While I find the story of Sarah Palin's blessing by Thomas Muthee a less-than-compelling reason to condemn her or her beliefs, it does bring to the fore certain lines of Evangelical thinking. (For background on the Palin/Muthee brouhaha, see "Targeting cities with 'spiritual mapping,' prayer", "Palin under fire over African pastor friend who waged witch-hunt against woman he believed caused car crashes" and "Palin linked electoral success to prayer of Kenyan witchhunter" for a small selection of news stories.)

The whole "spiritual warfare" concept seems a dangerous philosophical practice. No matter how much the "spiritual" aspects are emphasized, couching it as "warfare" leads to a general perception of a life-or-death struggle. In that context, justification of the most horrible tactics becomes easy. If you are part of a war between Good and Evil and you consider yourself on the side of Good, what won't you do to vanquish all opposition? And what keeps you from lumping all those that oppose you into the Evil category?

There's a saying (the source escapes me at the moment) that what people do in the name of evil pales beside the atrocities people are willing do in the name of good, God or country. I don't mean this to damn all efforts to fight injustice but to point out the pitfalls of such extreme dichotomies of view, allowing no areas of grey and diversity of opinion. Believing only in absolutes is a poor match with a pluralistic democracy like the USA.

On a wider level, we can see this playing out in US politics. Rank and file political partisans are encouraged to demonize the opposition, to use flagrant insult and taunts in place of political discussion of positions and options. Classical debating styles are viewed as too intellectual, too boring, too forgiving of differences.

I had much more to say on this subject but time has run short tonight. I may return to it later.

Labels: debate, Dominionism, intolerance, Palin, politics, Presidential race 2008

While I'm sure there are plenty of critiques of Mrs. Palin, the Republican Vice-President candidate, I haven't read many of them. I was, however, drawn to About Sarah Palin: an e-mail from Wasilla because of its informed firsthand content and tone.

Assuming it is authentic (in an election season I take nothing for granted,) it provides a picture of her that focuses on her local accomplishments and the tenor of her administration skills. I prefer this kind of evaluation to more polished punditry.

What interests me as well is whether people will ignore her qualification shortcomings to support her because of particular identity issues: Anti-choice, Christian, woman, authoritarian, "soccer mom," etc.

Not the least of her apparent qualifications is her conventional attractiveness. When my mother, a dyed in the wool Republican her whole life, described McCain's pick she didn't once mention Palin's qualifications. Instead my mother described Palin: her hair, her clothes, her energy. I asked about Palin's skills and my mother brushed that aside as if it were insignificant and unimportant. I admit I was a little shocked. It seemed like a "cult of personality" attitude, except my mother didn't even know Palin's public persona well on that first day.

I'm actually looking forward to how the Republicans are going to present her and, more importantly, whether people will accept the image uncritically.

Labels: Palin, politics, Presidential race 2008, republicans, Sarah Palin