Alaskan Straw Men

This offensive (and I guess offensive) type of statement in both using someone's kid as a way to score political points and compounding it by accusing "secular

Evangelical leader Richard Land also backed Palin completely.

"This is the pro-life choice. The fact that people will criticize her for this shows the astounding extent to which the secular critics of the pro-life movement just don't get it," Land said in a statement.

The way I see it is that Land gets it, alright. He intends to to deflect any criticism of the hypocrisy of the evangelical right in failing to call a spade a spade while using Palin's daughter as a political football and begging Obama to kick it (insert Charlie Brown and Lucy joke here).

What's lame to me is that nobody criticized this girl for being pregnant. But that's what evangelicals like Land would have done to the likes of Britney Spears' younger sister crouched in the terms of the lack of traditional values of those "liberal Hollywood elites". With those people, the children run wild and get knocked up because the parents don't instill proper values and morals to their children.

It wasn't o.k. when Jamie Lynn did it, even though she was keeping her baby, but it's apparently o.k. if you're the republican V.P. candidate's daughter.

That's the real criticism of people that aren't so quick to judge everyone not exactly like ourselves, Land. That's the criticism of "those people" you called out for being a few pegs below on the morality pecking order because they were single, with a child, not in any way wealthy or influential, and don't believe exactly as you do--or is that did?

If this were the pregnant teen daughter of a nobody, you would disapprove of the daughter, the parenting skills of either or both parents, and would blame the lack of funding for abstinence-only programs in the schools. Sad stories like Susie Nobody wouldn't burden our welfare and medicaid programs at the cost of hard working Americans if only the platform of evangelicals were implemented.

The secular critics of the right to life movement as he calls them don't have any problem with any teen girl that decides to keep their baby. They would be critical of any person that stated one set of things to say about not-so-wealthy, unwed, teen mothers and now has something completely different to say about a wealthy, politically prominent family.


This might have started with some left blogger that dug into the private life of the Palin's and reported with the intent to hurt the GOP or whatever, but I think Joe Public Dodgers like me pretty much stick to the onion, cnn or fox but not both, maybe some bbc for more foreign junk, our local paper, and maybe some msnbc because we like Keith Olberman...the so-and-so is preggers, McCain has a black out-of-wedlock lovechild, and Obama being both the antichrist and a Muslim simultaneously just seems like really bad AOL mail forwards. No credibility is given to the content of those type of messages, and they piss you off a little bit no matter what side it helps.

One might also add that the double standard I mentioned earlier is apparent in most aspects of American life socially and economically is why the not so wealthy of us may want a bit of change at the top. Class warfare sucks. Rich people getting even richer, poorer families than mine are getting poorer, while my coasting behind gets pinched a little more, it doesn't bother me that I can't afford as much as I could 3 years ago. What gets me is the inherent unfairness of it and the lack of empathy of some people for fellow human beings if not for your fellow countrymen.

Give the beggar a coin like Jesus did (I think we can all agree that Jesus was at least a pretty nice example of how to live). Even if the guy's a faker who's going to buy booze or meth with it, at least you gave someone the benefit of the doubt. You'd want it, wouldn't you?

Zutt, you really gimme things you want to read me babble on about...too many things piss me off on the news cycle to want to post about everyday, but I don't always think I'm entertaining you, my lone, loyal reader.