Sam Harris article on Palin

Bottle_of_Smoke

http://www.newsweek.com/id/160080/page/1

Let me confess that I was genuinely unnerved by Sarah Palin's performance at the Republican convention. Given her audience and the needs of the moment, I believe Governor Palin's speech was the most effective political communication I have ever witnessed. Here, finally, was a performer who—being maternal, wounded, righteous and sexy—could stride past the frontal cortex of every American and plant a three-inch heel directly on that limbic circuit that ceaselessly intones "God and country." If anyone could make Christian theocracy smell like apple pie, Sarah Palin could.

Then came Palin's first television interview with Charles Gibson. I was relieved to discover, as many were, that Palin's luster can be much diminished by the absence of a teleprompter. Still, the problem she poses to our political process is now much bigger than she is. Her fans seem inclined to forgive her any indiscretion short of cannibalism. However badly she may stumble during the remaining weeks of this campaign, her supporters will focus their outrage upon the journalist who caused her to break stride, upon the camera operator who happened to capture her fall, upon the television network that broadcast the good lady's misfortune—and, above all, upon the "liberal elites" with their highfalutin assumption that, in the 21st century, only a reasonably well-educated person should be given command of our nuclear arsenal.

The point to be lamented is not that Sarah Palin comes from outside Washington, or that she has glimpsed so little of the earth's surface (she didn't have a passport until last year), or that she's never met a foreign head of state. The point is that she comes to us, seeking the second most important job in the world, without any intellectual training relevant to the challenges and responsibilities that await her. There is nothing to suggest that she even sees a role for careful analysis or a deep understanding of world events when it comes to deciding the fate of a nation. In her interview with Gibson, Palin managed to turn a joke about seeing Russia from her window into a straight-faced claim that Alaska's geographical proximity to Russia gave her some essential foreign-policy experience. Palin may be a perfectly wonderful person, a loving mother and a great American success story—but she is a beauty queen/sports reporter who stumbled into small-town politics, and who is now on the verge of stumbling into, or upon, world history.

The problem, as far as our political process is concerned, is that half the electorate revels in Palin's lack of intellectual qualifications. When it comes to politics, there is a mad love of mediocrity in this country. "They think they're better than you!" is the refrain that (highly competent and cynical) Republican strategists have set loose among the crowd, and the crowd has grown drunk on it once again. "Sarah Palin is an ordinary person!" Yes, all too ordinary.

We have all now witnessed apparently sentient human beings, once provoked by a reporter's microphone, saying things like, "I'm voting for Sarah because she's a mom. She knows what it's like to be a mom." Such sentiments suggest an uncanny (and, one fears, especially American) detachment from the real problems of today. The next administration must immediately confront issues like nuclear proliferation, ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (and covert wars elsewhere), global climate change, a convulsing economy, Russian belligerence, the rise of China, emerging epidemics, Islamism on a hundred fronts, a defunct United Nations, the deterioration of American schools, failures of energy, infrastructure and Internet security … the list is long, and Sarah Palin does not seem competent even to rank these items in order of importance, much less address any one of them.

Palin's most conspicuous gaffe in her interview with Gibson has been widely discussed. The truth is, I didn't much care that she did not know the meaning of the phrase "Bush doctrine." And I am quite sure that her supporters didn't care, either. Most people view such an ambush as a journalistic gimmick. What I do care about are all the other things Palin is guaranteed not to know—or will be glossing only under the frenzied tutelage of John McCain's advisers. What doesn't she know about financial markets, Islam, the history of the Middle East, the cold war, modern weapons systems, medical research, environmental science or emerging technology? Her relative ignorance is guaranteed on these fronts and most others, not because she was put on the spot, or got nervous, or just happened to miss the newspaper on any given morning. Sarah Palin's ignorance is guaranteed because of how she has spent the past 44 years on earth.

I care even more about the many things Palin thinks she knows but doesn't: like her conviction that the Biblical God consciously directs world events. Needless to say, she shares this belief with mil-lions of Americans—but we shouldn't be eager to give these people our nuclear codes, either. There is no question that if President McCain chokes on a spare rib and Palin becomes the first woman president, she and her supporters will believe that God, in all his majesty and wisdom, has brought it to pass. Why would God give Sarah Palin a job she isn't ready for? He wouldn't. Everything happens for a reason. Palin seems perfectly willing to stake the welfare of our country—even the welfare of our species—as collateral in her own personal journey of faith. Of course, McCain has made the same unconscionable wager on his personal journey to the White House.

In speaking before her church about her son going to war in Iraq, Palin urged the congregation to pray "that our national leaders are sending them out on a task that is from God; that's what we have to make sure we are praying for, that there is a plan, and that plan is God's plan." When asked about these remarks in her interview with Gibson, Palin successfully dodged the issue of her religious beliefs by claiming that she had been merely echoing the words of Abraham Lincoln. The New York Times later dubbed her response "absurd." It was worse than absurd; it was a lie calculated to conceal the true character of her religious infatuations. Every detail that has emerged about Palin's life in Alaska suggests that she is as devout and literal-minded in her Christian dogmatism as any man or woman in the land. Given her long affiliation with the Assemblies of God church, Palin very likely believes that Biblical prophecy is an infallible guide to future events and that we are living in the "end times." Which is to say she very likely thinks that human history will soon unravel in a foreordained cataclysm of war and bad weather. Undoubtedly Palin believes that this will be a good thing—as all true Christians will be lifted bodily into the sky to make merry with Jesus, while all nonbelievers, Jews, Methodists and other rabble will be punished for eternity in a lake of fire. Like many Pentecostals, Palin may even imagine that she and her fellow parishioners enjoy the power of prophecy themselves. Otherwise, what could she have meant when declaring to her congregation that "God's going to tell you what is going on, and what is going to go on, and you guys are going to have that within you"?

You can learn something about a person by the company she keeps. In the churches where Palin has worshiped for decades, parishioners enjoy "baptism in the Holy Spirit," "miraculous healings" and "the gift of tongues." Invariably, they offer astonishingly irrational accounts of this behavior and of its significance for the entire cosmos. Palin's spiritual colleagues describe themselves as part of "the final generation," engaged in "spiritual warfare" to purge the earth of "demonic strongholds." Palin has spent her entire adult life immersed in this apocalyptic hysteria. Ask yourself: Is it a good idea to place the most powerful military on earth at her disposal? Do we actually want our leaders thinking about the fulfillment of Biblical prophecy when it comes time to say to the Iranians, or to the North Koreans, or to the Pakistanis, or to the Russians or to the Chinese: "All options remain on the table"?

It is easy to see what many people, women especially, admire about Sarah Palin. Here is a mother of five who can see the bright side of having a child with Down syndrome and still find the time and energy to govern the state of Alaska. But we cannot ignore the fact that Palin's impressive family further testifies to her dogmatic religious beliefs. Many writers have noted the many shades of conservative hypocrisy on view here: when Jamie Lynn Spears gets pregnant, it is considered a symptom of liberal decadence and the breakdown of family values; in the case of one of Palin's daughters, however, teen pregnancy gets reinterpreted as a sign of immaculate, small-town fecundity. And just imagine if, instead of the Palins, the Obama family had a pregnant, underage daughter on display at their convention, flanked by her black boyfriend who "intends" to marry her. Who among conservatives would have resisted the temptation to speak of "the dysfunction in the black community"?

Teen pregnancy is a misfortune, plain and simple. At best, it represents bad luck (both for the mother and for the child); at worst, as in the Palins' case, it is a symptom of religious dogmatism. Governor Palin opposes sex education in schools on religious grounds. She has also fought vigorously for a "parental consent law" in the state of Alaska, seeking full parental dominion over the reproductive decisions of minors. We know, therefore, that Palin believes that she should be the one to decide whether her daughter carries her baby to term. Based on her stated position, we know that she would deny her daughter an abortion even if she had been raped. One can be forgiven for doubting whether Bristol Palin had all the advantages of 21st-century family planning—or, indeed, of the 21st century.

We have endured eight years of an administration that seemed touched by religious ideology. Bush's claim to Bob Woodward that he consulted a "higher Father" before going to war in Iraq got many of us sitting upright, before our attention wandered again to less ethereal signs of his incompetence. For all my concern about Bush's religious beliefs, and about his merely average grasp of terrestrial reality, I have never once thought that he was an over-the-brink, Rapture-ready extremist. Palin seems as though she might be the real McCoy. With the McCain team leading her around like a pet pony between now and Election Day, she can be expected to conceal her religious extremism until it is too late to do anything about it. Her supporters know that while she cannot afford to "talk the talk" between now and Nov. 4, if elected, she can be trusted to "walk the walk" until the Day of Judgment.

What is so unnerving about the candidacy of Sarah Palin is the degree to which she represents—and her supporters celebrate—the joyful marriage of confidence and ignorance. Watching her deny to Gibson that she had ever harbored the slightest doubt about her readiness to take command of the world's only superpower, one got the feeling that Palin would gladly assume any responsibility on earth:

"Governor Palin, are you ready at this moment to perform surgery on this child's brain?"

"Of course, Charlie. I have several boys of my own, and I'm an avid hunter."

"But governor, this is neurosurgery, and you have no training as a surgeon of any kind."

"That's just the point, Charlie. The American people want change in how we make medical decisions in this country. And when faced with a challenge, you cannot blink."

The prospects of a Palin administration are far more frightening, in fact, than those of a Palin Institute for Pediatric Neurosurgery. Ask yourself: how has "elitism" become a bad word in American politics? There is simply no other walk of life in which extraordinary talent and rigorous training are denigrated. We want elite pilots to fly our planes, elite troops to undertake our most critical missions, elite athletes to represent us in competition and elite scientists to devote the most productive years of their lives to curing our diseases. And yet, when it comes time to vest people with even greater responsibilities, we consider it a virtue to shun any and all standards of excellence. When it comes to choosing the people whose thoughts and actions will decide the fates of millions, then we suddenly want someone just like us, someone fit to have a beer with, someone down-to-earth—in fact, almost anyone, provided that he or she doesn't seem too intelligent or well educated.

I believe that with the nomination of Sarah Palin for the vice presidency, the silliness of our politics has finally put our nation at risk. The world is growing more complex—and dangerous—with each passing hour, and our position within it growing more precarious. Should she become president, Palin seems capable of enacting policies so detached from the common interests of humanity, and from empirical reality, as to unite the entire world against us. When asked why she is qualified to shoulder more responsibility than any person has held in human history, Palin cites her refusal to hesitate. "You can't blink," she told Gibson repeatedly, as though this were a primordial truth of wise governance. Let us hope that a President Palin would blink, again and again, while more thoughtful people decide the fate of civilization.

_____________________


Pretty scary given I think the republicans are going to win. If McCain did die she actully would be president. He doesn't seem unhealthy & more than likely he won't die of unnatural causes but at his age everything that can go wrong is more likely.

If only Clinton had of been democrat vice

Hobbes

just a link and short snip would of done. Also colours don't translate well on other skins. unreadable for the most part.

Soldie

Perfectly readable to me, not to mention interesting. Thanks for sharing.

Can't do an awful lot other than cringe at the possibility of her having any power.

CPT. SURF

Hobbes wrote: »

just a link and short snip would of done. Also colours don't translate well on other skins. unreadable for the most part.

??? Perhaps English is not your first language?

Lemming

CPT. SURF wrote: »

??? Perhaps English is not your first language?

Reported for abuse.

Incidentally, Hobbes is right. The red-font colour does not mix well with some of the other boards.ie skins. I'm using "Cloud" and I had to copy/paste that entire text into notepad to read it, since dark red text on black background is about as readable as .. well .. something that isn't very readable.

CPT. SURF

Lemming wrote: »

Reported for abuse.

Incidentally, Hobbes is right. The red-font colour does not mix well with some of the other boards.ie skins. I'm using "Cloud" and I had to copy/paste that entire text into notepad to read it, since dark red text on black background is about as readable as .. well .. something that isn't very readable.

Report it if you like, don't see why you would anyway. Maybe you have nothing better to do than report people on an internet website for the most trivial of things. Good luck with that by the way.

GuanYin

Lemming if you report a post, you don't need to mention it in thread. It only serves to inflame. Please refrain from doing so in future.

CPT.SURF post a personal comment or off topic again and you'll be banned.

Back on topic.

CPT. SURF

Thank you sooo much for posting that article. It was wonderful and I throughly enjoyed reading it. I loved how you posted the whole article in here. That way I did not have to open up a new tab or browser. Thanks for that, it was so great by the way. The red letters were especially helpful for me too. I have a rare eye condition where red letters become especially visible. Thanks again, it was wonderful. Truly!

EDIT - Banned - GY

FatherTed

Ah, Yes Sarah Palin. She's great:

“We’re going to do a few new things also. For instance, as Alaska’s governor, I put the government’s checkbook online so that people can see where their money’s going. We’ll bring that kind of transparency, that responsibility, and accountability back. We’re going to bring that back to D.C.”
...

In 2006 and 2007, Obama teamed up with Republican Sen. Tom Coburn to pass the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act, also known as “Google for Government.” The act created a free, searchable web site – USASpending.gov — that discloses to the public all federal grants, contracts, loans and insurance payments.


In June of this year, Obama and Coburn introduced new Senate legislation to expand the information available online to include details on earmarks, competitive bidding, criminal activities, audit disputes and other government information.

Palin might also have noted that her running mate, John McCain, was an original co-sponsor of the 2006 transparency bill that became law.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/09/18/palins-transparency-proposal-already-exists-in-dc/

Ponster

Bottle_of_Smoke wrote: »

If only Clinton had of been democrat vice

Then I doubt Palin would have been picked in the first place.

Thanks for posting the article, I would have missed it otherwise.

Pity the Chmod fight died so quickly. Rumour has it that when the world was first created it was populated by smods and chmods fought for control so hard that they wiped themselves out leaving just a handful today who manage Boards, waiting for the day they're strong enough to attack again.

Governor Palin opposes sex education in schools on religious grounds

For what it's worth schools in the USA who receive sex-ed end up having more teen pregencies than those without (stats based on 2007 surveys..can find cite if needed I think..)

GuanYin

Ponster wrote: »

For what it's worth schools in the USA who receive sex-ed end up having more teen pregencies than those without (stats based on 2007 surveys..can find cite if needed I think..)

Considering that the schools where sex education doesn't occur are generally private non-secular educational institutes, it would be an unsurprising statistic as the communities would most likely be socially geared towards abstinence.

The stat carries as much weight as one showing that bald people play less on hair stylists.

Hobbes

CPT. SURF wrote: »

??? Perhaps English is not your first language?

It is funny, but I didn't see that as an insult, as you are kind of correct. If English is not your first language trying to read paragraphs of over 3 lines becomes hard. Trying to read it while the text is dark red on a black background becomes impossible. with that much text it just becomes a TLDR.

The link on the other hand is much easier to read. btw, it is generally not good etiquette to post a link then post the whole page into the thread. Apart from size and copyright issues it also distracts people away from the fact that article is much better then the amount posted.

As for the article itself. While it is ok, it doesn't tell us anything we don't already know about Palin. This quote sums up the whole thing.

I believe that with the nomination of Sarah Palin for the vice presidency, the silliness of our politics has finally put our nation at risk.

Craft25

it seems to me there is some sort of paradox operating here with the Palin situation:

millions of americas women have been captivated by her and swayed to the republican ticket... this is because she becomes a role model and smashes the glass ceiling.. clearly a positive for every woman!!

but at the same time she is also clearly underqualified to have her finger on the nuclear trigger..

now its easy just to say that these women are just irrational (run that one by your mother/girlfriend/wife and see how you get on..good luck with that!)...

so are these women irrational??.. NO clearly when voting in their own personal interest they have a tough choice... 1.someone whose election opens doors for them and breaks down barriers, presenting the possibility of their wages one day equalling that of men v's 2. someone likely to dig them out of the mortgage hole they've found themselves in due to the credit crunch, and arguably lessen the threat of terrorism (dems)

AND SO.. the question must be asked of the american democratic system.. are ordinary folk capable of directly electing a president in control of the greatest arsenal ever invented??

in ireland or the UK it would be other elected folk (TD's, MP's) who make that choice.. mostly educated folks themselves, more likely to have a grasp of international relations and macroeconomics

perhaps a more modern multilevel system of governance is required? one that divides powers/responsibilities along local/regional/state/national/international strata??

Ludo

Craft25 wrote: »

AND SO.. the question must be asked of the american democratic system.. are ordinary folk capable of directly electing a president in control of the greatest arsenal ever invented??

in ireland or the UK it would be other elected folk (TD's, MP's) who make that choice.. mostly educated folks themselves, more likely to have a grasp of international relations and macroeconomics

perhaps a more modern multilevel system of governance is required? one that divides powers/responsibilities along local/regional/state/national/international strata??

Don't congress elect a speaker of the house. They elected Nancy Pelosi. If this is the best person they could come up with then I don't think that they should ever be allowed elect a president/prime minister type person as they are clearly imcompetent also. Surely there is someone more competent in the Democratic ranks than Pelosi.

Overheal

terrible thread to stumble on at 3am. ill give it my full attention in the morrow. but on the parse it sounds sensible.

btw: is CPT Surf just someone's angry/ventposting dual-reg or something?

Craft25

Ludo wrote: »

Don't congress elect a speaker of the house. They elected Nancy Pelosi. If this is the best person they could come up with then I don't think that they should ever be allowed elect a president/prime minister type person as they are clearly imcompetent also. Surely there is someone more competent in the Democratic ranks than Pelosi.

perhaps you dont think she's the "best they could come up with" but at least; "Pelosi majored in political science and was active in the Political Affairs Club, International Relations Club" at trinity washington university.

she has been elected for 20 years +, in the US' largest state, each time with more than 75% of the vote

she holds established positions on china, israel, iran, iraq, N Korea and more, and i'm pretty sure its not cos she can see them from san francisco

and i'm pretty sure she knows what the bush doctrine is..

She is third in line to the nukes after palin, and i'm sure someone will take out palin if it ever comes to it..

picture palin standing over the nuclear suitcase praying...
palin: "well god what do I do?"
voice in head: "press it, begin armageddon, paradise here we come"
palin: "boom!!"

Ludo

That is all fair enough. But every time I see her she comes across as being a bit dopey and not quite knowing what is going on. Maybe my impression of her is blurred though as the last time I saw her was on the Daily Show I think :-)

When is John McCain ever going to go back on that? He used to be a regular back in the Straight Talk Express days in the primaries!

Overheal

I think I just decided my vote right there. Thanks OP.

Bottle_of_Smoke

Sorry about the font guys I always use default skin & it hadn't occured to me.

Overheal

.........so edit it already