Govenor Sarah Palin, Mormonism, Post-Mormonism, Politics

[_beastie]

So which way do you want it debate or no debate?

Oh, some debate is fine. I just won't get involved in endless debates on the issue (no 20+ pages on this topic for me, my tolerance is lower for this topic than for the religion topic).

beastie

Just a warning - I will not engage in an endless political debate. They're worse than religious debates.

[_antishock8]

Oh my god, more quotes from the "open-minded, tolerant, and diverse" "progressive Post-Mormons":

Eggsackly! well said. The fact that a woman would have a baby CHOOSE freely to go back to her career in days has got to neutralize her ability to romanticize motherhood in the eyes of a lot of women who have actually given birth.

The lucky thing for her is that the expectations are so low that mediocrity will be viewed as a huge success.

That old geezer could only wish he'd get a good blow (from his running mate- AS8, that's the context of his statement). Oh. Mah. Gawd, this is so damned HILARIOUS!

[Guest]

While I view the pick as largely a gimmick and gamble which makes me question McCain's judgment, Palin seems like a good person with a good story. #2 to the President of the US though? I have to concede she did do a great job helping to pick out that Alaska quarter design, though.



In trying to find out where Palin stands on foreign policy issues I was able to track down a whole quote from a march 2007 interview:

Alaska Business Monthly: We've lost a lot of Alaska's military members to the war in Iraq. How do you feel about sending more troops into battle, as President Bush is suggesting?

Palin: I've been so focused on state government, I haven't really focused much on the war in Iraq. I heard on the news about the new deployments, and while I support our president, Condoleezza Rice and the administration, I want to know that we have an exit plan in place; I want assurances that we are doing all we can to keep our troops safe. Every life lost is such a tragedy. I am very, very proud of the troops we have in Alaska, those fighting overseas for our freedoms, and the families here who are making so many sacrifices.

Where Obama picked someone that could actually help him govern, McCain picked someone that could help him campaign.

[_Jason Bourne]

Like Bush or not he was Governor of one of the largest states for six years before he was elected. He was and is light years ahead of Obama far as executive leadership.

This looks like the very best evidence that "executive" experience is probably a terrible indicator of a good president. Based on this alone, perhaps we should never elect a governor again.

I was simply pointing out the Bush had experience. I am not up to debating George Bush. There are pro's and cons about him. He is not entirely horrible. History may end up treating him quite well but it really will be all based on Iraq. We can note that since 9/11 the USA has not had a terrorist attack on it main land. Does Bush get any credit for that?

Also, there are many governors that have become President that did a decent job.

[_Jason Bourne]

Oh my god, more quotes from the "open-minded, tolerant, and diverse" "progressive Post-Mormons":

Eggsackly! well said. The fact that a woman would have a baby CHOOSE freely to go back to her career in days has got to neutralize her ability to romanticize motherhood in the eyes of a lot of women who have actually given birth.

The lucky thing for her is that the expectations are so low that mediocrity will be viewed as a huge success.

That old geezer could only wish he'd get a good blow (from his running mate- AS8, that's the context of his statement). Oh. Mah. Gawd, this is so f*****g HILARIOUS!

Keep these coming anti. They prove that the so called tolerant liberal left is so far from that is is rather hilarious!

[Guest]

The Obama campaign has drawn the wrong conclusion from the Swiftvets. The mainstream media spin is that the Swiftvets were liars. The fact is that they caught Kerry in a big whopper about Christmas in Cambodia

As for Kerry, I listened respectfully to the majority of his boatmates who said that he acted heroically and to the majority of the larger squadron who said that he did not. They were talking about events that happened long ago, in sudden violence, and I found myself unable to say those on either side were lying.

But I also saw Kerry's campaign abandon his claim -- that he said on the Senate floor in 1986 was "seared, seared" in his memory -- that he was in Cambodia at Christmastime 1968. And I never heard him repudiate his 1971 Senate Foreign Relations testimony -- featured in the ads -- that our soldiers committed "crimes ... on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command."

http://townhall.com/columnists/MichaelBarone/2008/08/30/outrageous_vulnerabilities

The Obama campaign is now trying to silence critics. A friend of mine has hosted an excellent radio show, Extension 720, on WGN in Chicago for 35 years. Last Wednesday he had Stanley Kurtz on his show to discuss Obama's connections with Bill Ayres and other radicals.

http://wgnradio.com/index.php?option=co ... Itemid=240

Obama's campaign was invited to have a representative participate. They declined. They then sent out an e-mail telling supporters to contact WGN and tell management that they should not allow Kurtz on the show.

As I arrived at the downtown Chicago studios a few hours before show time, the phones began ringing off the hook with irate callers demanding Kurtz be axed from the program. It didn't take long to discover that the Obama campaign—which had declined invitations to join the show for its duration to offer rebuttals to Kurtz's points—had sent an "Obama Action Wire" e-mail to its supporters, encouraging them to deluge the station with complaints.

Why? Because, naturally, Kurtz is a "right-wing hatchet man," a "smear merchant" and a "slimy character assassin" who is perpetrating one of the "most cynical and offensive smears ever launched against Barack."

Evidently, much of Obama nation is composed of obedient and persistent sheep. They jammed all five studio lines for nearly the entire show while firing off dozens of angry emails. Many vowed to kick their grievances up the food chain to station management. After 90 minutes of alleged smear peddling, Milt Rosenberg (a well-respected host whose long-form interview show has aired in Chicago for decades) opened the phone lines, and blind ignorance soon began to crackle across the AM airwaves. The overwhelming message was clear: The interview must be put to an end immediately, and the station management should prevent similar discussions from taking place.

One female caller, when pressed about what precisely she objected to, simply replied, "We just want it to stop!" Another angry caller was asked what "lies" Kurtz had told in any of his reporting on Barack Obama. The thoughtful response? "Everything he said is dishonest." The same caller later refused to get into "specifics." Another gentleman called Kurtz "the most un-American person" he'd ever heard. Several of the callers did not even know Stanley's name, most had obviously never read a sentence of his meticulous research, and more than simply read verbatim from the Obama talking points.

As Rosenberg repeatedly pointed out that Team Obama had been offered the opportunity to take part in the conversation, the agitated masses adapted their argument to suggest it was outrageous to request an interview from the Obama campaign in the thick of the DNC. Delivering the line of the night, Rosenberg countered, "The Obama national headquarters is just down the street from here. They obviously have the time to send out these angry emails, but they can't walk a few blocks to our studios?"

Throughout the open-line segments, Rosenberg and Kurtz wore incredulous expressions. The hostile callers were so bereft of any legitimate argument, there was little to do but sit back and marvel at what was going on.

The experience was surreal, amusing, and chilling. In a matter of hours, a major national campaign had called on its legions to bully a radio show out of airing an interview with a legitimate scholar asking legitimate political questions. Coupled with the Obama campaign's recent attempts to sic the DOJ on the creators of a truthful political advertisement —which also happened to feature Obama's relationship with an unrepentant terrorist— last night's call to action represents an emerging pattern. Any criticism of Obama's unknown past is to be immediately denounced as a "smear," and the messenger is to be shut down at all costs.

Stanley Kurtz is poring through mounds of documents (access to which was initially blocked) in a public university's library that (a) establish a deeper link between a major party presidential nominee and a man who is proud of bombing US government buildings, and (b) shed light on said candidate's brief, unexplored executive experience. It's entirely understandable why the Obama campaign would prefer that the files remain out of the public eye until at least November 5, but Kurtz's careful research is completely within the bounds of reasonable inquiry. One might even argue it's vital that a man who may be the next leader of the free world be thoroughly vetted.

http://media.nationalreview.com/post/?q ... dmMjVhMzE=
The Obama campaign is acting like people who have something to hide. A reliable source has told me that there are more scandals which have not yet been covered from Obama’s time in Springfield as a state senator.

Indeed. While the Swifties appear to have gotten perhaps a couple of things wrong (one of Kerry's Purple Heats and his Silver Star), The rest of their criticisms were right on, and the fact that the Kerry campaign at the time launched nothing but ad hominem attacks against John O'Neil and the other Swift vets (including virtually all the officers above Kerry in his immediate chain of command) and never even attempted a rational or fact based refutation (as Kerry stubbornly refused, though it all, to release his military records) would seem to confirm that perception.

The real problem with Kerry, in any case, and the main point made by the Swift Vets at the time, was not the exaggerations and fabrications regarding his service in Vietnam but his behavior after his service in Vietnam, and in particular his aid to and support of the North Vietnamese communists while his country was still at war with them and his leading role in the infamous "Winter Soldier" agitprop campaign.

The Obama campaign is now trying to silence critics.

Indeed. This is scary:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/secretmoney/20 ... ative.html

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/? ... U3MDgzNjI=

http://nicedeb.wordpress.com/2008/08/26 ... -ayers-ad/

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id ... _article=1

http://michellemalkin.com/2008/08/26/fi ... mas-thugs/

Obama, even at this point, is probably finished. He is going to lose decisively to the weakest Republican candidate in my lifetime (weaker than Dole). The Democratic ticket this season is substantially farther to the Left of the American political mainstream than any such ticket in history. The Obama/Biden match is to the Left of even the McGovern/Shriver ticket in 1972. This is a huge gamble for the Democrats, because if a majority of the population has not moved ideologically back to the late sixties and early seventies, then they are going to irrevocably alienate large cross sections of the American electorate over the next two months to a degree that will shock them on election day.

And, for the record, the link between Ayers and Obama isn't difficult to document. Its there, and this, as well as his links to other unstable, fringe figures of American political and cultural life, are going to be part of his undoing. Whoever Obama himself really is, he has insisted on surrounding himself, throughout his life, with very unsavory individuals, and one is known by the company one keeps.

[_dartagnan]

A “healthy debate” means that both sides can present strong evidence that can be debated in a fact-based environment. You can’t have a “healthy debate” when one side is a scientific joke. You can expose it for the fact that it has zero scientific evidence, but that’s hardly a “healthy debate”.

Whether this is true or false will be determined in a debate. All debate is healthy for childhood developmentld. It isn't for you and your atheistic fringe to decide what should and shouldn't be up for debate. Evolution is frequently discussed in religion classes, so why are science teachers afraid to discuss God?

The fact that you're so adamant about it being excluded from debate only shows insecurity in your position. It seems to me that if you really thought it was a joke, then you would welcome the debate. That's the best way to win minds, after all. Make them too embarrassed to ever mention it again.

But you're not interested in winning minds via debate, you're only interested in indoctrination via lecture. In other words, you're just the flip side of the religion coin.

LOL! Where did Palin clarify that she wants creationism to be mentioned along with the clarification that it has no scientific support and is a religious theory?

Why are you citing the entire paragraph when you know perfectly well it was the last statement that I was referring to?The issue, as you originally stated it, is whether or not Palin supports, "teaching creationism in school, as a theory just as legitimate as evolution." I said this is not true. Palin clarified that this is not her position. She never wanted it included it in the curriculum. She never suggested evolution not be taught as part of the curriculum. I proved this. This in and of itself proves she understands one to be legitimate science and the other not.

Earth to beastie?

But now you want to move the goal posts and say she has to state unequivocally that, "one side that is fully supported by science - evolution - versus another side that has no scientific support and is a religious theory - creationism." Why would she be required to say that to prove you have already misrepresented her? Again, you said she wanted it taught as an equal with evolution, when in fact she rejected that idea.

There are many facets to creationism. I believe most Christians wouldn't even have a problem with rejecting creationism as it refers to the silly notion that God plopped all species on earth as they appear today. But most Christians, I believe, understand creationism to refer to the idea that God created the cosmos. Again, science is pointing in that direction the more we learn from it. Why should this be forbidden in classroom discussion?

Although this may seem a minor issue to some, it's a serious issue to me. It seems to me our future economic welfare partly depends on improving our science education, which will widen the field for gifted individuals to invent a new, world-changing technology.

What a quacky excuse for your hatred of theism. Stop pretending you're spite towards all things religious has anything to do with a noble concern for the technological future. There is no evidence that technology has been impeded because of religious views in politics.

Again, LOL! According to this, McCain is as unqualified as Obama.

He might be, but there is nothing we can do about that. The debate is over experience for VP. Democrats have no room to complain about experience after nominating Obama for President, nor do they have room to claim interest in "change" after supporting an old school attack dog like Biden for VP.

McCain does not believe that invading Iraq was a mistake to begin with. He believes, like you seem to believe, that invading Iraq was justified, but mishandled.

I never said he believed it was a mistake. I said it wasn't his idea, and he wasn't managing the war, and therefore cannot be blamed for anything having to do with it. But look at Obama and his failure to support the surge, which proved to be the best thing that has happened in Iraq since the war began. Obama is simply an idiot. Too young and too ignorant of foreign policy. He implies that he is willing to invade Pakistan to kill Osama bin Ladin. He says Iran is just a small country and when Russia invaded Georgia, when asked his opinion, he initially said both sides were at fault. He always speaks what he thinks he is is supposed to say, without ever knowing the facts. Being against war is always a safe bet as a politician, and he was just playing it safe by being against it.

Palin were a man, would Palin still be McCain’s VP choice?

No, but we are talking about personal ambition here. Obama exploits his color for his own gain. In his short time in office he is already racking up with memorable, stupid comments that prove he is in no position to lead. All you have on Palin is your hatred for her religious belief.

And Palin is where she is not because she has exploited her gender for her personal gain. She has fought for what she believes in no matter if it meant fighting democrat or republican. She has a documented history of fighting off corruption, while Obama and Hillary have fed off of it.

[_Droopy]

I also hate the idea of having yet another leader who encourages the current anti-scientific bent of this country, as demonstrated in her support of teaching creationism in school, as a theory just as legitimate as evolution.

This is bunk and you know it. She is not "anti-scientific" and neither is the proposal of creationsm as a theory. It is one thing to be unscientific and another to be anti-science. Do you really think everything printed in science textbooks is legitimately classified as science. What if I told you some textbooks mention the wild hypothetical that there are millions of universes in existence? Would you call that anti-science? There is nothing "scientific" about it, but the idea isn't being forwarded by theists, so it would be acceptable. Because you know, only religious people have agendas, right?

This is probably close to my general perspective of the matter. First, I think, one needs to make a distinction between "Creationsim", a broader theist understanding of "creation", and Intelligent design, whicn has, through history, had a number of secular, non-beliveing adherents.

Creationsim is a Protestant fundameltalist concept based in a extreme literalist interpretation of scripture. Yes, this is not science but a narrow theological conception and has no place in the science classroom. ID is a critique, not so much of evolutionary theory as a description of the development of life but of the possibility of such development occurring purely by chance. This discussion has a long and distinguished pedigree, and attempts to dismiss it as "creationism in disguise", as so many Darwinian fundamentalists do, is simply slipshod debate avoidance.

Does ID have a place in the science classroom? Perhaps not, at least not until it becomes more empirically robust. However, as Palin says, if debate arises, it should not be shut down by evolutionary biologists who are also metaphysical naturalists (beyond simply being methodological naturalists) and are psychologically offended by the question.

ID is, however, important to philosophy of science, and to philosophy generally, and I'm all for public school children beings exposed to the arguments in depth, even if not in the science classroom per se.

Both the fundies and the secular humanists need to back off the cultural warfare on this issue, not in the public square per se (this is simply not going to happen), but among the captive audiences in public school classrooms through litigation, where both are battling each other for the impressionable minds of children. Let's not make any mistake about it: there are numerous Darwinists who are ideologically determined to cast doubt on belief in God through evolutionary theory (even though the theory itself does not require any such doubt - but Dawkins and many others would dispute this hotly).

[_Droopy]

A “healthy debate” means that both sides can present strong evidence that can be debated in a fact-based environment. You can’t have a “healthy debate” when one side is a scientific joke. You can expose it for the fact that it has zero scientific evidence, but that’s hardly a “healthy debate”.

This is simply false. Much of the more radical, macroevolutionary concepts of Darwinian theory are still essentially without scientific support, in the sense of direct empirical evidence. Much of it is little more than an extrapolation of mircorevolution to macroevolution by theoretically extending the principles involved in the origin of species to much more fundamental divisions of nature. The fossil record suggests that this is correct, but that same record is also a highly discontinuous record, showing great developmental gaps in the evolution of life and no true transitional forms (and this is so highly subjective an area that theorists on both sides can turn blue arguing the matter). Evolution can't actually be seen occurring in the fossil record, as all that record contains are points or periods of stasis.

Evolution seems to be the best explanation scientifically at the present time (and this is an important caveat in all of natural science that those who treat science as if it were a religion or metaphysical oracle often forget), and so we accept the possibility as plausible and even likely (I don't accept all aspects of macroevolution as clear, unambiguous facts at this time because it clearly isn't known to be so in precisely the manner in which the theory conceives it, and cannot be demonstrated to be so empirically, but plausible it certainly is).

[_Droopy]

I am delighted at McCain's choice for VP. Finally we have a chance to actually have a woman at the top.

As for McCain, I'm a long time supporter, since he took on Big Tobacco when no other Republican would even think of damming that money river. If he can take on Big Tobacco and succeed, he can take on Big Oil and their obscene profits at the expense of everyone else. He's a maverick who votes against his own party whenever he disagrees with it.

So sadly, drearily, mind numbingly typical. How many classic, shop worn leftist cliches can one link, end on end, in one paragraph?

Kind of like asking how many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop.