More on "Why They Hate (and Love) Her"
I continue to be interested in our discussion about Governor Sarah Palin and why she generates such strong emotions. Before the extent of her effect became clear, I wrote:
As I ponder all of this, I think McCain/Palin versus Obama/Biden vividly reflects the cultural divisions that are tearing our society apart more starkly than any election in my memory.I think it is fair to say that subsequent events validated that view--and isn't it interesting how much of this involves bioethical themes, human exceptionalism, and the growth of anti-humanism I have been warning about?
That also seems to be Jonathan Last's take over at the First Things blog. Last, who used to edit my Daily Standard pieces, also thinks, as I do, that Trig's birth is a major cause of the bitter antipathy toward Palin we have seen in some quarters. But Last looks more deeply into our collective ID--if that is the right term--than I did, also mentioning her religiosity and, more emphatically, The Palins' fecundity. From his piece:
I think these factors are also why so many people love her. In any event, something has to explain the depth of vituperation and adulation she has aroused--and the "experience" and energy issues aren't of the kind that stir such strong emotions. Last has given us an interesting analysis to chew over. Check it out.The Palin family's five children would have been unexceptional forty years ago, but today constitute something of a fertility freak show. They're the type of people for whom the epithet "breeder" was invented...
Why the worry about this? First, there's the fact that few of Palin's tormenters can understand the fact of her large, traditional family. That is certainly not the way in which they have structured their lives.Second, there is the left's long-standing concern about overpopulation, which has become a staple of modern environmentalism, beginning with Paul Ehrlich's 1968 best-seller The Population Bomb. Ehrlich preached a Malthusian near-future in which hundreds of millions would perish by famine as the world’s unchecked population growth spiraled to infinity...
But [despite being wrong] Ehrlich's prognostications never fell far out of favor, particularly with environmentalists who take it as an article of faith that the planet is already overcrowded. To them, the prodigious Palin family is surely seen as taking more than its fair share.
Labels: Sarah Palin. Culture Wars.
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 4:35 PM
6 Comments
6 Comments:
They hate her because she got where she is without political cronyism and -- worst of all -- without leaving any of her kids shredded in a stockingette in some abortion-clinic aspirator.
She's living proof that you don't have to sell out, and you don't have to be getting frequent flier miles at Planned Parenthood, to be a successful woman. What's not to hate, if your religion's Holy Trinity is Big Government, Insider Politics, and Abortion?
One thing that Erhlich's claim missed. Our adaptability. When people started migrating to urban lifestyle's they made it easier to be maintained in the same way as having all the bees in a hive works. For the first time in the history of mankind rural populations nor eclipse rural populations according to United Nations demographics. That shift has created a much higher standard of maintenance for the center core of humanity where the large number of people can be provided for by fewer people and higher yields from our plant and meat productions. At the same time the median lifestyle has risen from 49.9 to 80.5 since 1930. I suspect a population drop in the upcoming centuries just because people have more control over their own population within the family. That is a good thing but not at the fetus level. For me , terminated life in the womb devalues life out of the womb for society. I have been on blogs where I am truly hated for that observation.
To me,Palin represents what our pioneer women were to the generations that built North America. As a Canadian watching the US of A moving towards Election 2008,I feel strength in Palin which would be hated because she uses what is now viewed as politically incorrect values. I like her intestinal fortitude and independence .
Bluntly, Palin does NOT have a traditional family at all; after all, she has a successful career and her husband is willing to stay home with the kids.
What IS disturbing is the subtext of the criticism. Note the critics don't criticize her for having four healthy children; it's the fact she willingly brought into the world a disabled child. In some "progressive" quarters, this is a huge sin, for DS children, for example, are a huge drain on resources and on parents. It's better to not bring them into the world. Of course these fools don't stop to think about how offensive such beliefs are to the disabled community of literally millions of voters.
Disability prejudice has always been a problem for the "progressives." Witness their kneejerk reaction in support of the dubious Michael Schiavo.
I think it's really the double whammy-- choosing to birth a "defective" child and choosing to be a "breeder" to begin with.
Don't underestimate the Left's contempt for breeders. My announcement of plans to marry and raise a large family right after completing my MIT degree was greeted with congratulations from my pro-life friends. My supposedly enlighted feminist friends, OTOH, universally responded with, "Then why did you bother going to college?"
Speaking as a conservative Christian woman, I love Sarah Palin because she values things that I also feel are very important, e.g. life, family, Jesus Christ, acceptance of and compassion for the weaker, more needy folks among us. Those who hate her cannot stomach the fact that a woman who lives such values is also strong, determined, inteligent, articulate and fearless.
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