Babies, Guns and Jesus – The Palin Candidacy

A brief look at some of the beliefs Palin
holds, and the causes she advocates, can provide a harrowing look at
the person who may soon be second in command of the “ship of state”.  

TUTORED BY NEOCONS 
 
Far right columnist and commentator Pat Buchanan loves Sarah Palin,
but he recently asked, “Will the neocons who tutored George W. Bush
in the ideology he pursued to the ruin of his presidency do the same
for Sarah Palin?”  Considered something of a blank slate, she is being 
tutored by neo conservative lobbyist Randy Scheunemann and another prominent
neocon, Steve Biegun, who once used to be Bush’s National Security
Council executive secretary.  Scheunemann is Sen. McCain’s chief foreign
policy advisor who helped organize the Committee for the Liberation
of Iraq in 2002 and played a significant role in getting the U.S. entangled
in the horror that is the Iraq war. 
 
One former White House aide who now works for the neocon American Enterprise
Institute said of Palin, “She’s bright, and she’s a blank page. 
She’s going places, and it’s worth going there with her. Progressive
columnist Arianna Huffington wrote recently of Palin, “On the outside
she is exponentially more likeable and talented at connecting with people
than [Vice President] Cheney ever was.  But on the inside, once she graduates
from the neocon finishing school, she”ll be a complete and total Dick
Cheney.  With lipstick.” 
 
A THEOCRAT IN THE WHITE HOUSE 
 
The Bush regime has numerous theocrats, those folks who want to restore
biblical law to America and ultimately to the world. Palin was raised
in a theocratic church, but if her ticket is elected in 
November she will have to pledge to defend the Constitution, not the
Bible.  She is unmovable in her disturbing form of religion, so it is
likely she will break the Commandment not to lie at her swearing in,
should that dreadful event occur.  It would not be the first time lies
fell from her religious lips. 
 
In any event she will be in a conflicting situation, more so if McCain
should die in office.  Both of them believe that America was founded
as a Christian nation, a myth the religious historical revisionists
have tried to get over on unwitting church members for many years.  A
President Palin would certainly outdo Bush in appointing theocrats like
herself to office, thus moving the nation far closer to Christian fascism. 
 
GOD ON IRAQ 
 
Palin not only is what the religious right has literally been praying
for, but she also has wide appeal to those who are hawks on the wars
in Iraq, Afghanistan and possibly Iran.  Before a pentecostal Assembly
of God church group, Palin said that the Iraq war “is God’s plan.”
She, like many other conservatives, sees an ultra-aggressive foreign
policy as central to national security, even though the wars have caused
a huge increase in “terrorists” and made Americans less 
secure. 
 
When Palin spoke at her Army son’s send off to Iraq, she linked the
terrorist attacks of September 11 2001 to the regime of Saddam Hussein
– a claim no longer even supported by the Bush administration.  She said
that the troops would “be there to defend the innocent from the enemies
who planned and carried out and rejoiced from the death of thousands
of Americans.” 
 
“To understand Sarah Palin, you have to realize that she is a religious
fundamentalist,” said Howard Bess to a reporter from “Nation”
magazine.  Bess is a retired liberal Baptist minister in 
Alaska. “The structure of her understanding of life is no different
from a Muslim fundamentalist,” he said. 
 
PALIN ON ENVIRONMENT 
 
The troglodytes in our society who believe that humans should “fill
the earth and subdue it,” as the Bible says, have a friend and kindred
spirit in Palin. She  is one of the most environmentally unfriendly
politicians in the nation’s history.  She thinks Jesus will return
to earth in the “last days” within her lifetime.  If one believes
that, then why worry about the environment, since Armageddon is at hand. 
 
During the week of September 21, according to the Washington Post, the
White House and the Pentagon pressured the Environmental Protection
Agency into changing the proposed new regulations to allow for more
perchlorate in drinking water.  Perchlorate is a component of rocket
fuel that has been linked to thyroid problems in pregnant women, newborns
and young children across the nation. 
 
“They have distorted the science to such an extent that they can
justify not regulating” the chemical, said Robert Zoeller, a University
of Massachusetts professor who specializes in thyroid hormone and brain
development. “Infants and children will continue to be damaged,
and that damage is significant,” Zoeller said.  With Palin a gasping
breath away from being president if McCain is elected, the continuation
of such anti-environment policies is almost guaranteed. 
 
Other “environmental” policies of Palin in Alaska include killing
wolves from low flying planes, wanting to remove polar bears from the
endangered species list and pushing for oil drilling in the Arctic National
Wildlife Refuge, a position about which she still has to convince McCain. 
At the Republican National Convention Palin incorrectly stated that
she had jump-started a gas pipeline which would stretch from the North
Slope of Alaska to the lower 48 states and would be the largest private-sector
infrastructure project on the continent.  Actually it would tie into
Canada’s natural gas gathering system which moves most of its gas into
the US and Eastern Canada. The project has yet to get off the ground
and many environmentalists have raised objections Nevertheless, Palin
said that the pipeline was God’s will and people should pray that
“God’s will be done.” 
 
PALIN ON EVOLUTION 
 
Sarah Palin says she believes that every word in the Bible is literally
true, and thus she does not accept the truth of evolution.  She would
allow evolution to be taught, but thinks the biblical story of creation
should also be taught in public schools.  Since some sensible Republicans
and others have questioned her on this point, she has recently softened
her creationism stand by saying that she would not make this issue a
litmus test for people to serve in public office. Whether that will
be true or not certainly remains to be seen. 
 
Accepting the truth of evolution should not be a sideline issue in this
election.  Environmental activist Chip Ward succinctly put it this way:
“Evolution is largely about connection and interaction — the linear
connection of one species evolving into another –  or speciation),
but also how species fill niches created by one another, how they interact,
exchanging energy and information, how they compete as well as cooperate,
and how all of them — from microbial soils to migrating birds — form
dynamic communities that, in turn, are also woven together, web within
web within web. Pull one thread of that living tapestry and you tug
at so many others, which is why precaution is so wise.” 
 
The evolution debate is not about the distant past, it is about the
future and whether we will have enough people trained in the scientific
method so that the problems of the real world, not the biblical world,
can actually be solved. 
 
THE CULTURE WARS 
 
Palin has reignited the culture wars, not only on the evolution issue,
but also on many other points, for example, abortion, stem cell research,
the rights of gays and lesbians (including the right to marry), religion
and politics, and gun control. 
 
At a time when conservative voters have been wary of McCain on some
of these issues, Gov. Palin has injected new life into their Republican
hopes.  She believes that the Bible enunciates a position that abortion
at any stage of pregnancy is murder, except to save a mother’s life,
including in cases of incest or rape, and that the government should
punish anyone who has an abortion or performs one. 
 
In the case of her own daughters, Palin has stated that if one of them
got pregnant, she would want her to carry to term even if she were raped. 
Now her daughter  Bristol, 17, is pregnant but plans to marry her boyfriend,
Levi, according to Palin.  Obama insists that family life is off limits
in the campaign.  One might agree with him if it were not for Palin’s
hypocrisy.  On the one hand she wants teens to be exclusively  taught
“abstinence only ” about sex, which statistics prove has only served
to increase the numbers of teen pregnancies, and on the other hand if
such a young woman becomes pregnant, she must carry the fetus until
it’s born whether the teen wants it or not. That is neither a rational
nor a humane viewpoint. 
 
Since Palin believes that human personhood begins at fertilization of
the egg, she is against stem cell research because it would be killing
a baby. 
 
On gays and lesbians, she is adamant that homosexuality is, per the
Bible, “an abomination,” and wants a Constitutional amendment to
ban gay marriage.  Further, she does not even support family privileges
for committed same sex couples, nor does she support legislation making
an attack on homosexuals a hate crime. 
 
Palin tries to hide her anti-feminist views by stating that she is a
member of the misnamed Feminists for Life, a group of women whose main
thrust is to oppose abortion.  While she has not said much about equal
pay for equal work for women, she did recently say that she didn’t
like Hillary Clinton’s whining about gender issues.  Presumably Palin
agrees with McCain’s position on equal pay, at least in public. McCain
has voted several times against bills that would have improved women’s
lot in the workforce, but now he says he fully supports “the concept”
of equal pay for women.  Yet in April he missed the senate vote which
would have removed the restrictions on women’s right to sue an employer
for pay discrimination saying that instead of legislation allowing women
to fight for equal pay, they simply need education and training.  Supporting
a concept is not the same as actually supporting women’s rights. 
 
Palin’s position on gun control is abundantly clear to anyone who
has seen any of the many pictures on line of her aiming a gun or has
read any of her exploits as a hunter.  She has bragged about being able
to field dress a moose. 
 
It is noteworthy that Obama has done everything he can to pander to
the religious right, so we cannot expect him to go after Palin on her
frightening religious views.  Surely the future we want lies with none
of the four candidates; it lies outside the electoral process with a
politically conscious people.