Sarah Palin

[Selena_Kitt]

I recommend reading that entire Paglia article and actually engaging it with an open mind, rather than just tossing it and her off sneer.

I have read it, Rox. I knew what was coming. Because I know you, and how you like to spout other people's words and ideas instead of stating anything in your own words.

I'm not dismissing her out of hand, I'm dismissing her because I've read it and I know her, too... she's a flame-thrower, an instigator, she likes to stir things up, to say all the things she thinks people don't want to hear. What's funny to me is that she showed her hand ages ago, and everything she's said since then carries no weight, simply because of the place she's saying it from.

The messenger matters.

 

[cloudy]

That's an amazingly insulting comment.

That presumes that those who are against Palin's nomination chose to have that opinion without any sort of research or effort or thought into who she is and what she stands for.

That is not necessarily the case.

Roxanne has proven time and time again that it's okay for him to insult anyone and everyone, but if someone responds in kind, they're being "uncivil."

 

[epiphany65]

Ooh, SNL got Sarah Palin again.

Thing is, much of her acting script seems to have been taken directly from the interview.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/09/28/gov_palin_gets_the_snl_treatme.html

You can see the SNL skit here:

http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/video/clips/couric-palin-open/704042/

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

I have read it, Rox. I knew what was coming. Because I know you, and how you like to spout other people's words and ideas instead of stating anything in your own words.

I'm not dismissing her out of hand, I'm dismissing her because I've read it and I know her, too... she's a flame-thrower, an instigator, she likes to stir things up, to say all the things she thinks people don't want to hear. What's funny to me is that she showed her hand ages ago, and everything she's said since then carries no weight, simply because of the place she's saying it from.

The messenger matters.

There's nothing but labels in your post, no substantive engagement with any ideas. That article is overflowing with ideas and raises some very challenging conundrums. Yes many are provocative. For example her analysis of the abortion thing. That is serious stuff, and demands serious engagement, not casual disregard and dismissal. (BTW, I've never seen that analysis before, but have just in the last few weeks written some substantive posts here along similar lines - to respond to your incorrect characterization of my discourse on this site).

The reason I'm "playing tennis" with you on this is because I believe that we share similar values on these kinds of social-related issues. I've never you to be a "baying bloodhounds of rigid dogma."

That's an amazingly insulting comment.

That presumes that those who are against Palin's nomination chose to have that opinion without any sort of research or effort or thought into who she is and what she stands for.

That is not necessarily the case.

No it was not insulting, because it does not presume what you say. "Who she is and what she stands for" is necessarily ambiguous, and reasonable people can disagree. Paglia states in that article that she may be wrong about this: "If Sarah Palin tries to intrude her conservative Christian values into secular government, then she must be opposed and stopped."

IOW, that's not what I'm challenging Selena over (and now you too). The "meta-subject" of the article is not Palin but the much more profound issue of ethical challenges that face people (like us) who believe in human liberation. She focuses on abortion because it's an issue that engages some of these challenges more starkly than others, but perhaps not uniquely:

"As an atheist and libertarian, I believe that government must stay completely out of the sphere of personal choice. But the pro-life position, whether or not it is based on religious orthodoxy, is more ethically highly evolved than my own tenet of unconstrained access to abortion on demand. I have always frankly admitted that abortion is murder, the extermination of the powerless by the powerful. My argument has always been that nature has a master plan pushing every species toward procreation and that it is our right and even obligation as rational human beings to defy nature's fascism."

That is some heavy stuff - perhaps too heavy to be engaged in the midst of a political season when partisan passions are aroused, but I think we demean ourselves to just casually dismiss it with a sneer.

 

[Guest]

So what?

I mean, honestly. So what? She's just a person, a professor of Media Studies, for heaven's sake. It's her opinion, and not one that I, nor many others, happen to share.

It's interesting, but it isn't world-changing or life altering.

It's just her opinion.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

Selena and I can agree to disagree about who Palin is and what she means - the exhange below from 10 days ago lays out our respective views. (Mine is right hers is wrong. I think [obviously].) That is much less important than the deeper issues and questions raised in this Paglia piece.

But her rigid, black and white theocratic view of the world, which seems to only want to put us back into the dinosaur age (where men, apparently, walked with those creatures) far outweighs any inexperience on her part.

And I'm sure there are those who make a ton of money every year who feel the same about Obama's ideas about government and taxes.

I don't think experience is even an issue anymore. McCain's choice made it a moot point. The issues are now... hey! The ISSUES! What a concept!

Oh c'mon, lets get real. She's anti-abortion - big deal. So are lots of people, and all its about is whether abortion will be banned in some states while remaining legal in most. That's as far a the thing will ever go. On the goofy creationism thing, she said she would not prohibit a school from teaching "intelligent design" as well as real science. Again, big deal. The library books thing is made up.

Palin has based her political identity on being an opponent of the inbred political establishment, not that social conservative stuff. THAT is the really important issue, and it's why she's a hit with so much of the public, including many regular people who don't agree with her about those issues. They realize those issues are overblown by the hard core righties and lefties, and they rightfully just don't care very much about them. But they do care about the inbred political establishment thing.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

So what?

I mean, honestly. So what? She's just a person, a professor of Media Studies, for heaven's sake. It's her opinion, and not one that I, nor many others, happen to share.

It's interesting, but it isn't world-changing or life altering.

It's just her opinion.

Fine, it's her opinion. We're all free to agree or disagree - of course. My point is this: She has given deeper thought to some really important issues than most of us do, penetrating below the surface to raise implications and nuances that are rarely if ever discussed or thought about. If you disagree with a conclusion she makes then say so, and make an argument. The thing is, you very well might not disagree, or perhaps you'll determine that it's worthy of more thought and you can't say right now. But surely we can do better than just dismiss serious thinking about profound issues with a casual sneer and label - "we know who she is."

I'll acknowledge again that it's asking a lot to do so in context of aroused policital passions.

 

[Guest]

Fine, it's her opinion. We're all free to agree or disagree - of course. My point is this: She has given deeper thought to some really important issues than most of us do, penetrating below the surface to raise implications and nuances that are rarely if ever discussed or thought about. If you disagree with a conclusion she makes then say so, and make an argument. The thing is, you very well might not disagree, or perhaps you'll determine that it's worthy of more thought and you can't say right now. But surely we can do better than just dismiss serious thinking about profound issues with a casual sneer and label - "we know who she is."

I'll acknowledge again that it's asking a lot to do so in context of aroused policital passions.

Again, you're coming off as insulting.

As in, the only reason I am not enthralled with her article is because I have not given it serious thought, deep thought, more than can be done in on a porn forum. Or that the deep meaning is incomprehensible to little ol' me.

No aroused political passion about the article here, Rox. I just wasn't impressed.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

You know, you really do hit the nail on the head here. She is a seemingly more feminized version of the left's liberated woman. She's actually not truly feminine... but she's feminized. The SNL skit pointed out in their parody, "Is it just me, or do you get obscenely cute when you're flustered?" or something along those lines, and it's true. This is a woman who comes from beauty pageant mentality...she's got all the deadly feminine wiles down pat. She is a vicious manipulator... and I think she scares John McCain to death. I think she bewilders Obama. And backs Biden into a gentleman's corner.

This woman could easily, EASILY, connive and manipulate her way into the big chair at the white house. That's beyond frightening.

Where it breaks down for the rabid religious right who are peeing all over themselves like excited cocker spaniels and jumping up and down at the sight of her, at least on a logical level (never mind that they, ya know, never really pay attention to logic), is the running for mayor and governor and VP part. They smack into a wall when you consider a woman with five children should be at home taking care of those babies.

But for those on the right who don't fall into the rigid religious beliefs category, you're correct... she's a good fascimile of what they think they want to be--the Super Sockey Mom who can do it all. That's what JBJ means when he says, "Women love her." There are women out there who are longing, craving, needing some sort of model for "woman" after the anti-feminist backlash and now that most are riding the crest of third wave feminism.

Sarah Palin is like giving them a shrink-wrapped Twinkie when what they ordered was baked Alaska.

But any port in a storm, I guess.

I think the fraction of the Right who expects women to stay at home barefoot and pregnant is actually pretty small. Women have left the home and they're not going back and that's pretty much a fact of modern life. They've been liberated whether we like it or not. The question is, what are these liberated women going to look like? Before Sarah Palin, it seemed they'd all look like Jane Fonda and Hillary Clinton.

Yeah, she's a phenomenon not because of her political heft but because of her charisma, her personal symbolism, and the only way you can understand her is as a symbol.

Look, it's silly to talk about her suitability for the job of POTUS. She's clearly unqualified. She'd be unqualified if she were a Democrat &/or if she were male &/or black &/or under any other circumstances. It's not her fitness for office that has people so polarized about her, it's her symbolic meaning, and I think you're right. She is in so many ways the revenge of the Beauty-Pageant ethos; the girly-girl. The prom-queen mystique makes good.

I'm not saying this in a condescending way at all. There are just a lot of women -- and men too -- out there who believe and endorse this conservative view of life and want to see their values represented on the national stage: pretty women in skirts who can succeed in a man's world, who can hunt with the boys and still get home in time to fix the chili and set the table, and that's what Palin gives them.

And you know, for these women who believe in the feminine, being whip-smart isn't part of her job description. It's probably more important to them that she be loyal to John McCain, and that's exactly how she's been playing it. Whenever a question's come up in an interview that she can't handle, she falls back on praising McCain: The old Stand By Your Man ethic.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

Again, you're coming off as insulting.

As in, the only reason I am not enthralled with her article is because I have not given it serious thought, deep thought, more than can be done in on a porn forum. Or that the deep meaning is incomprehensible to little ol' me.

No aroused political passion about the article here, Rox. I just wasn't impressed.

It's not worth either of our time any more, but this began when someone else - not you - responded to the article with a what amounted to a sneer. That's what I was reacting to, and at that point you chimed in not about the article per se but about my chiding the sneer.

"Not impressed" responds with no comment at all. "Disagree" responds with an argument and specifics.

 

[Guest]

It's not worth either of our time any more, but this began when someone else - not you - responded to the article with a what amounted to a sneer. That's what I was reacting to, and at that point you chimed in not about the article per se but about my chiding the sneer.

"Not impressed" responds with no comment at all. "Disagree" responds with an argument and specifics.

Allrighty, then.

I disagree.

And when you argue using your own opinions about Pasglia's article, so shall I.


Edited to add: Nahh, never mind.

I don't wish to be instructed again that I have yet to properly read and reflect upon what we're arguing.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

IShe is in so many ways the revenge of the Beauty-Pageant ethos; the girly-girl. The prom-queen mystique makes good.

I'm not saying this in a condescending way at all.

And you know, for these women who believe in the feminine, being whip-smart isn't part of her job description.

No, no condescension in that at all.

~~~~~~

Perhaps the left's refusal or inability to substantively enage this:

Sarah Palin's brand of can-do, no-excuses, moose-hunting feminism -- is a world away from the whining, sniping, wearily ironic mode of the establishment feminism represented by Gloria Steinem, a Hillary Clinton supporter whose shameless Democratic partisanship over the past four decades has severely limited American feminism and not allowed it to become the big tent it can and should be. Feminism, which should be about equal rights and equal opportunity, should not be a closed club requiring an ideological litmus test for membership.

Is simply a product of this:

Democrats are quick to attack the religiosity of Republicans, but Democratic ideology itself seems to have become a secular substitute religion. Since when did Democrats become so judgmental and intolerant? Conservatives are demonized, with the universe polarized into a Manichaean battle of us versus them, good versus evil. Democrats are clinging to pat group opinions as if they were inflexible moral absolutes. The party is in peril if it cannot observe and listen and adapt to changing social circumstances.

And a product of this:

What I am getting at here is that not until the Democratic Party stringently reexamines its own implicit assumptions and rhetorical formulas will it be able to deal effectively with the enduring and now escalating challenge from the pro-life right wing.

 

[Selena_Kitt]

My point is this: She has given deeper thought to some really important issues than most of us do, penetrating below the surface to raise implications and nuances that are rarely if ever discussed or thought about. If you disagree with a conclusion she makes then say so, and make an argument. The thing is, you very well might not disagree, or perhaps you'll determine that it's worthy of more thought and you can't say right now. But surely we can do better than just dismiss serious thinking about profound issues with a casual sneer and label - "we know who she is."

The messenger still matters.

I don't consider Paglia having given "deeper thought" to any of these issues than myself or Sarahh or even you, Rox. Because Paglia's a self-proclaimed intellectual doesn't make her thoughts deeper than anyone else's.

And I don't need nor never intended to argue her points... 1) she isn't here to argue with and 2) I don't consider her view on this matter thoughtful, challenging, or even original. I do consider it pedantic and calculatingly (and intentionally, politically so) antagonistic. I also find it patronizing and castigatory, and that you identify with her and like to use her words to reflect your own views doesn't surprise me.

But associating yourself with Paglia's views and attitude may not be having the same effect on others that you believe or want it to, Rox, I'm sorry to say.

Or maybe it is. Who knows?

We will certainly have to agree to disagree, as we did in another thread. You clearly hold Paglia's views about Sarah Palin.

I hold my own.

 

[Selena_Kitt]

double post.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

Allrighty, then.

I disagree.

And when you argue using your own opinions about Pasglia's article, so shall I.


Edited to add: Nahh, never mind.

I don't wish to be instructed again that I have yet to properly read and reflect upon what we're arguing.

Fair enough. (Except I didn't "instruct" you, I "instructed" someone else whose response appeared to be mostly a sneer.)

 

[Pure]

question

rox, what is your source for these pearls of wisdom?

rox Perhaps the left's refusal or inability to substantively enage this:


Quote:
Sarah Palin's brand of can-do, no-excuses, moose-hunting feminism -- is a world away from the whining, sniping, wearily ironic mode of the establishment feminism represented by Gloria Steinem, a Hillary Clinton supporter whose shameless Democratic partisanship over the past four decades has severely limited American feminism and not allowed it to become the big tent it can and should be. Feminism, which should be about equal rights and equal opportunity, should not be a closed club requiring an ideological litmus test for membership.

Is simply a product of this:


Quote:
Democrats are quick to attack the religiosity of Republicans, but Democratic ideology itself seems to have become a secular substitute religion. Since when did Democrats become so judgmental and intolerant? Conservatives are demonized, with the universe polarized into a Manichaean battle of us versus them, good versus evil. Democrats are clinging to pat group opinions as if they were inflexible moral absolutes. The party is in peril if it cannot observe and listen and adapt to changing social circumstances.

And a product of this:


Quote:
What I am getting at here is that not until the Democratic Party stringently reexamines its own implicit assumptions and rhetorical formulas will it be able to deal effectively with the enduring and now escalating challenge from the pro-life right wing.

---

i love how you play both sides of the fence. as self said atheist, you post right wing religious attacks on the dems as too secular!

 

[colddiesel]

Sirimavo Bandaranaike
Margaret Thatcher
Indira Gandhi
Angela Merkel
Helen Clark
Benazir Bhutto.

Right wing left wing, competent incompetent, honest and corrupt, but each and every one talented and on their own account women of substance. All got to the top on their own merits.

There are plenty of American women Republican women of equal talent who could do the same but were not given the opportunity because McCain was too scared, yes the great hero scared, to make a good choice.

Sarah Palin is most eloquent in what she says about John McCain's inadequacies about his fear of having a genuinly competent woman, an equal running with him.

Palin isn't up to the job simply because the man who picked her isn't either. Sarah Palin is not merely inadequate she is a ringing statement of John Mc Cain's inadequacy for the job.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

rox, what is your source for these pearls of wisdom?
---

. . . i love how you play both sides of the fence. as self said atheist, you post right wing religious attacks on the dems as too secular!

This must be my day to chide sneerers.

Back up a few posts and you'll see that these are quotes from an article by Camille Paglia.

Given your training in philosophy it's really too bad that you've adopted that relativist, subjectivist postmodern-lite air, because otherwise you might be able to offer some valuable insights on he part of the article that I found especially thought provoking:

"As an atheist and libertarian, I believe that government must stay completely out of the sphere of personal choice. But the pro-life position, whether or not it is based on religious orthodoxy, is more ethically highly evolved than my own tenet of unconstrained access to abortion on demand. I have always frankly admitted that abortion is murder, the extermination of the powerless by the powerful. My argument has always been that nature has a master plan pushing every species toward procreation and that it is our right and even obligation as rational human beings to defy nature's fascism."

That's what has her making the challenge to Dems and the left:

"Liberals for the most part have shrunk from facing the ethical consequences of their embrace of abortion, which results in the annihilation of concrete individuals and not just clumps of insensate tissue.

". . . What I am getting at here is that not until the Democratic Party stringently reexamines its own implicit assumptions and rhetorical formulas will it be able to deal effectively with the enduring and now escalating challenge from the pro-life right wing. Because pro-choice Democrats have been arguing from cold expedience, they have thus far been unable to make an effective ethical case for the right to abortion."

 

[cloudy]

blah, blah, blah...yet more copying and pasting from Roxanne, who can't seem to form opinions independently, but must appropriate them from someone else. In fact, this is the THIRD time s/he's copied and pasted the same thing just today.

*yawn*

 

[rgraham666]

When was the last time you questioned your assumptions, Roxanne?

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

It's notable that for all the words spilled in many posts here this afternoon not one person has written a single paragraph that rebuts or even engages any of the profound ethical or cultural issues Paglia raised in that article.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

I think Paglia's Catholicism is showing in her judgment of abortion as murder. Orthodox Jews (or which I'm not one, but maybe I was influenced) don't believe that the soul enters into the body until the moment of birth, so abortion isn't murder for them, and it's not for me.

The point is, there are ways of looking at the issue other than hers. To imply that her view is more ethically advanced just because of her residual Catholic guilt is silly.

She is right about Palin being a new type of feminist, though, and we've been discussing that. The question is, can she be a feminist without either becoming McCain's cutey pie or, alternatively, showing him up and castrating him, which at times she seems to be in danger of doing?

As far as Dems developing and hewing to an orthodoxy, that charge has been made for years now. The old PC lament. That's nothing new.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

I think Paglia's Catholicism is showing in her judgment of abortion as murder. Orthodox Jews (or which I'm not one, but maybe I was influenced) don't believe that the soul enters into the body until the moment of birth, so abortion isn't murder for them.

The point is, there are ways of looking at the issue other than hers. To imply that her view is more ethically advanced just because of her residual Catholic guilt is silly.

She is right about Palin being a new type of feminist, though, and we've been discussing that. The question is, can she be a feminist without either becoming McCain's cutey pie or, alternatively, showing him up and castrating him, which at times she seems to be in danger of doing?

As far as Dems developing and hewing to an orthodoxy, that charge has been made for years now. The old PC lament. That's nothing new.

Ah - substance.

~~~~

OK then. I suspect that the "more advanced ethical view on abortion" she refers to really is that. Which isn't saying much, since the doctrinaire 'liberal' ethical view on abortion is - actually it's nonexistant, isn't it? It's essentially a refusal to contemplate the presense of any ethical component.

That said, this doesn't mean that the view she call more "ethically advanced" is necessarily correct, or that the Orthodox Jew one you cite is either. That's OK - philosophers and ethicists can and no doubt will beat that one up forever. But her challenge to those who refuse to even contemplate the presence of an ethical component strikes me as thorny indeed for them.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Insofar as feminism has traditionally attacked society as the root and cause of the problem, you've got to say that yeah, Palin is not of that branch of feminism. That's no doubt a big source of her strength too, and that's what paglia's trying to get at, I think.

In that way Palin's almost a mirror image of Obama, who's never blamed society for being black, either. Maybe that's why she feels so justified in attacking him and why her attacks feel so much more legitimate than McCain's, given that McCain is about as white as it's possible to get and therefore has no real right to talk. As a woman, Palin's been marginalized as well, but fought her way into the center, so her followers see in her the same grit and heroism that Obama's followers see in him.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

Insofar as feminism has traditionally attacked society as the root and cause of the problem, you've got to say that yeah, Palin is not of that branch of feminism. That's no doubt a big source of her strength too, and that's what paglia's trying to get at, I think.

In that way Palin's almost a mirror image of Obama, who's never blamed society for being black, either. Maybe that's why she feels so justified in attacking him and why her attacks feel so much more legitimate than McCain's, given that McCain is about as white as it's possible to get and therefore has no real right to talk. As a woman, Palin's been marginalized as well, but fought her way into the center, so her followers see in her the same grit and heroism that Obama's followers see in him.

Makin' a liar out of my post 971, eh? (Good. )