The first thing that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin did to earn my love and respect was to thank Geraldine Ferraro and honor Hillary Clinton in her speech when Arizona Sen. John McCain announced in Dayton, Ohio, that she would be his running mate — it’s at about 3:30 into the video. There she was, a Republican and the first words out of her mouth after praising Sen. McCain were to thank women in the opposition party. The ability to do this takes a quality I call majesty of soul. It also requires unbounded generosity of spirit. She won my heart and my respect at that moment.
Later, a cable news anchor asked Geraldine Ferraro her reaction to Gov. Palin’s selection and her speech thanking Rep. Ferraro. I’ll never forget seeing the play of emotions in Geraldine Ferraro’s face when she said from 1984 when she ran as the VP candidate with Walter Mondale until Gov. Palin spoke in 2008 that NEVER before had ANYONE ever thanked her for her contribution. Gratitude and wonder and relief vied with hurt and anger in Rep. Ferraro’s face.
As a lesbian and liberal Democrat during the fall campaign, I got a steady stream of anti-Palin poison e-mails from feminists filled with lies that generally had a two-week time from their widely trumpeted promulgation to their barely-noticed debunkings. I could not figure out why my friends were so consumed with hatred and were lying their asses off to destroy such an accomplished woman.
I’ve shared my theory in another post, but I’m writing today because I want to quote a left-wing feminist blogger at Reclusive Leftists who can’t figure out the why of Palin Derangement Syndrome but has some perceptive observations about its causes and symptoms. The full post is here and the following paragraphs are excerpts:
Sarah Palin’s surprise resignation has brought out the crazy again, and reading through the blogs I’m reminded of how much pure bullshit has been said and believed about her and continues to be said and believed. I’m reminded of how so many feminists seem possessed of a wholly irrational hatred for this woman.
Why?
…
But even weirder is what happens when you try to replace the myths with the truth. If you explain, “no, she didn’t charge rape victims,” your feminist interlocutor will come back with something else: “she’s abstinence-only!” No, you say, she’s not; and then the person comes back with, “she’s a creationist!” and so on. “She’s an uneducated moron!” Actually, Sarah Palin is not dumb at all, and based on her interviews and comments, I’d say she has a greater knowledge of evolution, global warming, and the Wisconsin glaciation in Alaska than the average citizen.
But after you’ve had a few of these myth-dispelling conversations, you start to realize that it doesn’t matter. These people don’t hate Palin because of the lies; the lies exist to justify the hate. That’s why they keep reaching and reaching for something else, until they finally get to “she winked on TV!” (And by the way: I’ve been winked at my whole life by my grandmother, aunts, and great-aunts. Who knew it was such a despicable act?
…Speaking of slander, that brings me to my next big puzzlement: what is it with the feminists who just freely make shit up about Palin? The lies had to start somewhere, and they didn’t all hatch in the bowels of the Obama campaign (though a bunch of them did). Some of them were incubated by feminists, particularly the ones about Palin being an anti-sex “purity queen,” the kind of batshit Christian who believes in Purity Balls and abstinence pledges and is opposed to sex ed. None of that is true.
…Besides, I know for a fact that the feminists spreading the lies about Palin knew they were spreading lies. Not to tell tales out of school, but: they knew. They were supplied with the correct information, and they chose to lie anyway. Why?
…
Her speech [at the Republican National Convention accepting her nomination as the candidate for vice president] also delivered some welcome punctures to the national gasbag known as Obama. And that’s another thing: it has not escaped my attention that many of the things Palin is accused of, falsely, are actually true of Obama. This is a guy who, as a U.S. senator from Illinois, didn’t even know which Senate committees he was on or which states bordered his own. (And don’t even get me started on Joe “The Talking Donkey” Biden, who thinks FDR was president during the stock market crash and that people watched TV in those days.) I’m not saying Obama’s a moron, but he’s sure as hell no genius. People say Sarah Palin rambles; excuse me, but have you actually heard Obama speak extemporaneously? As for being a diva, surely we all remember the Possomus sign and the special embroidered pillow on the Obama campaign plane. The fact is, Obama is an intellectually mediocre narcissist with a thin resume who’s lost without a teleprompter and whose entire campaign had all the substance and gravity of a Pepsi commercial. Yet people say Sarah Palin is a fluffy bunny diva.
If you have been pondering Palin Derangement Syndrome, I highly recommend reading the entire post along with the intelligent comments that follow.
Meanwhile, I’m going to keep hammering on the obvious point that Gov. Palin is FAR more qualified to be president right now than Obama ever will be. Our country and our economy would be in MUCH better shape if she were president RIGHT NOW.
Update, 7/7/09:
Allow me to explain; the woman is inadequate. She’s far too stupid to do much of anything in public life, let alone be the President of the United States. And I’m not saying that because she’s a woman, or because she’s a Republican, or because she’s from Alaska, but because I have seen her talk, and I have seen her take and attempt to answer questions, and she does a terrible job at it. Without a doubt, she does a worse job of it than any contemporary politician I can think of, including George Bush. Can you imagine being in a group of 100 people who take aptitude and intelligence tests, and then being told that the person with the lowest scores is going to be in charge? That’s what Sarah Palin running for elected office is like.
It’s hard to think of an example of someone being in over their head as much as Sarah Palin. I do understand why you’ll follow her to the ends of the earth though; it’s the only direction you can go. Have fun continuing to embarrass yourselves by stumbling all over someone that couldn’t think her way out of a paper bag.
“It’s hard to think of an example of someone being in over their head as much as Sarah Palin.” Eh, Levi, very easy. Barack Obama.
“It’s hard to think of an example of someone being in over their head as much as Sarah Palin.” Eh, Levi, very easy. Barack Obama. I guess you’ve never heard Obama without his teleprompter, eh? I have. Total stream of consciousness. He just makes sh*t up; even his body language says he’s doing that. Palin is an Einstein compared to Obama cuz even WITH the teleprompter, Obama’s brain and mouth are disengaged from each other. Remember when he read somebody else’s lines?
” Can you imagine being in a group of 100 people who take aptitude and intelligence tests, and then being told that the person with the lowest scores is going to be in charge? That’s what Sarah Palin running for elected office is like.” One last point. Sarah Palin has a photographic memory. You know what happens when people like that, diligent about schooling as Palin was, take any kind of tests? They don’t have low scores. I know. My family has several of them. Palin graduated university with a 4.0 GPA. She may have gone to several because she couldn’t afford to go to one university all the way through. You can bet your bottom dollar her GPA is higher than Obama’s.
What’s his GPA again? You don’t know, do you, Levi? He has never revealed ANY of his records beyond name, SS, and DOB.
I’m hardly a fan of Obama’s, but at the very least, I’ve never seen him claim that because his home state of Illinois is close to Canada, he’s got foreign policy experience. I’ve never seen him stutter and stumble like an unprepared high school student when asked which magazines or newspapers he likes to read. I’ve never seen him plumb the depths of incoherent rambling where Sarah Palin basically lives during even the friendliest of interview venues.
If you think Sarah Palin is objectively smarter than Barack Obama, then you’re stupider than them both.
Levy, you are attacking how Palin speaks, not her positions. Personal attacks are easy, but when asked to explain which of Palin’s positions a person objects to I’ve noticed that even ‘smart’ people become inarticulate and fall back on slurring Palin personally.
Cynthia, your posts on Sarah are very thought provoking, and the discussion at the linked site had an actual rational discussion as well. It was intriguing reading. And if Sarah were President, not sure which explains my feelings better, I’d either a) sleep well at night, or b) I wouldn’t fear waking up every morning.
Carolyn,
No, no, I’m attacking her positions, which are as insincere and incomprehensible as the pathetic manner in which she presents them. Palin’s ‘position’ that she has foreign policy experience because Alaska is close to Russia sets a new benchmark in political condescension and vapidness. That she expects people to buy such an absurd assertion is only outstripped by the fact that people do buy it.
Just because someone is bad at public speaking does not necessarily mean that they are stupid, but in the case of Sarah Palin, that is what’s going on. If you can’t handle a question like ‘What sort of magazines and newspapers do you read?’ during a Presidential campaign without imploding, your problems are deeper than how you speak. She’s a dummy, just like George Bush was, and I’ve seen the proof.
Levi,
You obviously do not read very much news, or limit yourself to the MSM and HuffPo, which are Obama propaganda machines.
I believe Gov. Palin when she explained that the reason she had trouble with the “What do you read?” question was that is was so condescending and insulting and that this kind of condescension is something Alaskans get insulted with all the time, so it makes them all angry when it happens. She had to suppress an angry retort. She reads newspapers, magazines and is accomplished with using the Internet. As Mary Matalin recently pointed out, she also is a top expert on energy policy and energy independence, which is the right expertise at the right time for this nation.
Gov. Palin is commander of the Alaska National Guard and you CAN see Russia from at least one Alaskan island. Incursions into U.S. airspace from Russia do happen in Alaska. We have strategic, first-alert military bases there and she gets briefed on their activities. She is not at the level John McCain was at, but she was ahead of Obama, who was offering, “I grew up in Indonesia” as his foreign affairs experience, plus his violations of the Logan Act in 2008 for which he should be in jail.
Obama’s most glaring and heinous foreign policy gaffe during the campaign was hushed up by the MSM. In August 2008, when Russia invaded Georgia, for days and days Obama kept calling on the U.N. Security Council to get involved and handle the matter. But, oopsie! Russia is ON the Security Council with VETO power, so it was unlikely to allow the Security Council to interfere with its invasion of Georgia. This makes Obama the undisputed king of idiots about foreign policy.
Gov. Palin’s positions are that the U.S. needs to drill here and drill now and build nuclear reactors for energy independence. She also believes in reducing the size of government and the tax burden so people get to keep enough of their own money to be able to start their own businesses, invent things and bring them to market and give to the charities that they favor.
Unlike Barack Obama, George Bush was able to speak extemporaneously throughout his presidency and lo, can do so unto this very day. I would love to see Obama’s college transcripts and theses as proof of his intelligence. Mostly, he is just a cunning and calculating sociopath. When he writes his own speeches, he alternates between being angry and making factual errors to being a thudding, plodding bore.
Obama is the only president of the Harvard Law Review who published no papers during his tenure. His autobiographies match the style of Bill Ayers, so it is likely that Ayers was his ghostwriter. His main skill seems to be to get other people to do his homework and pay his way.
In contrast, Gov. Palin is a self-made woman and defeated an incumbent member of her own party to become governor. Her accomplishments are superlative.
The Left is in full fear mode. If Palin was really incompetent (yeah that Obama is doing real well with the economy plus bashing friends and courting enemies) they would ignore her.
.-= M. Simon´s last blog ..China Dominates =-.
I believe Gov. Palin when she explained that the reason she had trouble with the “What do you read?” question was that is was so condescending and insulting and that this kind of condescension is something Alaskans get insulted with all the time, so it makes them all angry when it happens. She had to suppress an angry retort. She reads newspapers, magazines and is accomplished with using the Internet. As Mary Matalin recently pointed out, she also is a top expert on energy policy and energy independence, which is the right expertise at the right time for this nation.
I know you believe Sarah Palin. Couric’s question was a totally benign softball, but Palin’s interpretation of it as a condescending insult is more convincing to you. This is similar to your criticism of Letterman. According to you, he doesn’t know or is lying about which daughter he was making fun of, but Sarah Palin knows for certain that it was her fourteen year old.
This willingness of yours to believe Sarah Palin’s version of these events, as opposed to the people actually making the statements, seems to be an indication that you’re letting your ideology do your thinking for you. It’s just really convenient for you to be able to dig in your heels and say ,”I believe Sarah Palin.” I believe Sarah Palin is a typical politician that spins her embarrassing media fumbles and deliberately misinterprets comedians’ acts to grab headlines. Objectively, which is more convincing? That a reporter, Katie Couric, was consciously insulting all Alaskans on national television, or that a politician, Sarah Palin, makes excuses when she messes up?
I’m not a big fan of Obama, but he’s smarter than both George Bush and Sarah Palin, without question. You’re complaining that he didn’t write any articles at the Harvard Law Review while Palin went to the University of Idaho and Bush spent most of his charmed life in a state of extended, drunken adolescence. But ya know, biographies and resumes don’t reflect nearly as much about any of these peoples’ smarts as does the videotape. You can’t watch these people speak and put Obama anywhere but the top, and that’s it.
Levi,
You are always good for a belly laugh!
FYI, Camille Paglia considers Gov. Palin to be intelligent and Katie Couric to be stupid.
It was Willow at the game. Also, regardless of which daughter Letterman intended to ridicule and torment, his intent to ridicule and torment teen-age girls is reprehensible and sexist and he must be fired for doing it. There is no such thing as an acceptable intention for what he did.
If you are defending Obama, especially in comparison to Gov. Palin, you REALLY are unfamiliar with his resume. And, if you think Obama is smart based on hearing him speak without a teleprompter, I have MANY bridges to sell you.
Damn it, Cynthia, you’re good! Obviously, Levi has never experienced sexism or condescension first hand and doesn’t (or won’t) recognize it when he sees it. Bully for him.
You and I will never convince the Levis of the world. In 2012, he and those of his ilk will be contemplating their navels and talking to the walls. Such is life.
Carolyn,
Thank you! I’m putting you in my blogroll and I hope you will add me to yours as A Conservative Lesbian, Cynthia Yockey.
Oh, and be sure to enter the full URL for your blog when you comment so Comment Luv can link your last post below your comment.
Cynthia
Thank you, I am honored. You have been added.
All my best,
Carolyn
Cynthia, you beat me to smacking Levi (betcha the moniker is a dig at Palin) upside the head. I’m 12 hours ahead of y’all and was asleep when that skull full of mush wrote in.
Levi, even though you like going ad hom, I won’t descend to your level and tell you that only a moron would believe that Obama is more intelligent than either Bush or Palin. How do you rate intelligence? By the color of the skin? The cut of the suit? The ability to free associate without regard to facts? The university granting the degree? The ability to read a teleprompter? Acting skill (the ability to read somebody else’s words as though they were yours)? The parroting of Marxist ideology?
What? What are your criteria for intelligence?
I believe you have a single criterion: The morons in the MSM must pronounce the person as possessing nous. (If you’re unfamiliar with the word, Levi, go check Webster online.)
Unfortunately, intelligence requires more than that, Levi. It requires not only having a database of knowledge in more than one field (Obama lacks this; his database is limited to Marxism-Alinskyism-community organizing. Even then, he was a lousy community organizer!), but the individual must be able to perceive correlations between things and formulate conclusions. Intelligence is not a static though a high IQ is reflective of it; rather intelligence is a fluid construct that depends on the constant accumulation of knowledge and critical thinking on it allied with the ability to apply that knowledge to solving problems that arise.
Thus, George Bush and Sarah Palin are more intelligent than Obama not because they’re white and he’s black (being black myself I’d never make such a claim), but because both exhibit the characteristics of intelligence and Obama doesn’t. Only a fool listening to Bush talk extemporaneously would conclude that he’s an idiot. President Bush, I would argue, is a voracious reader who assesses current situations within the context of his huge knowledge database and can formulate solutions. Same with Palin. One does not have to agree with their solutions, one merely has to acknowledge that both do devise novel solutions to address pre-existing and current problems.
Barack Obama, on the other hand, confronted with a problem, reflexively falls back on his very limited database (Marxism-Alinskyism-community organizing) and offers stale and failed solutions to current problems. Obama acts and thinks without reference to history, either because he’s ignorant of history, careless of it, is plain and simply lacking the intelligence to see the relevance of history to the human condition and situation, or cannot make the requisite connections necessary for critical evaluation.
Today, the speech habits of the individual are not indicative of intelligence; once upon a time, it was. Today, we tend to associate euphony and eulogy (this has nothing to do with the dead, Levi) with intelligence, and we don’t question to whose mind and counsel we’re being privy. Oratory as an art involving euphony and rhetoric (including logic) has been made base; oratory now involves the mouthing of someone else’s rhetorical flourishes.
George Bush is an uncomfortable public speaker, and, from all accounts, an excellent private and extemporaneous one. Sarah Palin is too; at times her syntax may be mangled but her sense is clear. (Please, let us not say poor syntax means lack of intelligence—there goes the MSM, the general public, including the dyslexics.) Sarah Palin’s ability to speak off the cuff is unmatched by Obama. Finally, both Bush and Palin possess a wittiness which Obama lacks. Any fool can tell a joke (Obama does it poorly), only an intelligent person exhibits wit.
All of this notwithstanding, Levi, Barack Obama, who can read a teleprompter better than anyone else, you consider to be intelligent. Alas for him, he is so confident of his skill at reading that he often disengages his brain and reads someone else’s lines. That is not a mark of intelligence; that is merely brainlessness, witlessness.
Obama is essentially ignorant of so much including history, economics, American Constitutional Law (ironic that he was reputed to have taught it in Chicago), capitalism and the markets, American cultural values, that is impossible for him, personally, to develop matrices adequate for rational problem solving.
You, Levi, might find that lack of mastery of anything to be a desirable in a president. I don’t. So, let’s have no more of your ill-informed diatribes. Here’s a maxim to live by: if you don’t know what you’re talking about, just shut up and learn.
Today I was ordering new contact lenses and discovered my prescription lenses are made by Johnson and Johnson. I’m in favor of the Letterman advertiser boycott so now I have to go back to the eye doctor and say “another brand please”.
I’m thinking of sending my receipt to Johnson and Johnson.
Carol,
A few tips: photocopy your receipt and send it to all the officers listed in my “Fire David Letterman” kit PDF and include a short note about how you just are not going to buy their products while they are sponsoring a comedian who attacks the children of people he disagrees with. And, if you have the energy, send a cc copy to the top three execs at CBS. It’s OK to use first class post instead of Express Mail. Also, make sure your cc list includes everyone to whom you are sending copies of the letter.
Changing something like your supplier for your contacts lenses makes a VERY powerful statement to Johnson & Johnson and CBS. Great job!
Cynthia
Oh, forgot to mention, I attended the 4th of July concert on the lawn of the Capitol building this past Saturday. During his address His Royal Highness asked the audience to cheer loudly “so we can hear you at the White House” which a goodly handful dutifully did. Following that, he didn’t mention whether he’d heard them or not. Guess that wasn’t included on his teleprompter.
I felt comfortable not cheering, as the teenager girls on the lawn next to us went “I don’t think so”. Washington DC is a great city (only just moved here) and NOT filled to the rafters with Obamabots.
I simply don’t have much more to say to a group of people who somehow continue to find inspiration in someone as vacuous as Sarah Palin. As if her performance in last year’s campaign wasn’t enough, she just up and quit her job, and still you guys can’t find anything wrong with the woman. I know Cynthia’s a big fan of True Believer because of how she (incorrectly) feels it describes American liberals, but this is a classic case of people desperately forcing themselves to find no faults with someone.
Let’s just think about this people. She quit. Ostensibly, this would be counter to the tough guy image that conservatives like to pretend they have and go on and on about whenever given the chance. But if the reaction to this news is any indication, according to conservatives, quitting your job out of the blue is something to be admired. You guys are acting like you wanted her to quit her job and were anxiously waiting for her to do so. Of course, this was conveniently never spoken of, not a soul in the conservative movement has spent any keystrokes advising her to quit since the election, but now that it’s happened, conservatives talk about it like it’s the best thing she could have done.
If you were trying to convince me that conservatives have a core set of beliefs and morals, as opposed to blindly accepting whatever their politicians tell them to accept, I wouldn’t find this example very persuasive. There is nothing on the left like the conservative cult that has alternatively and unquestioningly revered Ronald Reagan, George Bush, and Sarah Palin. If I were to go around talking about how bad it is to be a True Believer, I think I’d look in the mirror to make sure I wasn’t one first.
Levi,
To attract more people than Sarah Palin did by herself, as I recall, Barack Obama had to book rock bands for his appearances, even with his two-year head start, didn’t he? And I have photos that friends took when Joe Biden came to speak during the campaign — there were only a few dozen people in a very bored looking crowd. And isn’t it funny that we ALWAYS compare Gov. Palin NOT to her counterpart on the Democratic ticket, Joe Biden, but always to Barack Obama, the presidential candidate. That alone tells you people see her as president.
My own experience of liberalism when I tried to cash in the promise of wheelchair access and inclusion for my life partner was so much cruelty directed toward us over the course of my six-year campaign for our temerity that we had to stop going to lesbian events because I didn’t think she’d be physically safe from attack. The Washington Blade actually published a column demanding that we be run out of the community. The women I lobbied were at the top of the disability rights movement — they knew perfectly well what they were supposed to do, they just didn’t want to make the extra effort. Or, it is possible that this was payback for my heresy — the lesbian community was furious with me for founding a group for feminine/non-femme lesbians. (Feminine lesbians prefer another feminine lesbian partner — a femme lesbian prefers a more masculine, or butch, partner.) So totalitarian liberalism is not an abstraction to me.
Eric Hoffer’s book The True Believer does describe what we are going through now — which is not the same thing as saying that it describes American liberalism before the Obama era. It is Jonah Goldberg who makes the case that liberals are the real fascists — because they want to force everyone to think and act the same way — in his book, Liberal Fascism. This country is very much in peril of becoming a totalitarian state under president-for-life Obama. I think he is deliberately bringing down the U.S. from within with debt bombs and tax bombs. They work slowly, but are extremely deadly. They are Obama’s fire in the Reichstag and Enabling Act.
Regarding conservative core beliefs, to my surprise, I find that conservatism is a very large tent that includes people who do have irreconcilable differences — for example, Tammy Bruce and I are both pro-choice conservatives, while most social conservatives are pro-life. I have been accepted in the right blogosphere and mentored and helped by bloggers who disagree with me about gay marriage. I would never expect this to happen with liberals. I would be shunned! There’s no such thing as blind acceptance in conservatism — it really is the ideological place to be for pioneers, entrepreneurs and rugged individualists.
Another characteristic that shows there’s no blind acceptance by conservatives of pretty much anything, is that conservative writers attack people on their own side more frequently and viciously than I observe liberals to do. For example, Jonah Goldberg and Charles Krauthammer both went after Gov. Palin in the few days before she resigned, and both had objections that were unfounded to the point of being insane: they attacked her experience, when she had the largest amount of the most relevant experience for being president of all four candidates in the fall 2008 presidential campaign. Obama could not remember the committees he served on in the Senate and I doubt he’s been there often enough to be able to find his old office. Obama welcomed an audience in Pennsylvania to “New Pennsylvania,” for crying out loud and he was totally serious about the U.S. having 57 states. He can’t remember the name of his secretary of defense! He can’t speak extemporaneously to save his life! He lacks intellectual curiosity and intellectual rigor in the examination of ideas. He is extremely rigid. His intellect is pedestrian. He is a third-generation Communist who has never strayed from the orthodoxy he learned at his mother’s knee. The only real skills he has are seduction, deception, bullying, getting other people to do his homework and taking the credit for other people’s achievements. (I gather you don’t know how his state senate record came from the achievements of others that were appropriated for him by his mentor/kingmaker. Also, go ahead — name Obama’s achievements while he was in the U.S. Senate. I would LOVE to see the interview where he has to describe his last job, namely, to explain how legislation is introduced and eventually becomes law. I also would LOVE to be the reporter who gets a frowny, serious face and asks him if he believes the District of Columbia should be the next state to join the union as the 52nd state.)
Or, since you are so broad-minded, name at least 10 achievements of Gov. Palin in her political career. Because I believe you are criticizing her without having really looked at her record. You have to do better than just continuing to harp on some “gotcha” interviews, especially when Obama has only been tossed softballs and whenever he does make a gaffe the press assiduously drops it down the memory hole.
Finally, Levi, I haven’t been trying to persuade you of anything. I’ve only been setting the record straight so others are not taken in by your specious objections to Gov. Palin.
Cynthia
Cynthia,
Just read your post and subsequent comments and it was a joy! I will certainly be adding you to my favorites and am so glad to do it. Welcome to the big tent of conservatism, we’re so happy to have you. 😉 I myself am more of a conservative libertarian, in that my big (HUGE) thing is limited federal government. Basically I’m a con minus the social part. Just wanted to say hi and welcome and I’ll be reading in the future! Take care.
Oooookay. You’re kind of all over the place there, not really sure what you’d like me to respond to in all that. I’ve got to say though, that referring to Obama as President-for-life and lamenting the totalitarianism of his administration really makes you sound reasonable and cogent. That you’re making these complaints about the Democrats and admit to being lured to conservatism during the Bush years is terribly ironic.
Levi,
OK, Levi, at this point I just have to come out and say you have a comprehension problem because you make up things that aren’t there, then attack them. You really have no idea what you talking about because you obviously have not researched Obama by any other method than believing every word he says. I’ve done considerably more research on his background and ever-shifting positions, so you just are not prepared for this discussion. Other than making up things that you then attribute to me so you can attack them, or your supercilious scorn which you try to sell as genuine superiority in the hope that I am insecure and foolish and will buy your act — which is one of Obama’s favorite ploys — you really bring nothing to the table.
I was not “lured to conservatism during the Bush years.” Last spring I knew I would never support Obama because he could not please his Black Liberation Theology, illegal immigrant and Muslim constituencies AND support homosexual equality. I believed he was lying. It turns out I was correct. The brief the Obama administration filed in support of the Defense of Marriage Act, which he had pledged to get Congress to repeal, was totally devastating and a complete and utter betrayal. He has done nothing to get “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repealed and over 250 members of our armed forces have been thrown out for homosexuality SINCE HE BECAME PRESIDENT. Even after Obama stole the nomination — research the Florida and Michigan primaries — I pinned my hopes on Hillary because I thought she really would come around and support homosexuality equality. I hoped there would be a PUMA coup at the Democratic Convention and Hillary would be nominated instead of Obama. Obama’s last chance to get my support — wretching and gagging — was to choose Hillary as his running mate. When he chose Biden, he lost me. Then McCain immediately announced his VP choice was Gov. Palin.
I liked Sarah Palin from the moment in her first speech with Sen. McCain when she thanked Geraldine Ferraro and Hillary Clinton for their achievements for women — she thanked Democrats in her first national speech as John McCain’s selection as his running mate. This takes majesty of soul. And Rep. Ferraro said Gov. Palin was the FIRST person EVER to thank her for her achievements, including being the first female candidate for vice president. I also loved Gov. Palin’s speech at the Republican National Convention. When she spoke, she got my enthusiastic vote. However, I thought I would have to explain my support of McCain/Palin to my Democratic friends, plus I got into an e-mail argument with one who sent me one of the lie-filled poison e-mails that feminists were sending around. As a result, I had to do my homework to be able to explain my positions to my friends (all but a few had Palin Derangement Syndrome and were unwilling to hear anything spoken against Obama or in favor of Gov. Palin). So, at the beginning of September 2008, Googling for info led me to Michelle Malkin and her blog then was my launching point into the Right blogosphere.
What shocked me in September and October of 2008 was how uninformed and unexamined my liberal opinions were, even though I had followed the news and read many op-ed columnists regularly since I was a teen-ager and had been a political reporter for two years. I now say I didn’t understand conservatism until the fall of 2008 because George Will was explaining it to me.
As I was doing my research for my e-mail argument, I read a piece in American Thinker about how much people of average income paid in taxes under Bush, and how much more they would pay under Obama (Obama doesn’t count as one of his tax increases on people making less than $250,000 per year his plan of allowing the Bush tax cuts to lapse, even though this means that everyone will have their taxes go up when that happens — the poor will have the worst of it because the lowest tax rate will shoot up from 10 percent to 15 percent. Obama also promised to raise the ceiling on FICA taxes above $105,000, which represents a significantly higher tax burden for people in the $105,001 range and up.)
What I realized was that the federal, state and local governments already can get 50 percent or more of your income in taxes, to say nothing of government fees like car registrations and tunnel tolls. This doesn’t leave a lot to live on, let alone pay for an education, or start a business, or give to the charities of your choice. I’m an entrepreneur, so when I realized I could be a fiscal conservative — keep taxes low, don’t punish businesses, keep government small, etc. — without being a social conservative, that won me over. As an entrepreneur, I need for conservatives to be running the government so I get to keep enough of my money (as my career resumes, I live with my father and take care of him now) to be able to start and grow my own business. I’m also sure the government would not like the same charities that I do, so I want to keep enough of my money to be able to afford to give to the ones I support.
So, the process of becoming a conservative started in late August 2008 and was complete by mid-October 2008 and was due to over 100 hours of avid research. That means it did not happen in “the Bush years.” It happened in the last few Bush months.
By the way, if you were doing more research, you would know that conservatives do not consider George W. Bush to be a true conservative and they are irritated with him for tarnishing the brand.
Cynthia, fascinating insight into the lesbian world and its types. Who knew!?! I didn’t, fer sher. So you got caned for helping people to express their partner preferences in a community (liberal) that worships at the altar of choice? Fascinating!
I had written a lengthy post discussing female anger at Sarah Palin. Unfortunately, the submit button helped to gobble it. As soon as I finish wading through end of semester paperwork (endless reports, fer cryin’ out loud!) I’ll do a rewrite and repost.
Levi refuses to understand that Sarah Palin’s resignation is integral to her political philosophy. (Palin is a Bush-type politician in this respect: she won’t die without politics.) Palin campaigned on a reformist agenda of fiscal sobriety, amongst other things. When the bill for spurious ethics charges and other legal gnat-bites rose to $2,000,000 for the state of Alaska, the woman did what any honest politician packing a pair would do: resign. In this Obama-created economic climate, it would be fiscally irresponsible of her to remain in office while state resources are consumed by harassments of nithings, gnats, and gadflies.
Levi, women DO have a sense of honor. We DO have invisible balls. Palin’s is damn sure bigger than Obama’s actual pair. When you understand conservative political philosophy then you’ll realize it is not about personal power for the individual but about the welfare and well-being of the body politic. You ‘re a Democrat, so that makes no sense to you at all.
Apodoca,
Was your post gobbled up here, or somewhere else? If here, I don’t know what would cause that. One option is to compose your comment in a text editor like WordPad, then paste it in. You can save the file as you’re working on it. I do that sometimes at other blogs when I’m commenting.
Also, yes, and I’m sure the lesbian community would poll twice as large as it does now if lesbians were nicer to feminine lesbians. I thought I was in accord with the community values of inclusion when I started my group for feminine lesbians in the late 1980’s. I didn’t try to make anyone else wrong or highjack another group. I added mine. And women throughout the D.C. area went crazy and literally discussed in their rap groups whether my group should be allowed to exist. They seemed to believe that if my group was allowed to exist, somehow THEY would be forced to wear feminine clothes they didn’t want to wear because somehow we had to do everything the same for solidarity, or whatever, because it was so nuts I never made sense of it. I mean, get some boundaries, people! It took years before I could finally accept that the lesbian community had one set of values for show and a totalitarian set that it actually used. It was just like Animal Farm: “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” Last year I realized that liberalism has a large and strong totalitarian group in it, so it was totalitarian liberalism I was dealing with, not just totalitarian feminism.
Thank you for your contributions.
Cynthia
Levi,
That’s not irony. Please look up the definition of irony. Possibly for someone who harbors tangible hatred for Bush, you might think the supposed conversion taking place during that time was “ironic” but that’s not really what it means. Sorry.
Cynthia,
The obvious hatred and double-speak you encountered during the fall election cycle happened with a LOT of my supposedly liberal friends. Long story short, most of them discovered that they were classical liberals, more in the way of JFK, and therefore, conservative by today’s standards. People don’t realize historic origins of these terms (liberal, conservative, progressive, etc) and negative conotations therein. For example, liberals tried to re-brand themselves as “progressive” because that sounds so much better, right? What they don’t know or were never taught (or don’t care about, let’s be honest) is that progressives were behind the wonderful idea of eugenics, or the forced sterilization of children deemed ‘inferior” by those nifty progressives. That’s just one example of how ignorant modern liberals are about their own history. And, of course, another shiny example of how liberals stand up for the little guy. See, Levi, “liberals standing up for the little guy” would be a better example of irony. It’s an absolute contradiction, a lie if you will, and a funny one at that. Irony.
“I was not “lured to conservatism during the Bush years.” Last spring I knew I would never support Obama because he could not please his Black Liberation Theology, illegal immigrant and Muslim constituencies AND support homosexual equality. I believed he was lying. It turns out I was correct.”
Well, if I’m comprehending your story of how you were lured to conservatism, it’s true that it occurred during the Bush years, so I’m not sure why you’re complaining that I’m misrepresenting something about you.
Anyway, you’re really tipping your hand with that ridiculous list of Obama’s ‘constituencies.’ It’s a little jarring to see all that racism out in the open like that again. I’d forgotten how so much of the conservative reaction to Obama’s candidacy was couched in poorly disguised racism. I’d love to see you expound on this – why exactly are you worried about Obama’s Muslim constituency? Is he specifically catering to them? You seem awfully sure that you’ve been vindicated in your fears about his alleged black liberation theology, but what are you referring to exactly? Do you think he’s boosting these minorities at the expense of white people?
My impression of you when I saw you participate in a Q&A at CPAC was that you were a racist, I guess it had slipped my mind. It’s no wonder you find yourself fitting in with conservatism as well as you have. The rest of your rant is riddled with factual errors and panicky propaganda points; Obama isn’t raising taxes on poor people. From where are you pulling that? You want to complain about taxes? How about getting mad at the billionaires and corporations that profited tremendously by engineering the economic collapse who end up paying effective tax rates of 1 and 2 percent?
I don’t think your research is even remotely comprehensive enough, and I think most of your distaste for Obama stems from his being black. But please, if you’ve got some proof that he’s some kind of secret Black Panther or something, do tell.
Levi,
Now you are just lying.
Also, all race cards expired on January 20, 2009. Scream racist all you want. It’s a lie and you know it.
Lies, lies, lies, Levi. That’s all you’ve got. You do not deserve any more of my time.
Cynthia
P.S.
To my gentle readers: I’ve done a little research on Levi and it turns out he is a freshman in college — or will be in September — and his hobby is spamming blogs.