COMMENTS for VICE PRESIDENT PALIN

Luke said:
And then there's the fact that she beautiful and younger. Two things he is not... :-)

I was actually taken by surprise with this choice since she was never even mentioned by the news. But she's a governor which is good so I think you're right. She'll take McCain over the top.

Biden in my opinion was chosen out of Obama's weakness too, which is never good. McCain has the unique position in being strong in just about every category comparably so he could choose out of his strength.
August 29, 2008

jovial_cynic said:
Luke - my only concern is that I *don't* think she's ready to be president, which is exactly what she'll be, should anything happen to McCain. But time will tell.
August 29, 2008

valdez said:
Palin is more ready to be President than Obama is. I can't wait to see her mop the floor with Biden in the upcoming debates. Today I became a McCain fan!
August 29, 2008

Luke said:
Well said valdez. I love that the Obama camp started right in on how Palin 'lacks' experience. WOW that was dumb. Obama has less time in public office than Palin, less time in office than McCain does in POW camp, and HE's talking about experience? I call that retarded. Forget the word stupid, just retarded.
August 31, 2008

Ken said:
She is experienced. At governing a state with a population smaller than the city of San Jose. She also has a lot of foreign policy experience dealing with the Inuit. They're kinda like their own nation.

This choice is based on marketing, and is one more example of why McCain is no longer the independent maverick who inspired me in 2000.

McCain's camp was attacking Obama 2 weeks ago for his lack of experience, and now they are deigning to put a rookie governor of the 47th most populist state in the union one cancer relapse or stroke away from the presidency?

McCain also has more experience than Obama at selling out and changing his stances on seriously critical issues.
If anyone in the world should be vehemently -torture it should be him, but he wavered on that.
He had stated recently his VP pick would not be "politically motivated."

Huh? While I agree that the choice is a master stroke of genius in marketing the ticket, it is clearly politically motivated. She may not be the savior the stagnating McCain camp was hoping for. Rove might have been a little too smart for his own good this time. We'll see how it plays out.

Palin mopping the floor with Biden in debates? Please, we will see an elder statesman with decades of political experience running verbally roughshod over this Suburban driving self-proclaimed "Hockey Mom."

It really just depends on which side of the fence you're standing on. The VP selection stinks of desperation. I watched the announcement, maybe a McCain fan wouldn't have seen it, but his eyes belied that he was scared, and he felt like he was being dishonest.

That's just my opinion. I could be wrong.

September 02, 2008

Luke said:
Ken, you're wrong. The VP selection is less important than the P selection. Right now the Obama P selection is a joke. Obama is like that mid-level manager that creeps in not having done any of the work or paid any of the dues in order to earn respect. Then he goes around telling everybody how they should do their job when he himself has never done it. Besides Palin has executive experience running a state and making sweeping and successful changes in only 2 years. Obama's never done anything but vote and most of the time he couldn't even do that (present...present...).

Jovial, my previous comment (before Ken's) wasn't directed at you just in case it came across that way. I'd never call you retarded... unless you bicycle kicked me or something...
September 02, 2008

jovial_cynic said:
Luke - different people view leadership differently. The ability for Obama to gain national position, as well as global position (it appears that most of the planet is in favor of Obama) might be a huge indicator of the leadership ability that Obama has -- influence is a key indicator of leadership, since leadership specifically means to lead.

However, nobody can deny that McCain's VP selection was nothing more than an "anything-it-takes-to-win" maneuver. Obama selected a VP to make up for an area he was lacking, that being foreign policy. I view that as wisdom -- I'm made better because my wife is good at things at which I suck. McCain, on the other hand, picked a VP that will help swing votes; he's digging into the "historic election" piece by choosing a woman, and I think that using a person for political leverage is deplorable. It may be a good political move, but it's another example of why I can't stand politics.

Ugh. It makes me sick. McCain selecting Palin is like the street panhandler who's got a kid with him to make people feel sorry for him, so they'll give him more money. Horrible.
September 02, 2008

Luke said:
Josh, have you ever heard the old saying, "If a billion people believe a foolish notion, it's still a foolish notion."? I'm certainly not calling you a fool by any means, but Obama's ability to get people to follow him certainly may demonstrate his ability to be a good political candidate but I don't think his decision making is at all any better because of that.

Sarah Palin has joined on and in short work united the Republican party who was fractured over John McCain because he's not always been exactly conservative. She did the same thing in Alaska and is seen by Alaskans as a 'real person'. Your earlier comments about Obama were something like how he's not 'politics as usual' and 'untainted by the political world yet.' I see Sarah Palin as exactly that, but with more experience.

Obama was on Anderson Cooper 360 last night and compared his campaign management of the employees (2,500 employees), budget (21mil per month), and other things to Palin's role as a mayor of a town of 9000. He somehow must have forgotten that she's been Governor for 2 years already managing a budget of over 1 billion dollars per month with over 77,000 employees. I think that makes Palin about 47 times more experienced than Obama since he brought it up.

Beyond that Obama has all of 132 days more time in office than does Sarah Palin which really demonstrates how stupid an argument it is for Obama of all people to be comparing his experience with hers. I think it's a BIG political blunder for him to do that.

On your other point it may be a shameless attempt by McCain to strategically position himself for the election, but ironically it has resulted in putting a rock-solid candidate for VP who firmly stands for the values I very much support and love (speaking personally of course)
September 02, 2008

Valdez said:
Hey Luke,

I agree with you completely. I also don't think it's fair to chalk McCain's decision to "anything it takes to win". McCain just simply made a wise choice for a VP. Palin's biggest benefit to a McCain win will be bringing together the conservative base. Palin will also draw some former Hillary supporters, but not significant enough by itself to take the election.

One thing that is not mentioned here is her experience in dealing with domestic and foreign commercial interests in international waters. I'm sure the Russians have offered some level of challenges for her during her tenure.
September 02, 2008

Kristen said:
I couldn't figure out how to word how I felt, but you did, Josh:

"...more-committed feminists will view McCain's token selection as a deeper assault on women; using Palin as a running mate to gain leverage with woman is a marketing tactic."

Yes. I don't know if I'm a more committed feminist, but this is what I was feeling. I was feeling pissy about the whole thing in the days before the VP announcement when my smart hubby was saying, "Hmmm, I think he's going to pick a woman...." Sigh.

September 03, 2008

jovial_cynic said:
Kristen - and that's exactly how I feel. Before I even read into Palin's background (the more I read on her political activity, the more I dislike her as a candidate), I knew that the only way for McCain to gain favorable momentum was to select a woman. Any woman. It just seems like such an underhanded play. And I think I'm free to make that assertion, given that I'm no longer voting for Obama; I don't have the fog of the "wah wah, my poor candidate" clouding my judgment. I think I dislike Biden's background as much as I dislike Palin's.
September 03, 2008

Charles said:
Everything I could possibly say has been said here already, so I'll just leave you with this.

September 03, 2008

jovial_cynic said:
haha... you're terrible. Funny, but terrible. I like Peggy Hill.

Personally, I think the battlestar galactica connection is much more clear.
September 03, 2008

The Conservative Manifesto said:
"... more-committed feminists will view McCain's token selection as a deeper assault on women; using Palin as a running mate to gain leverage with woman is a marketing tactic."

Correction: More-commited liberal feminists will view McCain's selection as a deeper assault on women.

On the flip, more-commited conservative feminists will see this as a tremendous advancement and wise selection.

You may not be a fan of labels, but the liberal side of the feminist coin does not hold a monopoly on the term 'feminist'.
September 03, 2008

jovial_cynic said:
TCM - I'm using the traditional application of the word. Feminism is rooted in the desire for equality for all women. Liberalism is rooted in equality for all people. Once you go applying the "conservative" label to feminism, you create a feminism that removes that equality, which makes no sense.

Furthermore, as I've stated before, the reason labels don't work is because people don't fall under those labels wholly. For example, your particular Christian alignment is a liberal one, not in terms of political alignment, but in terms of removal from orthodoxy. So you're conservative in some areas, and liberal in others. And if you're going to suggest that you're only referring to political affiliation, I'm also going to suggest that today's version of "conservative" has changed quite a bit from history's "conservative" throwing tradition right out the window. Since conservatism is rooted in an adherence to tradition for the sake of the preservation of culture, modern conservatism is an oxymoron. It makes no sense.

Labels like that simply don't work.
September 04, 2008

The Conservative Manifesto said:
Of course labels change. To be a 'Democrat' at one point meant your leadership was willing to filibuster the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Are Democrats today opposed to equality among the races? Of course not. In fact, even the term civil rights has morphed into something all-together different.

But to insinuate that conservatives today -- understanding what that label constitutes in America today -- can't truly believe in the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes... is absurd.
September 04, 2008

jovial_cynic said:
TCM - I think that there are some values within social conservatism that create an us vs. them mentality, eroding any sense of equality. I think that individual people (like yourself) may believe in equality across all demographics, but conservatism certainly does not. Or at least we're not using the same definition of "equality."
September 04, 2008

The Conservative Manifesto said:
"I think that there are some values within social conservatism that create an us vs. them mentality..."

Oh stop it. You and I both know that all sides are guilty of divisive politics and an "us against them" mentality.

The exact same could be said of social liberals and the values to which they adhere.
September 04, 2008

jovial_cynic said:
TCM - you're still speaking under oppressive rule of labels. You say "all sides," but what I think you really mean is "people from all ideologies." And in that case - sure. Individual people are guilty of divisive politics. But in terms of the ideologies themselves, conservatism is, by definition, divisive. Liberalism, by definition, isn't.
September 04, 2008

The Conservative Manifesto said:
"But in terms of the ideologies themselves, conservatism is, by definition, divisive. Liberalism, by definition, isn't."

Haha. If you say so.
September 04, 2008

jovial_cynic said:
Well, it's not *because* I say so. If you're not going to at least entertain the notion of something with which you disagree, or even dig to find out why I might feel that way, I think you're doing both of us a disservice.
September 04, 2008

The Conservative Manifesto said:
"If you're not going to at least entertain the notion of something with which you disagree, or even dig to find out why I might feel that way..."

Haha. I'm sorry... was there more you wanted to say?

"Individual people are guilty of divisive politics. But in terms of the ideologies themselves, conservatism is, by definition, divisive. Liberalism, by definition, isn't." sounded quite definitive.

Please, go on...

=)
September 04, 2008

jovial_cynic said:
TCM - My understanding of conservatism is that it places a tremendous amount of value on cultural tradition, such that changes to that tradition are viewed as negative. I think that conservatism, as an ideology, prefers a closed border over an open border, because of the chaotic impact that open borders has on cultural norms. For this same reason, mainstream Christianity aligns itself well with conservatism; the "our land / our religion" vs. "their religion" mentality is quite prevalent within the conservative camp. Attacks on anything outside the conservative norm is the expectation, since cultural protectionism (nationalism) breeds a we-are-better-than-they-are way of thinking.

That is division.

And again - individual people may feel differently, but the underlying cultural protectionism that exists within cultural conservatism is divisive.
September 05, 2008

The Conservative Manifesto said:
Again, the same arguments (flipped, of course) could be made about modern liberalism.

So, while I don't doubt for one second you genuinely believe what you wrote, it's not surprising as it comes from the perspective of a man who admittedly leans left on the political spectrum.

Modern American conservative ideology is no more or less divisive than modern American liberal ideology -- it just depends on who's opining on the opposing ideology.
September 05, 2008

The Conservative Manifesto said:
p.s. I did respond, just took a few extra days.

=)
September 05, 2008

jovial_cynic said:
TCM -

I lean left on some issues, and I lean right on some issues. I don't, however, lean left on "the political spectrum." There is no spectrum. Human beings don't sit on a linear scale, as you keep suggesting.

Regarding definitions, I'd like to see such arguments. As long as you make a distinction between "liberals" (which I argue has no real meaning) and "liberalism," I think the only thing that can be brought up is that liberalism rejects the exclusivity of conservatism. Which is true. And which is hardly an example of the divisiveness of liberalism. I'm referring to divisiveness applied to *people,* as my previous examples showed.
September 05, 2008

jovial_cynic said:
** point of clarification:

I use the term "political spectrum" at times. I've even said that people sit on this or that side of the political spectrum. Run a search for the term (in quotes, so my search bot looks it up as a pharse), and you'll see that I've used it a few times. My point here is that people don't live under "left" or "right" labels. Nobody does. People don't function that way. In that regard, the spectrum doesn't exist as a region in which people live.

But, as human beings, we do tend to automatically afix labels to things. I do it, other people do it. I think, however, that it's important that we aim to do otherwise.
September 05, 2008

Ken said:
"In that regard, the spectrum doesn't exist as a region in which people live."

- unless, as the above dialogue shows, one is conservative.
September 06, 2008

GraceAbounds said:
Just popped in to check out your website. I post with you on MannaCabanna. I like the posts from you that I've read over there. Wish you'd post more.

God Bless,
Grace
October 17, 2008

jovial_cynic said:
GraceAbounds - thanks for stopping by! I would post more, but I get weary making the same arguments over and over again. :)
October 22, 2008

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