Ahhhhhhh! Time for a political post! Can you smell the excitement?
John McCain picked Sarah Palin for his Vice President. This person will be one heartbeat away from leading our country. Is she ready? Is she qualified? What are her values?
Let's explore together!
1. Sarah Palin supports the secessionist Alaska Independence Party who's goal is for Alaska to split away from the United States. She attended their convention in 1994 and her husband was a registered member of the Alaska Independence Party until 2002. He changed his party affiliation to "undeclared" in that year when Sarah decided to run for state office. Six months ago, Sarah Palin told members of the group to "keep up the good work" and "wished the party luck on what she called its 'inspiring convention.'" You can watch the video below that she recorded for their convention.
2. She's inexperienced. She was the mayor of Wasilla, a village with a population of 9,780 (that's one 20th the size of Obama's Illinois congressional district!) and she has been governor of Alaska for less than one full term. Alaska is the 48th most populous state and not exactly a hotbed of international politics. She has only been out of the United States once in her life. (okay, twice if you include Canada.) She didn't even have a passport until last year.
She apparently doesn't even know what a Vice President is supposed to do.
3. She's anti-free speech (a pretty fundamental liberty) as she supports banning books. According to TIME:
"As mayor, Palin continued to inject religious beliefs into her policy at times. "She asked the library how she could go about banning books," he says, because some voters thought they had inappropriate language in them. "The librarian was aghast." That woman, Mary Ellen Baker, couldn't be reached for comment, but news reports from the time show that Palin had threatened to fire Baker for not giving "full support" to the mayor.4. She fires or threatens to fire people who don't agree with or aren't intimidated by her. She asked for the resignation of Mary Ellen Baker, the librarian above as well as the police chief Stambaugh when she became mayor.
Both Stambaugh and Emmons publicly supported Palin's opponent, long-time mayor John Stein during the campaign last fall. When she was elected, Palin questioned their loyalty and initially asked for their resignations. (from the Anchorage Daily News.)What a wonderful concept of how government power should work.
5. She thinks people who are raped should be forced to give birth to their rapist's child. Wow that looks ridiculous when I write it out but it is true. Now I know this is a touchy issue for people and there are those who believe that a life is a life and that even a mass of two cells is a life and it is wrong to choose when you are ready to start a family. Most people will make an exception though for women who are raped and not force them give birth to their rapist's child. We may not all agree on the issue of abortion but Sarah Palin is more concerned with the possible future of a lump of cells than she is with ruining the life of a women who has been raped. She wants a raped woman to have to see a living reminder of her rapist every day. That's sick.
6. Palin doesn't believe that humans contribute to global warming. Speaking about climate change, she said, "I'm not one though who would attribute it to being manmade." This shows a reckless disregard for science. We've already had eight years of an executive branch that either doesn't understand science or willfully chooses to ignore it because it goes against their corporate money interests. It isn't surprising she denies the cause of global warming considering that...
7. Palin has close ties to Big Oil. Her inauguration was even sponsored by BP. Hmm, yes, an executive branch with close ties to Big Oil. That sure has served us well the last eight years. We don't need another Bush in the whitehouse.
8. Palin opposes comprehensive sex-ed in public schools. She's said she will only support abstinence-only approaches. Hmm, seems to have worked well for her 17 year old unwed pregnant daughter. Her preaching of abstinence at home probably didn't hold any weight as Sarah herself was a month pregnant with her first child when she got married. This woman is supposed to be a moral leader for our country?
9. Palin wants to teach creationism in public schools. She hasn't made clear whether she thinks evolution is a fact. This shouldn't really surprise us. She denies the best science of the day on global warming too. Look, if you want to teach creationism fine, do it in a church. Schools teach science and the scientific method. If Palin is against the concept of evolution then there is no need for her to ever use any new antibiotics. Bacteria can't evolve so multiple drug resistant staph and TB must be myths. Does anyone currently infected want to go give her a big hug and kiss? She's welcome to use all the antibiotics God created 300o years ago but none of those new ones. Those are only for people who understand science.
10. She's not only ignorant when it comes to science, she wildly ignorant of American history too. She apparently thinks the Pledge of Allegiance was written by the founding fathers. When asked if she found the phrase “Under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance offensive, Palin replied, “Not on your life. If it was good enough for the founding fathers, its good enough for me.” Uhh, Sarah, “Under God” didn't appear in the Pledge until 1954. The rest of the Pledge was written in 1892. That would be over 100 years after the founding of the country.
