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Home » Palin and Pygmalion: who said class is dead in America?

Palin and Pygmalion: who said class is dead in America?

The New Neo Posted on by

Today’s hatred of Palin is driven at least partly by a host of elements connected to class, despite our protestations that we’re a relatively classless society. This particular class consciousness, which disregards Palin’s formidable accomplishments as governor as though they had not occurred, isn’t necessarily about money or family origins. The source of this special contempt seems related to what is known as style, and to a lesser extent to education.

Palin has a college degree, but to her detractors it’s significant that it’s from a non-elite school (of course, attending an elite school didn’t save the hated Bush, who was hated partly because he came from a patrician family but didn’t act like it). She’s from a state that’s considered rough-and-tumble, not smooth and sophisticated. She may wear lovely suits and pretty shoes (there’s of course a new furor about how they were paid for), but underneath it all she’s just déclassé, with the McCain campaign as Pygmalion trying to turn this common (or, as Peggy Noonan might say, vulgar) flower girl into a presentable figure.

“Pygmalion” (or, in its more familiar incarnation, the musical “My Fair Lady”) was amusing to Americans in part because it gently mocked the British class system that judged people on matters so superficial as the way they speak, especially their accents. But if there was ever any doubt that we do the same here, the rage and condescension directed at Palin for talking in more vernacular tones than is usual for a politician (dropping the “g”s at the end of gerunds, for example) has effectively dispelled such a notion.

Critics of Palin will no doubt respond by claiming their dislike of the woman is due to what she says and not how she says it. I have no doubt that they would never be Palin supporters even if her pronunciation were good enough to make her an elocution teacher. But they wouldn’t despise her with the vigor and depth they now display, nor would they be so eager to smear and defile her and her family, attempts which I believe have done quite a bit to devalue her in the eyes of those who take the circulated lies as revealed truth.

The snobbery inherent in some of the Palin attacks may have its origins in people who have moved in a bubble of well-educated elitism all their lives, and don’t really know how much common sense “common people” actually possess. I was struck by the fact that in Camille Paglia’s spirited and surprising defense of Palin, the writer drew on her own childhood experiences of farm women she knew and respected:

Perhaps Palin seemed perfectly normal to me because she resembles so many women I grew up around in the snow belt of upstate New York. For example, there were the robust and hearty farm women of Oxford, a charming village where my father taught high school when I was a child. We first lived in an apartment on the top floor of a farmhouse on a working dairy farm. Our landlady, who was as physically imposing as her husband, was an all-American version of the Italian immigrant women of my grandmother’s generation—agrarian powerhouses who could do anything and whose trumpetlike voices could pierce stone walls…

Of course, such early exposure to poverty or working class origins could backfire, increasing Palin-rage for some commentators who have successfully struggled to escape their own déclassé past and are ashamed of it—call this the Holly Golightly, or perhaps the Jay Gatsby, effect.

One of the joys of “Pymaglion” and its more-happily-ever-after offshoot “My Fair Lady” is the knowledge that, whether Cockney flower girl or bejeweled lady, Eliza is actually a figure of intelligence and valor. Some (including me) also spot these characteristics in Sarah Palin, while others deny them.

There’s yet another figure of special interest in the plays, Eliza’s father Alfred Doolittle, played by the great Stanley Holloway on both stage and screen in the musical. He’s a bounder who’s been a rotten father, but there’s a famous scene in which he’s revealed to be not only intelligent but remarkably eloquent in describing certain facts of life that are especially interesting in light of current controversies involving income redistribution and socialism.

I kid you not. Here’s the relevant scene—Alfred Doolittle comes to see Henry Higgins in order to get some money from him in exchange for Eliza’s company, and manages to impress Higgins with his powers of rhetoric despite his lower-class origins. As Higgins says, somewhat but not totally sarcastically, he’s “A philosophical genius of the first water.”

The entire clip is amusing. But the especially apropos bit begins at 4:14, and then continues especially at 6:16 with Doolittle’s “I’m one of the undeserving poor” speech:

I couldn’t close this post without a visual of Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly, sporting the precursor of Palin’s famous upswept do, and holdng a non-PC cigarette holder:

golightly.jpg

Comments

Palin and Pygmalion: who said class is dead in America? — 92 Comments

  1. Once again you have split the fairway with your insight. I noticed even Lorne Michaels of SNL had some praise for Palin’s abilities. It remains to be seen if any of the feminist barking dogs will have a change of heart. Don’t count out Hilary when Obama starts making blunders in his administration and the once drooling media put their teeth back in and go after him. A two term presidency is not a lock. The PUMAs are out there in the darkness….waiting.

  2. Bush Derangement Syndrome won’t disappear but will carry on with Palin Derangement Syndrome.

    (Note to self: gotta buy me that dress!)

  3. I’d note the class stuff comes almost all comes from various flavors of lefties (bobos, hipsters, et cetera). Generally (but not always) people who pretend to be above their own actual class.

    I’m middle to maybe sort of close to upper middle class but I tend to enjoy working class things. Dive bars, bowling, deli and BBQ food, working on my old classic car et cetera (my grandfathers were working class and I spent a lot of time with one who was a welder at his shop)…. so I catch a lot of flack from people who make less than me who disdain my choices (example: going bowling? WHY?)… funny… not only do I make more… I SAVE more because of my lack of class pretentions… This upward class envy / wannabeism is big part of dems current appeal in the blue cities. These types want creative city jobs that don’t pay as well as others (I have a technical job, probably down three or four rungs from my ideal dream job… but it paid the best), don’t want to fight for better pay themselves, et cetera… but then want their incomes supplemented to make up for their choices (re: entitlement mentality)…. They also like to look down on others and the red voters play that roll… As part of a republican comeback, this wannabe pretentiousness needs to mocked ruthlessly and endlessly (re: You wanna fight a class war? Punk?)… it is a target rich environment…

  4. Neo, It is based on what Peggy Noonan said that has me classifying her future thoughts and opinions as “irrelevant”.

    This is a big thing. A messenger should be heard for their message. Each message is new and different. Peggy may have something interesting to say with many facts interlaced.

    But I will not subject myself to hearing from her if I don’t have to. Her insides became uglier with the negativity of her judgment. She imposed double-standards on Sarah. She imposed standards on Sarah that could’ve been a column that just as easily devoted time to Obama’s views or inexperience in the same breath as Obama’s views and inexperience dwarf Sarah’s.

    Sarah has the most executive experience of all 4 candidates. Obama has legislative experience but with that experience chose to vote “present” at the highest percentage rate of what? 45%? Nobody is pointing to bills that obama co-sponsored or wrote to say, “see – this is why I like Obama”.

    I will not stand for this sexist double-standard. I cast aside the messenger in this instance. And I’ve read quite a few pieces from Peggy Noonan on the Online Journal over the years. It sickens me what she did. I read Peggy’s column carefully – so this is not something that can be glossed over by her without a very heartfelt apology.

  5. This is the best defense you can summon of Palin? “Those nasty liberals hate her because they hate everyday non-elite Americans!” Despite the fact that this woman plays on class consciousness practically every time she opens her mouth (pro-America parts of the country, anyone?) somehow it’s the LIBERALS who are condescendingly glaring down their snobbishly long noses at her. This must mean that 60% of the country is now liberal:

    “A new national Pew Research Center poll put Obama up by 14 points. It found voters losing confidence in McCain’s judgment, more confident about Obama’s qualifications, and Palin’s unfavorability increasing to 60 percent.”

    http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics/AP/story/735683.html

    You know why they don’t like her? You can guess, but I promise it ain’t because she’s of the “rough and tumble class.” But of course, this is all Peggy Noonan and the big nasty liberal media’s fault.

  6. I’ve been watching old reruns of “The Beverly Hillbillies” with my wife and 17 year old daughter and it’s a broad play on the same class issues. Buddy Ebsen was just great as Jed showing a higher level of intelligence, kindness and character than the higher class denziens of Beverly hills. Mr. Drysdale is the upper class Republican banker who understands Jed and at his heart likes him. His wife for which all is status totally hates the Clampetts.

    I’ve also seen some reruns of “All in the Family” which have not held up well over the years. The sneering disrespect for the working class Archie and casting everything he does as Racist reminds me of the current left. It is not amusing, nor kindhearted.

  7. Xanadu, in context, her Pro America comments were positive. Those who take offense need not take offense. She didn’t condemn anyone of being anti-American.

    Rest assured, there are anti-Americans in America. That is factual. There are those who carried signs saying, “I love New York City without the twin towers”.

    I have an honest intent to know Xanadu. Why were you offended with Palin’s pro-America comments? Do you recognize a little that you might be reaching or implying something she said?

    Also, On the issues… what positions do you disagree with Sarah on?

    Also, Do you find Barack’s ‘legislative’ experience to be a reason to vote for Obama? What bill did he write or co-sponsor that tells you, “this is why I like Obama?” Does Obama have executive experience at all on his resume (besides running his own campaign)?

    Sincerely,

    Not addressing the questions will only make you look bad,

    Me

  9. Xanadu Says:

    “This is the best defense you can summon of Palin? “Those nasty liberals hate her because they hate everyday non-elite Americans!””

    Like it or not, it’s true… I get invited to their parties… They use all of the lines of attack that neo mentioned. I even heard the mocking her college (all four of them)… One brave person did point out Biden was near the bottom of his class (not me, I wouldn’t care)…

    As I said in my post, the irony is they’re upper lower class hipsters or lower middle class bobo’s (the one’s I know at least) who did not graduate from elite schools themselves…. but joining the left gives them the satisfaction (in their minds) of being better… than they actually are… The left has always offered that. A sort of honorary ‘intellectualism’ even if you’re an idiot who has never read Marx or anyone else more challenging that mike moore… oh yeah, and I have and Marx was an idiot.. but that’s another post.

  10. It’s not well noted that Gov. Palin gets better every single day. You could blog about her every day, and you would be blogging about a different politician. Remember the slash and burn Couric interview? Remember Repub intelligentsia calling for McCain to replace her before the debate? Three weeks ago was a lifetime ago. Now Palin is going to the back of her campaign plane and taking media questions. She is marching up to media on tarmacs and outside of ice cream shops. Over the last 8 days she was the only candidate to take questions from media gaggles. Obama, McCain, and Biden were hiding from gaggles and limiting their exposure to questioning. Palin’s campaign manager was having to pull her away from gaggles after a dozen or so questions. Gov. Palin also sat for interviews with CNN (Drew Griffin) and NBC (Brian Williams).

    Gov. Palin is punching her way through – almost with visible glee. She is becoming more effective with every interview. She knows who she is, what her talents are, and that she has nothing to hide. This gives her strength. Barack and Biden look wimpy in comparision. McCain looks aged and famfloozled.

    Palin is now so accessible that I expect a preplanned gotcha will soon enough lead to a gaffe – and it won’t matter. Nothing damages Caribou Barbie. She is now like an improving rookie who is suddenly more effective than the veteran player. She is David Price to McCain’s Dan Wheeler, and she is throwing 97 MPH heat.

    At this point, Palin understands both conservative doctrine and Barack’s vulnerabities better than McCain does. McCain isn’t fully conversant with Barack’s past, and with why that past reveals extremism. Palin is conversant. She’s a quick study, and she’s studying every day.

  12. bad haikumenter Says:

    “Gov. Palin is punching her way through – almost with visible glee. She is becoming more effective with every interview.”

    I figured some of the poor start was stage fright…

  13. Pingback:Bookworm Room » A few quick picks before I head back to work

  15. Hi Neo,

    I must disagree with your analysis. Here is a joke for you which I’m sure you’ve seen:

    “What’s the difference between Obama and Palin? One is a well turned out, good looking and let’s face it…. a downright sexy piece of eye candy. The other kills her own food”.

    The Democrats are the only ones who are to be blessed with an attractive candidate who gather votes purely though likeability and good looks, Woman faint at the sight of him. If Republicans can come up with such a candidate, who resonates with a certain sector of the electorate, they she must be stopped at all costs.

    It doesn’t matter what arguments are used. Supposed past problems. Low class pronunciation. Religious nut. It doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is if the arguments drag her down – and remove the votes. If they can’t find arguments that work, then they hate her even more.

    The Democrats love the memory of Gerald Ford. He never won an election and he had a gazillion vetoes overridden in congress. That’s a Republican worth admiring. I don’t have anything against Gerald Ford. I’m just pointing out the view of the liberal left.

    James

  16. You don’t have to defend Palin. She puts the lie to her critics every time she appears. As does her family. Beautiful and poised, they are the real deal. Intelligence has nothing to do with ivy league. It existed long before those schools were even dreamed of. It is a wellspring that exists throughout this nation. And it is the reason we allow our leaders to be chosen from amongst our population.

    The media has chosen the path of bias, and with it comes an evil and biting sarcasm. It’s too bad, really. This would have been one of the most interesting races ever for them, without any of that being thrown in. So much that was possible. All thrown aside.

  19. I have nothing against Palin because of her “class.” I don’t even hold her new speech patterns against her, although her voice is even more annoying than it was before.

    Here’s what I do have against Sarah- she has no integrity. From her lowliest positions she has abused her power and wasted the money of her constituents, including my own family’s and even that of people donating to the RNC. Here’s the bottom line indictment of Sarah Palin in my mind:

    Yesterday, my local, solidly conservative newspaper places on the front page “State funded Palin kids’ travel” and follows it up today with a scathing update lambasting her pathetic attempts to explain her waste away.

    “In all, Palin has charged the state $21,012 for her three daughters’ 64 one-way and 12 round-trip commercial flights since she took office in December 2006.”

    Palin boasts about selling the Governor’s Jet but there’s still a State Plane.

    “The flight that included Palin’s childrens’ friends was among more than two dozen taken by the family on the state plane at a total cost of about $55,000. The family purchased commercial airline tickets when when they couldn’t get access to that plane, which is used primarily to transport prisoners and law enforcement officials. The plane costs $971 an hour to operate.”

    This isn’t even an issue of fiscal conservatism. It’s about a woman who’s either on a total power trip gone far out of control or just doesn’t have a clue.

  20. Peter the Alaskan kid,

    You are applying a DIFFERENT standard to Sarah than others. There are many positions in Alaska that in the past and present have people in those positions bringing their family when they travel and per diem is charged.

    I am sorry that you are personally unaware of state law and OTHER people in Alaska who travel this way. The media has done a terrible job and journalism is dead. But now that you are informed and others on this blog are informed. No laws were broken. Past and present people in these positions in Alaska and many other states travel with their families.

    And guess what? This is the case with the President too….

    …. oh but I’m sure if Sarah became Pres or VP you’d apply a DIFFERENT standard to her and say that she would be the first person in this position that can’t have her family travel with her.

    Can you talk about the issues??? Instead of finding a different standard for Sarah? Please?

  21. I wish it were possible to speak freely. But it’s not. Even on blogs.

    I just spent the whole day making sales calls with a couple family oriented black guys. Bright guys, good at what they do. Married with children. We ended up taking a 2 hour lunch talking politics. Yeah, they’re voting for Obama. It was an eye opening lunch – for them as well as for me. Bottom line, he’s black, they’re voting for him. Nothing else matters.

  22. re: criticism of Palin’s travel charges to State of Alaska

    Governor Palin is returning hundreds or even thousands of times those amounts worth of public relations value to Alaska. If Alaska were to aggressively market itself, they would have to spend hundreds or thousands of times those amounts to even approach the PR value she is bringing to the state. In fact, no matter what Alaska spent, and no matter how the state marketed itself, Alaska could not market itself as effectively as Governor Palin is marketing the state.

    Criticism of her family’s travel expenses are beyond ridiculous.

  23. To be fair, I do remember conservatives were complaining that Bill Clinton was doing a lot more traveling with his family on AirForce1 than most other presidents.

    Our complaints were not that he was bringing his family though. Our complaint was the AMOUNT was unprecedented and more than usual.

    I’ll note to not have that kind of belittling complaint in the future …

  24. The following poison-drip quote, which I easily found in one of my Internet hidden treasure chests (full of rancid opinionations about this and that..), illustrates the point neo-con is making about the social snobbery:

    “Of course, Palin doesn’t even enter the arena under these standards, except with the six-pack crowd, trailer-trash and uneducated Americans of various stripes who think Obama is an “AAArab”–probably from Eye-Ran or Eye-Rak–and a Muslim despite all evidence to the contrary!”

    Funny how the most rabidly snobbish attitudes come from a so called “socialist” or whatever. Isn’t there an inherent contradiction between the socialist ethos of respect for all, regardless of ethnicity or economic level or the way you speak, and the singling out of a person’s accent, or social class, by way of mocking her? Would the same poison be poured so liberally upon, let’s say, Obama’s wife, had she been brought up to speak in African American Vernacular English?

  25. The treatment of Palin by the liberal elite underscores their hollow monopoly as exclusive champions of the underdog.

  26. Speaking of class snobbery, I encountered a lot of it in college, so much that I’d say it was pervasive. In fact, the only time those “intellectuals” set aside their bigoted stereotypes and sneering condescension is when they were talking about how much they cared about working people–and then it was just a different sort of condescension.

  27. Problem is, the so-called lower classes know how to take care of business. Whether it’s shooting moose or driving a tank.
    They scare the parlor pinks.

  28. There is a class like element to this anti-Palin fest but it’s clearly not class, not in the way it’s been understood for centuries. Perhaps this is the Americanization of the idea of class. The old class structures were too delineated, too recognizable. This is not so much class as it is clique. Lineage doesn’t matter, education doesn’t matter, money doesn’t matter. What matters is what the clique says matters and they’ll use anything against you if you don’t agree with them. This is all so much easier than arguing issues. When you can’t possibly win an argument you dispose of your opponent with ad hominem attacks.

    Neo accounts Bush’s patrician family and his own less than patrician style. This is a two/fer for the clique. They can choose either his family’s background or his frat boy manner when attacking him — as the situation calls for. Palin is more than a two/fer. I remember a one/fer. William Stockdale, Vice-Presidential candidate of 1992 I believe, on Ross Perot’s ticket. Here is Dennis Miller’s take on Stockdale, who had only one thing that could be attacked.

    Miller:
    “Now I know (Stockdale’s name has) become a buzzword in this culture for doddering old man, but let’s look at the record, folks. The guy was the first guy in and the last guy out of Vietnam, a war that many Americans, including our present President, did not want to dirty their hands with.

    The reason he had to turn his hearing aid on at that debate is because those f***ing animals knocked his eardrums out when he wouldn’t spill his guts. He teaches philosophy at Stanford University, he’s a brilliant, sensitive, courageous man. And yet he committed the one unpardonable sin in our culture: he was bad on television.

  30. I wonder what is up with Peggy Noonan these days myself. Reaching retirement age and going democrat?

  31. For heaven’s sake, Neo, can I just not care for the lady w/out it being an indictment of my character?

    The other day she couldn’t even accurately describe the job of the VP.

    Half the time when people defend her they sound less like they’re endorsing a strong female candidate and more like they’d like to adopt her as a pet.

  32. “I’ve been watching old reruns of “The Beverly Hillbillies” with my wife and 17 year old daughter and it’s a broad play on the same class issues… I’ve also seen some reruns of “All in the Family” which have not held up well over the years. ”

    Very true – my parents liked both of the shows when they were on and were recently discussing them (being born in 1975 I do not have that “first memory” of either). My father was shocked at how much “spin” there was in All in the Family – his memory of it was as a good show. All of us love The Beverly Hillbillies (and being from the mountains of East Tennessee we most certainly qualify as as such – my grandparents are closer to what is shown that not).

    The big difference was that with the Hillbillies the writers liked the Clampets. They were country uneducated but they (well, other than Jethro – but that was his due to his character, not circumstance) were not *stupid*. In fact they were quite intelligent and adapted VERY well to the environment they came from. We can all identify with them to some extent – we have all been in situations where our knowledge base isn’t the correct one (while theirs never adapted that is no more disconcerting than other sitcoms never having their characters truly advance and grow).

    All in the Family always had Archie is the idiot and the other “smart”. Even when he made a good point it was simply dismissed as too stupid to respond too and the show moved on from there. It was, however, amusing that the writers never really figured out a good way to have Meathead and Archie’s daughter’s wonderful leftist ideas somehow feed, house, and protect the family (in fact, there were many times that simply ridiculing the ideas was enough to counter them even though they ran totally counter to what the reality of the show’s world was).

    Like pretty much every other made up liberal world (and yes, I consider *all* TV no matter the political side made up) the writers can not figure out a believable way to have any one but the conservative actually provide for anyone. There were MANY ideas that were simply dismissed as old or so stupid as to have no response (and we see a similar idea on down to today).

    I find it mostly telling that even in Worlds that are totally under the control of the writers that they can not figure out how their utopia will work in a believable fashion.. The only thing that is consistently and believably shown is that somehow, in same way, the conservatives are stopping it.

    I always wonder what will happen when they get to the point of “put up or shut up” – I also wonder if Obama is elected if that will be said point. There *has* to be some point where they have to take responsibility and quit blaming failures on the evil evil conservatives (even though we normally are not the ones that designed or supported said regulation).

  33. Legality is not integrity. It was legal for Sarah to hire a city manager in Wasilla at $50k+ a year to do her job while she was mayor. It was probably legal for her to spend another $50,000 to redecorate her office.

    http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/09/17/palin_mayor/
    http://www.juneauempire.com/stories/092908/sta_338084070.shtml
    http://www.wasillaproject.com/index/

    It has in fact been concluded that Palin did not fire Public Safety Commissioner Walt Moneghan illegally. She did, however, abuse her authority and break state ethics laws. (This is “Troopergate,” by the way.)

    http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2008/10/15/the-branchflower-report-hints-of-a-larger-crime-problem-in-alaska/

    Is it illegal for the RNC to spend $150,000 on new clothes and accessories for Caribou Barbie? No, but it shows a complete lack of integrity. If Palin was any kind of “maverick” she would refuse that kind of waste and turn the situation into a publicity stunt, donating the money to American families in need. I would love for someone to do that.

    Sarah Palin has been in above her head ever since she moved beyond being in the PTA. Class has nothing to do with any of this because class has nothing to do with ability. Ability, Sarah does not have.

  34. Peter you ignorant slut (can’t resist the old SNL line):

    All that clothing IS going to charity after its use in the campaign. It will probably be auctioned off (to huge profits, no doubt) and the money handed over to charitable organizations.

    If this is all that you and your ilk can dig up on the Governor, perhaps you’ll show the same diligence in vetting the Democrat candidate for president?

  35. Piotr would have been a great columnist at Pravda. In fact, the presence of hundreds of thousands of Piotr’s in the West is proof that the long campaigns of dizinformatzia waged by the KGB came to glorious fruition AFTER the fall of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. His teachers have done well. They were trained well by their professors, and their professors were trained well by the generation of Communists and Socialists after 1917.

    Mikhail Gorbachev today must be beside himself with regret that he didn’t hang on just a little longer. If he could only have hung on, he would have had The One to finally subdue the capitalist pig dog enemy.

  36. The template is this: You wear your elitism on your sleeve and you can waste tax payer dollars out the ass. You denounce elitism and you better not buy your kid a big mac on govt funds.

    What horseshit.

    Sarah Palin is not a snob, and it just pisses some people off how she both advanced her political career and was smart enough to avoid the class warfare trap at the same time.

  37. Peter the Alaskan Kid, how would you describe Obama’s campaign forking over nearly a million dollars to ACORN and hiding it with a fraudulent book entry? Legal/illegal? Honest/dishonest? Clever/stupid? Wise/unwise?

    Wouldn’t that money have been better spent helping American families in need, instead of undermining the election process?
    I would love for Obama’s campaign to do that. Palin may be in over her head in ability but better that then Obama being in over his head in honesty. Honesty, Obama does not have.

  38. neo, I have a much simpler explanation, and one more consonant with the facts: Palin has been demonized by the communists and their fellow travelers, a la Alinsky. It’s nothing to do with anything in particular about her, it’s a matter of finding something about her as a hook for her demonization. She
    is too upper class,
    is too lower class,
    is too middle class,
    is too educated,
    is not educated enough,
    is too close to ____,
    is out of touch with _____,
    has done _____ too much,
    hasn’t done _____ enough,
    only did _____ to pander to _____,
    refrained from doing ______ to pander to _____, only does _____ to pander to _____,
    has vacillated in her position on _____,
    has been rigid in her position on _____…

    It’s (pace Emily Litella) always something. Palin has now entered Cheney/Halliburton territory, where anything and everything she does will be (and has been) demonized.

    If only the left would demonize those who actually deserve it (Guevara, Kim Jong Il, Putin, Castro, Ayers, Stalin, Mao Tse-Tung), then we’d really have something. So IMO there’s no point in taking the lefties’ criticisms seriously – they’re not actually looking for redress, but just looking for something to squawk about.

  39. It’s a waste of time to take on the lefties as if they incorrectly believe things which are untrue.
    They know better.
    They lie.
    One of their victories–per Alinsky–is getting others to waste huge amounts of time and energy arguing under the implicit contract that, if you have the better argument the other side will admit it. They will not admit it.
    They lie. They know they lie.
    My point is frequently to tell them I know they lie.
    And if dumb, average Aubrey knows better, how about all the smart people, huh? Which is practicaly

  41. kamper naively wrote, “The other day she couldn’t even accurately describe the job of the VP.”

    Sorry kamper. She accurately described the job of the VP. And guess what. She gave a similar answer that Joe Biden gave months earlier.

    This post of yours reveals more about you than Sarah.

  42. Peter reveals himself also with, “Is it illegal for the RNC to spend $150,000 on new clothes and accessories for Caribou Barbie? No, but it shows a complete lack of integrity.

    Please read Claudia Rosett’s piece that I linked in another post.

    $140,000 for styrofoam that only was useful for one day’s worth of greek columns versus months worth of clothing. Hmmm.. I’d take the months worth of clothing as a better decision. Or how about the 2million for the post election party. Woo Hoo ! Party !

    You avoid the real issues. Obama’s plan would negatively affect the economy as taxing the private sector more WILL negatively affect jobs

    http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=309565448930564

  43. Peter is it possible you could keep your thoughts to your own blog? As an adult I find it interesting to read various blogs but I’m sure I’m not alone in saying that us adults don’t really care what dorky teenage virgins with no life-experience have to say about anything.

  44. Imagine spending $150 K of private money on clothes! Totally ridiculous. How much cocaine could $150 K buy? Barack, can you help us out here? Call your former (charitable assumption there) drug dealer for a quote on current prices and get back to us.

  45. On the Weekly Standard Blog

    The Cost of the Barackopolis

    Yesterday I wrote that the Democratic National Convention Committee spent $140,000 on podium “production”–which I thought seemed to include the cost of of Obama’s Greek-columned stage (aka the Barackopolis) at Invesco Field where he delivered his acceptance speech. DNCC spokeswoman Jenni Engebretsen writes in an email that these expenses were “related to podium functions and personnel rather than podium structures,” and she does not know how much the stage at Invesco cost.

    Greg Pollowitz points out this article, which reported that “Convention expenses paid by the committee included $14.1 million for construction costs, including the stage and lighting, at the Pepsi Center and $5.3 million at Invesco Field.” How much of that $5.3 million was spent on Obama’s Greek columns is unknown. I took a look at the FEC report, but, shockingly, there isn’t an itemized expense for “gaudy Greek Styrofoam columns.” I guess the DNC was a bit smarter than the RNC this time.
    ————

    By the way, I’m glad she didn’t shop at Sears or JC Penny. Imagine the sniping then !!! Maureen Dowd would really be hammering away.

  47. hahahahahahaha!

    NOW’S the time you discover ‘class’ in American life? and of course it has nothing to do with power or money! It’s the snobs, dammit, the snobs!

    liberals (and moderates and many conservatives) can’t stand Palin not because she’s ‘just plain folks’ but because SHE’S NOT VERY SMART and SHE DOESN’T KNOW VERY MUCH and she HASN’T ACCOMPLISHED ANYTHING TO SPEAK OF.

    No, we really don’t like her because she doesn’t go to the Guggenheim and doesn’t know a brie from a camembert.

    Guess what: I want a president who’s intelligent and coherent and steady, I don’t care where he or she is from or what music they listen to or what college they attended. Thank god most americans seem to feel the same way this year.

  48. Viet Kieu,

    Do you honestly believe the nonsense you just composed? You really think Gov. Palin is a dim bulb? What you posted is not an argument. If you were one of my Philosophy students my recommendation, upon reading that drivel, is that you go back to eighth grade and start over.

    I’m sure you meant to be glib and sophisticated, but it just isn’t convincing. Mockery is no substitute for solid argumentation employing fact and reason.

  49. What has Barack Obama accomplished Viet Kieu?

    On the other hand I’m not sure that I’m particularly interested in what anyone who remembers to capitalize “Guggenheim” but lacks the same impulse with regard to “god” and “americans” has to say anyway. In the spirit of moronic liberals everywhere who find code in everything in order to cowardly use race as a weapon and a shield, I think I’ll call you out as a Godless, anti-American piece of shit and call it a day. lol.

  50. In addition to the “Ivy League beltway insider” vs. “commoner rube from the sticks” dynamic, I see something else going on here.

    Besides Peggy Noonan, there has recently been a rash of “conservative” pundits trashing Palin. I won’t bother to look up their names. They are dead to me.

    I think they have accepted the inevitability of an Obama victory, and possibly even a Democrat sweep. They are simply trying to save their own careers and want to ensure that they are still relevant and viable pundits after Nov. 4. They are nothing but rats abandoning (what they perceive as) a sinking ship.

    It will be funny to watch them try to backtrack if McCain & Palin pull off a win. But they have already burned their bridges.

    I saw a good article at American Thinker” about Noonan’s column earlier today. The commenters are ruthless and on target.

  51. “It’s a waste of time to take on the lefties as if they incorrectly believe things which are untrue.
    They know better.
    They lie.
    One of their victories—per Alinsky—is getting others to waste huge amounts of time and energy arguing under the implicit contract that, if you have the better argument the other side will admit it. They will not admit it.
    They lie. They know they lie.
    My point is frequently to tell them I know they lie.”

    Amen, brother. The best way to do this is a line I saw in an old movie, I think it was delivered by Cary Grant to a blowhard who was winding him up with the Usual Nonsense Argument.

    Blowhard: “Well, now, I know you and I are both intelligent men, and we can observe that…”

    Grant: “Skip it.”

  52. Viet Kieu Says:

    “liberals (and moderates and many conservatives) can’t stand Palin not because she’s ‘just plain folks’ but because SHE’S NOT VERY SMART and SHE DOESN’T KNOW VERY MUCH and she HASN’T ACCOMPLISHED ANYTHING TO SPEAK OF. ”

    Yeah, lefties just ‘know’ all that stuff. Its called groupthink. I hear it a lot…

  53. kamper Says:

    “The other day she couldn’t even accurately describe the job of the VP.”

    actually, the quote I read from the other day seemed correct (the article I was reading was jumping on it… but it still seemed right). What was she wrong about?

  54. rickl Says:

    “Besides Peggy Noonan, there has recently been a rash of “conservative” pundits trashing Palin.”

    A couple… but there has also been a rash of lefties taking conservative quotes out of context to bash Palin with them…

  55. re: “The Cost of the Barackopolis”, so they claim the columns didn’t cost $140,000. Fine. The entire event was unnecessary- they already had a perfectly good location already outfitted and ready to be staffed. But that wasn’t good enough, so they had to spend 5.3 MILLION to do the big Socialist style outdoor rally. Talk about a waste of money. Now add to it the election night party, which had to be had at a more expensive location because the One wants it that way even though Daly suggested a less expensive location.

    But Palin’s an eeeevil person because the RNC outfitted her for $150000? Puh-leeze.

    Kid, really, learn to check what you say before you say it:
    “It has in fact been concluded that Palin did not fire Public Safety Commissioner Walt Moneghan illegally. She did, however, abuse her authority and break state ethics laws.”

    I ask you, how can one “break… laws” but not have acted “illeagaly”? Perhaps because a) that’s not what the report said. b) the report was one man’s opinion, and he was appointed by the biggest Obama supporter in Alaska. The head of the Executive branch, at any level of government, must be able to appoint and release department heads at will without cause, because they are responsible for the functioning of the government under their administration. “The Buck Stops Here”. If you really believe that Palin was wrong to reassign him (he was not fired, he quit, refusing reassignment), than I assume you don’t want Obama to change any of the various Bush Department heads should Obama become President. Of course not.

    Learn to look past the talking points, kid.

  56. Neo, By the way, it has been heartening to see Men and Women alike come together with logical responses uplifting a substantive and accomplished woman like Sarah.

    She does not deserve the things that callous know nothing and without perspective folks have heaped on her. Applying a different standard to her than others only says something about the negative judgmental person – it doesn’t say much about Sarah.

  57. Peter (and friends), I suggest you read “From the Gulag to the Killing Fields” by Hollander (just for starters). Then think about the ramifications of the second major political party in this country (Democrats) running a far left-wing liar, fraud and demagogue for president for no other purpose than (getting elected at any cost) pandering to a long bitter black culture, immature youth, and the residual smug and shallow left leaning vestige of the hip 60’s generation; It’s the craven politics of envy and vendetta. It’s why Obama’s associations with the radical left Ayers, Wright, and Islamist radical connections, including Odinga in Kenya are significantly relevant issues. You have to laugh or cry when Obama prattles about genocide in Darfur, while supporting Odinga and his church burning and mass murdering followers in Kenya. You have to be stupid or dishonest to gloss over these connections. It’s tantamount to consorting with the enemy (Hugo Chavez and his buddies, who include the poison pygmy in Iran). I’m a classic neocon (surprise), from the sixties, “we” definitely have a lot of lessons learned, so to speak, in our sixties. Two things, first consider why, with all the poll figures touted, that 75% of military personnel and families are solidly in the McCain/Palin camp. Second, not this war, not this time Peter… Which is it, stupid or dishonest?

  58. Oh, incidentally, getting back on topic, Sarah Palin, beauty, brains, the quintessential dynamic quick study, with a mature sense of priorities; Including respect for life and the broad diversity that is way bigger than just the poor and bitter in America. Too bad, life in the USA isn’t perfect, but it sure beats most other places…

  59. One other thing this morning, on the subject of Obama’s religion, his mentor, the former black muslim “Christian” Jeremiah Wright (with his church recently honoring Farakhan, no Christians to honor?), and Obama’s cousin and tribesman the “Christian” Odinga, who advocated sharia in Kenya? A very strange bunch of “Christians”…

  60. The more I see of Palin the more I think of Margaret Thatcher. Sure, there were plenty of substantive policy disagreements to be had with Thatcher, but even as a child (British, of left wing parents) I could see that misogny and class hatred were driving a lot of what would now be described as TDS. It wasn’t so much that Thatcher was lower middle class, it was that she was proud of it. She refused to make herself over and acquire the markers of upper middle class-ness. Unforgivably, she didn’t even bother to try.

    I used to know a guy, who even 20 years after the event, became manically enraged whenever her name came up. He would claim his anger was fuelled by solidarity with the miners, which did not make a lot of emotional sense. The real key to it came out one day when he started ranting about the rise of meritocracy in Britain and how people like him could no longer be assured of a dignified job in the professions. Quite so. As the slightly stupid scion of an old shipping family, with aspirations to proper (i.e. non-trade) gentility, twenty years earlier he could have expected a career as a stockbroker or a solicitor. Instead he ended up as a non-tenured art lecturer in an extremely unprestigious college. He loathed meritocracy, because he was a loser from it, and rightly he blamed Thatcher.

    People like him loathe Thatcher because she was profoundly comfortable in her own skin and because she was competent. Terrifying. Sound like anyone else we know?

  61. Wonderful commentary badhaiku! I am hoping you are spreading it around on other blogs…..?

  62. Thinking of a relative who suffered massively from BDS.
    She is otherwise reasonably reasonable and goodhearted.
    She will vote for Obama, thinking he’s going to be okay, and will wipe out the last vestiges–undefined–of Bushism.
    If Obama and his cronies are half as bad as some fear, my relative will have to swallow a huge amount of stuff that she never anticipated in order to justify her vote.
    It won’t be as if she were not warned. It will look as if she were warned and went ahead, wanting what happened.
    Be some interesting conversations with the blind Obama supporters.

  63. SHE’S NOT VERY SMART and SHE DOESN’T KNOW VERY MUCH and she HASN’T ACCOMPLISHED ANYTHING TO SPEAK OF. ”

    When I hear this particular criticism from somebody who, like Palin, has gotten himself or herself elected as a state governor within 12 years of starting his or her political career as a mayor, immediately cleaned the ethical clocks of his or her own party, and got selected as the vice presidential nominee for that same party less than two years later — all without any family wealth, politically-connected relatives, campaign skullduggery (such as Obama’s lawyers knocking his competitors off the ballot to ensure his first Illinois win) or anything else but her own native will, intelligence and political knowhow, oh and who, by the way, did all that while also raising five young children and maintaining a healthy marriage — when THAT Palin critic shows up to sneer at how dumb she is and how little she’s accomplished, then I’ll listen. From anybody else, it’s really just know-nothing noise.

  64. Richard, my entire family and most of my friends fit your description of your relative. I am really wondering what the next few years will be like at family parties . . .

  65. I do not know a culture or a country where so called elites, being it a political class or intelligentsia, did not develop one or another type of snobbery and hubris. This is human nature, I am sure, but the contrast of this behavior and officially held egalitarian ideology is nowhere more comical than in USA. In Russia under communists it was even more stark because of huge privileges of nomenclatura; this eventually became the main cause of popular resentment which swept away their rule.

  66. Mrs. It will be “interesting”, if by “interesting” we mean tense and unpleasant.

    What interests me/concerns me is that they will be swallowing many things they did not, in their normal lives, favor.

    One thing that unites them, I think, is the idea that a mechanism, such as the Fairness Doctrine, is set up to screw certain people and will continue to do so. They do not consider that a mechanism operates at the direction of those who are holding the levers. They think that their own sort will forever hold the levers and they can continue to screw those they wish screwed.
    But if another type gets hold of the levers, the mechanism will operate as before, but will be screwing a different bunch, probably the ones who thought it was dan and finedy the first time.
    And those folks will have no logical, social, moral, or legal recourse.

    How are you at hiding enormous gloat-monsters?

  67. I noticed several prominent feminists on stage with Gov. Palin the other day. Aside from Camille Paglia, Tammy Bruce,(see TammyBruce.com.), it’s refreshing to see that there is some genuine integrity still to be found in feminism.

  70. As someone who went on record early warning neo-conservatives not to underestimate Governor Palin or her constituency, I have three comments:

    1) A meritocracy only works with a stable definition of achievement

    If you judge (as many conservatives have) Governor Palin, Senator McCain, and Senator Obama according to different criteria, and worse, use excuses and “spin” to discount Senator Obama’s achievements, then you can hardly claim to uphold meritocratic principles.

    2) It makes sense to at least consider the public’s judgement

    You don’t have to agree with the bad news (for Republicans) from the polls to at least consider the possibility that a huge number of people, including a very respectable number of conservatives, simply perceive something you don’t. I do not generally consider sociological or psychological analysis of people I disagree with appropriate at the best of times, but I consider it particularly unfruitful when used to explain away of discredit a widely held view.

    3) It doesn’t really matter

    At this point, I don’t think the election has much of anything to do with any individual personality; not Senator McCain, Senator Obama, Governor Palin or Senator Biden. I think this election reflects a basic paridigm shift away from the “Washington consensus” in favour of something else: a more stable, equitable, and inclusive domestic policy, and possibly a more prudent foreign policy.

  71. “The snobbery inherent in some of the Palin attacks may have its origins in people who have moved in a bubble of well-educated elitism all their lives, and don’t really know how much common sense “common people” actually possess.”

    Ding! Ding! Ding!

    Give that woman a cigar. This is the best sentence of the entire post and in it you hit the nail squarely on the head. Nothing else need be said.

  72. Palin is paling out the water on a sinking boat, her choice as VP was made to shore up the other wing of the right that stands off from McCain’s hawkish, centrist, and secular values. It may be Palin’s only talent to conjure the ugly wing of the Right, the same woman whose only interest in a Library is to snoop around to see what books she deems as unfit for the rest of us to read, the same woman with the same credulous paleo-religious disqualifications that torpedoed Romney, both of whom seem unsure about the fundamental theories of human history, Palin’s hire/fire managerial or executive skills simply aren’t enough; and poor John McCain has become monochromatic, odd and elderly and probably borderline senile, it’s just to late for him, which makes his choice of VP doubly troubling.

    I appeal to the residual liberalism of my neo-conservative and true liberalism of my classical liberal fellow bloggers here and everywhere to cast their vote for the Obama/Biden ticket as the only responsible choice for America.

  77. nyomythus: I contend that your hatred of religion has blinded you to the fact that a vote for Obama is about as far from a vote for classical liberalism as possible. If everything that has appeared in this blog—and others—on the subject has not convinced you of this, there’s probably nothing that could.

  78. I don’t hate religious people, I’ve never utter a disdain for religious people nor am I being accused of it now but I want to make that clear, I’m not a hateful person, but yes I do hate religion because it’s metaphysical claims are not true, something the founding fathers were aware of and warned us of in the very first amendment to the constitution. If you cannot see how the supernatural effects decision making then you chose not to notice, I know you know what it has produced contemporarily; genocidal warfare between sectarian militias from the breakup of Yugoslavia (sectarianism, not ethnicity, is the divisional template), to the current global struggle against jihadic imperialism, to West Bank settlers stealing land from Palestinians in hopes of ushering in the messiah, and western evangelicals that support them; we should see by now that this fraternity is not a virtue, it’s not a qualification, nor desire. Neo, you have a clear perspective on many things but not this, I suspect you know it but dare not mention it, yet.

  79. nyomythus: You will notice I said you hate religion, not religious people.

    I disagree about the effects of religion, however. It’s people who’ve used it either for good or for bad.

    On the whole, I think it’s done more good than bad—and the bad that has been done in its name would be done in the name of quasi-religions or pseudo-religions if religion didn’t exist. For evidence of this, see what evil was done in the name of Nazism or Communism, neither of which had to evoke religion itself in order to do their dirty work. The propensity for evil is in humankind, and religion (like nearly anything else) can be used to further either aim.

  80. Whose founding fathers was nyo talking about? Certainly not Americas.

    Thomas Jefferson:
    “God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the Gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that His justice cannot sleep forever.”

    James Madison
    “We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all of our political institutions upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.”

    George Washington:
    “The thing that separates the American Christian from every other person on earth is the fact that he would rather die on his feet, than live on his knees!” [Fuck yeah!]

    This guy is truly Prophetic
    Daniel Webster
    “There is no nation on earth powerful enough to accomplish our overthrow. Our destruction, should it come at all, will be from anothe quarter. From the inattention of the people to the concerns of their government, from their carelessness and negligence. I must confess that I do apprehend some danger. I fear that they may place too implicit a confidence in their public servants and fail properly to scrutinize their conduct; that in this way they may be made the dupes of designing men and become the instruments of their own undoing.”

    "Hold on, my friends, to the Constitution and to the Republic for which it stands. Miracles do not cluster, and what has happened once in 6000 years, may not happen again. Hold on to the Constitution, for if the American Constitution should fail, there will be anarchy throughout the world."

    “If we abide by the principles taught in the Bible, our country will go on prospering and to prosper; but if we and our posterity neglect its instruction and authority, no man can tell how sudden a catastrophe may ovenvhelm us and bury all our glory in profound obscurity.”
    [It’s taken about 40 years for this happen]

    “If religious books are not widely circulated among the masses in this country, I do not know what is going to become of us as a nation. If truth be not diffused, error will be; If God and His Word are not known and received, the devil and his works will gain the ascendancy, If the evangelical volume does not reach every hamlet, the pages of a corrupt and licentious literature will; If the power of the Gospel is not felt throughout the length and breadth of the land, anarchy and misrule, degradation and misery, corruption and darkness will reign without mitigation or end.”

    Noah Webster:
    “In my view, the Christian religion is the most important and one of the first things in which all children, under a free government ought to be instructed….No truth is more evident to my mind than that the Christian religion must be the basis of any government intended to secure the rights and privileges of a free people.”

    “When you become entitled to exercise the right of voting for public officers, let it be impressed on your mind that God commands you to choose for rulers just men who will rule in the fear of God. The preservation of a republican government depends on the faithful discharge of this duty;

    “If the citizens neglect their duty and place unprincipled men in office, the government will soon be corrupted; laws will be made not for the public good so much as for the selfish or local purposes;

    “Corrupt or incompetent men will be appointed to execute the laws; the public revenues will be squandered on unworthy men; and the rights of the citizens will be violated or disregarded.

    “If a republican government fails to secure public prosperity and happiness, it must be because the citizens neglect the divine commands, and elect bad men to make and administer the laws.”

    “Corruption of morals is rapid enough in any country without a bounty from government. And…the Chief Magistrate of the United States should be the last man to accelerate its progress.”

    Let us not insult their honor and memory by saying they haven’t warned us.
    ============================================================

    2008-10-26 15:31:44
    Our forefathers have told us all exactly what they thihk:

    Thomas Jefferson:
    “God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the Gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that His justice cannot sleep forever.”

    James Madison
    “We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all of our political institutions upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.”

    George Washington:
    “The thing that separates the American Christian from every other person on earth is the fact that he would rather die on his feet, than live on his knees!” [Fuck yeah!]

    This guy is truly Prophetic
    Daniel Webster
    “There is no nation on earth powerful enough to accomplish our overthrow. Our destruction, should it come at all, will be from anothe quarter. From the inattention of the people to the concerns of their government, from their carelessness and negligence. I must confess that I do apprehend some danger. I fear that they may place too implicit a confidence in their public servants and fail properly to scrutinize their conduct; that in this way they may be made the dupes of designing men and become the instruments of their own undoing.”

    "Hold on, my friends, to the Constitution and to the Republic for which it stands. Miracles do not cluster, and what has happened once in 6000 years, may not happen again. Hold on to the Constitution, for if the American Constitution should fail, there will be anarchy throughout the world."

    “If we abide by the principles taught in the Bible, our country will go on prospering and to prosper; but if we and our posterity neglect its instruction and authority, no man can tell how sudden a catastrophe may ovenvhelm us and bury all our glory in profound obscurity.”
    [It’s taken about 40 years for this happen]

    “If religious books are not widely circulated among the masses in this country, I do not know what is going to become of us as a nation. If truth be not diffused, error will be; If God and His Word are not known and received, the devil and his works will gain the ascendancy, If the evangelical volume does not reach every hamlet, the pages of a corrupt and licentious literature will; If the power of the Gospel is not felt throughout the length and breadth of the land, anarchy and misrule, degradation and misery, corruption and darkness will reign without mitigation or end.”

    Noah Webster:
    “In my view, the Christian religion is the most important and one of the first things in which all children, under a free government ought to be instructed….No truth is more evident to my mind than that the Christian religion must be the basis of any government intended to secure the rights and privileges of a free people.”

    “When you become entitled to exercise the right of voting for public officers, let it be impressed on your mind that God commands you to choose for rulers just men who will rule in the fear of God. The preservation of a republican government depends on the faithful discharge of this duty;

    “If the citizens neglect their duty and place unprincipled men in office, the government will soon be corrupted; laws will be made not for the public good so much as for the selfish or local purposes;

    “Corrupt or incompetent men will be appointed to execute the laws; the public revenues will be squandered on unworthy men; and the rights of the citizens will be violated or disregarded.

    “If a republican government fails to secure public prosperity and happiness, it must be because the citizens neglect the divine commands, and elect bad men to make and administer the laws.”

    “Corruption of morals is rapid enough in any country without a bounty from government. And…the Chief Magistrate of the United States should be the last man to accelerate its progress.”

  82. Show me a society built around the values of Einstein, Lucretious, Spinoza, Thomas Jefferson, and Thomas Paine that devolved into moral degradation and then we’d have a secular comparison that I’ve defended. Nazism and Communism didn’t have to evoke the name of religion, but where does the warrant for genocide come from, specifically the genocide of the Jews? It comes from Joshua 7 and 2 Samuel 21:1-14, both these passages talk about generational retribution in which descendants suffer the consequences of their fathers sin. Religion prepares a credulous population, over generations, for acts that no classical liberal and/or moral secularist would ever think of (or revere the writings of). And not only does religion prepare the population, it also provided the template as it is the source of totalitarianism, if you get a chance at least read chapter seventeen “An Objective Anticipated: The last-Ditch ‘Case’ Against Secularism” in Hitchens, “God is not Great”.

  85. nyomythus: The Nazis did not use the Bible to justify their genocide. Au contraire. It had nothing to do with any sins of the fathers, either. They thought Jews were responsible for everything bad in the world and needed to be killed like vermin.

    You cannot eliminate religion. Human beings seek its comfort and yearn for the spiritual and the transcendental. If you try to outlaw it (as did the Soviets) you replace it with something worse.

  86. We all yearn for the spiritual and the transcendental (the numinous), or else we wouldn’t be human, or rather ‘normal’ and I love and cherish these feelings and experience like everyone else , and I would never support any notion to outlaw religion, people should make up their own minds about it, I’m stating my lack of confidence for a VP pick (who appeals the the credulity of religion and the worst of the Right) by an elderly presidential candidate (note this argument goes for Obama too, a man who smoked for many years, whose parents died young, whose own VP pick has had life threatening illnesses (I think two stokes), and if both died would leave the presidency to they equally untakeable Nancy Pelosi)

    I didn’t say the Nazi’s used the bible, I said the German people were prepared for routing out and genocide of the Jews because religion had prepared them for it, and gave them the notion of totalitarianism; and there was an allegiance between Catholicism and Nazism, repeating myself is tiring, so I’m sure I will stop soon.

  87. nyomythus: I agree that religion prepared them for it, particularly Luther. But why focus on the role of religion? My point is that religion is used for both good and ill. The Nazis would and could have done their work without religion.

    There was no “allegiance” between Catholicism and Nazism. Many priests and nuns went to the camps for their attempts to counter Nazism. Yes, the Pope didn’t speak out against the genocide. In my opinion that was a grievous error and deep moral failing (he had his excuses, however; he said it was to protect Catholics and the Church from retribution). But he certainly wasn’t a Nazi, or allied with what they did.

    Sarah Palin has never mixed religion with her post as governor. She is careful to make it clear that her personal beliefs are just that, personal beliefs, and that she is not trying to make them into law.

  88. It’s Obama and his nonsense about collective salvation that mixes Religion and Politics.. because to those on the loonyLeft the State and its power is religion.

  89. And also, nyo does a thing that is very common nowadays on the Left and that is to state that the Government is the Nation.

    So when someone says America is/was a Christian nation, they immediately spring into action stating that really all the founders where deceptive atheists who was just saying things for the hell of saying and that the biggest heathen of all, Jefferson, was against all religion.

    Newsflash: America was never defined as being the Government. America was its people. The Govt was to be secular so as to protect both religion and government from the corruption of the other.

    That is what Jefferson talked about. Keeping things in their proper place. He was not advocating for a populace free from the self-restraint of faith in the God of the Bible.

  90. There is long host of Catholic forces allied with fascism in the 1930, 40’s; Spanish Catholic right wing, Father Tiso in Slovakia, Father Coughlin in the USA, Tito in Croatia, and the fact that religion had no decent on fascism as the Vatican has had no decent of the war against our contemporary conflicts with jihadic imperialism, but this is way off the point, their capitulation and cowardice has swayed the balance of the world into horror and chaos then and now. (the Rohaan that never arrived on Pelennor Fields, the von Blé¼cher than never arrived at Waterloo, I can’t think of another analogy at the moment)

    Palin is benign in comparison to where this topic has turned, yet she finds that it’s only interesting to visit a library to see what book the rest of us should not be looking at; there are criticisms to make of her, like there are criticisms for Obama, Biden, and McCain — the question is how does it all weigh up?

    Well, it doesn’t weigh to well for me on the Republican ticket this year, and I find some comfort that Obama has been evolving towards the neocon/classical liberal position on reigning in Pakistan in what is now evidently an expansionist war, via Taliban proxies, to occupy Afghanistan; Pakistan has been the source of our global jihadic troubles more than the main stream public has known about, and they need to no we ain’t playing that shit. Whether he likes it or nothing he will have to make yay or nay decision on real international issues, some of which gravely effect America and western liberalism as a whole, I think he’ll be capable of throwing a hard defensive punch, if it comes to it the hawks must stand by his side.

  91. People can be as religious as they wish, I love this about my country, some of them I may love and some I may dislike or even hate, I just would rather they not govern me because I think whether they wish it or not it effects their decisions, and not always for the best (imagine a first lady conjuring the wisdom of the stars for guidance), the authority of faith and the authority of reason are in conflict, i’ld rather have at least someone more deeply grounded in reason than faith.

  92. Since when has America been a classless society? Our society has never, ever been classless, it has, however, always been class-permeable. Class permeability is the real thing that sets us apart from other nations.

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