Monday, September 29, 2008
Monday thoughts
For the last few weeks I have been passing along some great emails that I have received from people. Now the time has come to post my own thoughts on something that is important right now. The Election of 2008. I consider myself to be your average guy, I m married I have a college degree and currently going to school for my licensure in secondary education. However, I keep hearing on TV and radio from different liberal commentators how racist I am and people like me are because I am not just throwing away all my morals and qualifications because I do not like Barack Obama. Are the Democrats that desperate right now that they are labeling people that way? I vote for the person that best shares my values. Obama does not share my values on any major issue. I think Barack Obama would just be another Jimmy Carter as President. You can't tax us into prosperity. I remember another democrat president who promised everyone tax cuts(Bill Clinton) As soon as he got into office all the taxes were raised. I think Obama has too many questionable friendships and connections that the media just looks the other way about. I wish the media gave one quarter the scrutiny to Obama that they give to McCain/Palin. I still believe come election day McCain will win because Obama is in over his head. How come the media has been letting Joe Biden say one stupid thing after another without ever mentioning it? Enough of this nonsense already. the party of FDR is dead. Time to send Obama back to Illinois.
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Obama Tax Plan
This was sent to me in email I found it very interesting.
Under the tax plans of Barack Obama and his Democratic friends in Congress, American families will only be left with… the change in their pockets. In 2009, Barack Obama and the Democratic Congress have an idea for a bill. Well, really, it’s a lot of bills that will be paid for by nearly every American in the form of higher taxes and higher costs for food, energy and other products. So if you have a retirement account, work in or shop at a small business, are close or in retirement, or even flip on a light switch, then there are a few things that you should consider.Under that plan:
1.) Small main street businesses would be forced to pay tax rates as high as 62.3% under Senator Obama’s tax proposals.1
2.) Senator Obama’s tax plan would tax small businesses at a higher rate than large corporations!
3.) Taxes on retirement income and savings could increase by at least 33%, hitting millions of seniors when they need these resources the most.
4.) 4 million workers over the age of 50 – those eagerly looking forward to retirement – would be hit with increased tax bills. 4
5.) Millions of Americans would only keep 38 cents of every dollar that they earn.
6.) Senator Obama’s tax plan would reduce the after tax wages of millions of workers by 17.7%.
7.) It will take 227 days per year, nearly 8 months, just to pay your tax bill!
8.) 97,065 carpenters, 110,908 police officers, 254,992 nurses, 208,562 postsecondary teachers and 237,000 dentists would see tax increases, if the earnings cap was successfully eliminated.8 9.) 10.3 million workers would see an average of $5,650 taken from their paycheck and given to government programs.9
10.) Even YOU might be considered “Rich.”
Under the tax plans of Barack Obama and his Democratic friends in Congress, American families will only be left with… the change in their pockets. In 2009, Barack Obama and the Democratic Congress have an idea for a bill. Well, really, it’s a lot of bills that will be paid for by nearly every American in the form of higher taxes and higher costs for food, energy and other products. So if you have a retirement account, work in or shop at a small business, are close or in retirement, or even flip on a light switch, then there are a few things that you should consider.Under that plan:
1.) Small main street businesses would be forced to pay tax rates as high as 62.3% under Senator Obama’s tax proposals.1
2.) Senator Obama’s tax plan would tax small businesses at a higher rate than large corporations!
3.) Taxes on retirement income and savings could increase by at least 33%, hitting millions of seniors when they need these resources the most.
4.) 4 million workers over the age of 50 – those eagerly looking forward to retirement – would be hit with increased tax bills. 4
5.) Millions of Americans would only keep 38 cents of every dollar that they earn.
6.) Senator Obama’s tax plan would reduce the after tax wages of millions of workers by 17.7%.
7.) It will take 227 days per year, nearly 8 months, just to pay your tax bill!
8.) 97,065 carpenters, 110,908 police officers, 254,992 nurses, 208,562 postsecondary teachers and 237,000 dentists would see tax increases, if the earnings cap was successfully eliminated.8 9.) 10.3 million workers would see an average of $5,650 taken from their paycheck and given to government programs.9
10.) Even YOU might be considered “Rich.”
Monday, September 22, 2008
A letter to Joe Biden
This was passed on to me and I hope that you enjoy it. I will never understand why the Democrat party makes abortion the number one issue all the time. It is for this reason that many people are turned off to the Democrat party.
Have a blessed day.
Today, Children of All Races Are Denied Recognition
as 'Persons'"
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
WASHINGTON, D.C., SEPT. 19, 2008 (Zenit.org).-
Here is an open letter
addressed to Senator Joe Biden,
the Democratic candidate for vice president,
from the Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus,
Carl Anderson.
It was published today as a full-page ad in various U.S. newspapers.
* * *
Dear Senator Biden:
I write to you today as a fellow Catholic layman,
on a subject that has become a major topic of concern
in this year's presidential campaign.
The bishops who have taken public issue with your remarks
on the Church's historical position on abortion are far from alone.
Senator Obama stressed your Catholic identity repeatedly
when he introduced you as his running mate,
and so your statements carry considerable weight,
whether they are correct or not.
You now have a unique responsibility
when you make public statements about Catholic teaching.
On NBC's Meet the Press,
you appealed to the 13th Century writings of St. Thomas Aquinas
to cast doubt on the consistent teaching of the Catholic Church
on abortion.
There are several problems with this.
First,
Aquinas obviously had only a medieval understanding of biology,
and thus could only speculate about how an unborn child develops in the womb.
I doubt that there is any other area of public policy
where you would appeal to a 13th Century knowledge of biology
as the basis for modern law.
Second,
Aquinas' theological view is in any case entirely consistent
with the long history of Catholic Church teaching in this area,
holding that abortion is a grave sin to be avoided at any time
during pregnancy.
This teaching dates all the way back to the Didache, written in the second century.
It is found in the writings of Tertullian, Jerome, Augustine and Aquinas,
and was reaffirmed by the Second Vatican Council,
which described abortion as "an unspeakable crime"
and held that the right to life must be protected
from the "moment of conception."
This consistent teaching was restated most recently last month
in the response of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops
to remarks by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Statements
that suggest that our Church
has anything less than a consistent teaching on abortion
are not merely incorrect;
they may lead Catholic women facing crisis pregnancies
to misunderstand the moral gravity of an abortion decision.
Neither should a discussion about a medieval understanding
of the first few days or weeks of life be allowed
to draw attention away from the remaining portion of an unborn child's life.
In those months,
even ancient and medieval doctors agreed that a child is developing in the womb.
And as you are well aware,
Roe v. Wade
allows for abortion at any point during a pregnancy.
While you voted for the ban on partial birth abortions,
your unconditional support for Roe is a de facto endorsement
of permitting all other late term abortions,
and thus calls into question your appeal to Aquinas.
I recognize that you struggle with your conscience on the issue,
and have said that you accept the Church's teaching
that life begins at conception - as a matter of faith.
But modern medical science leaves no doubt about the fact
that each person's life begins at conception.
It is not a matter of personal religious belief, but of science.
Finally,
your unwillingness to bring your Catholic moral views
into the public policy arena on this issue alone
is troubling.
There were several remarkable ironies in your first appearance
as Senator Obama's running mate on the steps of the old state capitol
in Springfield, Illinois.
His selection as the first black American to be the nominee
of a major party for president of the United States
owes an incalculable debt to two movements
that were led by people whose religious convictions motivated them
to confront the moral evils of their day -
the abolitionist movement of the 19th Century,
and the civil rights movement of the 20th Century.
Your rally in Springfield took place just a mile or so
from the tomb of Abraham Lincoln,
who in April 1859
wrote these words in a letter to Henry Pierce:
"This is a world of compensations;
and he who would be no slave, must consent to have no slave.
Those who deny freedom to others,
deserve it not for themselves;
and, under a just God, cannot long retain it."
Lincoln fought slavery in the name of
"a just God"
without embarrassment or apology.
He confronted an America
in which black Americans were not considered "persons"
under the law,
and were thus not entitled to fundamental Constitutional rights.
Today,
children of all races who are fully viable
and only minutes from being born
are also denied recognition
as "persons"
because of the Roe v. Wade regime
that you so strongly support.
Lincoln's reasoning regarding slavery applies with equal force
to children who are minutes, hours or days away from birth.
The American founders began our great national quest for liberty
by declaring that we are all
"created equal."
It took nearly a century to transform that bold statement
into the letter of the law,
and another century still to make it a reality.
The founders believed that we are
"endowed by Creator with certain unalienable rights,"
and that first among these is
"life."
You have a choice:
you can listen to your conscience and work
to secure the rights of the unborn to share in the fruits
of our hard-won liberty,
or
you can choose to turn your back on them.
On behalf of the
1.28 million members of the Knights of Columbus
and their families in the United States,
I appeal to you,
as a Catholic who acknowledges
that life begins at conception,
to resolve to protect this unalienable right.
I would welcome the opportunity to discuss these issues
personally with you
in greater detail during the weeks
between now and November 4.
Respectfully,
Carl A. Anderson Supreme Knight...
Have a blessed day.
Today, Children of All Races Are Denied Recognition
as 'Persons'"
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
WASHINGTON, D.C., SEPT. 19, 2008 (Zenit.org).-
Here is an open letter
addressed to Senator Joe Biden,
the Democratic candidate for vice president,
from the Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus,
Carl Anderson.
It was published today as a full-page ad in various U.S. newspapers.
* * *
Dear Senator Biden:
I write to you today as a fellow Catholic layman,
on a subject that has become a major topic of concern
in this year's presidential campaign.
The bishops who have taken public issue with your remarks
on the Church's historical position on abortion are far from alone.
Senator Obama stressed your Catholic identity repeatedly
when he introduced you as his running mate,
and so your statements carry considerable weight,
whether they are correct or not.
You now have a unique responsibility
when you make public statements about Catholic teaching.
On NBC's Meet the Press,
you appealed to the 13th Century writings of St. Thomas Aquinas
to cast doubt on the consistent teaching of the Catholic Church
on abortion.
There are several problems with this.
First,
Aquinas obviously had only a medieval understanding of biology,
and thus could only speculate about how an unborn child develops in the womb.
I doubt that there is any other area of public policy
where you would appeal to a 13th Century knowledge of biology
as the basis for modern law.
Second,
Aquinas' theological view is in any case entirely consistent
with the long history of Catholic Church teaching in this area,
holding that abortion is a grave sin to be avoided at any time
during pregnancy.
This teaching dates all the way back to the Didache, written in the second century.
It is found in the writings of Tertullian, Jerome, Augustine and Aquinas,
and was reaffirmed by the Second Vatican Council,
which described abortion as "an unspeakable crime"
and held that the right to life must be protected
from the "moment of conception."
This consistent teaching was restated most recently last month
in the response of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops
to remarks by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Statements
that suggest that our Church
has anything less than a consistent teaching on abortion
are not merely incorrect;
they may lead Catholic women facing crisis pregnancies
to misunderstand the moral gravity of an abortion decision.
Neither should a discussion about a medieval understanding
of the first few days or weeks of life be allowed
to draw attention away from the remaining portion of an unborn child's life.
In those months,
even ancient and medieval doctors agreed that a child is developing in the womb.
And as you are well aware,
Roe v. Wade
allows for abortion at any point during a pregnancy.
While you voted for the ban on partial birth abortions,
your unconditional support for Roe is a de facto endorsement
of permitting all other late term abortions,
and thus calls into question your appeal to Aquinas.
I recognize that you struggle with your conscience on the issue,
and have said that you accept the Church's teaching
that life begins at conception - as a matter of faith.
But modern medical science leaves no doubt about the fact
that each person's life begins at conception.
It is not a matter of personal religious belief, but of science.
Finally,
your unwillingness to bring your Catholic moral views
into the public policy arena on this issue alone
is troubling.
There were several remarkable ironies in your first appearance
as Senator Obama's running mate on the steps of the old state capitol
in Springfield, Illinois.
His selection as the first black American to be the nominee
of a major party for president of the United States
owes an incalculable debt to two movements
that were led by people whose religious convictions motivated them
to confront the moral evils of their day -
the abolitionist movement of the 19th Century,
and the civil rights movement of the 20th Century.
Your rally in Springfield took place just a mile or so
from the tomb of Abraham Lincoln,
who in April 1859
wrote these words in a letter to Henry Pierce:
"This is a world of compensations;
and he who would be no slave, must consent to have no slave.
Those who deny freedom to others,
deserve it not for themselves;
and, under a just God, cannot long retain it."
Lincoln fought slavery in the name of
"a just God"
without embarrassment or apology.
He confronted an America
in which black Americans were not considered "persons"
under the law,
and were thus not entitled to fundamental Constitutional rights.
Today,
children of all races who are fully viable
and only minutes from being born
are also denied recognition
as "persons"
because of the Roe v. Wade regime
that you so strongly support.
Lincoln's reasoning regarding slavery applies with equal force
to children who are minutes, hours or days away from birth.
The American founders began our great national quest for liberty
by declaring that we are all
"created equal."
It took nearly a century to transform that bold statement
into the letter of the law,
and another century still to make it a reality.
The founders believed that we are
"endowed by Creator with certain unalienable rights,"
and that first among these is
"life."
You have a choice:
you can listen to your conscience and work
to secure the rights of the unborn to share in the fruits
of our hard-won liberty,
or
you can choose to turn your back on them.
On behalf of the
1.28 million members of the Knights of Columbus
and their families in the United States,
I appeal to you,
as a Catholic who acknowledges
that life begins at conception,
to resolve to protect this unalienable right.
I would welcome the opportunity to discuss these issues
personally with you
in greater detail during the weeks
between now and November 4.
Respectfully,
Carl A. Anderson Supreme Knight...
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Vote on my poll question
If you have not voted already please vote on my poll question. I am interested to see what are your favorite liturgical colors and what time of year you like best in the church calendar? Thanks for stopping by! Have a blessed day.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Welcome Back Dad
This was sent to me by a friend of mine and I hope you enjoy it. It was written as a tribute to Ronald Reagan by Michael Reagan. Michael compares Sarah Palin to his late father.
By Michael Reagan
I've been trying to convince my fellow conservatives that they have been wasting their time in a fruitless quest for a new Ronald Reagan to emerge and lead our party and our Nation. I insisted that we'd never see his like again because he was one of a kind. I was wrong! Wednesday night I watched the Republican National Convention on television and there, before my very eyes, I saw my Dad reborn; only this time he's a she. And what a she!In one blockbuster of a speech, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin resurrected my Dad's indomitable spirit and sent it soaring above the convention center, shooting shock waves through the cynical media's assigned spaces and electrifying the huge audience with the kind of inspiring rhetoric we haven't heard since my Dad left the scene. This was Ronald Reagan at his best -- the same Ronald Reagan who made the address known now solely as 'The Speech,' which during the Goldwater campaign set the tone and the agenda for the rebirth of the traditional conservative movement that later sent him to the White House for eight years and revived the moribund GOP.Last night was an extraordinary event. Widely seen beforehand as a make-or-break effort -- either an opportunity for Sarah Palin to show that she was the happy warrior that John McCain assured us she was, or a disaster that would dash McCain's presidential hopes and send her back to Alaska, sadder but wiser. Obviously un-intimidated by either the savage onslaught to which the left-leaning media had subjected her, or the incredible challenge she faced -- and oozing with confidence -- she strode defiantly to the podium and proved she was everything and even more than John McCain told us.Much has been made of the fact that she is a woman. What we saw last night, however, was something much more than a just a woman accomplishing something no Republican woman has ever achieved. What we saw was a red-blooded American with that rare, God-given ability to rally her dispirited fellow Republicans and take up the daunting task of leading them -- and all her fellow Americans -- on a pilgrimage to that shining city on the hill my father envisioned as our nation's real destination. In a few words she managed to rip the mask from the faces of her Democratic rivals and reveal them for what they are -- a pair of old-fashioned liberals making promises that cannot be kept without bankrupting the nation and reducing most Americans to the status of mendicants begging for their daily bread at the feet of an all-powerful government.Most important, by comparing her own stunning record of achievement with his, she showed Barack Obama for the sham that he is, a man without any solid accomplishments beyond conspicuous self-aggrandizement. Like Ronald Reagan, Sarah Palin is one of us. She knows how most of us live because that's the way she lives. She shares our homespun values and our beliefs, and she glories in her status as a small-town woman who put her shoulder to the wheel and made life better for her neighbors. Her astonishing rise up from the grass-roots, her total lack of self-importance, and her ordinary American values and modest lifestyle reveal her to be the kind of hard-working, optimistic, ordinary American who made this country the greatest, most powerful nation on the face of the earth.As hard as you might try, you won't find that kind of plain-spoken, down-to-earth, self-reliant American in the upper ranks of the liberal-infested, elitist Democratic Party, or in the Obama campaign. Sarah Palin didn't go to Harvard, or fiddle around in urban neighborhood leftist activism while engaging in opportunism within the ranks of one of the nation's most corrupt political machines, never challenging it and going along to get along, like Barack Obama. Instead she took on the corrupt establishment in Alaska and beat it, rising to the governorship while bringing reforms to every level of government she served in on her way up the ladder.Welcome back, Dad, even if you're wearing a dress and bearing children this time around
By Michael Reagan
I've been trying to convince my fellow conservatives that they have been wasting their time in a fruitless quest for a new Ronald Reagan to emerge and lead our party and our Nation. I insisted that we'd never see his like again because he was one of a kind. I was wrong! Wednesday night I watched the Republican National Convention on television and there, before my very eyes, I saw my Dad reborn; only this time he's a she. And what a she!In one blockbuster of a speech, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin resurrected my Dad's indomitable spirit and sent it soaring above the convention center, shooting shock waves through the cynical media's assigned spaces and electrifying the huge audience with the kind of inspiring rhetoric we haven't heard since my Dad left the scene. This was Ronald Reagan at his best -- the same Ronald Reagan who made the address known now solely as 'The Speech,' which during the Goldwater campaign set the tone and the agenda for the rebirth of the traditional conservative movement that later sent him to the White House for eight years and revived the moribund GOP.Last night was an extraordinary event. Widely seen beforehand as a make-or-break effort -- either an opportunity for Sarah Palin to show that she was the happy warrior that John McCain assured us she was, or a disaster that would dash McCain's presidential hopes and send her back to Alaska, sadder but wiser. Obviously un-intimidated by either the savage onslaught to which the left-leaning media had subjected her, or the incredible challenge she faced -- and oozing with confidence -- she strode defiantly to the podium and proved she was everything and even more than John McCain told us.Much has been made of the fact that she is a woman. What we saw last night, however, was something much more than a just a woman accomplishing something no Republican woman has ever achieved. What we saw was a red-blooded American with that rare, God-given ability to rally her dispirited fellow Republicans and take up the daunting task of leading them -- and all her fellow Americans -- on a pilgrimage to that shining city on the hill my father envisioned as our nation's real destination. In a few words she managed to rip the mask from the faces of her Democratic rivals and reveal them for what they are -- a pair of old-fashioned liberals making promises that cannot be kept without bankrupting the nation and reducing most Americans to the status of mendicants begging for their daily bread at the feet of an all-powerful government.Most important, by comparing her own stunning record of achievement with his, she showed Barack Obama for the sham that he is, a man without any solid accomplishments beyond conspicuous self-aggrandizement. Like Ronald Reagan, Sarah Palin is one of us. She knows how most of us live because that's the way she lives. She shares our homespun values and our beliefs, and she glories in her status as a small-town woman who put her shoulder to the wheel and made life better for her neighbors. Her astonishing rise up from the grass-roots, her total lack of self-importance, and her ordinary American values and modest lifestyle reveal her to be the kind of hard-working, optimistic, ordinary American who made this country the greatest, most powerful nation on the face of the earth.As hard as you might try, you won't find that kind of plain-spoken, down-to-earth, self-reliant American in the upper ranks of the liberal-infested, elitist Democratic Party, or in the Obama campaign. Sarah Palin didn't go to Harvard, or fiddle around in urban neighborhood leftist activism while engaging in opportunism within the ranks of one of the nation's most corrupt political machines, never challenging it and going along to get along, like Barack Obama. Instead she took on the corrupt establishment in Alaska and beat it, rising to the governorship while bringing reforms to every level of government she served in on her way up the ladder.Welcome back, Dad, even if you're wearing a dress and bearing children this time around
Monday, September 15, 2008
Still here
I am still here, just been busy trying to keep up with my online courses. The goal is to be a social studies teacher here within the next two years. Hope that everyone else is doing well also. It has not been a good start for the Cleveland Browns though 0-2 to start the year. I think it is time to start thinking about Bill Cowher or Marty Schottenheimer as head coach next year for the Browns. I think Romeo Crennel is in over his head at this point.
Friday, September 5, 2008
A good article
This was sent to me and I hope you like it.
Why They Hate Her
Posted by Jonathan V. Last on September 4, 2008, 4:31 PM
There are reasonable criticisms that can be made of Sarah Palin, both as governor and a vice presidential selection. Yet little of what we have seen in the last six days has been either reasonable or critical (in the traditional sense of the word). Instead, much of the left and many in the media simply lashed out at Palin, particularly at her family.
And not only the fringiest parts of the political fringe: A writer at the Washington Post attacked Palin for the fact that her seventeen-year-old daughter was going to have a baby. A writer for The Atlantic openly questioned whether or not Palin’s four-month-old baby, who has Down’s Syndrome, was actually hers. The utterly unfounded suggestion was that the baby was Palin’s daughter’s and that the governor had faked her pregnancy. Proof of the baby’s birth was demanded.
Again, we are not talking about an anonymous blogger at Daily Kos—this is the commentary from the Washington Post and The Atlantic Monthly. And there was more—much more—where that came from.
So why? What is it about Sarah Palin that convinced so much of the left to objectify and assault her so quickly, and with such manifest maliciousness? There are many reasons, but four of them stick out in particular, each having to do not with Palin’s politics, but with her family.
1) Trig Palin’s Down’s Syndrome is a challenge to their ideas about what represents worthwhile life. The fact that this Down’s baby was carried to term and not aborted is statement that his life has the same value as all life. This is an idea with which the left vehemently disagrees. Here is the Washington Post’s Ruth Marcus discussing her own opinion of Down’s babies in an online chat earlier this week:
I had my children at ages 37 and 39, old enough that the risk of Down syndrome was elevated, as it was for Palin, and my doctor recommended amniocentesis. Had the results indicated any abnormality, I have little doubt that I would have made a different decision than did Palin.
As such, the left sees Baby Trig as a provocation. Note today the commentators complaining that Trig has become a “prop” for Palin’s candidacy simply because the family took turns holding the four-month-old in public last night. (Perhaps these observers simply have no understanding of how infants are handled and cared for.) Instead of being viewed as just another baby, Trig is seen by the left as a little Terri Schiavo—an assertion of the value of all life and an affront to their belief that there are differences in what constitutes meaningful life.
2) Which leads, of course, to abortion. Palin’s family is a double-rebuke to the culture of abortion. First, there’s Palin’s decision not to kill Trig because he has Trisomy 21. Then there is seventeen-year-old Bristol Palin’s decision to not to kill her baby.
Contrast this with Barack Obama’s statement that he would keep abortion legal so that if one of his daughters were to “make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby.” This statement is freighted with meaning: Obama views out-of-wedlock pregnancy as a mistake (which is sensible); he views such a resulting baby as punishment (which is less so); and he has strong feelings that should such a situation occur, he would not want his daughter to carry the baby to term. It is, objectively speaking, a pro-abortion statement.
3) Then there are Palin’s religious views. She is a lifelong Christian who belongs to an evangelical church. No further explanations should be needed about the provocations which emanate there from.
4) Finally, there’s the fertility. The Palin family’s five children would have been unexceptional forty years ago, but today constitute something of a fertility freak show. They’re the type of people for whom the epithet “breeder” was invented. The U.S. fertility rate sits just below the replacement level and is only that high because of the greater fertility of Hispanic immigrants. According to the most recent census data, only 1.1 percent of non-Hispanic white women bear five or six children over the course of their lifetime. By contrast, 22.5 percent of these women never reproduce. The percentage of childlessness among women rises in a straight line with educational attainment.
Why the worry about this? First, there’s the fact that few of Palin’s tormenters can understand the fact of her large, traditional family. That is certainly not the way in which they have structured their lives.
Second, there is the left’s long-standing concern about overpopulation, which has become a staple of modern environmentalism, beginning with Paul Ehrlich’s 1968 best-seller The Population Bomb. Ehrlich preached a Malthusian near-future in which hundreds of millions would perish by famine as the world’s unchecked population growth spiraled to infinity. As it happens, Ehrlich’s predictions were entirely incorrect: Not only has increased food production reduced famine to a weapon of political conflict, but the world’s population growth has slowed to a crawl. Fertility rates around the globe are falling and world population will peak around nine billion by 2050. From there, we will experience population contraction.
But Ehrlich’s prognostications never fell far out of favor, particularly with environmentalists who take it as an article of faith that the planet is already overcrowded. To them, the prodigious Palin family is surely seen as taking more than its fair share.
And finally, there is the concern that the amped up fertility of people such as the Palins will lead to a less progressive future. In an influential 2006 essay in Foreign Policy, demographer Philip Longman warned of the “Return of Patriarchy” as religiously orthodox and fundamentalist populations were reproducing at much higher rates than post-modern and secular populations. The result, Longman worried, will eventually be a return to a less politically and culturally progressive era.
As you can see, each of these facts about Sarah Palin touches upon deep sources of antagonism. Her opponents quickly intuited that the particulars of Palin’s story, on their own, stand as challenges to some of the most integral parts of their worldview, whether or not she ever makes them explicitly.
It isn’t any of Palin’s specific policies or ideological beliefs which have so antagonized the liberals (although they surely dislike her for policy reasons, too). They simply hate her for who she is.
Why They Hate Her
Posted by Jonathan V. Last on September 4, 2008, 4:31 PM
There are reasonable criticisms that can be made of Sarah Palin, both as governor and a vice presidential selection. Yet little of what we have seen in the last six days has been either reasonable or critical (in the traditional sense of the word). Instead, much of the left and many in the media simply lashed out at Palin, particularly at her family.
And not only the fringiest parts of the political fringe: A writer at the Washington Post attacked Palin for the fact that her seventeen-year-old daughter was going to have a baby. A writer for The Atlantic openly questioned whether or not Palin’s four-month-old baby, who has Down’s Syndrome, was actually hers. The utterly unfounded suggestion was that the baby was Palin’s daughter’s and that the governor had faked her pregnancy. Proof of the baby’s birth was demanded.
Again, we are not talking about an anonymous blogger at Daily Kos—this is the commentary from the Washington Post and The Atlantic Monthly. And there was more—much more—where that came from.
So why? What is it about Sarah Palin that convinced so much of the left to objectify and assault her so quickly, and with such manifest maliciousness? There are many reasons, but four of them stick out in particular, each having to do not with Palin’s politics, but with her family.
1) Trig Palin’s Down’s Syndrome is a challenge to their ideas about what represents worthwhile life. The fact that this Down’s baby was carried to term and not aborted is statement that his life has the same value as all life. This is an idea with which the left vehemently disagrees. Here is the Washington Post’s Ruth Marcus discussing her own opinion of Down’s babies in an online chat earlier this week:
I had my children at ages 37 and 39, old enough that the risk of Down syndrome was elevated, as it was for Palin, and my doctor recommended amniocentesis. Had the results indicated any abnormality, I have little doubt that I would have made a different decision than did Palin.
As such, the left sees Baby Trig as a provocation. Note today the commentators complaining that Trig has become a “prop” for Palin’s candidacy simply because the family took turns holding the four-month-old in public last night. (Perhaps these observers simply have no understanding of how infants are handled and cared for.) Instead of being viewed as just another baby, Trig is seen by the left as a little Terri Schiavo—an assertion of the value of all life and an affront to their belief that there are differences in what constitutes meaningful life.
2) Which leads, of course, to abortion. Palin’s family is a double-rebuke to the culture of abortion. First, there’s Palin’s decision not to kill Trig because he has Trisomy 21. Then there is seventeen-year-old Bristol Palin’s decision to not to kill her baby.
Contrast this with Barack Obama’s statement that he would keep abortion legal so that if one of his daughters were to “make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby.” This statement is freighted with meaning: Obama views out-of-wedlock pregnancy as a mistake (which is sensible); he views such a resulting baby as punishment (which is less so); and he has strong feelings that should such a situation occur, he would not want his daughter to carry the baby to term. It is, objectively speaking, a pro-abortion statement.
3) Then there are Palin’s religious views. She is a lifelong Christian who belongs to an evangelical church. No further explanations should be needed about the provocations which emanate there from.
4) Finally, there’s the fertility. The Palin family’s five children would have been unexceptional forty years ago, but today constitute something of a fertility freak show. They’re the type of people for whom the epithet “breeder” was invented. The U.S. fertility rate sits just below the replacement level and is only that high because of the greater fertility of Hispanic immigrants. According to the most recent census data, only 1.1 percent of non-Hispanic white women bear five or six children over the course of their lifetime. By contrast, 22.5 percent of these women never reproduce. The percentage of childlessness among women rises in a straight line with educational attainment.
Why the worry about this? First, there’s the fact that few of Palin’s tormenters can understand the fact of her large, traditional family. That is certainly not the way in which they have structured their lives.
Second, there is the left’s long-standing concern about overpopulation, which has become a staple of modern environmentalism, beginning with Paul Ehrlich’s 1968 best-seller The Population Bomb. Ehrlich preached a Malthusian near-future in which hundreds of millions would perish by famine as the world’s unchecked population growth spiraled to infinity. As it happens, Ehrlich’s predictions were entirely incorrect: Not only has increased food production reduced famine to a weapon of political conflict, but the world’s population growth has slowed to a crawl. Fertility rates around the globe are falling and world population will peak around nine billion by 2050. From there, we will experience population contraction.
But Ehrlich’s prognostications never fell far out of favor, particularly with environmentalists who take it as an article of faith that the planet is already overcrowded. To them, the prodigious Palin family is surely seen as taking more than its fair share.
And finally, there is the concern that the amped up fertility of people such as the Palins will lead to a less progressive future. In an influential 2006 essay in Foreign Policy, demographer Philip Longman warned of the “Return of Patriarchy” as religiously orthodox and fundamentalist populations were reproducing at much higher rates than post-modern and secular populations. The result, Longman worried, will eventually be a return to a less politically and culturally progressive era.
As you can see, each of these facts about Sarah Palin touches upon deep sources of antagonism. Her opponents quickly intuited that the particulars of Palin’s story, on their own, stand as challenges to some of the most integral parts of their worldview, whether or not she ever makes them explicitly.
It isn’t any of Palin’s specific policies or ideological beliefs which have so antagonized the liberals (although they surely dislike her for policy reasons, too). They simply hate her for who she is.
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
I am back!
Well I decided to take a break for awhile from my blogging. I just began online classe at Notre Dame College and I in the midst of getting my licensure in secondary education for Social Studies. Well since the time I have been gone John McCain has named Sarah Palin as his choice for Vice President of the Republican party. I was an earlier advocate of selecting Sarah because I felt like Senator McCain that she is a real reformer and will bring CHANGE and not empty rhetoric like the media choice Barack the anointed Obama.
I ve tried to keep this blog focused on Catholic issues but there are some things that just aggravate me to no end. MSNBC as a news network has become the biggest farce around. I hear all the time how Fox News is always in the tank for the Republican party. However, when Fox discusses issues they always have a Republican and Democrat viewpoint. On MSNBC if you watch Keith Olbermann (Which according to ratings not many people do) you see him spew the far left agenda and then have a guest on that spouts that same far left agenda. I am willing to bet that he has never had a guest on that disagrees with him yet. Almost all the shows on MSNBC are left leaning to far left programming. It is a shame because one of my favorite political hosts was Tim Russert and I think he was appalled at the direction NBC News has taken. I think that this may have been the year that journalism has died in the USA. I have never seen such a media attack like on Sarah Palin. Barack Obama gets a free pass to GO and collect $200. I want the news to be fair to both sides and ask questions. However the mainstream media in this election makes no attempt to hide their bias and their endless cheerleading of Barack Obama. I think this will backfire and we will see John McCain and Sarah Palin win in November.
I ve tried to keep this blog focused on Catholic issues but there are some things that just aggravate me to no end. MSNBC as a news network has become the biggest farce around. I hear all the time how Fox News is always in the tank for the Republican party. However, when Fox discusses issues they always have a Republican and Democrat viewpoint. On MSNBC if you watch Keith Olbermann (Which according to ratings not many people do) you see him spew the far left agenda and then have a guest on that spouts that same far left agenda. I am willing to bet that he has never had a guest on that disagrees with him yet. Almost all the shows on MSNBC are left leaning to far left programming. It is a shame because one of my favorite political hosts was Tim Russert and I think he was appalled at the direction NBC News has taken. I think that this may have been the year that journalism has died in the USA. I have never seen such a media attack like on Sarah Palin. Barack Obama gets a free pass to GO and collect $200. I want the news to be fair to both sides and ask questions. However the mainstream media in this election makes no attempt to hide their bias and their endless cheerleading of Barack Obama. I think this will backfire and we will see John McCain and Sarah Palin win in November.
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