I’ve always admired McCain. I like his party outsider status. As the Senator from Arizona, he was the guy you could count on to reach across party lines and kick ass and take names. I like Obama, too. He’s smart but he’s not an egghead, he knows what’s doable and what’s not, given the resourses. He knows where his priorities lie, but he’s not an idealogue.
So I was happy with the presidential candidates, both were a welcomed departure from Dubya, so I was anticipating an interesting campaign season, where the outcome was uncertain. I was the Bachelorette, in the final episode. I was on the edge of my seat. My vote still to be wooed, I was looking forward to the final courtship process. The bended knee.
Then came Sarah Palin, leaving me with just one choice.
It wasn’t hate at first sight. I was pleased there was a woman VP candidate. We shared a few things in common. Born in Edmonton, Alberta, I could be found warming a seat at the hockey rink; my father was a hockey coach, he spent fall weekends hunting moose; there are family movies of my grandmother in a cap with ear flaps dragging a dead moose out of the woods.
So it wasn’t the pitpull with lipstick, frontier hunter/gatherer chick thing that turned me off. It was three simple things:
- Under her watch as Mayor of Wasilla, victims of rape were expected to pay for their own rape kits.
- She appears determined to defend abstinence-only education, despite direct and compelling evidence that an alarming number of young people who vow to stay virgins until married abandon ship like rats on a sinking ship, without life vests (read: condoms).
- She hadn’t travelled outside of the United States and Canada until 2007 when she was Governor, having applied for her first passport so that she could visit Alaska-based troops in Iraq and Kuwait.
If Palin was the candidate for mayor in my hometown, I might overlook the passport thing, but I would be very concerned about the other two. But she’s not running for mayor, she’s running for Vice President, next in line to someone who, if he gets the votes, will be the oldest elected first-term president in our history.
I shudder. I imagine some factory in China doing double shifts trying to fill the next container full with Sarah Palin masks. It will be the scariest thing I see at my door this Halloween.
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US Republican Vice-Presidential hopeful Sarah Palin tries to portray herself as a good parent.
The primary duty of a parent is to protect their children from harm, and to teach them to how protect themselves in the future. A good parent child-proofs their home to reduce the risk of injury. A good parent warns a toddler that the stove is hot. A good parent honestly tells a pre-teen how addictive and deadly tobacco and other drugs are, and helps them avoid getting hooked.
Sarah Palin is NOT a good mother.
Sarah Palin doesn't want her daughter, Bristol, (or anyone's daughter or son, for that matter) to learn about sex in school -- through honest, accurate sex education, as opposed to "learning" by trial and error through speculation and experimentation.
Alaska Governor Palin wants everyone to teach their children that only abstinence is acceptable until they are of age and married (I'll bet she probably wants us to do a better job of it than she apparently did with Bristol).
Sarah Palin doesn't want kids to learn about safer sex, thus exposing them to numerous annoying, painful, and deadly sexually transmitted diseases, and
unwanted pregnancies.
Ms. Palin won't permit abortion for anyone -- no matter what. Rape? Nope! Incest? No way! Have too many children already? No such thing as too many! Can't afford a child? God will provide! Don't want or like children? Suck it up, Princess, and have 'em anyway!
Sex education could have prevented her seventeen-year-old unmarried daughter's unplanned, unwanted pregnancy with an eighteen-year-old boy, Levi Johnston, who -- on his MySpace page -- said he didn't want kids. Bristol is going to keep the baby and marry Levi (maternal edict?). What a shaky foundation for marriage and parenthood!
Safer sex could also have reduced Bristol's risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases such as Genital Herpes, Syphilis, Gonorrhea, Bacterial Vaginosis, Human Papillomavirus (HPV) Infection, Chlamydia, Pelvic Inflammatory Disease (PID), Trichomoniasis, HIV, and AIDS.
Would someone please tell Sarah Palin and her ilk that the best way to prevent abortion is to prevent unwanted pregnancies -- with thorough and honest sex education, and safe, reliable, convenient, accessible and affordable contraception. Without all of the aforementioned, you get a lot of unplanned, unwanted, unloved children (who are often neglected, abused, and abandoned) -- and even more abortions.
Jerry Steinberg
Founding Non-Father of NO KIDDING!
The international social club for childless and childfree couples and singles
www.nokidding.net; info@nokidding.net
Just what the world needs..... more unwanted, unloved, unsafe and unhappy children who, eventually, become adults. Stop the vicious cycle! Education is the key, we need a "no child left behind" act for sex ed. As an "experienced" parent, hasn't Sarah Palin figured out that the more we tell kids to stay away from something the more they want to learn what all the fuss is about?
Some representative she is of "family values". A career woman with five kids and babes in arms.... who, exactly is going to be "raising" these children? Maybe it's best if she takes the back seat considering the wonderful job she's done with Bristol.
There are many reasons I would like to vote McCain but his poor VP choice could stop me as well.
I am so glad that McCain/Palin lost the election! Her thinking is so backwards, it is disgusting. Opponents of reproductive choice are opponents of freedom. It is that simple.
And don't even get me started on the issue of forcing rape victims to shoulder the cost of their exam! Makes my blood boil just thinking about it.
This type of post is exactly why there will never be any understanding for people like us...we are NOT liberals, yet we are childfree by choice. Unfortunately, everyone seems to assume that you must have VERY liberal views in order to decide not to have children. The views here and in the other comments about this post just show me how much my husband and I will never be understood. This type of writing makes me sad, that so many uninformed and 'oh-so-quick-to-judge' but 'I'm-not-judgemental-of-people-who-share-my-exact-same-views' stereotypical types are out there making others continue to believe that only one type of people make the choice to be childfree. Stuck in the middle with the truly unique or just a part of a much larger misunderstood and silent group...
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