Sarah Palin hates America
Speaking in Greensboro, North Carolina on Thursday evening, Sarah Palin told the crowd that she loves to visit “pro-America” areas of our country. She was attempting to draw a distinction between people who love America, those who support her evidently, and everyone else. Palin is deluded. I don’t know what country she thinks she’s talking about. It’s certainly not the America that I live in and love.
Palin does not appear to be a student of history. Indeed, she does not appear to be a student of anything, so perhaps that accounts for her confusion. America, the real America, the one has stood as a beacon to oppressed peoples around the world for more than two centuries is a very different place than she imagines.
Let’s look at the numbers:
In the real America, 79% of the people live in cities and their surrounding suburbs. Less than a third live in rural areas like Alaska.
In the real America, more than 30% of the population is a black, Hispanic or Asian, in contrast to Alaska where those groups make up only 11% of the population.
On abortion, 56% of Americans believe that abortion should be legally available. Only 14% agree with Palin that abortion should be illegal even when the life of the mother is threatened.
On gun control, almost 70% of Americans favor stricter gun laws, which Palin opposes.
But America, our America, the country that we love is best understood by looking at it principles and values.
America is the first country to be based entirely on an idea, and not on a notion of ethnic, religious or political solidarity. The soaring rhetoric of our founding documents embodies what defines our country.
From the Declaration if Independence:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
The First Amendment to the Constitution:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
The eloquence of our leaders has further defined our values.
Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address:
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Kennedy’s inaugural address:
Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans, born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage, and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today, at home and around the world!
The America that I live in is not filled with only white people, whose sole preoccupations are lower taxes, less regulation, gun rights and restricting abortion. The America that I live in, the country that I love, is one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
That’s the real America, and if Sarah Palin doesn’t love that, we have no choice but to conclude that Sarah Palin does not love America.
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MissingK8
aliquot
Roger Fallihee
madcelt
Norwonk
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Salon.com
Comments
Brilliant! The game Palin is playing is divide and conquer. They are treating the American electorate like it is the enemy, like it is a backwater foreign territory to be taken over and colonized, and their strategy is: let's not let them know what we're up to. We have to make the one tribal faction think it's all the other tribal faction's fault, and hope everyone looks to us for guidance.
That's their fraudulent pitch, and I honestly think it's gone far enough, far enough that people have awakened and are angry about it. Angry enough to turn to a message of hope and stop believing in the politics of division and mass political lobotomy.
What's so evil about what Palin is doing is that she seems to think there's nothing wrong with telling certain people that all the other people out there are evil and dangerous and unamerican and hate everything you love. She wants people to believe that anyone who is "not like you and me", as she infamously said, is wishing for your total destruction, so that people prone to this sort of reasoning will perk up, get fired up, go out and fight the ground war for the GOP, and somehow leave her to innocently wait for the fallout.
It's an ugly perversion of what democracy is supposed to be. Those who are incapable of seeing the humanity of their human counterparts, are not tuned into what it means to live in a democratic society, period.
"What's so evil about what Palin is doing is that she seems to think there's nothing wrong with telling certain people that all the other people out there are evil and dangerous and unamerican and hate everything you love."
I think she actually believes it. McCain, on the other hand, has merely sold his soul and will say anything he thinks will help him win.
"I really do try to avoid stereotyping the GOP as the party of rich white people. I have to remind myself that there are conscientious, intelligent folks who see things differently than me. Then they come out with Palin and she's worse than the stereotype - she's a parody of ultra-conservatism."
The GOP used to be the party of rich, white people. Now it's the party that panders to poor, uneducated white people. The rich, white Republicans have been startled by this change. People like David Brooks, Christopher Buckley, and even Peggy Noonan are trying to take their party back from mob politics.
"It's like the idea that Alaskans (Palin country) are True Americans while Hawaiians (Obama country) are from a foreign, exotic locale."
I don't doubt that she believes it, but that's because she has very little idea of what America really stands for.
" For McCain, politics is always operatic, pitting people who agree with him against those who are "corrupt" or "betray the public's trust," two categories that seem to be exhaustive -- there are no other people."
Indeed, it seems both candidates love only those that love them, and both seem to feel anyone not agreeing with their philosophy should be viewed as unpatriotic and the enemy. Great article!
Why doesn't anyone call her on that? She calls herself pro-American and then gives speeches to groups that want her state, the state she represents as governor, to split off from the union?
The leader of the AIP was murdered in an arms deal gone bad in 1993. So who is the one actually associating with terrorists.
It's not that I believe that Democrats should engage in such lowlife tactics, guilt by association, McCarthyism, etc. But when the other side is allowed to do it knowing full well their own vulnerabilities but counting on Democrats not to be a scummy as them, that's completely unfair playing field. Some journalists should really ask her, if she's so pro-American, why speak so kindly to the AIP?
"Why doesn't anyone call her on that? She calls herself pro-American and then gives speeches to groups that want her state, the state she represents as governor, to split off from the union?"
Because for many years Republicans insisted that they had a monopoly on patriotism and many people believed them. People like Palin loudly bray about their love of country, but the country that they love does not exist and never did. They lack an understanding of the make up of this country, the beliefs of the majority, and the principles on which this country was built.
America as it is in 2008? Palin hates it.
At least McCain can suspend his stupidity after the election and return to his former "honorable" self. Sarah Palin obviously doesn't have that option.
"At least McCain can suspend his stupidity after the election and return to his former "honorable" self. Sarah Palin obviously doesn't have that option."
How true.
That's the great thing about living in a constitutional republic. You can vote in and out who ever believes like you, or close anyway.
I grew up in a rural area, but lived in the city most of my adult life. I'm white, over 50 and male. I believe most forms of abortion should be legal. I'll never get rid of my guns and believe almost no gun control. She has been married to the same person for years. Me? Well that would be a column by it's self.
Palin does not look like me, does not live like me, but she is close enough on the issues I really care about to vote for her and McCain.