Fuck Sarah Palin
I have long since made it apparent that I think Sarah Palin has the intellectual abilities and mental capacity of a rotting turnip. But now I think I have been tipped sufficiently far enough over the edge and past the point of frustration that a rant is in order. Sarah Palin is doing her best to lead an anti-intellectual crusade by a wing of the Republican Party. Put simply, if you are an educated, intelligent, intellectual individual, you are part of the "elite". And while nobody can tell me why being part of the elite is in fact a bad thing, it is apparently enough to require that you be viewed with suspicion, as a possible threat to America, and it is every bumfuck hick's sworn duty to campaign against this educated scourge.
My absolute distaste and disdain for Palin was already strong. I ranted last month about her complete lack of debating ability. She has demonstrated a complete lack of scientific understanding by deriding fruit fly research. She can't name a newspaper that she reads. She struggles to demonstrate an awareness of Supreme Court cases outside of the fundamentalist favourite, Roe v. Wade. But now she's gone after one of my own, a fellow historian.
It was one thing when McCain and Palin decided to make an issue out of Obama's supposed connection with Bill Ayers. I mean, Ayers was actually a terrorist - once, many decades ago. But apparently guilt-by-association claims are really in vogue right now. Palin has now gone after a man whose name she can't even correctly pronounce and whose work she probably can't even comprehend. From CNN:
"It seems that there is yet another radical professor from the neighborhood who spent a lot of time with Barack Obama going back several years," Palin said at an event in Bowling Green, Ohio.
"This is important because his associate, Rashid Khalidi ... in addition to being a political ally of Barack Obama, he's a former spokesperson for the Palestinian Liberation Organization."
RASHID KHALIDI? The leading Middle Eastern scholar, THAT Rashid Khalidi? Really? Khalidi the historian?
Let's get some things straight here, Sarah. You like straight talk, don't you? I'm going to try to word this as simply as possible so that you and your dribbling supporters can understand. Just for you, I'm going to try to avoid big or difficult words that show off my elitist education. Firstly, Khalidi was never a spokesperson for the Palestinian Liberation Organisation. At least have the decency to check the facts before you spout off with wild claims about people. Secondly, just because Khalidi has been a strong critic of American policy in the Middle East, that does not make him a "radical" or dangerous or whatever you wish to insinuate about him. That means he is able to think critically about information and form his own views rather than swallowing party lines whole. You should try it sometime. Thirdly, Khalidi has decades of professional experience in this field while you have demonstrated you know utterly nothing, and you think being able to see (the most barren, isolated part of) Russia from Alaska gives you foreign policy qualification. Please, SIT DOWN, SHUT THE FUCK UP, AND STOP TRYING TO UNJUSTIFIABLY SLANDER YOUR INTELLECTUAL BETTERS. Sarah, I don't even trust you to be able to find Palestine on a fucking map.
I just don't trust that you are qualified for the job you are running for. You are staggeringly ignorant of the world. You are staggeringly ignorant of education. You are staggeringly ignorant of the vice presidential role. You are staggeringly ignorant, full fucking stop. And your latest act of staggering ignorance just proves my point. Now, it's reasonable to expect that somebody running for American vice president would have a grasp on the American constitution, right? Yeah, I thought so. Oh wait, YOU DON'T, SARAH. From the ABC (the American one):
Republican vice presidential nominee Gov. Sarah Palin said she fears her First Amendment rights may be threatened by "attacks" from reporters who suggest she is engaging in a negative campaign against Barack Obama.
Palin told WMAL-AM that her criticism of Obama's associations, like those with 1960s radical Bill Ayers and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, should not be considered negative attacks. Rather, for reporters or columnists to suggest that it is going negative may constitute an attack that threatens a candidate's free speech rights under the Constitution, Palin said.
"If [the media] convince enough voters that that is negative campaigning, for me to call Barack Obama out on his associations," Palin told host Chris Plante, "then I don't know what the future of our country would be in terms of First Amendment rights and our ability to ask questions without fear of attacks by the mainstream media."
Do I need to point out how absurd this is? I am sure the text of the First Amendment is quite enough to show how utterly desperate Palin's paranoid claims are. "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." I think I'm about done with you and your complete and utter nonsense, lack of logic, and bullshit claims, Sarah. Fuck off back to Wasilla and bother those of us with brains no more.
Intelligent American conservatives, do you see how little your party cares about you? At this election, you don't exactly have much of a choice. McCain/Palin represent you about as little as they represent me, for god's sake. If you're not willing to jump aboard the Obama bandwagon, you better hope your state allows you to write in a vote for some conservative who doesn't think you're a braindead drone. The Republican Party, once upon a time, didn't presume that its supporters are stupid. Conservatism has a rich intellectual history. Need I mention names such as Michael Oakeshott? But lately, it has been hijacked by far right extremists, free market fundamentalists, neocons, and their ilk. Need I mention statistics such as how recent Democrat presidents have controlled spending and achieved smaller government more than their supposedly pro-small government Republican counterparts? I personally do not consider small government a virtue, but since American conservatives go on about it so much, I think they urgently need to address this issue and realise that the so-called "tax and spend" Democrats are doing much more to achieve the small government goal than the Republican Party. The reduction of conservatism's electioneering persona to fear tactics of false boogeymen and First Amendment abuse should be completely unacceptable.
There, I think I'm done with taking Palin to task, and now I have a link for you that even more emphatically takes McCain to task. I'm not sure how many people will really read all of the following, but then again, if you've made it to the end of this entry, you just might. Hopefully you will enjoy it. Fuck John McCain.
My absolute distaste and disdain for Palin was already strong. I ranted last month about her complete lack of debating ability. She has demonstrated a complete lack of scientific understanding by deriding fruit fly research. She can't name a newspaper that she reads. She struggles to demonstrate an awareness of Supreme Court cases outside of the fundamentalist favourite, Roe v. Wade. But now she's gone after one of my own, a fellow historian.
It was one thing when McCain and Palin decided to make an issue out of Obama's supposed connection with Bill Ayers. I mean, Ayers was actually a terrorist - once, many decades ago. But apparently guilt-by-association claims are really in vogue right now. Palin has now gone after a man whose name she can't even correctly pronounce and whose work she probably can't even comprehend. From CNN:
"It seems that there is yet another radical professor from the neighborhood who spent a lot of time with Barack Obama going back several years," Palin said at an event in Bowling Green, Ohio.
"This is important because his associate, Rashid Khalidi ... in addition to being a political ally of Barack Obama, he's a former spokesperson for the Palestinian Liberation Organization."
RASHID KHALIDI? The leading Middle Eastern scholar, THAT Rashid Khalidi? Really? Khalidi the historian?
Let's get some things straight here, Sarah. You like straight talk, don't you? I'm going to try to word this as simply as possible so that you and your dribbling supporters can understand. Just for you, I'm going to try to avoid big or difficult words that show off my elitist education. Firstly, Khalidi was never a spokesperson for the Palestinian Liberation Organisation. At least have the decency to check the facts before you spout off with wild claims about people. Secondly, just because Khalidi has been a strong critic of American policy in the Middle East, that does not make him a "radical" or dangerous or whatever you wish to insinuate about him. That means he is able to think critically about information and form his own views rather than swallowing party lines whole. You should try it sometime. Thirdly, Khalidi has decades of professional experience in this field while you have demonstrated you know utterly nothing, and you think being able to see (the most barren, isolated part of) Russia from Alaska gives you foreign policy qualification. Please, SIT DOWN, SHUT THE FUCK UP, AND STOP TRYING TO UNJUSTIFIABLY SLANDER YOUR INTELLECTUAL BETTERS. Sarah, I don't even trust you to be able to find Palestine on a fucking map.
I just don't trust that you are qualified for the job you are running for. You are staggeringly ignorant of the world. You are staggeringly ignorant of education. You are staggeringly ignorant of the vice presidential role. You are staggeringly ignorant, full fucking stop. And your latest act of staggering ignorance just proves my point. Now, it's reasonable to expect that somebody running for American vice president would have a grasp on the American constitution, right? Yeah, I thought so. Oh wait, YOU DON'T, SARAH. From the ABC (the American one):
Republican vice presidential nominee Gov. Sarah Palin said she fears her First Amendment rights may be threatened by "attacks" from reporters who suggest she is engaging in a negative campaign against Barack Obama.
Palin told WMAL-AM that her criticism of Obama's associations, like those with 1960s radical Bill Ayers and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, should not be considered negative attacks. Rather, for reporters or columnists to suggest that it is going negative may constitute an attack that threatens a candidate's free speech rights under the Constitution, Palin said.
"If [the media] convince enough voters that that is negative campaigning, for me to call Barack Obama out on his associations," Palin told host Chris Plante, "then I don't know what the future of our country would be in terms of First Amendment rights and our ability to ask questions without fear of attacks by the mainstream media."
Do I need to point out how absurd this is? I am sure the text of the First Amendment is quite enough to show how utterly desperate Palin's paranoid claims are. "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." I think I'm about done with you and your complete and utter nonsense, lack of logic, and bullshit claims, Sarah. Fuck off back to Wasilla and bother those of us with brains no more.
Intelligent American conservatives, do you see how little your party cares about you? At this election, you don't exactly have much of a choice. McCain/Palin represent you about as little as they represent me, for god's sake. If you're not willing to jump aboard the Obama bandwagon, you better hope your state allows you to write in a vote for some conservative who doesn't think you're a braindead drone. The Republican Party, once upon a time, didn't presume that its supporters are stupid. Conservatism has a rich intellectual history. Need I mention names such as Michael Oakeshott? But lately, it has been hijacked by far right extremists, free market fundamentalists, neocons, and their ilk. Need I mention statistics such as how recent Democrat presidents have controlled spending and achieved smaller government more than their supposedly pro-small government Republican counterparts? I personally do not consider small government a virtue, but since American conservatives go on about it so much, I think they urgently need to address this issue and realise that the so-called "tax and spend" Democrats are doing much more to achieve the small government goal than the Republican Party. The reduction of conservatism's electioneering persona to fear tactics of false boogeymen and First Amendment abuse should be completely unacceptable.
There, I think I'm done with taking Palin to task, and now I have a link for you that even more emphatically takes McCain to task. I'm not sure how many people will really read all of the following, but then again, if you've made it to the end of this entry, you just might. Hopefully you will enjoy it. Fuck John McCain.