#47579 Sarah Palin

[vorpal blade]

Dear vorps,
I'm pretty sure you made up that conversation with your wife. I mean, the language you used: "Her hands were shaking, and there were tears in her eyes. My wife hardly ever cries." It just sounded so artificial. And the whole conversation basically sounded like it was constructed around you giving your opinion. I mean, that's just not how conversations go in real life. Sorry, sweets, but maybe you should take a fiction-writing class before you go writing more stuff like that.

And if those are things your wife actually said...well, I'm sorry you married a moron.

Ur Luvr 4evr,
SWKT Parachuter

Ah, this is hard to say. My wife read this series of posts for the first time today. Basically she agrees with you SWKT. I need to take a fiction-writing class. She says that I didn't get the conversation right, and I made her sound like a complete idiot. She is not nearly so critical of what Portia wrote now that she has read it for herself. So please, disregard everything I said about my wife. I tried to report our conversation accurately, but apparently I failed. This was a big mistake, and I'm not going to quote her again.

[vorpal blade]

and i don't know why you're so insistent that palin is being misrepresented. portia didn't misrepresent anything in her response.

Okay, let me explain this in more detail. Portia said in the 100 hour board reply that posted on September 25:
I find her stances on abortion (she does not believe it should be legal even in cases of rape--a position I do not find to be compatible with the teachings of the LDS church for starters; also, women in Wasilla had to pay for rape kits), war (yeah, I'm sure invading Russia is a great idea), and the economy (and she contradicts herself in the course of one paragraph!) to be incompatible with my personal beliefs.

From this I extract these claims by Portia about Sarah Palin’s political beliefs:
1. abortion (“she does not believe it should be legal even in cases of rape…”)
2. abortion (“…women in Wasilla had to pay for rape kits”)
3. war (“yeah, I’m sure invading Russia is a great idea”)
4. economy (“she contradicts herself in the course of one paragraph!”)

Portia has given what many people are saying about Palin’s views. But I think we need to go to the source. What does Palin say?

1. She believes abortion SHOULD be legal in the case of rape, contrary to the claims of Portia. In searching media sources you often find claims that Sarah Palin believes all abortion should be banned, or made illegal, even in the case of rape. They often fail to make a distinction between what she opposes and what she wants to make illegal. Palin prefers to emphasize in interviews her positive beliefs; how she would counsel with those considering abortion, making adoption easier, and “choosing life” instead. When pressed repeatedly by Katie Couric in a recent interview on the legal issue we find that Palin believes that she would of course never support a law where someone ended up in jail for an abortion [in the case of rape, seems to be the context]. http://religionblog.dallasnews.com/arch ... ouric.html

2. Here is what Sarah Palin says, “The entire notion of making a victim of a crime pay for anything is crazy. I do not believe, nor have I ever believed, that rape victims should have to pay for an evidence-gathering test. As governor, I worked in a variety of ways to tackle the problem of sexual assault and rape, including making domestic violence a priority of my administration.” This is from an interview of Sarah Palin by the Frontiersman, the local newspaper in Wasilla. There is an ongoing and intense debate on the Internet about whether rape victims were ever charged for rape kits in Wasilla. After looking at both sides of the argument I believe the preponderance of the evidence shows that victims were not charged. See also the article referenced by Rafe. Here is the link to the Frontiersman article: http://frontiersman.com/articles/2008/0 ... ogcomments

3. Palin does not say that invading Russia is a great idea. If you go to the link Portia gave, and read the interview, you find that Palin merely believes that we should support a NATO ally who is attacked. Isn’t that what all the candidates would say?

4. In Portia’s last link we find a couple of brief sound bites that a comedian cobbled together for the purpose of making Sarah Palin look ridiculous. In one clip Palin talks about overhauling an out-dated system. The comedian tells us that this means bigger government. Perhaps it means that to him, but it reminds me, and I think many in Palin’s audience, of the famous words of Ronald Reagan, “government is not a solution to our problem, government is the problem.” Which agrees nicely with what Palin says in the next clip about getting the government out of the way of the people. You may not agree that government has largely caused the economic problems we have today, but at least Palin is consistent in her philosophy.

I realize that I have used quotes from Sarah Palin that were not available to Portia at the time she wrote her response on the 100 hour board.

There are honest disagreements one can have with Sarah Palin. It is just sad to see people misrepresent what others say in order to make it easier to ridicule and attack them. Hopefully people will listen to the debate tonight and allow Sarah Palin to speak for herself, unfiltered by media spin. But we can expect the media to try to interpret it for us.

[Cognoscente]

Vorpal:


Lighten up, dude. Really... no one cares.

[wired]

Primary Objective of This Post

Above, Portia mentioned she did not believe in a liberal bias in the media. While I agree there are hardcore conservative news outlets (aka Fox News, New York Post, etc.) there is a great amount of evidence for a generally liberally biased media.

Sources:
Media Bias is Real, Finds UCLA Political Scientist

Accuracy in MEDIA Report on Liberal Bias (research performed by Pew Forum which is typically a conservative outlet, but still has feasibly reliable data

Media Research Center Report on How Journalists Voted from 1960s-1970s (sadly I'm not finding an article that re-did this same study for the 80s through 2000 - similar results.)

Secondary Objective of the Post

Vorpal Blade, with all due respect to your and your wife, her alleged reaction shows little tolerance for other ideas. One should not expected to be insulated from opposing ideas in an academic, religious, or political setting. Rather, one should accept that others' will have opinions that directly conflict with their own. If Portia's post regarding her opinion of Sara Palin (which, for the most part, I disagree with) causes your wife to tremble with emotion, she ought to consider avoiding ALL political, religious, and academic discussion with anyone.

Portia's original comments on Sarah Palin are generally true, but as for their pertinence to whether or not she would be a good VP is debatable. For instance, though Palin's views on abortion are not similar to my own (or the official stance of the Church - David O. McKay's opinion is, is his opinion, not a Church stance), I do not see Barack Obama's or Joe Biden's to be anywhere closer. (In fact, John McCain probably has the most compatible.) However, if you are to inspect the abortion topic from a conservative standpoint, Sarah Palin is much closer to the average conservative than the polar opposite Biden or Obama.

The Wasilla rape-kit comments are old news and try to tie Palin to something she did not instigate or defend at any point in time.

And I'll defer on the Russia comments. I have not studied them in-depth yet.

The media scoffing at Sarah Palin comes primarily because she seems uninformed on some key issues and terminology. As the governor of Alaska, Palin is not briefed on international affairs. That is an advantage that each of the Senator's have over her. Furthermore, Obama has been campaigning (and prepping himself for this campaign) for some time. It is not because he reads the newspaper every morning that he is so informed - it is because he has had staff members prepping him on potential topics and then discussing it with his strategy team. Given time, Palin will do the exact same thing. With a fancy prep team behind her, she will now start hearing about these essential issues and receiving advice on how to respond to them. That is the way that McCain, Obama, and Biden all become so knowledgeable on the subjects at hand. However, the real question is does she have the leadership and management capabilities to run such a staff and to make such decisions. I have not personally made up my mind, but I know I blatantly reject the notion that she is some backward hick who will ruin this country as the vice-president.

[vorpal blade]

Vorpal Blade, with all due respect to your and your wife, her alleged reaction shows little tolerance for other ideas. One should not expected to be insulated from opposing ideas in an academic, religious, or political setting. Rather, one should accept that others' will have opinions that directly conflict with their own. If Portia's post regarding her opinion of Sara Palin (which, for the most part, I disagree with) causes your wife to tremble with emotion, she ought to consider avoiding ALL political, religious, and academic discussion with anyone.

First, thank you for taking the time to post some thoughtful comments.

I appreciate your concern for tolerance of other ideas. But please remember that it is unfair to judge my wife solely on the basis of what I wrote, since she has said that I did a poor job in describing her opinions and reactions. She really does listen to all the opposing points of view

Portia's original comments on Sarah Palin are generally true, but as for their pertinence to whether or not she would be a good VP is debatable. For instance, though Palin's views on abortion are not similar to my own (or the official stance of the Church - David O. McKay's opinion is, is his opinion, not a Church stance), I do not see Barack Obama's or Joe Biden's to be anywhere closer. (In fact, John McCain probably has the most compatible.) However, if you are to inspect the abortion topic from a conservative standpoint, Sarah Palin is much closer to the average conservative than the polar opposite Biden or Obama.

I think that if you examined what Palin’s true views are on abortion, rather than the views attributed to her by much of the media, you would find that she is in complete agreement with the Church. Portia referenced the following as the official stance of the Church. "The Church opposes abortion and counsels its members not to submit to or perform an abortion except in the rare cases where, in the opinion of competent medical counsel, the life or good health of the mother is seriously endangered or where the pregnancy was caused by rape and produces serious emotional trauma in the mother. Even then it should be done only after counseling with the local presiding priesthood authority and after receiving divine confirmation through prayer."

In my research I've discovered that Palin is on record for making exceptions to her opposition to abortion, for example where the life of the mother is endangered. She also says that a rape victim should be counseled with before the rape victim chooses to have an abortion. Palin stresses alternatives to abortion, just as the Church does. She can’t very well talk about the role of local presiding priesthood authority because she doesn’t know about that, and it wouldn’t apply to non-Mormons anyway. She is not as extreme as some people would like to make her out to be. So really, where is the difference between her view and the stance of the Church?

[bismark]

"can i call you joe?"

"nuculur"

nope cant vote for her.

[Imogen]

oh cog, you always make me laugh.

back to sarah palin: i'm sure a lot of things have been distorted by the media, but let's not forget she can distort things too...

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/20 ... -94-times/

[bismark]

imogen, just be nice to poor old sarah. i’m really, really upset by this. *hands shaking*

[vorpal blade]

Vorpal Blade, with all due respect to your and your wife, her alleged reaction shows little tolerance for other ideas. One should not expected to be insulated from opposing ideas in an academic, religious, or political setting. Rather, one should accept that others' will have opinions that directly conflict with their own. If Portia's post regarding her opinion of Sara Palin (which, for the most part, I disagree with) causes your wife to tremble with emotion, she ought to consider avoiding ALL political, religious, and academic discussion with anyone.

I was thinking about this and decided I should say a few more words on it. I'm surprised that you see it as an issue of just not wanting to hear ideas different from your own. As I see it the issue is becoming upset when you hear lies and unjust accusations about someone you admire. The problem was never that Portia thought differently, the problem was that Portia unfairly slandered someone.

Allow me to make an analogy, imperfect as it may be. Perhaps it will help clarify my point of view, knowing it won't prove anything. Suppose you were applying for a job. Let's say that you have a friend Mary who knows you well and knows you would really like to have that job. Someone came to Mary and told her that people were spreading lies about you, making you seem unfit for the job, so that another person could have the job that you want. Mary became visibly upset and said that something should be done to try to stop the spread of these lies. A mutual friend then comes to you and tells you of Mary's tears. You rush to Mary to comfort her and assure you that everything will be all right. For the kind of job you are trying to get you can expect some nasty lying.

Now, my question is, do you think that Mary shows little tolerance for other ideas, or do you think that Mary is a wonderful, loyal friend, and that you really appreciate her? Do you tell her that she should just stop listening to people if they sometimes upset her, or do you tell her to keep her chin up? Personally, I don't think Mary's actions show intolerance, unless it is intolerance towards injustice. And I won't fault Mary for that.

Finally, I'd like to say that I am a little surprised by this discussion group. I don't think anyone showed any compassion for my wife. Instead, all I heard were insults, sharp criticisms, snarky ridicule, mockery, harsh judgments, and unkindness. If people said things like that about your wife, wouldn't that make you feel a little upset? Am I the only one who cares? Does my caring make me intolerant? Enough said.

[bismark]

vorpal blade,

you should not have told that story. it made your wife sound ridiculous, which i am sure in real life she is not.

perhaps some of the things said about palin were stretches of the truth (i havent cared to look), but i don't think anyone can deny she is dumb as a brick after the couric interviews and last nights debate. we have had eight years of dumb as a brick executives, do we really want more?

[Imogen]

i second bismark. in your intense need to BE RIGHT ABOUT SARAH PALIN AND HOW PORTIA IS A BAD BOARD WRITER you made your wife sound like an idiot. and i'm sorry, but any person whose hands would shake because a person they don't even know says something that may or may not be misrepresenting someone they also don't know. it's ABSURD. so i make fun of it because stupid people are easy to make fun of. as you've clarified, your wife didn't react quite as you reported (misrepresentation anyone?). so it's too bad SHE had to get made fun of because YOU made her sound stupid.

[Imogen]

imogen, just be nice to poor old sarah. i’m really, really upset by this. *hands shaking*

bismark, CALM DOWN!!! it will be ok!!! just breathe through it my friend.

[361]

vorpal blade,

you should not have told that story. it made your wife sound ridiculous, which i am sure in real life she is not.

perhaps some of the things said about palin were stretches of the truth (i havent cared to look), but i don't think anyone can deny she is dumb as a brick after the couric interviews and last nights debate. we have had eight years of dumb as a brick executives, do we really want more?

It's not like Obama / Biden are any better.

They all are overly-ambitious, lack integrity, and are far too controlled by others.

[Nanti-SARRMM]

361, I agree with you about Obama/Biden.

I was thinking about this and decided I should say a few more words on it. I'm surprised that you see it as an issue of just not wanting to hear ideas different from your own. As I see it the issue is becoming upset when you hear lies and unjust accusations about someone you admire. The problem was never that Portia thought differently, the problem was that Portia unfairly slandered someone.

Portia technically didn't slander anyone. Portia expressed her opinions of what she had read from various news sites and cited them. Those news sites are the ones slandering Gov. Palin, not Portia.
If I recall you even said

I realize that I have used quotes from Sarah Palin that were not available to Portia at the time she wrote her response on the 100 hour board.

So if she, or any of us, didn't have many of those quotes or links that you used, what do you expect of someone who wouldn't have access to those resources?
Two, and probably even more importantly, is that Gov Palin is a just a politician. That's all. Yes, she had worked up to be governor of Alaska and for some reason or another is your role model, but what did she do to earn the VP seat? Did she campaign for it? Did she work hard for it? Or did one of the candidates decide to select her because she might help him win an election? If you want to complain about people slandering Palin's character, look to all the late night shows. I was flipping through them last night and there were many skits made just to poke fun at her and everyone's low expectations of her. There is really no need to get that upset because someone linked to a few news sources that has incorrect information in them.

Finally, I'd like to say that I am a little surprised by this discussion group. I don't think anyone showed any compassion for my wife. Instead, all I heard were insults, sharp criticisms, snarky ridicule, mockery, harsh judgments, and unkindness. If people said things like that about your wife, wouldn't that make you feel a little upset? Am I the only one who cares? Does my caring make me intolerant? Enough said.

It's not against your wife. It is against how you portray her and try to win us to your side through pity. It isn't even what you quoted her saying that we've been commenting on, but the mere fact that "Her hands were shaking, and there were tears in her eyes." bismark even said that he is sure that your wife in real life isn't that ridiculous. It's just your supposed big mistake of inaccurately sharing the conversation with your wife and how she reacted.

[bismark]

It's not like Obama / Biden are any better.

They all are overly-ambitious, lack integrity, and are far too controlled by others.

better is so subjective... i guess having people who are dumber than bricks (journalism majors at that!) being in charge of say... the worlds largest military leaves me a bit worried. sadly checks and balances flew out the window when people like vorpy helped keep bush in office for so long, so i think we are pretty much screwed no matter who we choose. at least if the person in charge is ambitious we might go down in style?

[Giovanni Schwartz]

Last night we were at this comedy place, and it's kinda like whose line is it anyways, in that they have the audience give suggestions. Anyways, we were doing a warm up one, and the thing the guy asked for was "Things not to run over in your car". One girl in our little (or big) date group said Sarah Palin. Then a guy in the front was like "Wait, I thought this was things we shouldn't run over?"

[Nanti-SARRMM]

better is so subjective... i guess having people who are dumber than bricks (journalism majors at that!) being in charge of say... the worlds largest military leaves me a bit worried. sadly checks and balances flew out the window when people like vorpy helped keep bush in office for so long, so i think we are pretty much screwed no matter who we choose. at least if the person in charge is ambitious we might go down in style?

That is where the confusion comes in though. Do we chose the guy who isn't strong militarily and doesn't have strong foreign policy in hopes that will embolden the Arab nations into attacking Israel to further speed up the second coming, or do we choose the guy with military experience who may infuriate the Arab nations enough to push them into attacking Israel to speed up the Second Coming?

Choices Choices.

[Werf_Must]

I got 7 Obama to 6 McCain

[jooniper]

Only three things to say (a bit after the fact):

-Cog, I dig the comic (I'd pretend to be bothered you stole it from me, but since I hardly came up with it myself and you very well could have gotten it from somewhere else, I'm just going to say, "oh yeah, that IS funny isn't it"). Plus, I like you. 99% of the time:).

-I agree with Portia wholeheartedly.

-Vorpal, if the convo with your wife did happen as you said it did, my respect for your wife dropped considerably. It boggles my mind that people assume that something is wrong if other BYu students did not come to the same conclusions they did.

All I really know is that the veeps aren't playing too heavily into my decision since I haven't had as much time to study them (where mccain and particularly obama have been under my magnifying glass for a while), and all I know is what the media (*AHEM jon stewart AHEM*) points out: Palin is mockable, and Biden is old. I didn't like McCain before he brought Palin in, and her presence has lowered my respect for him only slightly. Obama'll still get my vote.

[Giovanni Schwartz]

Palin is having an effect on us. Have you noticed how often she pops up in daily conversation? Joe Biden is just an idiot. But I won't even be old enough to vote by voting day, so it's not that big of a deal. However, my mom has a good point. If the U.S. is attacked by terrorists, who do you want going after them? McCain, or Obama?