From Hockey-Mom to Holier-Than-Thou
Posted by: Archimedes on Sep 04, 2008 - 11:56 AM
Republican
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So Mrs. Palin has entered onto the scene in "dramatic" fashion. Blowing her own horn, which in her mind also happens to be the same biblical horn that broke the walls of Jericho. And the media is eating it up as is noted from the article on CNNPolitics.com. Chosen by a dottering old fart whose claim to fame includes ties to the Keaton Five scandal and endorsed by Governor Huckster, I mean Huckabee. Touting her "vast credentials" over Barack Obama, maybe we should look a little more closely at what those credentials truly are before she dislocates her shoulder patting herself on the back...
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To say that I'm tired of political rhetoric from EITHER side is a vast understatement. To say that I'm tired of the jibes back and forth over insubstantical bullshit would be a misnomer. So what does it come down to for me? Well, for me, it becomes a question of which particular party (since I have no other freakin' choice) I like less. And the Republicans have done an outstanding job of finding new and improved ways to get under my skin - kind of like scabies. And I find it even more incredible how quickly I can go from finding myself feeling pleasantly surprised to feeling my skin crawl. I suppose that's the incubation period.
While I can admire the fact that this woman is resolute in her beliefs, while I applaud her efforts to tackle the ensconced and embedded people within her own party, this woman needs to be careful how loudly she blows her own horn and careful about how she compares herself to other candidates for the job she's presently running for.
Let's look for a minute at credentials since she's made a very specific effort to be far more vocal than even her more ensconced federal compatriots. The woman has been part of the PTA. She's been the mayor of Wasilla. And she's been the governor of Alaska for two years. And I will give her credit where it's due - to stand up against the already corrupted elements of Alaska and within her own party in Alaska is admirable, which was the premise under which I became hopeful. But at the same time, for her to present her record in some fashion as a bastion of heroism is more than a mild stretch.
ANYONE can serve on the PTA. Personally, I look at the PTA as only mildly more effective than a coffe clatch bunch of soccer (or in this case hockey) mom's that get together to b*tch. I don't dispute its importance. There are real issues that have been raised by such organizations that NEED to be addressed. But more often than not, their arguments are lost in the context of the debate.
Mayor of Wasilla??!! I spent three years in Alaska. I VISITED Wasilla. It's a town of 6500 people - 6500 people, folks. A town where the single biggest worry is whether or not there is going to be sufficient snowfall in the coming year to protect the indigenous rodents on which martens feed, which is key to the survival of the trappers that hunt in Alaska. Don't get me wrong - Wasilla is a beautiful little town nessled into the south side of the Alaska Mountain Range in some of the most breathtakingly beautiful country in the whole world. But it's STILL a small town of 6500. The city in which I live presently is better than five TIMES that size and we're STILL considered a backwater town by most people in America. I'd have been a lot more impressed if she'd have been the mayor of Anrchorage or Fairbanks.
And then there's the pinacle of her career thusfar - Governor of Alaska, a state that has a year round population of less than 700,000 people as of 2006 - LESS THAN 700,000 PEOPLE. Also a state that, stastically speaking, has the HIGHEST taxes in ALL of America - that's right, I said the HIGHEST taxes in ALL of America. The only reason it doesn't show is because the State of Alaska has such a giant amount of annual income as a result of the pipeline that there is an abundance of money! Such an abundance of money that they give back $1000 to every resident of Alaska.
Let's stop and look at that for a moment. As of 2006, the grand population of Alaska stood at just 700k people. This is an increase of about 50k people since 2000. Their projected expenditures for 2009 as of right now is reported to be upwards of nine BILLION dollars this year with a revenue of 11 billion dollars. That's for 700k people.
Let's take a look at Maine by comparison, which in my humble opinion is another highly taxes state. Maine had a population as of 2007 of roughly 1.3 million people. So we're nearly double in population that of Alaska. Our roads are more extensive (and care for such roads), our infrastructure more extensive and, BELIEVE ME, our state government knows altogether TOO well how to spend money. Ours is one of those states in which our social programs directive is probably more extensive than almost any other state in the union. We spend a LOT on the Department of Health and Human Services, much to my chagrin. Yet our expenditures for 2007 were *gasp* 7.4 billion dollars.
Let me put this in perspective...
Our state is almost double in population to Alaska. Our infrastructure as roads, bridges and other expenditures are concerned is FAR more extensive than that of Alaska. Yet our budget is 1.5 BILLION dollars less than that of Alaska.
So before Mrs. Palin breaks her arm patting herself on the back and touting what a fantastic fiscal manager she is, I put to those that read my articles (all ten of you or so) that with an 11 billion dollar revenue, most of that from the pipeline, and a nine billion dollar projected expenditure, just about any trained monkey could balance the budget! More to the point, if the State of Alaska has some 700k people in it, why then is the grand sum of Alaska's generosity towards its residence limited to $1000 per person?? Let me get this straight. The Alaska State Government brings in some 2 billion dollars more than it spends. And the most that they give back is something in the neighborhood of $700k? Oh, and that's part of the state expenditures? Ummm...yeah...okay. So where does the rest of the money go?
No, Mrs. Palin, you're no financial genious. That's something akin to me having a $50k principle to pay on my mortgage, $12k principle to pay on my car and a job that just about covers the payments of each and suddenly I hit it big in the lottery and me saying, "wow, I did a fantastic job balancing my budget". Well, jah!!! No shit, Shirlock!! Doesn't take Donald Trump to figure those f*cking numbers out!! Wanna impress me? Show me real fiscal responsibility, like why a state government of a state that has HALF the population mine does requires 20% more money to run than said state twice its size? That's not being thrifty! Please stop trying to pass of how well you've managed thing - the hardest fiscal thing you've had to worry about where Alaska is concerned is in that living to your means becomes difficult in trying to find ways to SPEND that much money given the size of the state!! The State of Alaska has lived to its means and the ONLY thing that the state government seems to have been frugal about is giving back to their citizens what is rightfully theirs to BEGIN with!
And as that goes, all you chanting morons out there, all you redneck republicans, all you beer drinking boneheads, WAKE UP! You think this woman is the next best thing since sliced white bread?! If her biggest appeal in being picked for the position she has been is the credentials she's trying to pass off which speak to ultra conservatism, managing a budget that could be managed by a trained monkey, and making babies, then I'm sorry but that certainly doesn't speak to me any louder as being someone I'd prefer NOT to be that close to presidency! Just what I need, some morally self-rightous, pompous, PTA mom telling me that because I don't believe as she does that I'm immoral and/or unpatriotic, most especially because I'd break my son's knees before I'd let him go fight in Iraq or God knows where else at the behest of the ill abused powers and desires of our present pinheaded president!
And what PARENT finds it even REMOTELY something to endorse in having their child go to war?! What kind of bullshit is that? If you love your children, then the very last thing you want them to do is to be put in harm's way, ESPECIALLY in something as ludicrous as this war in Iraq has been! And you endorse this, Mrs. Palin?! I'm proud of your son's patriotism, too! As a former member of our country's military, I can attest that anyone who dons the uniform is worthy of respect. But if you think it's honorable simply because he's to be deployed to Iraq, then you are sadly and terribly mistaken! There is nothing, and I mean nothing honorable about war. It leaves nothing but death, sadness and scarred soldiers in its wake. And for what? So we can press our western values on another country who views the world differently than we do? And this is now the basis for our war??!! To "spread democracy"?!!
Here's a newsflash for you, Mrs. Palin. Democracy isn't spread on the tip of the sword. And, yes, I saw your speach in front of your congregation about the need for a "plan" in Iraq and it should be "God's plan". You know, replace "God" with "Allah" and you sound scarily like those you're considering waging war with - and on THEIR turf! You're not talking about war to protect the values of the United States, which if memory serves me is founded on the principle of tolerance for ALL peoples regardless of race, color, creed or religion. God's plan?! I don't profess to be a giant proponent for organized religion, and most especially after hearing you speak as you do in front of your fellow congregation members, but I do feel close to my God at least...and you and I must be talking about two different entities because I'm pretty freakin' sure that the use of arms to supplant an existing system of beliefs in order to "spread" your own isn't within the confines of what could be considered "Christian" by the strictest sense of the word.
And then you speak to how this country doesn't need "more government", we need "less". Not exactly in keeping with the current regime of replubican driven legislation, now is it?! Let's see...the Patriot Act? The Real I.D. Act? The use of executive privilege to endorse illegal wire tapping and other gross violations of the fourth amendment that endorse grounds for illegal search and siezure, torture and gross violations of our fundamental rights to privacy? And what about our right to believe and live as we will? The pursuit of happiness? Homosexuality is an abomination in your eyes. But in the context of the United States and the rights of those that live here, are you going to tell me that you're not going to take those beliefs with you to Washington in such a fashion as would criminalize behaviors or beliefs that are not in keeping with your own? Don't answer that! Inasmuch as the actions of the Replublican Party are concerned with the context of what is going on overseas, it's more than apparent that if you'll visit that sort of rhetoric on people OUTSIDE of our borders, it's pretty apparent to me that you have no compunction about doing it to those WITHIN our borders. When you speak to LESS government, Mrs. Palin, I would remind you of all of the above - actions which speak volumes to the fact that the Republican Party, at least within the confines of the Federal Government, certainly has little concern with providing "less government" and more rights to the people to live their lives in peace. Sure, they can live in peace...so long as it coincides with what you think is moral and correct.
So in as much as your morality is concerned, Mrs. Palin, yes, I applaud you in that you lived the quintessential American Dream and stayed married and had half a dozen kids. Yes, I applaud you for your devotion to your beliefs. And I may even agree with many of your personal beliefs. But if you think for one minute that I am so foolish as to believe that you bring with you a set of beliefs that you won't try to press on me or the rest of America or that I endorse or will allow those beliefs in my life, you are BADLY mistaken. My life is my own. And the preservation of my rights to believe as I wish, most especially without the interference of the government, and live as I wish provided it's within the confines of common sense law and in the spirit of my harming no one else, these things are of the greatest importance to me and you represent a danger to them. These are the truths our forefathers saw as being self evident - the right to freedom, the right to (or from) religion, the right to the pursuit of happiness. And it has been our great misfortune in the last eight years to have seen all of these things placed in jeopardy as a result of the actions of YOUR party, Mrs. Palin.
So in the end, where I am concerned, where this woman might have sparked interest in me in that she is a reformist, as I see it, yes, she's been a reformist within her state and her efforts are to be applauded. But inasmuch as the tac she's taken in her support of the Republican Party on the federal level, it appears to me that this is just furthering the agenda that includes a definite anti-homosexuality, pro-life, do anything attitude regardless of the freedoms they crush in order to win and to further their own agenda. I do NOT share her vision of America, where every family is a happily married man and woman with five kids, two dogs, three cars and a white picket fence. The American Dream can be lived any number of ways that don't necessarily coincide with religious and moral dogma as preached by the ultra-conservative right, nor is it within the rights of the conservative right to dictate that theirs is the only true measure of happiness or that theirs is the only way in which all people within the confines of the country should live their lives.
At the end of the day, the choice comes back to me as to which of these parties I like least. And for all of the Do-Nothing-Democrats political posturing about how much injustice there is for the poor in this country and for all of their social programs, I can at least say that at least they care, even if superficially, about the happiness and well being of ALL members of this nation and the preservation of the rights of the individual to live their own American Dream, regardless of what that means to the individual provided it's within the confines that it isn't going to interfere with the happiness and health of others, which is a damn sight more than I can say of the Republican Party at the moment.
In fact, I personally think Mr. Obama should change his campaign slogan. Because for all of his speach about "change", it seems that that has been the one biggest target by the other side in that they keep saying "speach with no substance". Okay, fine...here's a new campaign slogan for you, Mr. Obama...
"Obama for President...because at least I give a shit!!"
While I tout myself as a moderate independent, it becomes painfully obvious to me as I see the choices before me, from Susan Collins at the state level to John McCain, that I'm limited in who I can support. And if I have to make such a choice, I'm at least going to choose a candidate that actually gives a shit about whether or not my own personal rights and privacies are respected. They might do their best to make me a non-smoking, non-drinking, aggrivated blowhard. But that only makes me a sober blowhard with more wind to spare. No, my biggest problem with the Democratic Party at this point ISN'T their propensity to spend my money on ill conceived social programs. No, my biggest issue with them presently is that they seem to be lacking in balls! The Republican Party will stoop to any measure. It's time these guys grew some stones.
So this year, the Evil Bunneh's message to the voters for November is, "Vote Democrat...because at least they give a shit".
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