Saturday, January 24, 2015

“You can absolutely say that I am seriously interested”

I am. As I said yesterday, I’m really interested in the opportunity to serve at some point,” Palin said Friday, as former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum, a potential 2016 rival, looked on.

Palin said, “It is a significant step, of course, for anyone to publicly announce that they’re interested. Who wouldn’t be interested? Who wouldn’t be interested when they have been blessed with opportunities to speak about what is important to this country and for this country?”

81 comments:

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

Sarah Palin thinks she is "blessed with opportunities to speak about what is important to this country and for this country."

Blessed. If you take her at her word then she's saying that she believes she's on a mission from God to save America.

She probably just meant to say that she's lucky, which is giving her the benefit of the doubt, perhaps a bit too much.

It's not important.

john said...

Oh for chrissakes.

Shouting Thomas said...

I can't imagine why anybody would want to take the abuse she would be exposed to... but it takes all kinds.

AllenS said...

It's a free country, Sarah, but just because you can, doesn't mean that you should.

Evi L. Bloggerlady said...

As Sarah Palin said about our current government:

I do not like this Uncle Sam. I do not like his health care scam. I do not like -- oh, just you wait -- I do not like these dirty crooks, or how they lie and cook the books. I do not like when Congress steals, I do not like their crony deals. I do not like this spying, man, I do not like, 'Oh, Yes we can.' I do not like this spending spree, we're smart, we know there's nothing free. I do not like reporters' smug replies when I complain about their lies. I do not like this kind of hope, and we won't take it, nope, nope, nope

chickelit said...

Great quote, EBL. That's why Palin is still relevant.

chickelit said...

I also think that Scott Walker pushes the same buttons with Libs as Sarah Palin does.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Oh, she certainly likes to "speak about what is important to this country and for this country."

The question is, why can't y'all manage to get excited about someone with better speaking skills than she has?

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Was that seriously Sarah Palin providing that Dr. Seuss quote?

See, that's why people have trouble putting her and the word "serious" in the same sentence.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

If it ends up being Hillary! then you can bet Palin's interest would be even greater.

Hillary!'s a horrible candidate - for nearly any race. Palin must be smelling blood in the water. I think she must be the only candidate that she could give a run for her (massive amounts of) money. Hillary!'s polarizing enough to cancel out that whole insane gender warrior vote, which seems to be more and more abating hype than anything else nowadays anyway. And yet, a Palin announcement is probably just about the only thing to really motivate the left-wing gender warriors to encourage more rallying around Hillary! Still, I think the advantage would accrue more to Palin.

Oh well. Here goes four years of brushing up on Dr. Seuss quotes. Not to mention what'll get thrown out there in the campaign.

Shouting Thomas said...

I have no politician heroes, and that includes Sara Palin.

The attack on her, Ritmo, was one of the most vicious, orchestrated attacks I have ever witnessed on any public figure.

The notion that she's stupid has nothing to do with her politics. The attack on her started with a vicious reaction against her for having a large family and escalated from there. Her fecundity is supposed to be the proof of her stupidity.

I don't care whether she runs for office. I really don't care who runs for office. But, there is something deeply vicious and shameful about what she endured. I wouldn't want to go through it again if I were here.

Shouting Thomas said...

I don't share your belief, Ritmo, that credentialism and intellectualism are necessarily what we should be looking for in a president.

The best and most effective president of my lifetime was Ronald Reagan, who was widely ridiculed for being stupid. It is only in retrospect that he has gained grudging admiration from the left.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

The attack on her, Ritmo, was one of the most vicious, orchestrated attacks I have ever witnessed on any public figure.

That sounds like a pretty subjective opinion. Many people say the same thing about Hillary! - including, you guessed it, Sarah Palin!

Myself, I don't think any "attack" on them went too far - save perhaps a few on their kids or the obsession with Hillary!'s clothes… not that those are really political criticisms. Regardless, maybe they think I'm just some big old huge misogynist - can't find me many women who think so, but I'm not sure I care much either way. I always think trumpeting so many kids, family, wives around is a bit of an intentional distraction though. My dad had a family bigger way bigger than Palin's. It's a huge gift to be able to take for granted growing up that close to that many people. Not many Americans understand it, to their loss. Nevertheless, I couldn't think to make that big a deal out of such a thing as a way of promoting myself.

I don't share your belief, Ritmo, that credentialism and intellectualism are necessarily what we should be looking for in a president.

I don't know what credentialism and intellectualism mean, but I think it's fair to say that accomplishments and brains matter.

The best and most effective president of my lifetime was Ronald Reagan…

How so? What did he do effectively, in your opinion?

Shouting Thomas said...

Declaring that his goal was to defeat the Soviet Union was probably Reagan's most dramatic achievement. Not that he alone defeated the Soviet Union. The internal mess finally caught up to them, but Reagan exploited that mess by putting all available pressure on the Russians.

Reagan was an optimist who brought optimism back to the American political scene after the depression of the Nixon and Carter years. This optimism was, of course, not the principal cause of the boom that began in the middle of his term, but it was a factor.

I liked Reagan most because he believed that the job of the president was to represent the interests of the U.S. to the best of his ability in the foreign sphere. He ditched the do-gooder conceits of the Carter era and replaced that with sheer self-interest.

There were many things that Reagan did in terms of policy that I disagreed with. I thought that the wars in Central America, for instance, were self-defeating and unnecessary.

Synova said...

The Never Ending Campaign Season (and even when there used to be a Somewhat Shorter Campaign Season) provides candidates with the opportunity to influence the national conversation. Lots of people run who could never hope to win and they generally do it to try to nudge policy in the direction they think it ought to be nudged.

"See, that's why people have trouble putting her and the word "serious" in the same sentence."

Yeah, and she wrote on her hand once.

Meanwhile my G+ and Facebook keeps on showing me that picture of a woman in a bathtub full of milk and Fruit Loops who Obama apparently, serious guy that he is, MET WITH. Now, this is so unbelievably outrageous that I'm half convinced that it's a hoax.

It must be a hoax, right?

Trooper York said...

Here's the thing. I don't want Sarah Palin to run for the same reason that I don't want Mitt Romney to run. They had their chance and they screwed it up. It's time to give someone else a chance.

That would be a huge advantage to the Republicans if Hillary is the nominee of the Democrats. Unless they nominate Bush almost anyone else would look new and different instead of old and tired.

Walker/Martinez 2016!

Trooper York said...

One thing about the nutjob from the milk bath. She actually asked Obama an important question about Cuba that none of the main stream pussies would ask.

She is more of a journalist than Chuck Todd or Bob Scheifer or Candy Crowley or any of the lap dog media.

I do agree that when you list politicians who are not serious you have to put the Jug Eared Jesus at the head of the list.

Trooper York said...

Creditialism will be a huge issue in this campaign if Scott Walker if he gets any traction in the race. The fact that he didn't finish college makes most of the juice box weenie media come in their diapers. They can't wait to savage him.

There is a theory that he did indeed finish and is keeping it under his bald spot. I think it would be fantastic if he finished it at the University of Phoenix on-line and just didn't say anything about it until he his hit with it at a debate or something.

bagoh20 said...

Some people quit college because they realize it's the slow track for their level of ambition.

Trooper York said...

No doubt bags. Anybody who lives in the real world knows that a college education is not the be all and end all. But journalists and the media live in a bubble where a recent graduate of an Ivy League school knows more about everything than someone who worked in the field for thirty years but doesn't have a degree.

That is the whole problem with the Obama Administration. Credentialism over competence.

AllenS said...

My cousin, God bless her, was one of the smartest kids in our high school graduating class of 362, then off to the University of Minnesota, and if you listen to her, you'll come to the conclusion that she is about as dumb as a box of rocks.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Speaking of "credentialism", which still sounds like a goofy shortcut of an idea masquerading as a word, it's hard to find someone sounding emptier in his ideas and vision and passion than Jeb Bush. And yet, he can't help himself. Pity we can't refer to his nepotism, still a very active factor in 21st century politics apparently, as the "credentialism" that it no doubt constitutes as well.

I think more conventional credentials are getting a bad rap here. Yes, I think a high school diploma might be important. Yes, I prefer to go to a medical school graduate over a faith healer, or a bar ass'n credentialed lawyer over my cousin Vinny. We should have stronger credentials for the trades, given how shitty a plumbing or contracting job you can get in some places. It's Ted Roosevelt who made the civil service and gov't beholden to credentials in the first place, seeing how superior they were to hirings and appointments than the rank spoils system that prevailed at the time. But sometimes today's Republicans amaze me in how much of Bull Moose's legacy they'd like to roll back and how much more like Boss Tweed they instead prefer to become. Sad.

Shouting Thomas said...

Boss Tweed was a Democrat and Teddy Roosevelt was a Progressive.

Credentialism is the practice of demanding multiple degrees for jobs that often demand no degree at all. Even lawyering was once a trade learned by apprenticeship. Abe Lincoln was the great example here. Blue collar workers only need 6 weeks to a semester of trade school and they're good to go and they make very good money. I know because I have many blue collar workers in my family.

Education is generally a good thing. All things start to lose their value at their extremes. Keeping people in school for decades, indebting them for life and delaying their work lives seems to me to have reached the point of being very negative.

I'm a damned good [retired] programmer and multimedia developer. My son-in-law has no education beyond high school and he's making better money than I ever made as a locomotive electrician.

I don't know what the requirements should be for President. Practically speaking, we've made the base requirement a law degree. I'd like to see how people from other backgrounds would do.

Trooper York said...

There is a difference between book smart and street smart. If I was going to ask someone about fixing something I would go to AllenS and not some Ivy League douche. If I was going to ask about running a small manufacturing business I would ask Bag O not Barck O. If I was going to ask about cooking and run on sentences I would naturally talk to Chip Ahoy. Some people just have practical experience you can't get in an Ivory Tower.

Jeb Bush is the worst kind of legacy creditialist bitch. You have to realize he is the candidate of the establishment republicans. I doubt that he is a candidate of any of the people who post here. He is a hack of the first water. Hillary Clinton with deflated balls.

Trooper York said...

There are whole categories of people who would make a great President who never get a look. We have enough lawyers from the Ivy League.

The three best Presidents in the last seventy years were a haberdasher, general and actor.

Not a lawyer amongst them!

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

The only requirements for becoming president are 35 years of age as a natural born U.S. citizen with 14 years residency, as it should be. No need to change that.

We can't stop the association of greater education with greater income, despite the fact that great options should and do exist for others, especially in the trades. Mike Rowe's got some great things to say about that. With all this hullabaloo on community colleges, we need to go to a European system of at least allowing 16 year olds to enter skilled trade training, even if we don't require a testing for years prior to and just up to that time to mandate that they get onto a lifelong trade-track or collegiate-track. But the options and opportunities should be there. It would probably help incentivize greater infrastructure activity as well, which we sorely need.

Too many people are going to college these days. Much of it is income envy but I also blame the willingness of colleges to dumb-down their curriculum emphasize rote memorization over critical thinking. It didn't used to be like that. t doubt it's a coincidence that this change also accompanied the vastly expanded enrollment of women in colleges, as they tend to memorize better than they question and challenge.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Hillary Clinton with deflated balls.

Lol.

There are too many lawyers in politics, period. But then, Lincoln was of their ranks and he was the best one we had.

Shouting Thomas said...

One of the more interesting articles I read recently was about the reality that most people don't care much for book learning. I knew so many people like that in high school. Couldn't wait for it all to end so they could get a job, get married and start a life.

Most people simply don't read. Anything. If they can avoid it.

Among the literary, technical and professional classes, it is assumed that people want to read and to be book educated. That's true, really, only for a small fraction of the populace.

Trooper York said...

Lincoln didn't go to college. He chopped wood like AllenS or Sixty Grit.

I would be very happy to have someone like AllenS or Sixty Grit as President.

chickelit said...

Rhythm and Balls said...The question is, why can't y'all manage to get excited about someone with better speaking skills than she has?

Shorter R&B:the three most important aspects in politics are locution, locution, and locution.

Better aspects are integrity, experience, and empathy. Reagan had all of those qualities in spades unlike Obama. Reagan was a pretty good speaker as well, probably because of his trade craft. He was also a good quipper -- has anyone ever heard Obama quip? Despite all that, I voted against Reagan two times -- probably because I stupid and in college.

chickelit said...

I would be very happy to have someone like ...Sixty Grit as President.

Americans haven't elected a man with a beard since Benjamin Harrison.

Over to you, Troop.

Trooper York said...

That's not true. They elected a beard. I mean Hillary's beard served two terms. Just sayn'

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

If you think Reagan had empathy it must have been of a very restrictive variety - essentially limited to people of his own immediate circumstances. Example #1 is poverty. Example #2 is his not giving a shit about AIDS, until his lifelong closeted homosexual friend Rock Hudson developed it.

And as for the integrity of not capitulating (supposedly to terrorism as well as to communism) while withdrawing from Lebanon following the Marine barracks bombing, well, I'll let you explain that one to me. Doesn't mean there was no point to being there, I'm just wondering where the integrity was. And as for the integrity of selling arms to our sworn enemies in Iran in exchange for funding Central American revolutions, well, that's even more convoluted. Maybe it gets at what ST hinted at… I'm not sure. But it sure doesn't sound like there was much integrity to it.

People who like Reagan are like people who like Obama. They like the simple symbolism of what those blokes provoke people to rally around. It's all just about liking the personality, not (for the most part) what they did.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Back then you didn't have to go to college to become a lawyer.

Trooper York said...

Hey here is a stray thought.

The exact polar opposite of Barak Obama?

Ernie Banks.

Shouting Thomas said...

"Example #2 is his not giving a shit about AIDS..."

This is a myth, Ritmo.

First, there was nothing to be done about AIDS until the mid-90s. Despite the carrying on of gay activists, there was absolutely no effective treatment for AIDS until well into the 90s. This had nothing to do with funding levels. I worked in clinical drug trials. AIDS research has historically been incredibly over-funded.

I was right in the middle of the AIDS epidemic in SF and NYC, buried many friends, watched entire artistic troupes eradicated and I still have HIV positive friends. I know the AIDS epidemic all too well.

Reagan was not a factor. The notion that he laughed over AIDS is political propaganda... and, in reality, it doesn't matter, since as I said there was no effective treatment available. All you could do pre-mid 90s was offer palliative care.

Shouting Thomas said...

What I meant about Reagan's policy in Central America is that I think he made a mistake in conflating the conflicts in El Salvador and Nicaragua with what he saw as a world-wide conflict with the Soviet Union.

Reagan was a man of his time... his worldview was formed by WWII and the Cold War that followed.

Shouting Thomas said...

They like the simple symbolism of what those blokes provoke people to rally around.

Well, it is called the "bully pulpit," Ritmo.

The power of the president is largely the power of having the megaphone and attempting to set the tone and agenda.

And, as I said, Reagan was a master of using the bully pulpit. He changed the outlook of the country from wallowing in defeatism over the Vietnam War. He resurrected America's native optimism and get 'er done attitude.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Oh you're hilarious. "Historically" over-funded? How historical are we going to get when talking about something that took fifteen years to get from being noticed to effectively treated? Reagan not only didn't prioritize funding, he wouldn't mention it. That's a big problem. David Ho was at the Aaron Diamond Reasearch Center and Rockefeller University. The former spent $220 million and the latter has an endowment of $1.65 billion. It's hard to see how you call something over-funded compared to numbers right there. That's what scientific research is. No one knows (especially then) what sort of funding would take to reach a breakthrough. That's what "not knowing" is all about.

And yes, Reagan's silence was the big problem. We're talking about a completely preventable disease. You have no problem going into lurid detail to describe gay bathhouse behavior, and yet, Reagan was awesome for shutting up about AIDS? Did he lack the presence of mind to forget that stopping its spread is/was Priority #1? That sounds like an awful lot of looking askance at how early the onset of his Alzheimers must have been.

Granted, I'm not excoriating him completely. I'm just saying that on this whitewashing, it's somewhat jaw-agape inducing. Regardless of what "could have been done" about AIDS, he was either scared shitless politically or medically about lifting a finger or has to be forgiven on account of early dementia or cultural paranoia - which is not really a good excuse. A president should face the times, not rely on a presumption of how we could make things feel more like the 1950s.

As far as Central America goes, I've heard it said that things are getting better and better either because of or despite what we did then. I'm not sure I know enough to say one way or another which is the case.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Well, it is called the "bully pulpit," Ritmo.

The power of the president is largely the power of having the megaphone and attempting to set the tone and agenda.


Yes. Presidents are both head of state and head of government. Which is both a benefit and a hindrance. It's a symbolic role and a practical role. I think Obama's good at addressing younger crowds adept at using social media to get things done. That's just the way things have changed these days. It's just how it goes. It's impossible to watch that embedded clip and call him out of touch with the way a new generation of people have found new and important and more effective ways of reaching people and addressing the problems we face. (Except for, perhaps, the freaky lady with the green lipstick. But hey - even she has an audience).

This is the generation of crowd-funding and Kickstarter. It will change things much more drastically and much more for the better. And it's hard to argue that Obama's relevant to it and incredibly more adept at understanding and working within it.

Shouting Thomas said...

Ritmo, I know the AIDS epidemic from the inside out.

Funding has always been there. When I said "overfunding," what I meant is that so much money was being thrown around that researchers struggled to spend it all. Same is true for Alzheimer's drug research. So much money in the pipeline that it overwhelmed the system.

Gay activists fought the closing of the bathhouses in SF and NYC. You're just plain wrong here. I was there.

The ideology of gay activists at the time was the gay men had started a great human revolution in the bathhouses. Gay male behavior was thought at the time to be a model that would lead straights to greater sexual expression and freedom.

Gay activists fought the closing of the bathhouses right up until the death toll was so extravagant in their own ranks that they surrendered.

Reagan had nothing to do at all with the AIDS epidemic. There was nothing to be done. Effective drug treatment did not become available until the mid-90s. You're blaming Reagan for something that has nothing to do with him or the AIDS epidemic. You're probably seen the political propaganda move "And the Band Played On."

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

I think you're addressing separate things. I'm not denying the timeline of PI (protease inhibitor) development, don't know enough about the funding issues, and never said that bathhouse "issues" even had anything to do with Reagan. I'm simply criticizing his unwillingness to address the American people and those most affected by the scary epidemic all over the newspapers that led to high school kids who contracted it from transfusions being bullied and expelled. A president has a duty to address that much fear and ignorance and danger and hate, and he willingly chose to do none of the above. Until Rock Hudson died. All these peripheral issues are ways of avoiding that fact. There was no good excuse for neglecting to address America (with his "bully pulpit") about this. Unless he just didn't know what to say. But obviously he did… once Good Ole Rock kicked the bucket.

That's what's called lack of empathy. It might be understandable, given his cultural predilections and age and background. But it really wasn't a shining moment of his presidency. It was a let-down at best, a failure at worst.

Contrast that to what W. Bush and Bill Gates have done about AIDS. There really wasn't a good excuse for that much level of concern on his part. Or again, he was just afraid to look into it. One way or another, his silence was pretty deafening.

It's just one part of his presidency, but clearly not a great one at all.

ricpic said...

Sarah radiates happiness. That's what bugs the Left, which, with its usual shallowness, equates gloom with depth.

chickelit said...

Bringing this back to Palin, I never understood the gay hostility towards Palin. I'm talking about hanging her in effigy in W. Hollywood for Halloween, 2008. I'd link a photo but that would cause Titus to leave a series of shit stains in the comments on my own blog.

Sarah Palin is fabulous!

tits

chickelit said...

James Taranto wrote a pretty good piece on "Palinoia:" link

Shouting Thomas said...

I'm not emotionally invested in any politician, but there are things about Palin that I like.

Why the gay hatred? Well, I know a few gay men who admire her.

Sexual paranoia runs deep. I've lived among the sexual outlaws my entire adult life. There is a tendency among such people to attribute their own choices to compulsion produced by other people and forces outside themselves. Makes them feel more dramatic and important, and the phenomenon also is fueled by paranoia.

Guilt is a natural human emotion. When the sexual outlaws are afflicted with guilt, their first reaction is to imagine that it is being inflicted on them from outside. Hence, the animus toward Palin.

She's normal in the old fashioned way. Loves men. Wants babies. Paranoid sexual outlaws look at her and their first reaction is that she is responsible for the guilt they feel. Her ability to embrace the normal heterosexual role is an affront that is responsible for their imagined persecution.

Shouting Thomas said...

Some time ago, I realized that the "homophobes" everybody keeps talking about are parents who want blood grandchildren from their children.

Put that together with my last post.

The people gays feel overwhelming guilt toward are their parents.

bagoh20 said...

"First, there was nothing to be done about AIDS until the mid-90s. Despite the carrying on of gay activists, there was absolutely no effective treatment for AIDS until well into the 90s."

There was one thing to do, and that was to get gay men to stop screwing irresponsibly. The homophobes at the time were right, and if the gay community listened to the homophobes and conservatives of the time instead of calling them names and deflecting and obscuring with bullshit like insisting that AIDS was not a primarily a gay problem but a threat for straights as well, then many of them would never have gotten it and be alive today. Sometimes the people who make you feel guilty are doing you a favor.

bagoh20 said...

And Chip is not the only one who can do a decent run on sentence and I don't even try.

Shouting Thomas said...

There was one thing to do, and that was to get gay men to stop screwing irresponsibly.

Yes, the AIDS epidemic was ignited by the unrestrained sexual behavior of gay men.

What happened in SF and NYC was that the great hippie Summer of Love in (I believe) 1968 led to the belief that all sexual restraints and morals were just obsolete baggage from the past. With every passing month, sexual behavior among both straights and gays became wilder and crazier.

Everything went to hell when homosexuality became the banner of sexual freedom. The behavior of gay men in the bathhouses was so crazy and gross that I will not even describe it.

edutcher said...

She needs yo hold another elective office before she goes POTUS (and I think she knows that), but I'd vote for her in a heartbeat.

I'll say again I think her best role is as a reformer - a wife and mom, a small business owner, a self-made woman, someone of the people who knows what it means to meet a payroll and run a household.

Rhythm and Balls said...

Oh, she certainly likes to "speak about what is important to this country and for this country."

The question is, why can't y'all manage to get excited about someone with better speaking skills than she has?


Y'mean like Glo-zell Green's new BFF?

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Fear of AIDS was its own device against "screwing irresponsibly" -- among everyone, not just queers. No homophobia was necessary for that.

I'm not sure if you use a term like "sexual outlaw" in a legal sense, but I think most people's sexual inclinations are internal. Guilt, when applied to how you approach sex, is mostly external or communal. Or I guess it depends on how discrete or indiscrete you want to be. I don't care if gays screw each other (if irresponsibly though, there should be a tax on bathhouses like on cigarettes) or if Palin wants us to admire her vaginal birthing powers (also, as long as she pays for every one of them in excess of the first 1.4 kids). People are confusing personal choices with public celebrations. Pay for what you do and take responsibility and there's no intrinsic value in what turns you on. We are not in danger of going extinct, but we are in danger of not caring for the connections, even at the national level, that we make. Even if it's between our daughter and her baby-daddy.

Shouting Thomas said...

I'm not aware that Palin uses her fecundity as a recruiting or propaganda tool as you suggest, Ritmo.

No, fear of consequences did not and is not stopping gay men. AIDS is returning in NY and SF. There is even a subculture of gay men who deliberately seek out partners who are HIV positive.

I do not agree with your belief that guilt is imposed on the individual from outside. Guilt is innate and it is useful. It is intended to make us stop and consider the consequences of our actions.

Revolutionaries have been fighting against the myth of externally invoked guilt for centuries, and they keep losing.

chickelit said...

...if Palin wants us to admire her vaginal birthing powers (also, as long as she pays for every one of them in excess of the first 1.4 kids).

Scoff-worthy!

You're smart enough to know that the 1.8 number reflects that some people have more than the average number of kids to compensate for for those that have none. To be consistent, you should just a strongly voice support of punitive taxes on the childless.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Your own admiration of her "old fashioned ways", loving men and wanting babies suggests that you do look kindly upon her fecundity. I myself have no problem with it.. just think it's embarrassingly hypocritical for her to hate and shun her own daughter's baby-daddy in light of that. Barring completely extreme circumstances, a parent should have a right to see their kid. Let the kid make up their own mind on the "worthiness" of that parent later in life, on their own terms.

I daresay no one will be "stopping gay men". Gay men exist. As for risky behavior, I don't think it's to the extent that it was then. Yes, AIDS is returning, but not at those rates. People are becoming more relaxed about sex, but not normalizing orgies or in a way that dismisses long-term relationships.

Guilt is an emotion, like any other - so obviously it is felt internally. What is external is what we are taught to apply it to. This varies obviously by culture - some in ways that are more widely shared with other cultures and some not so much. The Roman Catholic Church, for instance, shames sex itself to an extent that I can hardly imagine finding "internally" acceptable. But I didn't grow up in its culture. Likewise, Islam shames Muslims if it feels infidels have upstaged them in some rational or legitimate way - to the point where killing them for it as revenge is the only way to regain that pride. Suffice to say that I don't identify with such a source for guilt, either.

What I feel guilty about are things that I personally and through my own American and cultural influences, have decided reinforces or legitimately challenges my own understandings of right and wrong - both those that I might have "naturally" felt that way about from a young age or those that I've come to feel that way (or less so) about after growing up. To say that we are incapable of re-evaluating our morality through such a mechanism, individual as well as cultural, sounds like an unrealistically limiting proposition.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Actually Chick - you're right. But for a different reason. Obviously I f'ed up the number, because replacement fertility rates are actually 2.1 I can't remember where I got 1.4 from, unless it was a top-of-my-head average number or whatnot. Or maybe I'm a dry drunk. I don't know. And there's no need to be consistent. Children are something that society must pay for. Joyously, in an ideal world. But childlessness is not a condition that imparts any financial burden on society. You should have seen what the opportunities were like in Dark Ages Europe after each plague!

Unknown said...

NO. All the re-trends need to go away. We need fresh blood to beat the old hag.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Scoff-worthy!

Lol. Insert visual image of Chick's eyes opening wide at the monitor whilst emitting a highly breathy glottal stop. ;-)

chickelit said...

Insert visual image of Chick's eyes opening wide at the monitor whilst emitting a highly breathy glottal stop. ;-)

Scoff-worthy!

Shouting Thomas said...

The Roman Catholic Church, for instance, shames sex itself to an extent that I can hardly imagine finding "internally" acceptable.

It does? How do you know that?

But I didn't grow up in its culture.

So, you don't know, do you?

Evi L. Bloggerlady said...

Sarah Palin wants Scott Walker or Ted Cruz to be the nominee

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

I've met them.

Don't be daft. I don't go asking how on earth it is that you would know anything about Filipino culture.

Unknown said...

I love how the leftwing group think machine made Palin's children and personal decisions the BIG DEAL. And now they complain that it was Palin all along.

Andrew Sullivan insisted and obsessed that Palin gave birth to her own daughter's children. but yeah that insanity and obsession
are all Palin's fault, too. If only she didn't insult the left's god-king, they wouldn't have had to resort to their gutter obsessions.

chickelit said...

Andrew Sullivan insisted and obsessed that Palin gave birth to her own daughter's children. but yeah that insanity and obsession
are all Palin's fault, too. If only she didn't insult the left's god-king, they wouldn't have had to resort to their gutter obsessions.


If you look back now to 2008, you realize that everyone (both sides) had oodles of time to vilify Hillary, Obama, McCain et al. But Palin was so new and so fresh that the virally vile response to her -- harassarah -- made mistakes and they never had a chance to walk back anything. Not that they wanted to or even tried. It doesn't help that they perpetuate it still.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Chickie - your fragility and extended visceral memories of some imagined catastrophe that you believe was somehow visited upon the underwhelming half-term governor and her family is really quite melodramatic. Even the tomboys crying crocodile tears for Hillary! don't get as weepy for her. Maybe it must be a phase. Seriously, Muslim agitators upset over cartoons of Muhammad don't get as misty as you do about Good Ole Half-Term.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

I think Matt Damon had it right. Her best career move should have been a Disney movie about the hockey mom staring down Putin in her spare time between running errands, tanning bed sessions and gratuitously disowning her son-in-law.

Unknown said...

Under Alaska law, Palin couldn't fight all the bogus leftwing charges against without stepping down fist. So she did.

wow- leftwinger win!

Unknown said...

In other words, Leftwinger fetish mongers get to bitch out of both sides of their assholes. neatoh!

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

I'd rather have a half-term governor than a half-term senator. A half-term senator who cheated his way up the ladder to get there. But that pant crease! It was so awesome.
Never mind half-term senator's
wife and her then new job that netted her 300,000 annual salary for a non-job at the local hospital while poor inner city blacks lost resources.

chickelit said...

Rhythm and Balls said... I think Matt Damon had it right.

Matt Damon is kinda washed up at this point -- especially compared to Ben Affleck. Who really cares what he thinks or says? He's just a better-looking and leaner version of Michael Moore.

chickelit said...

It doesn't help that they perpetuate it still.

It's Yogi Berra time.

Unknown said...

Matt Damon is just a better-looking and leaner version of Michael Moore.

So true.

Titus said...

chick, you can link to the pic, you want to, go ahead. I am over it and I know you have your cravings.

massaging tom brady's balls.

i don't love any politician-they are all gross and need to get a real job and be term limited so they can be a high paid lobbyist.

Titus said...

Matt Damon is from Cambridge...fab.

Trooper York said...

The thing is that Sarah has still got it. She brings everybody out to play.

Even Titus who should be playing with Tom Brady's Balls.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Who really cares what he thinks or says?

Because it was funny, gosh darn it. You know damn well you'd take your kids to see a Disney movie about a hockey mom who sekritly moonlights as a spy or high-ranking official taking on Vladimir Putin with her folksy aphorisms. You know you would love it, too.

I know what you guys fantasize about.

Trooper York said...

Not even close Ritmo.

Now if you start with Betty Rubble and a bearskin rug....well now ya talkin'

Tank said...

Palin has certain skills and could play an important role getting the country moving in the RIGHT directions, helping to motivate people and get them working for the RIGHT. That role is not likely to be as President or any elected official.

Aridog said...

I intend to reserve my comments now about Sarah Palin until I have a chance to find and watch a few of her current cable television shows about "America." If they are as invented/bogus as her first endeavor, I will have nothing to say. This is coming from a guy whose better half worked very hard for her, 15+ hours per week, in 2012, and I supported that effort.

This is not because I have any use for anyone in Hollywood, et al, but because I feel she should make her presentations real, not imaginary....if she is executive material per se. As it is now, I think she'd best serve as a supporter of other candidates. She really seems to be able to tweak up the progressives, while presenting little threat in reality, so I have to credit her for that.

Footnote: Please I do NOT want to debate my prior comments on TOP vis a vis Sarah Palin. This is no longer 2012 and I think it is possible she has taken more control of her role. But I'll wait to see that.

Amartel said...

The left gets trolled by Sarah Palin.
Yet again.
It's just so easy!