Posted on December 20, 2010, 3:00 PM, under Culture, Government, Politics, Religion, United States.
Utter the name Sarah Palin and you will more likely than not evoke one of only two reactions from anyone who has ever heard of her: hatred or love. From the moment her name was made public as John McCain’s Vice-Presidential running mate in the 2008 election, the former Governor of Alaska has become an ideological lightning rod and a sword of political division even within the Republican Party.
Not long after returning to Alaska, she resigned her office as Governor after a little over two years in office and since then has attained superstardom as a Citizen Palin - idolized by conservatives as intensely as she is reviled by liberals.
To this day she is one of the most polarizing figures in American politics - despite the fact that she holds no political office is now famous not much for her politics as she is for starring in her own Alaska-based reality television show on The Learning Channel. Even in that capacity she manages to drive the hard Left totally nuts.
Thus a recent machine gun burst of venom on the web pages of the Huffington Post courtesy of Hollywood screenwriter and liberal moonbat Aaron Sorkin, who calls Mrs. Palin an “idiot” and attacks her for daring to call out the hypocrisy of meat-eaters who condemn those who hunt animals for food. Here’s an excerpt from Sorkin’s tirade:
I’m able to make a distinction between you and me without feeling the least bit hypocritical. I don’t watch snuff films and you make them. You weren’t killing that animal for food or shelter or even fashion, you were killing it for fun. You enjoy killing animals. I can make the distinction between the two of us but I’ve tried and tried and for the life of me, I can’t make a distinction between what you get paid to do and what Michael Vick went to prison for doing. I’m able to make the distinction with no pangs of hypocrisy even though I get happy every time one of you faux-macho shitheads accidentally shoots another one of you in the face.Savor the utter disconnect from reality that is the hallmark of liberal lunacy and the subject of a recent column by Dennis Prager in which the writer attempts to analyze the pathology that underlies Sorkin’s mania:
As noted earlier, it is indicative of the Hollywood-leftist mindset. Members of Hollywod’s Left generally live in a left-wing cocoon. What strikes most people who live outside of that cocoon as irrational and immoral is often regarded as brilliant in that world. To the rest of us, comparing shooting a caribou to a snuff film, to murder, and to torture is the ranting of an immature and morally confused mind. But among many of Sorkin’s peers on the cultural Left, Sorkin’s column is not merely brilliant, it is f***ing brilliant.What is it about this woman that inspires deep admiration in some and deranged loathing in others? Hatred is a powerful emotion - one that any sensible, prudent person tries to avoid. As Michael Corleone once advised,
“Never hate your enemies…it clouds your reason.” He’s absolutely right. This sort of hatred - commonplace among moonbat liberals - is almost entirely visceral and draws its energy from a deeply disturbed perception of reality, where personal demons run amok and often impel the individual to project his or her own worst attributes onto those perceived to be enemies.
These perceptions are shaped largely by the person’s own feelings of self-worth - their assessment of what is good or not good about themselves. It’s commonplace to envy those who we perceive to be better than ourselves - be it physically, emotionally, spiritually or intellectually - but those of us with emotional maturity fight very hard to keep these feelings in check.
It’s also a fact of human nature that we resent being reminded of our deficiencies, failings or defects and I believe this fact lies at the heart of what Dr. Charles Krauthammer once dubbed “Palin Derangement Syndrome,” a variation of Bush Derangement Syndrome.
Anyone who has taken the time to learn who and what Sarah Palin really is can draw no conclusion apart from the following: she is a decent, compassionate, intellectually astute, morally focused, emotionally mature and spiritually vibrant woman who also happens to be a principled conservative in addition to being a faithful wife to her husband and a loving mother to all of her children.
Hers is not a perfect life (her youngest child has Down Syndrome and her oldest daughter gave birth out of wedlock) and yet it reflects what so many of us have either experienced ourselves or seen in others’ lives.
Nevertheless, the strength with which she bears her burdens and her obvious contentment with her own life radiate unmistakeably from her personality.
Sarah Palin is both ordinary and extraordinary and she is deeply admired by decent people who recognize and appreciate her as productive and inspirational member of society. They look at Mrs. Palin and say to themselves: that is the kind of person I could be and would like to be.
Those who suffer from PDS do not see any of this because their perception is warped by the pain of a bruised ego. They look at Sarah Palin and are reminded of what they are not and could never hope to be. It fills them with a frustration that fans glowing embers of resentment which eventually combust into flames of seething bitterness and intense hatred.
Women whose vanity causes them to obsess over their appearance or their age resent her because she is attractive, physically fit and relatively young; those trapped in loveless marriages resent her because she is happily married; those who gave up the chance to have children for the sake of their careers resent her because she has many children AND a fulfilling career.
“Intellectuals” whose mental pride is shackled to pompous, tendentious displays of acumen resent her because she is neither pompous nor tendentious.
The pusillanimous and the weak resent her because she is emotionally strong and fearless.
Cynics and opportunists resent her because she is a principled politician and reminds them that they are corrupt and bereft of ethics or morals.
Liberals resent her because she is a conservative who believes in limited government and individual freedom and reminds them that, at heart, they are totalitarians and fascists.
RINOs resent her because she unflinchingly embraces and defends all the core values of Reagan conservatism that they reject.
Abortion advocates resent her because she didn’t kill Trig when she had the chance to do so and her obvious love for her disabled child infuriates them; those who had abortions are especially driven nuts by her because her very existence reminds them that they killed their own children.
In spite of all this, I believe the most powerful of all the resentments involves her spirituality. Sarah Palin is a devout Christian who practices her faith; it’s obvious to even those who hate her that her spirituality is a powerful part of her life. Her ebullient and unabashed Christianity drives the embittered godless over the edge.
They hate her because she doesn’t pay hypocritical lip service to her religious beliefs (flash back to the image of Bill Clinton carrying his Bible to church services) but actually has the temerity - in the face of a existentialist zeitgeist - to practice what she truly believes.
In a word: those who hate Sarah Palin hate her because she reminds them of the gnawing emptiness that makes their own lives Hell on earth.
Conservative New Jersey
