18 April 2010: Sarah Palin and Her Supporters

[Joanne98]

Sarah Palin, Her Followers and the Tea Party in General

Here is what perked my interest in this topic:
1. A recent poll came out about the tea party members. They were somewhat more educated than the Average American (37 percent with college degrees versus 25 percent of the general population) and much more likely to be Glenn Beck fans.

2. Sarah Palin paid a visit to the area yesterday (Peoria Journal Star article is here) and

3. A recent letter to the editor made some “interesting” points.

Here is what I noticed (Journal Star article):

Palin commented on the Land of Lincoln having a “most diverse political scene” and referenced the “Will it play in Peoria?” cliche.

“Nobody here is ordinary. … Much of the eyes of America are on this part of our nation because this is a representation of good, hard-working, grounded, unpretentious, patriotic Americans,” she said. <...>

“We need a dose of that Midwestern common sense now more than ever,” Palin said. <...>

Palin took several jabs at President Barack Obama’s Harvard Law School education. She said the U.S. is on pace to quadruple the deficit, called the federal health care bill “Obama-care” and the “mother of all unfunded mandates,” and chastised Congress for what she called “bullying” of Peoria-based Caterpillar Inc. <...>

Leadership is speaking out, sticking up for your beliefs, getting involved and contributing to the community. “We want leadership that offers common sense principles and offers common sense solutions,” she said.

And then I read from today’s print edition (page 22, section A, 18 April):

“I thought she was wonderful, down to earth, just a real, regular person, not an elitist. She represents conservative, everyday values. People to criticize her don’t know her; they don’t listen to that message”
Morton resident Chuck Tanton

And yesterday I read (in the letters to the editor):

The Obama administration is full of highly educated people who seemed to count on a couple things to get their progressive “change” through. One is that the American people are mostly ignorant or apathetic.

How could someone like myself, with only a GED from the state of New Jersey, understand their grand plan to transform America? Of course I can’t understand. I never went to Harvard or Yale to learn how bad America is compared to the enlightened governments of Europe. I can’t understand because apparently I’m part of the ignorant masses that need government to tell us what to do and hold our hands because we don’t know what’s best for us.

Before President Obama ever got elected to anything, I’d already spent five years overseas, three of them in Europe. I saw how the average European lived. Has President Obama ever been on a train when it just stops because the union decides to strike for a few hours/days? No water, no food, nowhere to go. The locals were used to this, so they brought supplies. Stupid Americans! <...>

Do you notice a theme here?

I have to admit that I have trouble understanding human beings. One one hand, this particular group of people appear to have a huge inferiority complex. On the other hand, they appear to think that THEY are really smarter and better qualified to run things than all of those “elites”. Oh, for the day when “elitist” meant that one attained one’s position by “birth” rather than by merit; now “elitist” means “was successful in a meritocracy”.

Well, here is one thing I am grateful for: at least most of the local “megalomaniacs with inferiority complexes” appear to be non violent; that isn’t always the case:



(Pat Oliphant published this cartoon during the 1995 militia scare; around the time of the Oklahoma City Bombing).

Anyway, that is the rub: we have a large group of noisy people who think that THEY (the ones who haven’t had their thinking spoiled by elite education) should be running things, and you have people like myself who WANT “elite people” to be in charge (e. g., our President, Energy Secretary Stephen Chu (Nobel Laureate in physics), NIH head Francis Collins (mapper of the human genome). )

I think that Sam Harris nails it:

Americans have an unhealthy desire to see average people promoted to positions of great authority. No one wants an average neurosurgeon or even an average carpenter, but when it comes time to vest a man or woman with more power and responsibility than any person has held in human history, Americans say they want a regular guy, someone just like themselves. President Bush kept his edge on the “Who would you like to have a beer with?” poll question in 2004, and won reelection.

This is one of the many points at which narcissism becomes indistinguishable from masochism. Let me put it plainly: If you want someone just like you to be president of the United States, or even vice president, you deserve whatever dysfunctional society you get. You deserve to be poor, to see the environment despoiled, to watch your children receive a fourth-rate education and to suffer as this country wages—and loses—both necessary and unnecessary wars.

And columnist Leonard Pitts wants to find out:

Continued>>>
http://blueollie.wordpress.com/2010/04/18/18-april-2010-sarah-palin-and-her-supporters/

[Paladin]

1. That Oliphant Cartoon Is An Enduring Classic.

Thanks for this post.

[Joanne98]

3. You're welcome

[Riley18]

2. Why was Arne Duncan put in charge of education policy? He is no expert.

The education of children in our country is on a course for extinction even with our president.