Seeing is Believing
Getting to know your V.P. candidates.
Sarah Palin
The amiable, attractive, hockey-mom has won our hearts. Unlike the semi-liberal McCain, Palin sticks to Republican doctrine with the same unblinking faith of President Bush. My in-laws, who hesitated to vote McCain, breathed relief when Palin was chosen, and will now surely vote for McCain because of a woman they know nothing about. That's charisma.
I heard some Republican zealot say that V.P. candidate Sarah Palin has foreign policy experience because Alaska is geographically close to Russia, you can even see Russia from parts of Alaska! Later I heard Sarah herself say it. And that's not just a joke they say in Alaska, she was being serious.
I love this logic. Because I have seen a doctor, I am a medical expert. Because I have seen a plane, I'm a pilot. It's like a superpower. Even better, I attend a university, so I have seen many professors, and am therefore an expert in almost every field. Honorary degree, please, BYU. I have seen women, so I'm pretty much a certified gynecologist. And I have seen so much bullshit this election that I am ready to be a politician.
But perhaps my brain does not work the same way as Palin's. Utah borders Idaho, Colorado, Nevada, Arizona, and shares a corner with New Mexico. I have even personally visited some of these states. Yet I cannot think of a single thing about any of them. I know some of them are dry, others grow potatoes, one has mountains. That's about it. Though these states are our neighbors, and even speak our own language, and share our government, I dare say I am anything but an expert on them.
(Sorry for the commercial, before the good stuff)
Palin is capable, determined, fearless, strong, and able. I'm sure she could quickly tackle any task given her, even the Presidency of the United States.
But she is from that new school of Republicanism that mingles faith with politics, which sounds good, unless you've lived under the Bush presidency for the last eight years, or read this:
"Nothing is a greater injury to the children of men than to be under the influence of a false spirit when they think they have the Spirit of God. Thousands have felt the influence of its terrible power and baneful effects. Long pilgrimages have been undertaken, penances endured, and pain, misery and ruin have followed in their train; nations have been convulsed, kingdoms overthrown, provinces laid waste, and blood, carnage and desolation are habiliments in which it has been clothed." - Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, Section Four 1839-42, p.205
Sounds like Iraq. Bush has ruined our reputation among both allies and enemies, based on gut feelings and his faith that his decisions are inspired. None are so stubborn and unreasonable as those who think they are inspired. So it will be with Palin.
Joseph Biden
Hair plugs, old white guy, loony with loose lips. McCain? No, Biden. Obama, accused of being inexperienced, chose an old experienced majority; just like McCain, who was accused of being an old politician, chose a young, inexperienced minority. Sounds like either party offers the same ticket.
He has actual foreign policy experience, not the kind you get with a pair of binoculars on an Alaskan beach, the real kind, that enabled him to brief the President on Europe before Bush took a trip there.
Biden became a senator at the youngest age possible: he was elected at age 29, and sworn it at age 30. That same year, 1972, his wife and baby daughter were killed in a car accident, and his two sons were seriously injured. Biden remained a single father for 5 years, before remarrying in 1977.
He's Catholic, he has never drunk alcohol, and is one of the poorest (in dollars) members of the senate. This means that he has not taken bribes from lobbyists to get rich like other politicians.
For three decades, Joe Biden has served on the Senate's Foreign Relations Committee, becoming its Chairman in January of 2006.
In 1994, he authored the landmark legislation that helped set up shelters and a national hotline where women who are abused by husbands or boyfriends can get help. It also increased the court system's abilities to protect women who are being stalked.
Sarah Palin
The amiable, attractive, hockey-mom has won our hearts. Unlike the semi-liberal McCain, Palin sticks to Republican doctrine with the same unblinking faith of President Bush. My in-laws, who hesitated to vote McCain, breathed relief when Palin was chosen, and will now surely vote for McCain because of a woman they know nothing about. That's charisma.
I heard some Republican zealot say that V.P. candidate Sarah Palin has foreign policy experience because Alaska is geographically close to Russia, you can even see Russia from parts of Alaska! Later I heard Sarah herself say it. And that's not just a joke they say in Alaska, she was being serious.I love this logic. Because I have seen a doctor, I am a medical expert. Because I have seen a plane, I'm a pilot. It's like a superpower. Even better, I attend a university, so I have seen many professors, and am therefore an expert in almost every field. Honorary degree, please, BYU. I have seen women, so I'm pretty much a certified gynecologist. And I have seen so much bullshit this election that I am ready to be a politician.
But perhaps my brain does not work the same way as Palin's. Utah borders Idaho, Colorado, Nevada, Arizona, and shares a corner with New Mexico. I have even personally visited some of these states. Yet I cannot think of a single thing about any of them. I know some of them are dry, others grow potatoes, one has mountains. That's about it. Though these states are our neighbors, and even speak our own language, and share our government, I dare say I am anything but an expert on them.
(Sorry for the commercial, before the good stuff)
Palin is capable, determined, fearless, strong, and able. I'm sure she could quickly tackle any task given her, even the Presidency of the United States.
But she is from that new school of Republicanism that mingles faith with politics, which sounds good, unless you've lived under the Bush presidency for the last eight years, or read this:
"Nothing is a greater injury to the children of men than to be under the influence of a false spirit when they think they have the Spirit of God. Thousands have felt the influence of its terrible power and baneful effects. Long pilgrimages have been undertaken, penances endured, and pain, misery and ruin have followed in their train; nations have been convulsed, kingdoms overthrown, provinces laid waste, and blood, carnage and desolation are habiliments in which it has been clothed." - Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, Section Four 1839-42, p.205
Sounds like Iraq. Bush has ruined our reputation among both allies and enemies, based on gut feelings and his faith that his decisions are inspired. None are so stubborn and unreasonable as those who think they are inspired. So it will be with Palin.
Joseph Biden
Hair plugs, old white guy, loony with loose lips. McCain? No, Biden. Obama, accused of being inexperienced, chose an old experienced majority; just like McCain, who was accused of being an old politician, chose a young, inexperienced minority. Sounds like either party offers the same ticket.
He has actual foreign policy experience, not the kind you get with a pair of binoculars on an Alaskan beach, the real kind, that enabled him to brief the President on Europe before Bush took a trip there.
Biden became a senator at the youngest age possible: he was elected at age 29, and sworn it at age 30. That same year, 1972, his wife and baby daughter were killed in a car accident, and his two sons were seriously injured. Biden remained a single father for 5 years, before remarrying in 1977.He's Catholic, he has never drunk alcohol, and is one of the poorest (in dollars) members of the senate. This means that he has not taken bribes from lobbyists to get rich like other politicians.
For three decades, Joe Biden has served on the Senate's Foreign Relations Committee, becoming its Chairman in January of 2006.
In 1994, he authored the landmark legislation that helped set up shelters and a national hotline where women who are abused by husbands or boyfriends can get help. It also increased the court system's abilities to protect women who are being stalked.
Joe believes violence against women is the ugliest and cruelest crime there is, and the legislation has given hundreds of thousands of women a second chance and a way out. Since it passed, both domestic violence and incidents of rape are significantly down nationwide.
Joe Biden has been instrumental in crafting almost every major crime law in the last two decades. In 1994, the Biden Crime Law put more than 100,000 cops on America's streets, and crime went down eight years in a row. The law requires communities to be notified when convicted sex offenders move into a neighborhood.
And when he gets angry, he talks crazy and sometimes swears.
I hope that was helpful. If you vote for your candidates based on whether or not they are Republicans or Democrats, you do not always vote for the best, and you do your country a disservice.
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