Sunday, November 15, 2009

Sarah Palin and Flying Donkeys

I have a good many friends who are deeply religious, decidedly Republican, and totally enamored of Sarah Palin.

On the first score, I can respect anyone's religious beliefs (or none). While I might think they are crazy for believing as they do, I am comforted and humbled in the knowledge that they feel the same about me.

On the second score, that's just politics. For myself, I always strive to communicate with everyone in a manner that highlights our unity and downplays our differences. This comes from my deepest held belief that there is always far more unifying us, than dividing us.

But on the third score, I am truly mystified. This is a woman who was campaigning to be the person one heartbeat away from the button that ends all Life as we know it.

Ms. Palin gave a speech on November 6th, to thousands of pro-life supporters in West Allis, Wisconson. In that speech she cited an urban legend as a "disturbing trend," claiming the Treasury Department had moved the phrase "In God We Trust" to the edge of the new presidential dollar coins.

Excuse me? This would be a SUGGESTED alteration that NEVER happened. (There was a different alteration that ultimately did happen which was passed by a Republican Congress and signed by a Republican President.) Ms. Palin uses this "controversy," however false, to conveniently illustrate how a tyrannical, God-destroying, secular big government (controlled by liberal Democrats one would suppose) is against humble God-fearing folk like herself and those to whom she was speaking. (This urban legend Ms. Palin cited most likely originated with a 2006 story on the website WorldNetDaily.)

If one chooses to believe that our government is a tyrannical, God-destroying, secular beast, so be it. One has that right. I've carried myself into more war zones in defense of that right than I care to remember. But if one is going to make political hay making that point, at least take the trouble to find and present defensible facts in support of the point.

I don't let my best friends get away with repeating such patently untrue urban legends. For someone who campaigned to be Vice-President of the United States to lend her considerable political weight to validate a patently false urban legend? As my wife would so eloquently say, "When donkey's fly."

Christopher Dinnes
USNS Yano, T-AKR 297
Violet, LA