-the-landers who moved in mostly in the 1960s and 70s. This is corrupting local politics to impose social controls, particularly land use prohibitions against people in their "view", established in collaboration with the big urban viro pressure groups who dominate state politics. Along with that is a subculture of "drug abuse and alcoholism and juvenile delinquency" he referred to, mostly associated with poor local education and lack of jobs due to the viros killing the economy with land use controls and abolition of industry.

So it can vary from a refreshing independence and competence to an ugly progressive authoritarianism to Starnesville. Most of this can be dealt with or ignored except for the increasing bureaucratic impositions from the state capitol and the Federal government progressively destroying the independent life style and freedom of rural living. It is these intrusions by urban politicians and organized pressure groups who outnumber the rural people that is the source of so much resentment and which is a nationwide phenomenon. When rural people object to urban liberal elitists this is often what they are talking about.

[ewv 0]

Your anti-rural attitude, I don't get it.

Please go easy on people in rural America. There are a lot of good, self-supporting, self-respecting, independent people out there. Some are even interesting, successful people. Some -- typically ex-urbanites -- are even intellectuals.

I don't have an anti-rural attitude. I'm taking Palin to task for giving a speech last week laced with anti-urban themes.

What speech in which she said exactly what as an "anti-urban theme"? Your repeated attacks on rural people objecting to urban political domination have been very explicit.

[ewv 0]

Palin's goofy church has a lot to do with her politics. She supports the war in Iraq not because she gave it much thought, but because "God" told her it was important to fight the war. What else has "God" told her to do?

That is patently false. It is one of the many nasty rumors that have been maliciously spread and which you continue to repeat on the Forum as if they were true.

Please explain what this means, then.

It sure doesn't mean what you said. She did not say that God told her to fight a war or that her 'goofy church' is directing her politics or that she hasn't thought about it. This is not the first time you have been contradicted by your own claimed documentation. Her statement is being taken out of context and twisted to mean something she never said. This has already been explained to you here on the Forum. She is calling on people to pray for our soldiers that we are doing the right thing. To a Christian that means we have to figure out what that is, while hoping that we have done it right in accordance with an unknowable 'Gods plan'. The unkowable implicit 'plan' is nonsense, but it does not mean that God told anyone what to do or that she knows whatever that is supposed to be by some kind of divine insight or that she has not thought about the war and what the right thing to do is. Recent radio and TV reports have even begun to refute the malicious rumors that have been circulating and this is one of them.

Contrast this with Obama's church in which hysterical, ranting sermons are explicitly racist and political.

[ewv 0]

"Kinship with Alaska from a rural hometown in Maine" has nothing to do with it. This false characterization dismissively thrown out illustrates once again that you make pronouncements as if they were fact without knowing what you are talking about. Please stop this and make some attempt at objectivity and fact. You know nothing about my experiences or even what state my home town is in.

Perhaps you don't understand the meaning of the word "may"? It was meant as a hypothesis.

You know nothing about the politics controlling and locking up land and resources in Alaska. The explanation was already given to you, which you continue to ignore. What you now call an 'hypothesis' is an arbitrary, false and irrelevant diversion that cannot be excused by callling it an 'hypothesis'.

[Carlos 0]

Along with that is a subculture of "drug abuse and alcoholism and juvenile delinquency" he referred to, mostly associated with poor local education and lack of jobs due to the viros killing the economy with land use controls and abolition of industry.

Uh yeah--my father and I estimated the numbers one time for a farmer trying to make money off of wheat in our local small town. With property taxes (which hurt because you need a lot of acreage to make money on a farm), high diesel prices, high fertilizer prices (which apparently are affected by natural gas prices), income taxes and other such things it is basically impossible for a farmer to make a living without subsidies.

[Carlos 0]

Pertinent?

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/31..._Checking_Slime

[ewv 0]

Now here's where you are clearly posting false information and your ignorance of Illinois politics. The rural vote quite often decides statewide elections.

The truly rural areas do not outnumber urban voters.

Cook County is solidly Democratic (not necessarily liberal), but represents about 40% of the population. The 5 other counties in the metropolitan area are mostly Republican (slowly changing) and represent about another 30% of the population. "Downstate" is mostly GOP, but far southern Illinois is more Democratic...

Illinois has two liberal Democrat Senators and a majority of Democrat and liberal Republican Representatives. With a few exceptions all of them are anti-private property, with terrible voting scores on private property issues.

As for the tax burden, Illinois is middle-of-the-road in state and local tax burden, ranking 30th out of the 50 states, and slightly below the national average with a 9.3% total average levy vs. 9.7% nationally. Our comparatively high property and sales taxes are offset by a low income tax. We also rank 45th out of the 50 states in receiving $0.75 in federal funding for every $1 in tax we send to Washington.

http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/topic/26.html

If our politicians have all the influence in Washington you claim they do, we certainly don't have much to show for it.

They are routinely voting against private property. Only 5 out of 20 Representives score over 50%, with only 1 at 75% and 1 at 92%. Your two senators are 20% for Obama and 40% for Durbin.

What would having "much to show for it" mean to you -- subsidies from Washington? Your "average" state and local tax burden is not very good in the context of today's high taxes everywhere.

None of your arguments show any knowledge or understanding of how highly populated urban areas are dominating and controlling the less populated rural areas by imposing land use prohibitions that kill the economy and "preserve" land at the expense of the owners.

[piz 0]

Palin's goofy church has a lot to do with her politics. She supports the war in Iraq not because she gave it much thought, but because "God" told her it was important to fight the war. What else has "God" told her to do?

That is patently false.

I'm in overall agreement with ewv's post. Just to address this one point, though: at the 3:50 point in the first video referenced in my post here, while Palin may not exactly have said that "'God' told her it was important to fight the war," she did say, exactly, that the war is "a task that is from God." Is that a difference that makes no difference?

I worry a great deal about any politician who expresses such religious zeal, so I keep a wary eye on that facet of Palin. However, subject to change as I learn more about her, my view of the influence of religion on Palin's politics remains as I stated it in that post.

[piz 0]

Sarah Palin support the war in Iraq because "God" told her to? Am I to take that comment seriously? Do you know Gov. Palin's view of the war? I don't. ...and I don't think you do either. Please look into her view before condemning it. If there is something in her view to condemn -- some fact, some way of failing to reason about the facts -- please bring it up. We want the facts. We want to know. But...

My previous post about this may be informative.

[piz 0]

Palin's goofy church has a lot to do with her politics. She supports the war in Iraq not because she gave it much thought, but because "God" told her it was important to fight the war. What else has "God" told her to do?

That is patently false. It is one of the many nasty rumors that have been maliciously spread and which you continue to repeat on the Forum as if they were true.

Please explain what this means, then.

It sure doesn't mean what you said. She did not say that God told her to fight a war or that her 'goofy church' is directing her politics or that she hasn't thought about it. This is not the first time you have been contradicted by your own claimed documentation. Her statement is being taken out of context and twisted to mean something she never said. This has already been explained to you here on the Forum. She is calling on people to pray for our soldiers that we are doing the right thing. To a Christian that means we have to figure out what that is, while hoping that we have done it right in accordance with an unknowable 'Gods plan'. The unkowable implicit 'plan' is nonsense, but it does not mean that God told anyone what to do or that she knows whatever that is supposed to be by some kind of divine insight or that she has not thought about the war and what the right thing to do is. Recent radio and TV reports have even begun to refute the malicious rumors that have been circulating and this is one of them.

Contrast this with Obama's church in which hysterical, ranting sermons are explicitly racist and political.

Ah, I see you've already reviewed the video I mentioned.

[KPO'M 0]

I agree with you that Gov. Palin has made appeals on the basis of anti-urban populism. I disagree with this part of her political program. (You can read my my long diatribe against anti-rural prejudices as an argument against anti-urban populism.)

What I didn't in your argument was why you repeated, again and again, arguments against rural America. I thought you were blaming rural society for most of America's entrenched interests that seek government payments.

Urban America hosts entrenched interests that are, proportionately, just about as heavily invested in government entitlements as those of rural America. That means that almost 80% of the government dole goes to cities and suburbs where 80% of Americans live. And almost 80% of the votes that are corrupted -- purchased by government subsidies -- are cast in urban and suburban districts.

Or do urban and suburban districts get only 60 or 70% of the loot? In that case, I still wouldn't hold it against rural people that they get too much loot. There are priorities when it comes to which kinds of loot are the worst kind, but if either group gets any loot, I'm against it. Can I assume you are, too?

Yes, I think we're in general agreement. I think it's fairer to say that urban/suburban areas make up about 80% of the population and get 60-70% of the "loot." Overall, the overall aim is to reduce government redistribution. That said, when discussing current issues such as funding for the CTA, I analogize to Rand's writings about accepting government payments in cases where the government has a monopoly (which is why I brought it up).

Technological advancement has made it so that fewer people are required to till the land to achieve sustainable yields. intuitively, this ought to have meant that the free market should be working quite well, just as it has in most manufacturing industries. However, the government clings to the Depression-era farm subsidy system (which wasn't appropriate in the Depression, either), while multiple attempts at "reform" (the latest being the "Freedom to Farm" Act) have consistently failed.

[RickWilmes 0]

Illinois is not "ignored" nationally.

Unless, of course, you are a Cubs fan.

[Mac 0]

If this is "identity politics," the kind of woman that the majority of American women are identifying with is a confession that they have a pretty healthy pride in themselves.

Perhaps this should go into the "light-hearted chatter" section. Or in a PM. But like James Taggart, I can't help it for putting it here for all to see because as Jack well knows I rarely have much to say beyond monosyllables such as "yes" and "um huh".

Jack, you've known my wife and me for over 20 years. Speaking for her, I say that you can guess that Linda doesn't care one bit that Gov. Palin is a woman. And you're correct that she does and always has had "...a pretty healthy pride in [herself]" long before Gov. Palin came upon the political scene. In fact Linda is a little annoyed that the focus is on Gov. Palin's sex. She approaches the issue with common sense. And you can guess why, despite McCain's awful politics, I (as a visual artist and military veteran) would go for him all the while loving Gov. Palin more than him.

Huh?

[Mac 0]

If this is "identity politics," the kind of woman that the majority of American women are identifying with is a confession that they have a pretty healthy pride in themselves.

Perhaps this should go into the "light-hearted chatter" section. Or in a PM. But like James Taggart, I can't help it for putting it here for all to see because as Jack well knows I rarely have much to say beyond monosyllables such as "yes" and "um huh".

Jack, you've known my wife and me for over 20 years. Speaking for her, I say that you can guess that Linda doesn't care one bit that Gov. Palin is a woman. And you're correct that she does and always has had "...a pretty healthy pride in [herself]" long before Gov. Palin came upon the political scene. In fact Linda is a little annoyed that the focus is on Gov. Palin's sex. She approaches the issue with common sense. And you can guess why, despite McCain's awful politics, I (as a visual artist and military veteran) would go for him all the while loving Gov. Palin more than him.

Huh?

P.S.

In fact Linda is a little annoyed that the focus is on Gov. Palin's sex.

I meant Gov. Palin's gender, not "sex".

[piz 0]

I meant Gov. Palin's gender, not "sex".

I don't want to start a tangent, but using "sex" was perfectly correct. Until relatively recently,* "gender" primarily meant "the behavioral, cultural, or psychological traits typically associated with one sex" (definition here), rather than having the same meaning as "sex," which is "either of the two major forms of individuals that occur in many species and that are distinguished respectively as female or male especially on the basis of their reproductive organs and structures" (here). I think it's largely people's (ridiculous, IMNSHO) squeamishness over the word "sex" that led to using "gender" to mean the same thing. Palin is a member of the female sex.

None of this, of course, means anything for the purpose of rationally evaluating her politics. It only matters when discussing the various ways that many people make it an issue.

_____

*I don't recall hearing it in widespread use to mean "sex" until maybe the early 1980s.

[Jack Wakeland 0]

...I think it's fairer to say that urban/suburban areas make up about 80% of the population and get 60-70% of the "loot." Overall, the overall aim is to reduce government redistribution. That said, when discussing current issues such as funding for the CTA, I analogize to Rand's writings about accepting government payments in cases where the government has a monopoly (which is why I brought it up).

I don't know the rural v. urban/suburban statistics on the distribution of government benefit payments, but because the rural population is small and relatively less prosperous and because George Bush and the Republican leadership in congress brought the federal farm program back to life in 2001 and it is now bigger than ever -- because of these two things, I suspect that the rural population, as a group, gets more government loot on a per capita basis.

That said, I would strongly caution you against keeping track of the welfare state benefit system in these terms. If you seek justice in the distribution of government benefits you will never find it. The injustice occurred when the government seized money from people by taxation. The only way to redress this form of mass armed robbery is to reduce and eliminate it.

If the federal, state, and local government were reduced to their proper function of protecting our rights -- through police services, the criminal justice system, the civil courts, our national defense, the operation of the offices of representative government, and other services connected with the delegation of our right to use force in self-defense -- there is no reason why our country's total tax burden should be more than 8% of the nation's total income...even in our time of small wars and international tension; even in our time of numerous criminals (4% of adult men in America are convicted felons...and two thirds of those convictions are not drug and other victimless "crimes".)

But the federal government swallows up 22% and state and local governments swallow up something like another 12 - 14% of economic output...and the income and wealth taken by regulation amounts to an economic burden that has been calculated in various studies to be equal to another 3 - 10% (EVW's very valid concern is about how environmentalist regulations can take most or all of the value of land). In order to obtain guaranteed "low interest" financing of the federal debt (which currently stands at 69% of GDP), inflation of the currency by the Fed takes another 2 - 4%. Add it up and government takes over and either destroys, consumes in administrative costs, or "re-distributes" about 45% of everything made in America.

In looking at these abuses of government power, we should focus on the blunt fact that -- as a nation -- we're literally half slave and half free. (We live in a Democracy, so the masters who enslave us to our tax burdens are the majority of our fellow citizens; the voting majority.) Whether or not our masters throw others too many scraps from our nation's collectivized dinner table is an issue. It is the final act of train of injustices. But to focus on that is exactly what the collectivists among us want to trick us into doing. If we fight each other over the scraps, we'll be too busy with it to overturn the system.

Don't fall for it. Don't fight for scraps. Be upright in your opposition. Demand all an end to each and every instance of looting. Find politically constructive ways to bite the hand that takes the food from you:

No more farm subsidies. No more food stamps. No more public education. No more FHA home loans. No more social security payments. No more research grants. No more Medicare and Medicaid. No more slavery. No more loot.

[KPO'M 0]

Illinois is not "ignored" nationally.

Unless, of course, you are a Cubs fan.

Actually, Obama's a Sox fan.

[Jack Wakeland 0]

Palin's goofy church has a lot to do with her politics. She supports the war in Iraq not because she gave it much thought, but because "God" told her it was important to fight the war. What else has "God" told her to do?...

This is a rumor being spread by the left. She said she prays for the troops and for us to do the right thing in the usual Christian terms of a God whose thoughts and 'plans' we will never know explicitly. She never said that God told her to fight a war. She is proud of and approves of her son going to Iraq, and approves of the war in general terms, but I don't know how she thinks of it in terms of proper goals for the war, criterion for victory, etc.

Today I was poking around on the web to learn more things about Sarah Palin. While a U-Tube clip of a speech made in church can be valid information, you have to do the work yourself of validating it. Is it true or is it doctored like

).

The most reliable information can be found at big newspapers and other major news organizations. There are many holes in today's journalistic standards, but at least journalists have some standards for confirmation and fact checking.

Based on stories by professional journalists, I have learned that from her teenage years through the age of 38, Sarah Palin was a member of the In 2002"]Wasilla Assembly of God, a Pentecostal church. The Pentecostals are a Christian sect that can rightly be considered a little... er... "goofy." They're a Christian evangelical sect that believes that faith healing is possible (radical Pentecostalists have been prosecuted for child abuse for failing to provide medical treatment...praying over a gravely ill child rather than seeking a routine treatment that has been proven to be effective in modern medical practice). They're also way too interested in the craziest, most mystical, and most warlike book of the Bible: the Book of Revelations.

Being a member of such a sect for her entire first half of her adult life demonstrates that Sarah Palin flirted with abandoning a large body of rational knowledge that she'd acquired from living in secular society and breaking away from rational methods of thinking.

In 2002 Sarah Palin quit her Pentecostal church and joined a less radical and more private evangelical group, the Wasilla Bible Church. She did this after she ran for Lt. Governor of Alaska and lost. If the staff of the New Republic is to be believed in this matter (I believe them), the defeat of Sarah's ambition to win a state-wide election may have also prompted her husband, Jim, to quit his seven-year membership in the secessionist Alaska Independence Party.

It is reasonable to speculate in the defeat of her this-worldly political ambition, that Sarah Palin decided to reform herself, become more like her fellow Alaskans, and conform to a more conventional world-view. It is reasonable to speculate that she asked her husband, and he agreed, to refrain from radical and unconventional political affiliations.

In 2006 Sarah Palin ran for and was elected governor of Alaska. She has served 20 months in that office and has acted as a relatively conventional practitioner of rational administration. She has limited her political advocacy to arguing against insider deals and big government.

Sarah Palin may have undergone a political conversion by electoral defeat of the same kind that Bill Clinton underwent when he lost his bid to be re-elected governor of Arkansas. In Clinton's case, he gave up on the welfare state as an ideal and settled for a series of "compromises" that took him in the direction of supporting the free market system...a process that climaxed with "Welfare Reform" and "NAFTA" after a second election defeat, the Republican takeover of congress in 1994. In Palin's case -- after briefly flirting with telling librarians what books to keep (and possibly flirting with some Christian-survivalist viewpoints), she traded some of her radical religious conservative ideals for a better political career.

The fact that Sarah Palin came from an unconventional background could be surmised from the fact that she was fearless in condemning some conventional political shibboleths that most conservatives are afraid to touch these days:

“America needs more energy; our opponent is against producing it. Victory in Iraq is finally in sight, and he wants to forfeit. Terrorist states are seeking nuclear weapons without delay; he wants to meet them without preconditions,” she said. “Al Qaeda terrorists still plot to inflict catastrophic harm on America, and he’s worried that someone won’t read them their rights.”

[KPO'M 0]

In 2002 Sarah Palin quit her Pentecostal church and joined a less radical and more private evangelical group, the Wasilla Bible Church. She did this after she ran for Lt. Governor of Alaska and lost. If the staff of the New Republic is to be believed in this matter (I believe them), the defeat of Sarah's ambition to win a state-wide election may have also prompted her husband, Jim, to quit his seven-year membership in the secessionist Alaska Independence Party.

It is reasonable to speculate in the defeat of her this-worldly political ambition, that Sarah Palin decided to reform herself, become more like her fellow Alaskans, and conform to a more conventional world-view. It is reasonable to speculate that she asked her husband, and he agreed, to refrain from radical and unconventional political affiliations.

In 2006 Sarah Palin ran for and was elected governor of Alaska. She has served 20 months in that office and has acted as a relatively conventional practitioner of rational administration. She has limited her political advocacy to arguing against insider deals and big government.

Sarah Palin may have undergone a political conversion by electoral defeat of the same kind that Bill Clinton underwent when he lost his bid to be re-elected governor of Arkansas. In Clinton's case, he gave up on the welfare state as an ideal and settled for a series of "compromises" that took him in the direction of supporting the free market system...a process that climaxed with "Welfare Reform" and "NAFTA" after a second election defeat, the Republican takeover of congress in 1994. In Palin's case -- after briefly flirting with telling librarians what books to keep (and possibly flirting with some Christian-survivalist viewpoints), she traded some of her radical religious conservative ideals for a better political career.

A more cynical view is that Palin chose her new "non-denominational" status on political grounds, realizing that it would be more palatable to a statewide audience. As someone who views Obama's choice of church as political, rather than religious, I am more likely to see that in Palin, as well.

As I surmise you can appreciate (coming from Chicago), Obama needed to choose an activist church in order to advance within the African-American political community. Remember, he is someone who might come across as "too white" or at least "not black enough" to many in his local constituencies. He's educated, had a potentially high-paying career path, and by most accounts is a family man. Wright's church is activist enough, and involved enough in community affairs to give him "street cred." As his nomination became inevitable, it also became inevitable he'd part ways with Wright. Palin, as a suburban mayor in a conservative town, was well-served politically by the Pentecostal church. In seeking a larger office, it made sense to become more "mainstream."

[Jack Wakeland 0]

Today I was poking around on the web to learn more things about Sarah Palin. While a U-Tube clip of a speech made in church can be valid information, you have to do the work yourself of validating it.

Oh, I forgot to mention what I did figure out about that U-Tube film clip. It was from a talk Sarah Palin gave at the Wasilla Assembly of God in 2002.

Excerpts of sermons about Christian warriors made by her former pastor at this Pentecostal church that are currently in circulation (e.g., the statement read by the leftist in the U-Tube picture that I posted a link to above) were made more recently...after Palin left the group.

This information accurately reflects Sarah Palin's world-view in 2002, before she began her effort to transform herself into a conventional conservative political leader.

What world-view would she bring to the office of Vice President? We'll have to watch her stump speeches, the vice presidential debate, her reaction to statements made against her, and press interviews.

Gov. Palin's campaign manager totally shielded her from all interviews for over a week following her V.P. nomination. I suspect he did this to allow the American people to get a strong dose of her benevolent sense of life before the facts about some of the odd and peculiar views she held before 2002 become widely publicized.

[KPO'M 0]

Gov. Palin's campaign manager totally shielded her from all interviews for over a week following her V.P. nomination. I suspect he did this to allow the American people to get a strong dose of her benevolent sense of life before the facts about some of the odd and peculiar views she held before 2002 become widely publicized.

More likely, it was to prepare her with answers for some questions. We're less likely to get real responses now, even after she does her interviews, than we would have had she appeared on one of the Sunday shows this past weekend.

I think you are too trusting in politicians' religious beliefs. Nothing a politician does is unplanned, particularly not church membership.

[Genius Aspirant 0]

McCain just beat Obama in a recent poll:

http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/09/08/mccain-leads-poll/

This is a stunning trend shift and you would think that it would be at the front page of all key media ... but you'd be wrong.

It looks like you are in Seattle. So am I -- this is all over the major news media. Not sure what you read or listen to or watch -- or how you define "key media." Looks like we have a real race on our hands! Yeah Palin!!!!!

I am actually now in Paris, I'll update that - thanks for reminding me.

Interestingly, when I posted that was after looking for any reference to this on the CNN, NYT, and WSJ sites and finding none.

Wow. I am jealous. From Seattle to Paris! What a nice move. For a job? Love? Something else?

On the news media issue -- I really think there is a time lag between some news and where and how it gets reported -- most of it is I think reasonable, but one never knows with some of these ridiculously biased outlets like the NYT -- ugh, I dont know how anyone can stand to read that rag!

[Jack Wakeland 0]

A more cynical view is that Palin chose her new "non-denominational" status on political grounds, realizing that it would be more palatable to a statewide audience. As someone who views Obama's choice of church as political, rather than religious, I am more likely to see that in Palin, as well...

Yes...that is exactly what I meant. It looks like Sarah Palin "adjusted" her strips to promote her political career.

This is not a cynical observation. I don't expect people to abandon their principles. But if a person change his principles in a way that ends up advancing his political career, it is more likely that a corrupting ambition played the primary role and any real learning that might have been caused by soul-searching following a major defeat probably plays the secondary role.

To give Bill Clinton the little bit of credit that is due to him. The trauma of losing his gubernatorial re-election campaign and the difficulties of losing the Congressional majority in 1994 may have been occasions for some first-hand learning about the virtues of a few parts of the conservative program. But Bill Clinton's primary purpose for altering his spots was to gain and keep power for himself and for the Democratic Party.

I've never been too hard on Bill Clinton for adopting Welfare Reform and NAFTA. And if it sounds like I am somewhat tolerant of Sarah Palin's apparent manipulation of her own thoughts and beliefs for the purpose of winning elections, it is for the same reason. In President Clinton's case, we know the change was motivated by political advantage and in Palin's case it is likely to prove to be so, too. But when it comes to integrity, I've never had much respect for people who maintain their fidelity to wholly false and evil ideas. "Corruption" that results in less destructive behavior is not a terrible thing.

There are issues in politician's public life in which performance depends primarily on his philosophical integrity. On other issues I care less about the health of a politician's soul, than I care about whether or not he oppresses me. If he is compelled by the will of the voters to stay his taxing hand, that is a first step in the right direction.

[Jack Wakeland 0]

I think you are too trusting in politicians' religious beliefs. Nothing a politician does is unplanned, particularly not church membership.

Sarah Palin's church membership before she ran for state-wide office was "unplanned." Now it is an integral part of her career. The degrees by which Sarah Palin gives up her integrity are the degrees by which she first becomes less crazy and, then -- later -- becomes more and more conventional in her views and less and less effective and doing any good.

This pattern can already be seen in her career. As mayor she eliminated several useless offices and reduced city spending. As governor she pressed oil companies to pay more money to the state and she approved increases in state spending.

The reason why it sounds like I still like her, it is because she is has a likeable public persona which appears to reflect her real personality. If Sarah Palin's journey in politics is more a process of corruption than one of genuine learning by experience, she will be of little use as a potential defender of liberty who will be the presumptive leader of the Republican Party after the end of John McCain presidency (if he wins) or presidential campaign (if he loses).

Yes, I am "naive" enough to hope that Sarah Palin may genuinely be capable of learning to be more rational and to be a better advocate for liberty. The facts on her are not yet in. And at this early stage of her political career, she still has a partly blank slate to write on. It is possible that some might come from her rise in the Republican Party.

In the coming weeks and years, we'll get indications of which way she is headed.

[Mac 0]

I meant Gov. Palin's gender, not "sex".

I don't want to start a tangent, but using "sex" was perfectly correct. Until relatively recently,* "gender" primarily meant "the behavioral, cultural, or psychological traits typically associated with one sex" (definition here), rather than having the same meaning as "sex," which is "either of the two major forms of individuals that occur in many species and that are distinguished respectively as female or male especially on the basis of their reproductive organs and structures" (here). I think it's largely people's (ridiculous, IMNSHO) squeamishness over the word "sex" that led to using "gender" to mean the same thing. Palin is a member of the female sex.

None of this, of course, means anything for the purpose of rationally evaluating her politics. It only matters when discussing the various ways that many people make it an issue.

_____

*I don't recall hearing it in widespread use to mean "sex" until maybe the early 1980s.

Thank you for this clarification.

My comments are usually rough drafts, not a polished statement, so that I don't get said all that I have in mind. When I said :

And you can guess why, despite McCain's awful politics, I (as a visual artist and military veteran) would go for him all the while loving Gov. Palin more than him.

this offers no rational reason to vote for McCain. Fact is I'm not voting while my wife is voting for McCain.