Amen, an' Amen, and Yet Another Amen

---

Via Kat.

---

Boy, howdy, did I like this one. It was with difficulty that I refrained from quoting the whole thing. Emphasis in the original:

...despite the fact that he (McCain) was as much a Washington insider as any of them, YOU decided that he was "electable."

So YOU nominated him.

And YOU found out that he wasn't "electable" at all.

Now along comes a gal who says and does everything right. One who walks the path of Ronald Reagan. One who never wavers from her conservative principles. One who doesn't give a damn what the Washington establishment thinks of her. One who shares - and champions - your values. One who is willing to suffer the slings and arrows - attacks of the most pernicious kind - willing to pursue YOUR goals with headheld high and steady determination in her voice - so as to make this country of ours a better place.

And what do you do?

Run in fear.

I read things like this and I get so angry:

"I like her enthusiasm and ability [to] energize people," said one woman.

"Would you support her for president?"

"Well, we're more Mitt Romney people."

"I like her," says one man. "I'm not sure she's presidential, but she gets the message out."

"Could she become presidential?"

"Hell, if Obama can be president, so can she."

"We like her personally, but can she win?" said another woman. "We're very worried. She's been so demonized."

My God.

You are nothing but frightened children. You don't deserve her.

Ask yourself: Who made the determination that Sarah Palin isn't "presidential" while Mitt Romney is? I'll answer for you: The same people who "so demonized" her. And you accept that? You let the likes of ChrisMatthews and Katie Couric determine for you whether she can run this country? Do they also change your diaper?

I'd tell y'all more about what I think about Sarah Palin, 'cept that you've heard it all before.

One Reason Folks Like Sarah Palin

Here y'go:

I’m glad the Senate came to its senses and killed the omnibus spending monstrosity. That outrageous trillion-dollar pork buffet was an outright slap in the face to the American public’s expressed wishes in the last election. It was as if Congress was earning its historically low 13 percent approval rating before our very eyes. I applaud senators like Jim DeMint, John McCain, and others who fought this and stopped it.

However, the very fact that some lawmakers on Capitol Hill thought such reckless spending was even remotely acceptable is disturbing. We’re facing trillion-dollar deficits and a record national debt, but some people still want to continue spending like there’s no tomorrow. If the European debt crisis teaches us anything, it’s that tomorrow always comes. Sooner or later, the markets will expect us to settle the bill for the enormous Obama-Pelosi-Reid spending binge. We’ve already been warned by the credit ratings agency Moody’s that unless we get serious about reducing our deficit, we may face a downgrade of our credit rating. Even the lamest of lame ducks can’t ignore this reality.

Now, of course, some folks on the Left will immediately holler, "Of course we want to reduce the deficit! We've got to raise taxes!"

I think it was at the last Democratic National Convention that Neal Boortz was doing his radio show, and some big-wig Democrat mover-and-shaker came by, and to his credit, sat in for a while with the Talkmaster. Boortz asked him a question that he'd previously said he'd always wanted to ask some high-level Democrat.

"What is the maximum that any one person should have to pay in taxes?"

The answer came back, missing not so much as a heartbeat: "Not one penny more than is necessary to pay for essential governmental services."

It was slick, but it was a total non-answer. The debate immediately becomes over what governmental services are "essential." In effect, though possibly unintentionally, the man was admitting that if people came to regard enough governmental services as "essential," there might be no limit on the percentage of your income you'd have to pay in taxes.

Raising taxes to pay for bloated government is not the answer any more than putting more money into the grocery budget is the answer to obesity. However, since darn few, if any, governmental services will be admitted by the Left to be non-essential, in practical terms, it is the only answer they will consider.

Why Sarah Palin Worries So Many People

I've read so much awful stuff about Sarah Palin lately, both from the Left and the Right (you would not believe how many people putatively on the Right absolutely despise Sarah Palin). After reading so much of that stuff, folks can be forgiven for wondering exactly what it is about the woman that results in Palin Derangement Syndrome. I've written on this before, but let me lay it out in a nutshell for you, in case you were wondering:

It has relatively little to do with whether or not she's going to run for president. It's the population segment she appeals to. The woman's exactly like millions upon millions of what were once considered perfectly normal Americans. Liberals and Leftists and certain Elites that mostly hang out with their buddies that think, act, and speak just like themselves have a hard time accepting this. Confronted with Sarah Palin's popularity with millions of Americans--yes, I know about the polling, about even numbers disapprove and approve, those that strongly disapprove are about double those that strongly approve, all of that is irrelevant to the point that I'm making--those Liberals, Leftists, and Elites are left going, "Holy Crap! There's a buttload of those people, and they all think we're full of crap and they're sick of our...schtuff! What are we gonna do?"

It's hard to run roughshod over millions of people, not that the attempt won't be--or isn't being--made. Sarah Palin's popularity forcibly confronts some people with a hard reality that they don't want to face--namely, that, no, the American public isn't anywhere nearly as solidly on their side as they would like to pretend to themselves, that a rather large segment of the population thinks they're full of bovine fecal matter.

There you have it. Just my two cents.

Stupid? Even I Don't Think That

I just read yet another short piece excoriating Sarah Palin for her stupidity--this one coming from elements of the political right.

This sort of thing is not as uncommon as one might suppose. There are plenty of conservatives that think that Mrs. Palin is being unduly influenced by a series of neocons, especially when it comes to foreign policy. And indeed, there are elements of her foreign policy statements where I, too, would say, "Tread lightly, and be careful what you say."

But that doesn't mean that I think she's stupid.

Brethren and Sistren, I've seen stupid. I mean, I've seen and dealt with people who are genuinely not up to snuff in terms of raw intelligence. I've dealt with the profoundly retarded, the somewhat mentally handicapped, and those who fall into the low end of the normal range of human intelligence. I know what "stupid" is all about. The genuinely stupid generally have their hands too full just dealing with day-to-day life to worry overmuch about politics.

I can't think of anybody I disagree with politically that I would characterize as stupid. Not one. Misinformed, yes. Ideologically blinkered, yes. Even willfully blind. Even lying. But stupid? No.

And to be frank, when I read someone saying that someone--anyone--politically opposed to them is stupid, my opinion of their opinion dives dramatically.

What Really Ought to Disturb You About Palin Derangement Syndrome

I read, not infrequently, criticism of Sarah Palin.

Quite a lot of it has to do with how allegedly stupid and ignorant she is. About that, I say little except that she seems at least no worse than more than a few others who have made it into top political offices, and that most of the criticism along these lines seems rather juvenile to me.

The rest of it--and I am pretty well convinced that this underlies the juvenile cat-calling about her brainpower, as well--is what disturbs me.

They keep talking about this woman like she's some sort of extremist political freak--as far as I can tell, because:

She's a Christian--the sort of Christian who will tell you that the Bible is actually true and that faith in Jesus Christ really is the only way to eternal life, that not all sexual behaviors are morally equal, that abortion is the extinguishing of a human life, and so forth.

She likes guns--likes them to the point where she is well known for going out and gunning down wildlife with them.

She believes that economic liberty and limited government are far better solutions to joblessness and poverty than government interventionism.

As far as I've been able to tell, she believes that the Constitution limits the federal government to certain enumerated powers.

There are no doubt other tidbits which I'm not thinking of right now, but this seems to be the gist of it. She's an extreme right-winger, a wingnut, for holding positions like this. This disturbs me because these are in no way extreme positions.

There is no doubt that America has fewer of the sort of Christians I described than it has previously had. For much of our history, Christians of this stripe easily dominated the landscape. Now, not so much--yet, there are still millions and millions of people who believe these things. These are not fringe religious views. They are perfectly orthodox Christian views.

It is not extreme to believe that abortion is wrong. Millions of people do. That is why abortion was outlawed or heavily restricted in most states prior to Roe, and why pro-abortion forces fear, above all things, the possibility that the subject of abortion might be returned to the state level. They know what will happen. It will again be outlawed or heavily restricted in all but the blue states, and maybe even in some of those.

It is not extreme to believe that homosexual behavior is morally wrong. Millions of people do. Most people, I think, who believe this are willing to concede that what consenting adults do in their own bedrooms is their own business, but you can tell how much moral legitimacy they ascribe to homosexual marriage every time it's on the ballot: it goes down in flames.

It is not extreme to like guns, or to believe that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to own them and carry them. Millions of people do. Anti-gunners concede this every time they complain about America's gun culture.

It is not extreme to default to economic liberty and limited government. Millions of people do. These are among the concepts on which the country was founded.

It is not extreme to believe that the Constitution limits federal power. Millions of people do. It is a view explicitly delineated in The Federalist Papers, a view championed by Jefferson and the Democratic-Republicans who dominated federal life for the early part of the nineteenth century.

In short, being a Bible-believing, gun-toting, private-enterprise-and-small government American can in no way be considered "extreme," and every time Mrs. Palin is criticized along these lines, the critics are simultaneously attempting to marginalize huge numbers of other Americans.

That's what disturbs me, and I think it ought to disturb you, too.

Roger Simon on Sarah Palin

Go ahead. Read it. Here's a snippet:

Sarah Palin has something more than intellect. She has the ability to understand, connect with and energize her party.


And considering her likely opposition — Romney, Gingrich, Tim Pawlenty, Bobby Jindal, Mike Huckabee or Haley Barbour — tell me she has no chance. Go ahead and tell me. It’s enough to make one snicker.

Mr. Simon is right. Despite the potential for great gains in the next two elections, the alleged Republican Party elites are, by and large, not people that I think have real potential for greatness.

Ray Stevens' "Caribou Barbie"

Don't conclude from my embedding of this li'l clip that I think that Mrs. Palin is ready for the presidency. I don't think she quite is. On the other hand, looking at the pack of thieves, rogues, and idiots currently on the national scene, I'm not entirely sure I can think of anyone genuinely ready for the presidency.

As far as the current occupant of the White House is concerned...

...well...

...dadgummit, I can never quite make up my mind whether he is a thoroughgoing idiot or some kind of stealth Marxist tool. Either way, given a choice between His Barackness and Caribou Barbie?

Caribou Barbie wins that one hands down. I'm pretty well convinced that at least she's got the common sense and basic values that God gave a goat. Can't say that about all the candidates available.

Enjoy.

From Going Rogue

Mrs. MOTW was very sweet and brought home Sarah Palin's Going Rogue for me from the library. Haven't read it all yet, obviously, and may just skim it instead of reading it thoroughly (I am very pressed for time, as always), but just flipping through it, I came across this, and thought it worth sharing. Emphasis, where present, is mine and in bold:

Since leaving office I've frequently been asked, "What does Sarah Palin stand for? What's your vision for the future?"

I welcome the opportunity to share it. Keep in mind, I tell my parents the greatest gift they ever gave me, besides building a foundation of love for family and for healthy competition, was an upbringing in Alaska. The pioneering spirit of the Last Frontier has shaped me.

I am an independent person who had the good fortune to come of age in the era of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. I am a registered Republican because the planks in that party's platform are stronger than any others upon which to build Alaska and America. I disagree with some of the characters in the party machine, but the GOP stands for principles that will strengthen and secure the country, if they are applied. I'm not obsessively partisan, though, and I don't blame people who dislike political labels even more than I do. My husband, for example, isn't registered with any party, for sound reasons, having been an eyewitness to the idiosyncrasies of party machines. I also don't like the narrow stereotypes of either the "conservative" or the "liberal" label, but until we change the lingo, call me a Commonsense Conservative.

What does it mean to be a Commonsense Conservative?

At its most basic level, conservatism is a respect for history and tradition, including traditional moral principles. I do not believe I am more moral, certainly no better, than anyone else, and conservatives who act "holier than thou" turn my stomach. So do some elite liberals. But I do believe in a few timeless and unchanging truths, and chief among those is that man is fallen. This world is not perfect, and politicians will never make it so. This, above all, is what informs my pragmatic approach to politics.

I am a conservative because I deal with the world as it is--complicated and beautiful, tragic and hopeful. I am a conservative because I believe in the rights and the responsibilities and the inherent dignity of the individual.

In his book A Conflict of Visions, Thomas Sowell explains the underlying assumptions or "visions" that shape our opinions and the way we approach social and political issues. He identifies two separate visions: the unconstrained and the constrained.

People who adhere to the unconstrained vision (the label applied to them is "liberal" or "left-wing") believe that human nature is changeable (therefore perfectible) and that society's problems can all be solved if only the poor, ignorant, disorganized public is told what to do and rational plans are enacted. And who better to make those plans than an elite bureaucracy pulling the strings and organizing society according to their master blueprint? No one can doubt that our current leaders in Washington subscribe to this unconstrained vision.

Conservatives believe in the "constrained" political vision because we know that human nature is flawed and that there are limitations to what can be done in Washington to "fix" society's problems. Commonsense Conservatives deal with human nature as it is--with its unavoidable weaknesses and its potential for goodness. We see the world as it is--imperfect but filled with beauty. We hope for the best. We believe people can change for the better, but we do not ignore history's lessons and waste time chasing utopian pipe dreams.

We don't trust utopian promises from politicians. The role of government is not to perfect us but to protect us--to protect our inalienable rights. The role of government in a civil society is to protect the individual and to establish a social contract so that we can live together in peace.

And all the people said, "Amen!"

Look, I've said before that Mrs. Palin is not my idea of the perfect conservative--but her unabashed avowal of the very principle that I have been hammering on for months encourages me. Yes, that is what government is for. It is here to protect our God-given unalienable rights--which is no more and no less than Thomas Jefferson said in our Declaration of Independence. It is not here to serve as a means by which one group of people can plunder another group of people. It is not here as a medium by which one group of people can finance what they conceive to be society's good with money from other people's pockets. It is not here to serve as a means by which you can chuck all responsibility for your health, your retirement, and your children's education.

It is here to protect your rights. That Mrs. Palin understands that is a very big thing with me.

I can think of other conservatives whom I would prefer to see as president, but they ain't a-runnin', at least not yet. Put Sarah Palin up against a looting, statist thug like Barack Obama, and I'll vote for her without hesitation.

As an aside, some of you won't like that I called President Obama a "looting, statist thug." You think it sounds mean.

You are the same people that told me, "MOTW (though I went by my real name then), give him the benefit of the doubt."

And I told you, "I'm looking at his track record, and his track record is that of a not-so-semi-socialist, abortocentrist, leftist, Christophobic, power-grubbing demagogue."

And you said, "You're so mean!"

Almost a year later, I wonder when you are going to admit that I was not mean at all, but simply descriptive. Probably never, even though the truth of what I told you then is now manifest. I was wrong on not one single point that I can recall. And you? You will not admit what this man is, because to do so means admitting that you had no idea what you were talking about, and that, you will never do. It would eat you up alive to admit that I was right and you were wrong.

And as a second aside, I believe I coined the term "Common Sense Conservative" before Mrs. Palin did. See my definition here.

Summing Up Thoughts on Sarah Palin

Sarah Palin's in the spotlight right now, what with her book having come out and all, and the incredibly vicious attacks that I fully expected have commenced.

My thinking on her hasn't changed. I thought I'd go back and quote snippets from things I've written before that pretty much sum up what I think:

Just because I share many of her political ideas doesn't mean that I will ever forget that she is a professional politician. Turning anything and everything to one's political advantage is what politicians do. Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, and politicians never, ever forget that the whole game is publicity, sound bites, money, and getting elected.

---

Do I think she's the perfect candidate? Heck, no. To my mind, she comes across like a reasonably intelligent, tough-minded redneck woman, with a certain amount of basic common sense, and a grasp of history, foreign policy, and economics to match.

---

But I will readily admit that Sarah Palin isn't my idea of the perfect conservative. While she is clearly not stupid (despite the repeated attempts to portray her as such) she doesn't appear to be the sort of deep thinker that John Adams was. She doesn't appear to have the expertise that allowed Alexander Hamilton to write his Report on Manufactures. She's no Samuel Rutherford, nor a Thomas Reid. That doesn't mean I wouldn't vote for her; you have to compare her to who else is available, and frankly, there isn't anyone running, as far as I can tell, that I would think of as a real conservative, no one whom I would think of as particularly intellectually distinguished or extraordinarily talented, intelligent, and informed. It seems pointless to complain of Sarah Palin's lack of intellectual gravitas when comparing her to the likes of Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee (I am not calling either gentleman stupid, merely pointing out that they don't exactly come across as intellectual heavyweights, either. And don't get me started on the intellectual heft of candidates on the Left.).

And Sarah Palin does have one thing going for her, one thing that all of us red-state rednecks can see quite clearly, and since so many commentators don't quite seem to grasp it, I'll spell it out for those folks in small words:

She.

Means.

It.

All Republican candidates, for example, blah-blah about the Second Amendment. Sarah Palin shoots moose, and apparently has been doing stuff like that all her life. I mean, my word, the woman pretty obviously actually likes guns! All Republican candidates blah-blah about "values." Sarah Palin cares for Trig, and actually belongs to and has always attended church--not a politician's church, but honest-to-goodness reg'lar ol' redneck churches. All Republican candidates blah-blah about small government. Sarah Palin actually tries to shrink the wretched thing. And so on down the line.

---

She may not be a philosophical or theological sophisticate, but she's firm and unabashed about her faith in Jesus Christ and the authority of Scripture. She may not be an economic sophisticate on par with Thomas Sowell, but she knows enough about economics to know that free markets work better than statist controlled economies. She's unashamedly and unabashedly America first. She's committed to smaller government and more liberty. She's firmly committed to the traditional family. She loves guns and hunting and darn near every non-PC point of view and activity you can name. She thinks the Constitution doesn't give government unlimited power. She's a fierce partisan for her point of view. In short, she's about what most people I know are like.

And I think what really scares the left, what really drives them nuts about this woman, is their underlying sense that there may, just may, be enough people like her left in this country to shift the country away from the direction it is currently headed, if only they can find someone to rally around.

---

Folks on the hard left despise people like Sarah Palin, and despise folks like me and most of the people I know. When you see how they treat Palin, you see how they will deal with me and thee, should they get a chance.

And there you pretty much have it. That's what I think, and I expect I'm not alone.

More on Palin

I thought this, from David Harsanyi, was hilarious:

...one can (as I do) admire Palin's charisma and roots, appreciate her dissent on the policy experiments brainy folks in Washington are cooking up and, at the same time, believe she has no business running for president in 2012.

In fact, all you haters out there motivate me to root for her.

There's nothing wrong, for instance, with The Associated Press' assigning a crack team of investigative journalists to sift through every word of Palin's book, "Going Rogue," for inaccuracies. You only wish similarly methodical muckraking were applied to President Barack Obama's two self-aggrandizing tomes -- or even the health care or cap-and-trade bills, for that matter.

The widely read blogger and purveyor of all truth, Andrew Sullivan, was impelled to blog 17 times on the subject of Palin on the same day Americans learned that the Obama administration had awarded $6.7 billion in stimulus money to nonexistent congressional districts -- which did not merit a single mention. To see what is in front of one's nose demands a constant struggle, I guess.

Something drives people nuts about this woman, drives them nuts, it seems, far out of all proportion to the way anyone else drives (or ought to drive) them nuts. I've written on the subject before, and probably will do a short recap sometime soon, if I can get the time, but, in short, I think it's this:

She's not too far off what America was like, overall, circa 1960-1970, and probably is still not too far off what, oh, somewhere between 40 and 60 percent of the public is like. Even forty percent is an awful lot of people. I think that what some people are afraid of is that as long as Sarah Palin is on the national radar, those people have someone to rally 'round, a visible figurehead, and may actually prove to be sufficiently potent to temporarily (or even permanently!) derail our slide into total statism--an outcome they find completely unacceptable.

I read one local lib blog that regularly puts on full display their complete contempt for anyone who believes the Bible, believes in traditional marriage, likes guns and respects gun rights, likes hunting, doesn't think an expansive welfare state will work, etc., despite living in the heart of a state full of folks just like this, the reddest of the red states (a fact of which I am very proud). Folks on the hard left despise people like Sarah Palin, and despise folks like me and most of the people I know. When you see how they treat Palin, you see how they will deal with me and thee, should they get a chance.

Afraid of Sarah Palin?

I drive. I mean, I drive a lot, about seventy thousand miles a year or so, most of it job-related. And I take the opportunity to listen to a lot of talk radio. And before going on to the main point of this post, I'll take a moment to say that I truly think people who go on about the mean-spirited stridency of talk radio have a completely skewed frame of reference. Oh, sure, some are a little more difficult to listen to than others.

Limbaugh is, just as he claims to be, a "highly-trained broadcast professional." Everything on that show is calculated, perhaps on the fly sometimes, but still calculated to keep his audience informed, thinking, and vastly entertained. I know some don't like to admit it to themselves, but the reality is that on average, his audience is more informed, not more ignorant, about what is going on in this country than the average American. Even liberal writer Rick Shenkman concedes this:

You may be thinking to yourself that Rush's audience is mainly made up of "rednecks," and that, while they are a part of the broader public, they should not be considered representative. But who actually comprises Rush's audience of more than 20 million a week? According to a study conducted in 1996 by the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg Public Policy Center, his listeners are better educated and "more knowledgeable about politics and social issues" than the average voter. There are two ways of looking at this. Either we must reconsider our assessment of Rush's show, conceding that it may be of a higher quality than we were prepared to admit. Or we may have to reach the unattractive conclusion that his audience is unrepresentative not because it is inferior in knowledge to the larger pool of American voters but because it is superior.

I have heard Rush be rude to callers perhaps a handful of times in the last five years. Sometimes he vigorously disagrees with them, but I have seldom heard him be rude.

People that think Limbaugh is "strident," in my opinion, either lack the context in which his remarks are made, or have their sensitivity-meter--as regards people other than themselves, anyway--set way too high. A recent example: within the last few weeks, Limbaugh referred to former president Jimmy Carter as "the national hemorrhoid." Were those words I would have used? No. On the other hand, considering that within the forty-eight hours preceding his use of them, former President Carter had been on national blankin' tv twice to accuse about half the country of being racists, considering that the man seems to think it his duty to traipse around the world apologizing to dictators on our behalf, considering that his presidency was one of the worst in the last hundred years (those of you who abhor the right, forget not that Jimmy Carter's gross incompetence lead directly to the rise of Ronald Reagan) and he ought, by all rights, to have the humility to keep his yap shut, but DOESN'T, it's:

A) Hard to quarrel with Rush's pithy assessment that the man is, indeed, a pain in the *** on a national level. You may not like his choice of words, but it is hard to dispute their accuracy.

B) Fair to say that Rush's words were not even in the same ballpark as what Carter said, and keeps saying, about at least half his own countrymen. When I heard from other people on the subject, all I heard was, "Is it true that Rush really said this?" Yes. "Well, that's just terrible!" Do you know the background of the remark? Do you know what Carter said?"

***Crickets chirping***

It's amazing. Carter calls me and everybody else who thinks Barack Obama is an awful president racists, and the focus is on Limbaugh's assessment of Carter.

I listen to Boortz a lot. I disagree with him vehemently on some issues, just like I disagree with Limbaugh on some issues, but Boortz is both informative and tremendously entertaining. I have heard him get "into it" with some callers, but they, frankly, call up there because they want to get into it with him. In general, he's a pussycat--with the exception that when a politician's full of horse squeeze, he'll say so.

I don't listen to Hannity all that much. Once in a while, if he's got an interesting guest. He's not nearly as good as Limbaugh or Boortz.

I never listen to Michael Savage. Just don't get much out of him.

I've only listened to Levin a few times. I am amazed at the difference between the way he comes across in his last book and the way he comes across on his radio show. The book is almost professorial in tone; on the radio, I get the impression that he is about to blow a blood vessel on-air.

Glenn Beck? Haven't listened to him for quite a while, largely because he's on opposite hosts that I prefer. His principle gift: the man is often genuinely funny.

But all that is beside the main point of this post: Rush said, a couple of times last week, that the left, through their MSM mouthpieces, will often tell you who they're afraid of, that is, they try to demonize and destroy the people they fear the most, and by that standard, it is clear that they fear Sarah Palin.

I've been thinking about that all week. The more I think about it, the more I think that it's not so much Sarah Palin they fear as it is a possibility that she represents.

You look at her, and what do you see? The left sees an idiot. I don't see a genius, God knows, but I don't see an idiot, either. What I see is almost a snapshot of a rather large section of America that rather a lot of people seem to have forgotten about, or wish they could somehow wish out of existence.

She may not be a philosophical or theological sophisticate, but she's firm and unabashed about her faith in Jesus Christ and the authority of Scripture. She may not be an economic sophisticate on par with Thomas Sowell, but she knows enough about economics to know that free markets work better than statist controlled economies. She's unashamedly and unabashedly America first. She's committed to smaller government and more liberty. She's firmly committed to the traditional family. She loves guns and hunting and darn near every non-PC point of view and activity you can name. She thinks the Constitution doesn't give government unlimited power. She's a fierce partisan for her point of view. In short, she's about what most people I know are like.

And I think what really scares the left, what really drives them nuts about this woman, is their underlying sense that there may, just may, be enough people like her left in this country to shift the country away from the direction it is currently headed, if only they can find someone to rally around. The very thought of having the country headed away from secularist statism to a vision more in keeping with that of the Founders is enough to convince leftists that they might end up not being able to direct everybody else's property and labor to their own ends, that they might not be able to force people, under color of law, to say that two shacked-up homosexuals are married, that they might not be able to gruesomely murder the unborn as a means of post-conception birth control, etc., and that, they fear.

Now, There Y'Go!

I approve of Mrs. Palin's choice of reading material. Mr. Levin's book is not perfect, but it is as good an introduction to conservatism proper as we are likely to get in such a short space. I wish everyone interested in the subject would take the time to read it--and I especially wish Republican candidates and office-holders would read it, as I long ago grew convinced that most of them didn't quite "get" the true basis of conservatism.

At any rate, if I see a picture of her with a copy of The Fair Tax Book, or The Great Betrayal, my mind's made up: if she runs, she gets my vote.

Hat Tip to John Lott