Another Day. Another Liberal Hypocrisy

Adrienne — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 20:47:15 +0000

Every so often, I’m reminded of the hypocrisy of the left. For example in 2007, Condoleeza Rice was attacked for not having children. One year later, feminists questioned if motherhood hampered Palin’s abilities to govern.

Palin was also attacked for using a ghost writer for Going Rogue when Hillary Clinton had one for It Takes a Village, and no one on the left complained.

Anyone else confused?

Today, I ran across an editoral by Daved McGrath attacking Palin’s use of the feminist label. While I have my own issues with that movement, try to notice the glaring hypocrisy:

As usual, she talks a different game. In her vice-presidential debate with Joe Biden in the fall of 2008, she identified herself as a feminist, asserting she supports equal rights for women. She pointed to her own experience to prove women can “do it all.”

In reality, women in American have been “doing it all” long before Sarah Palin was born. As early as 1960, 40 percent of women with school-aged children were keeping a house while also working outside the home. The figure is 70 percent today.

This is interesting. According to all women’s movement lore, women did not experience liberation until 1963 when Betty Friedan published The Feminine Mystique. In 1960, three years before publication, women were still toiling away in their suburban living rooms feeling oppressed. Hmmm…. Perhaps McGrath and the feminists need to get on the same page.

Also note that women “doing it all” is still a very intense debate. Google “Mommywars” if you want a taste. When Palin invoked those words, she showed that she’s like most other American women who are struggling to find balance in their lives.

McGrath continues:

Frontiers for rights for women, as articulated by the National Organization of Women, have extended to abortion and reproductive rights, economic justice, lesbian rights, bringing an end to sexual discrimination, promoting diversity and ending racism, stopping violence against women, immigration reform, and public health care.

Palin is anathema to nearly all these goals…

So “frontiers” for women’s rights also happen to mirror the agenda of the Democratic Party? Coincidence?

What happened to other “frontiers?” I thought “frontiers” meant achievements and recognitions of women’s progress not the current progressive platform. What about all the firsts from Republican women? Reagan appointed the first woman to the Supreme Court. Condoleeza Rice was the first female National Security Advisor. Palin was the first female governor of Alaska and the first woman on the ticket for the GOP. Jeannette Rankin, a Republican, was the first woman in Congress starting in 1917. Early Suffragists Lucy Stone and Mary Livermore were also Republicans. The Republican Party was also the first party to support the equal rights of women.

When are feminists and the larger left going to get it. You either have it one way or the other. Women were either oppressed by their suburban houses in 1960 or working. When it’s convenient, these issues are rallying cries for more laws to be passed. When conservatives and Republicans (not necessarily the same thing) are actually doing something productive, these are suddenly non-issues.

When did frontiers for women mean gay rights, multiculturalism, immigration and socialized health care? All of those are liberal issues, not just women’s issues.

Going Rogue Faith

Adrienne — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 20:47:36 +0000

On Twitter a number of people asked my opinions of Going Rogue, and I promised a review. Honestly, I doubt that I could say anything original. Overall, I enjoyed it. I felt like the last chapter was rushed and was a mixture of everything that she wanted to say and couldn’t fit in elsewhere. It’s a stupid attack to say that it Palin didn’t cover policy issues. Palin wrote an autobiography, not her plan to change America. She also writes extensively about energy and oil — the most important issues in Alaska. However, the one theme that stuck out to me was Sarah Palin and her faith.

US News and World Report finally published the first review of her book from the faith perspective. If anyone else has written on her faith, I’ve missed it.

Though most of the talk surrounding the release of Going Rogue revolves around how it affects Palin’s standing as a political figure, including her chances of winning the White House, should she choose to run, the book is as much poised to heighten Palin’s profile as a Christian leader. “It’s a mistake to frame all this in the context of her potential candidacy,” Mark DeMoss, one of the country’s top Christian media specialists, says of Going Rogue. “She wants to tell her story and the story of her personal faith journey.” At a time when politically conservative evangelicals lack a national figurehead, Palin’s ability to connect with them could also deepen her appeal to a key part of the Republican base. “Christian audiences could respond to this like they did when George W. Bush talked about his faith,” says John Green, a religion and politics expert at the University of Akron. “This community takes faith very seriously and likes people who talk about their faith journey.”

For the record, I am a Christian and started my relationship with Christ when I was four.* Hence, as a person who shares the same faith, my views of the book come from this perspective. Anytime a well-known figure writes about his or her faith, the media tries to find an angle behind it. A person can’t write about a relationship with God because it’s a crucial part of his or her existence but because he or she is trying to court a demographic or change public opinion.

When it comes to Palin, I get the impression she’s just writing about her journey with God.

To those who have not experienced a personal encounter with God, this is absolutely impossible to understand. Faith requires, well faith. It can’t be understood unless you believe and have experienced it yourself. It simply can’t be analyzed. If you are a Christian, your relationship with God is the single most important thing in your life. Everything else revolves around it. Your decisions, your actions, your thoughts — everything stems from your faith. If you are a Believer, it is impossible to write your memoirs without including your personal relationship with Christ. It’s more important than oxygen to our existence.

Hence, it is ridiculous to analyze Palin’s faith as an attempt to become an Evangelical leader, assume the mantle of James Dobson or get the Christian vote.

US News also covers how Palin’s faith affected her actions and political views:

Until now, that part of Palin’s story has been mostly implied. As John McCain’s vice presidential running mate last year, she generally avoided talk of her faith and its influence on her politics. But word of her decision to carry her pregnancy to term despite knowing her son Trig would be born with Down syndrome was an inspiration to antiabortion activists, mostly Roman Catholics and evangelicals. News that Palin’s unwed teen daughter Bristol was pregnant and would give birth had a similar effect. “[The Palins] should be commended once again for not just talking about their pro-life and pro-family values,” Focus on the Family’s James Dobson said at the time, “but living them out even in the midst of trying circumstances.”

I’ve seen a number of people attack Palin for writing that her first response to discovering she was pregnant was how easy it was to get an abortion. Why? She believes it’s wrong, but it’s still human nature to consider the easiest way out when faced with a dilemma. The “Christian” course of action is to realize that those actions are wrong and choose the course of life. Christians are just as human as everyone else and make mistakes, as evidenced by Bristol.

I had always admired Palin because she was a conservative women who reflected my views. After reading Going Rogue, my respect for her grew because I recognized a fellow Christian trying to live out her faith in a very public sphere. I would like to get the perspective of a liberal Christian’s views of her book. Would you respect Palin more as a fellow Believer or do politics still cloud opinion?

*I always hesitate to write about issues relating to faith. Once you expose yourself as a Believer, you get attacked anytime you deviate from the stereotype of what is “acceptable” as a Christian from both Christians and non-Christians. You also get written off as an uneducated nutjob or hick (i.e. Kenneth the Page from 30 Rock) . Frankly, writing about your faith is a hot mess, and I try to avoid it. However, it is impossible to write about Palin’s faith without responding as a fellow Christian.

Cosmopolitan Conservative » Going Rogue

Another Day. Another Liberal Hypocrisy

Going Rogue Faith