The Next President?

[OperaTenor]

She's enough of an opportunist, and there's enough of a second-string beauty queen left in her that I don't put it past her.

And what, of her actions, leads you to believe such a thing about her? You've become quite the cynic of late.

For starters, did Willow and the father of the baby go through with that promised marriage? So we can add single motherhood to the teen sex out of wedlock on the list of moral values Palin espouses?

Correctly identifying her as an opportunistic hypocrite doesn't make me a cynic.

[Shapley]

For starters, did Willow and the father of the baby go through with that promised marriage? So we can add single motherhood to the teen sex out of wedlock on the list of moral values Palin espouses?

Espouses? No. Tolerates, yes. She tried to get her daughter to marry the lout, but it did not happen. What do you propose? A shotgun wedding? Disowning her daughter and grandchild? How does the action of her daughter and the lout make her a hypocrite? She espouses abstinence and fatherhood, both valid virtues. Not everyone, even in her own family, agrees or abides by those guidelines. Do we abandon our family members if they don't 'toe the line'. Or are you saying she should stop supporting those principles if she can't get everyone to abide by them.

Failure to achieve success does not mean we should abandon our pursuit of it.

Our progeny often fall short of our aspirations. This is cause neither for abandoning our aspirations nor our progeny. If we continue to support them, we stand a better chance of bringing them back to the straight and narrow. You may be unfortunate enough to learn this as Altoid grows older. I hope you are spared the disappointment, but the very real possibility exists that she may grow to be a conservative Republican or a pro-life Bible-thumper. We have a limited amount of control over the final outcome of our children.

[OperaTenor]

Wow. Astonishing. Guess what, Shap? It takes two to screw. He's no more of a lout than Willow.

As for espousing vs. tolerating, she's the one who held them up as an example of how they're just like the rest of us; she was citing how they were handling the situation as an example, not a warning. So yeah, to me that qualifies as espousal, if not endorsement.

What I propose is not holdings others punitively in judgment in the first place, and not trying to legislate her brand of morality on everyone else.

[Shapley]

What I propose is not holdings others punitively in judgment in the first place, and not trying to legislate her brand of morality on everyone else.

Yes, accepting a general standard of immorality is always better...

I'm puzzled that, on one hand, we're told that teen preganancies and absent fathers are a serious problem, and on the other that we aren't to pass judgement on teens that get pregnant and the males that abandon them. It seems to me we can't fix one without passing judgement on the other. Or are you suggesting that teen pregnancies aren't a problem?

[OperaTenor]

Thanks for putting words in my mouth again. The sanctimonious routine is a bit tedious.

No, I'm saying don't hold one blameless just because she's St. Sarah's daughter while at the same time calling her *partner* in this names. What crystal ball told you he "abandoned" her? How do you know she didn't send him packing?

[Shapley]

It seems to me that if you do not set some standard of morality, then the only alternative is setting a standard of immorality. Immorality is the absense of morality, as you know. Gov. Palin ran for office espousing a set of ideals, and was elected by the majority, which would seem to indicate that the ideals she espoused were accepted by said majority as 'normal' and preferable to the morality or immorality or amorality espoused by her opponents. Being myself a believer in the rights of the various States to legislate as they see fit. If California prefers to legislate morality or not, that is their prerogative. Alaska is a different people with a different set of values.

Gov. Palin ran on the national stage and was defeated. She may or may not run again, but if she does she will have to opportunity to espouse such virtues as she deems fit, and it will be up to the people to accept or reject them, after weighing them against those espoused by her opponents. However, the indications are that she has tried to live up, and to instill in her progeny, the virtues she espouses. There is nothing hypocritical about that. She was not the one who brought her daughter's condition into the spotlight, it was brought up by the muckrakers. She responded by bringing announcing that they intended to marry. By all accounts they did intend to do so. I still fail to see how any of this makes Gov. Palin a hypocrite. Your post seems to indicate that, since she didn't force the marriage to happen, she is one.

Fatherhood is generally considered to consist of a bit more than donating sperm and writing support checques. Both left and right generally agree that fatherhood is important to the raising of children, though they seem to have different views on the details of fatherhood. Generally, social conservatives try to teach their children that they should refrain from sexual relations until they have selected a suitable partner and entered the bonds of marriage. This is the result of a cultural learning process that has developed over the centuries.

[OperaTenor]

I'm getting dizzy.

Again.

[Shapley]

Palin: In Playboy on a newsstand near you soon!

Remember, you heard it here first.

Close, but no cigar. She's actually appearing in Runner's World.

[OperaTenor]

Um, why would she resign over her appearance in that magazine?

[Shapley]

Um, why would she resign over her appearance in that magazine?

I didn't say she resigned over it. You said she would appear in Playboy at a newsstand near you. I merely pointed out that she appeared in Runner's World, not Playboy.

You didn't say in your post that she was resigning because of it.

[OperaTenor]

What had the entire discussion been about until that point?

[Shapley]

What had the entire discussion been about until that point?

The content of your text led me to believe that you were predicting her next move, not the cause of her resignation. Part of the discussion had been about the fact that she was keeping quiet about her future plans.

[Selma in Sandy Eggo]

Immorality is the absense of morality, as you know...

No. Wrong. Check your Funk and Wagnell's.

Moral describes behavior considered acceptable and laudable by a social or cultural group.
Immoral describes behavior considered offensive by a social or cultural group.
Amorality is the absence of morality.

I do find that I'm shocked, shocked I tell you, shocked to find that a politician should be described as a hypocrite.

And as for this morality stuff, the substance of the niggling seems to be that a pair of teenagers behaved recklessly, there was an unplanned pregnancy, and the shotgun wedding didn't happen. A whole bunch of alleged adults are publishing a lot of spite, hate, and nastiness about the situation. I'm sure each and every one of those people were virgins until after their weddings, as are each and every one of their teenaged children.

Right.

I don't know if this commenting is moral, but it's surely worse manners than Miz Palin is displaying: she's just disgusted and done putting up with the spiteful sniping.

[Shapley]

[Moral describes behavior considered acceptable and laudable by a social or cultural group.
Immoral describes behavior considered offensive by a social or cultural group.
Amorality is the absence of morality.

oops!

Nonetheless, I find that most people who complain about 'legislating morality' aren't really wanting amoral laws, they merely wan't their morality legislated, rather than that of someone else. We have no laws against legislating morality, and have been doing since the days of Solon and Hammurabi. In a democratic government, potential lawmakers espouse their morality, immorality, or amorality (I did mention all three earlier) in the public forum, and the voters select the candidate whose morality, immorality, or amorality best fits their views of how laws should be written. In our system, this happens at local, State, and Federal levels, with codified limits on the extent this morality may be imposed. I think it's a good system, when properly adhered to.

[Serenity]

The Republican 10 Commandments

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWQGf0_XFnA

[Serenity]

Why I am a conservative republican:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acQluy7nymw&NR=1

[Serenity]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ngzx-1Rq ... re=related

[Shapley]

Supreme Court Removes Limits On Corporate, Labour Donations To Campaigns

The prohibition had been in place for about twenty years. This should end a lot of the complexity of campaign finance, but I expect the Congress to complicate it further.

[OperaTenor]

Supreme Court Removes Limits On Corporate, Labour Donations To Campaigns

The prohibition had been in place for about twenty years. This should end a lot of the complexity of campaign finance, but I expect the Congress to complicate it further.

Another victory for the Corporate States of America.

[Shapley]

I'm not so sure that is true. There certainly has been no shortage of corporate and labour monies finding their way into the politician's coffers. This will open the process, create the 'transparency' on which Mr. Obama put so much emphasis (before he was elected, of course). There is now no need to hide the money, or to go to the great extremes to get it spent through legitimate channels.

You don't really believe that all those millions Mr. Obama's campaign raised came from little old ladies sending him a portion of their Social Security Checques over the internet, do you?