I Don’t Speak Red

“I think women can and should do what they want.  As men do.  But I don’t think you can say you’re a hockey mom and pretend to uphold family values, and at the same time neglect your four-month old baby.”

So you would also rag on a male candidate with a 4 month old who talked about how important fatherhood is to him (as they all do)? And how exactly do you know that she's "neglecting" her kid?  

"Sarah Palin is the model mother, even if one of her teen-age daughters is pregnant."

I see. The kid screws up and of course it's the mother's fault. Rather retrograde sexual politics, that.

Comments like yours are part of the reason that the left has sloughed off a good portion of its natural constituency since Reagan. Palin is a troglodyte whose politics are a horror, and for that she ought to be pilloried mercilessly. Her kid's pregnancy and your wildly snooty imaginings about her maternal shortcomings have nothing to do with anything. Similarly, McCain's a dangerous pinhead who's been implicated in the worst foreign policy disaster in recent memory. Who cares if his robot wife used to pop pills?

This snarky and Puritanical finger-wagging does nothing to convince undecided voters about the perils of the Viagra/Vagina ticket; more likely, it just alienates them.

Liberals can suck each other's dicks (lap each other's lady bits) over how much better they are than those flannel-cap-wearers between the coasts, or they can do the hard work of mounting a serious critique of the atrocious policies of McPalin that addresses the ways in which those policies will brutalize the very folks about whom they're now happy to merely snicker.

You choose.  

All feelings, not a single reasonable argument and this suppose to be an article about politics (or even policies)?

I suggest the author stick to her "Lonely, Lesbian Pregnancy".

"In my opinion, community organizing should elicit more respect than serving the nation as a soldier at war."

 This line of yours, my dear, epitomizes the completely ass-backwards thinking of the Left. 

Please allow me to translate some Red-State English for you: 

Serving as a soldier deserves much more respect than being a race-baiting ghetto agitator. 

Risking your life in battle deserves more respect than declining a corporate job.

Sarah Palin is not necessarily the Red States' model mother; she's a real mother.  She didn't wait until her career was under way and then hire a surrogate and a nanny.  She didn't get artificially inseminated with her lesbian partner.  She got married, worked, popped out some kids, worked some more, campaigned, had another few kids.  That's what some women do, and they don't expect to be praised for being super-moms and they also shouldn't be criticized for having kids and a career at the same time.

Yes, Andrea, we understand. You can't come to be tolerant enough of your friends to attempt to understand them--even as you have no trouble at all understanding that evil is good, therefore seeing good as evil is a reflex requiring no thought.

This reflex is the problem in trying to communicate with the Left since rational thought is not on the table. The belief that community organizing opf the type practiced by Obama is more important and more respectable than serving our nation in the military is a mere reflex without an explanation--it is a feeling based upon nothing other than a shallow kind of faux morality. The fact that all Obama did was take government funds and apply them badly to a situation, helping no one except lining the pockets of his friends, is not revealed as a scandal since we need to maintain some fiction that he was trying to help people. Why? Either someone has real respnsibilities and actually helps people or he has no responsibilities and robs the state to enrich his friends--this is how business goes in third world nations and it has no legitimate or respectable role in our nation. It is called fraud and graft, sleaze and corruption.

I believe we have something at stake in choosing leaders who are actually qualified to assume the mantle of leadership. We elevate people at our peril as a nation and Obama-Biden is attempting to persuade Americans to annoint them as leaders when they have no attributes of leadership. Leaders are those who have been successful in life, those who have accomplished great and unusual things. Followers are willing to give them leadership position since they have demonstrated their efforts are meritorious. McCain has accomplished great and unusual things and so has Sarah Palin. By contrast, Obama rose to prominence simply by taking what was given to him without his effort or skill--a US Senate seat vacated by Sen. Ryan, as he pushed his rival to the sidelines to grab a national platform. Before he assumed this seat, he had a political career that was completely undistinguished, he was a back-bencher in the state Senate of Illinois, voting "present" a record number of times. After taking his gift of a seat, this man wrote or proposed no legislation, did nothing unusual or meritorious. After a mere 143 days, he decided to put himself forward to the people of this great nation as a leader in attempt to be voted in as the nation's commander in chief and chief executive--without not only doing a single thing but also having no experience as an executive.

John McCain record is very different and fulfills the requirement of leadership. He chose a governor who has achieved the greatest popularity in the country but more importantly, this Governor has no ambitions to bring herslef forward to the national stage. She was chosen to come forward and she reluctantly accepted. This is the model of leadership people rightly celebrate--a leader who leads for the people and not one who leads as a means to build a personal resume (as we remember John Kerry's pathetic service in Vietnam where he brought along a movie camera to film HIMSELF!). Sarah Palin is good therefore the left finds her to be evil.

As for the sentiment that she mocked Obama, his experience is so worthy of mocking--he has invited this upon himself. But if you want "snide" try Hillary Clinton's one liner contrasting John McCain's resume with that of Obama's who merely "recited a speech in 2004." If "yes we can" is the sum of the rationale for his candidacy--let it be understood totally that his mandate is merely an empty-headed repetition of Jimmy Carter's moral outlook.

Red and blue are separate since only one side is thinking while the other side merely sees good as evil and evil as good. Lesbian motherhood is obviously not equal to parenting with a mother and father in the home--Andrea sees her lesbian life as superior and even beyond equal. McCain is endorsed by our troops, BETTER that Obama is endorsed by our nation's enemies. Inexperience is SUPERIOR to experience, Biden's track record of getting every foreign policy record wrong in the last 30 years is SUPERIOR to doing the right thing at every turn and looking to do right by the country. Increasing the price of energy by not drilling for oil or natural gas is SUPERIOR to having an energy policy and serving the interests of Americans.

I understand you have the feeling of superiority. The question to you to consider is whether or not you have any ability to articulate a rationale that explains how you are right and why we are wrong.

I would agree with Ismails points if i thought this dumb "bitch" had anything worthy of  critiquing .As it stands she just spewed her backwards ass thinking all over jewcy -and im speaking as a liberal leaning person-this woman should go back to her lonely lesbian pregnancy and leave politics for those with a brain

Ya dig ?

I do agree that it is more honorable to serve the country in a war than to be a community organizer.  You are putting your own life at stake.  But you have to accept that Obama graduating from Harvard could have easily selected working in a prestigious law firm making some good bucks.  This is honorable too.  If I understand correctly, being a community organizer doesn't pay very well.  Maybe I'm wrong.  I don't know where you get the fraud and graft, I've never heard he's been convicted of misusing government funds.

I also think the experience debate is a stupid debate.  We've had Presidents with lots of experience that have done a terrible job and some with little experience with good records.  Republicans say that Obama has no "executive experience".  Well, neither does McCain, so if that is needed to be President then maybe the party should have nominated Sarah Palin.  Second, if one and a half years of experience as a governor of a state the size of a small US city is experience, well, then our VP is good, I guess.  It is hard for me to picture someone like her dealing with foreign issues, with a hectic traveling schedule and all those kids at home.  I think it must be hard for both a father and a mother, especially parents of a special needs kid and especially when the kids are very young.   Maybe my family values are different from her family values.  We cannot compare a woman with a job or a business owner and small children with the VP of the country.

I also doubt that she reluctantly accepted this nomination as a VP, it is every politician's wildest dream.

Now on parenting.  You obviously think that parenting by a man an a woman is superior than lesbian parenting.  I don't think that any one is superior.  I've seen pretty lousy gay parents as well as horrible straight ones.  You live in a box my dear, go out there and meet people different from you. It can turn out to be very formative.

 I can go on and on.  Like on energy policy.  Did you know offshore drilling will not reduce the price of oil for at least 10 years?  Do you think all foreign countries are our enemies?  Did you know that the Arabs, Venezuelans and Russians love that we want to keep drilling to maintain our oil addiction?  Did you know that Obama has authored more than 150 pieces of legislation? 

But this forum is too short for this.   I just hope the Reds and Blues focus on the issues and not just insulting one another.  Let's get the facts and the truth and lets go over specific ideas. 

Palin's teen daughter's pregnancy is an issue because this is a woman who is insisting on pushing abstinance-only education in our schools. It didn't work in her own family.

I feel badly for the child (the teen child), especially since she is being pushed into a marriage which will likely end in failure. It is a sad fact a candidate's family is subject to public scrutiney, which I hope Palin considered before entering the race. 

I support Palin and her daughter's choice. It was a personal choice made within their family. EVERYONE should be so lucky. 

Ok,, Anon, my criteria emphasized meritorious leadership and not experience since you are correct that experienced people may not be successful.  This is why people rightly look at success.  Palin's rise from the bottom up is quite a success story and success stories are leadership stories.  Obama was not successful as a community organizer--her failed to help people, he failed to earn success.  Many people enter public service and avoid the private sector--this is not very rare.

Yes, Palin did not seek the position and as far as every politician's wildest dream--Obama was turned down by at least five candidates and he ended up with the loser Joe Biden who no Dem wanted to be President in both his aborted attempts at the White House.  Now Biden gets picked for something he could never do on his own--one incompetent choosing another.  It is revealing that during Palin's debate for the Governorship in 2006, she was asked where else in the country she would like to live if not Alaska.  She could not answer and she spoke about other parts of the state she could live and explore.  She is all Alaska and happily focused on building on her success.  McCain picked her on the merits and to help unite the Party as he now hopes to unite the nation.

Only an irrational person can argue that a parental home with two women is as good or better than a home with a mother and a father--even if there are plenty of bad intact families.  Our author on this thread is giving birth to a son--what kind of life will he have without a father in the house?  It is easy: a father and a mother is good.  A broken home or two mothers, two fathers is not as good.

US drilling does not maintain our "addiction"--it puts money in our pockets instead of building fortunes of these foreign nations who are not our friends and helps to stabilze world prices. America has massive oil and gas reserves--what is in Alaska alone blows away the reserves of Saudi Arabia and yes, if Clinton had not vetoed drilling in ANW, that oil would long since been in our tanks and oil prices would be much lower.  Gov. Palin's pipeline will bring natural gas to the lower 48 and we can retrofit our cars to run on natural gas instead of imported oil.  The oil in ANWR is immense and no one knows how much is there and off the coast of Alaska, as well as off shore on the East coast.  The left has told us it is goodness to keep it in the ground and buy from our enemies instead--they want they price so high the country goes broke and they want us to ride bikes and get our electicity from solar panels that don't work and cost too much. Oil and gas from our own sources is good--imported oil is not as good.  Buying American is good--money for our enemies is dangerous and not good.

McCain-Palin is supported by own friends throughout the world in Israel, Australia, Eastern Europe, etc.  Obama is heavily supported in the Arab world, Al-Jezeera gives Oba,a almost daily tributes--yesterday, Libya's dictator Quadafi extolled Obama as a fellow Muslim and endorsed his candidacy noting that what he is saying is all election timie lies to get elected and once he is elected, the truth will emerge, he will side with the Muslims and all will be right with the world.  Terrorists are bad, peaceful democracies are good.

I hope this is not seen as an insult.  In the words of our Torah: Choose life.

David,

Should Barack Obama become president, and these things you predict (Left-wing Islamic conspiracy, the unraveling of America's social values, alienation of Israel, etc) do not come true, will you admit you were wrong?

David, what a relief that you're here, standing by Qaddafi's words as something more than just extremist lunacy. In every other post you seem to be attempting to curtail open, productive discussion with black-and-white views of "the left" and unilateral decrees about what makes a "good" or "bad" Jew.

But now, to hear you actually listening to and embracing the words of someone who, I would expect, you consider to be an enemy, well that's just great. It makes me feel like we're entering a new era in Jewcy, where we have free and open discussion between people who disagree with each other. What a world!   

I would be just as critical of a man who claimed to be a hockey dad if he then ran for VP with a 4-month old kid.  That's false advertising.

Sure, Todd--I am pleased to be corrected--even if only by future theoretical events that will not likely happen.

Further, what happens when a radical is elected and he cannot push his agenda on the people.  Either he will succeed in his plan to destroy the economy and make the world a much more dangerous place or he will not.  If he does not and he is stopped--that would be better.  If it is somehow revealed that he is interested in improving the lives of Americans, his past is a mirage, his radical liberal agenda just a phase--sure, I happily accept converts.  But what part of his desire for "evenhandedness" regarding the Arab-Israeli conflict is misunderstood, what part of increases taxes with the aim at redistributing wealth is misunderstood, what part of appealing to the world as leader of all citizens is misunderstood, what part of his arrogance and inexperience is misunderstood, what part of his tendency to change positions is misunderstood?  We have heard this man for 19 months--he is a con artist, a chronic liar and has never been successful doing anything.  

So you want me to say that when he becomes President, he will suddenly become a unifyer instead of a radical and then I will admit that I was wrong.  The trouble here is that a genuine unifyer, President Bush--the most moderate man in America, was not successful--so you want me to start imagining that the most radical will succeed?  As a small businessman--how likely is it that he will help remove the burden of government from my business?

I

Craig, sure Quadafi is hoping and praying for Obama.  Obama is the toast of Al-Jezerra.  Islamicists cannot defeat the US under Bush so they can hope America is defeated from within and this is why they love Obama.  Obama has been given huge sums of money from terrorists throughout the Arab world, contributions from Egypt, from Syria, from Lebanon, from Hezbullah (Obama claims to have returned much of the money but will not give a full accounting)--is this a problem for you?  "Extremist lunacy"--huh?  They are having a love affair with your favorite candidate--is this troubling to you--how do you deal with the contradiction?

Yes, we should always listen to and weigh and balance the words of our enemies.  How might *you* interpret this support?  Do you find it gratifying that his candidacy is cheered abroad?  Do you find it disturbing at all that his candidacy brings up big fears in the hearts and minds of Israelis? 

I don't like Sarah Palin either, but give her daughter a break she's not the one touting abstinence or running for VP. And to insist that serving as a community organizer is more respectable than serving your country in war? Wow. Spoken like a true over-privileged member of the out of touch bourgeoisie. Don't be so spoiled. This piece was offensive.

Viagra/Vagina ticket.  That's funny.  But some of these comments are so nasty.  Why?  If you disagree with something I said, okay. But for Anonymous to call me a dumb bitch; that doesn't get us anywhere.

Two people said that Obama's community service was akin to robbing the state.  Have you ever done community service?  Have you ever worked for a nonprofit organization?  These organizations so often work to help people who are disenfranchised.  Some organizations get government funding, but not very much.  So what are you guys talking about when you say Obama robbed the state to enrich his friends?  

And when did I say lesbian parenting was superior?  Loving parents are superior, one or two, straight or gay.  That's all I'll ever say.  But I do think that if you, David Friedman, ever met my family, you would stop saying mom/dad good, lesbian mothers bad.   

"...President Bush--the most moderate man in America..."

Nuttiest.Utterance.Ever.

New to Jewcy, are we, Andrea? ;-)

interesting website www.factcheck.org it tells you what is true and what is not from both candidates.  The issue on Obama receiving money from Hezbollah was based on a false email going around.

Focus on the issues on which we could agree... 

Yes, anonymous--please check the facts.  Obama's fund raising in the Muslim world has been extraordinary and it is also in violation of US election laws.  He claims to give money back and individuals donate with bogus names.  Understanding where all the money came from is quite a task.  What is true is that in most cases, the Obama campaign spent a good amount of time sending the money back and has not yet provided a full accounting of all the refunds.

*The important matter here is only the obvious problem that the Arab world is cheering heavily for this man.*  How much money actually came from one terror group or if it was flagged to one individual with multiple addresses hardly  matters since it is supposed to returned anyway.

Only a couple of people even care about this matter and the Obama campaign has been only somewhat cooperative, leaving lingering doubt.  He is following in the footsteps of Bill Clinton who took millions of dollars for speeches from Dubai, Abu Dabi, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and other places and also took millions from Chinese businessmen and Indonesians and others while serving as President and even later while grabbing money for the Clinton library.Clinton was being paid so heavily he had to defer much of the "income" to make his tax return look somewhat regular but it is a bit odd that the dirty Clintons are fond of saying that it is Obama who is so dirty.

For my money--this is simply sleaze and both of them deserve the contempt of the public. Why not from the people on this blog?

Obama's record as a community organizer is not at all flattering.  It may be true that some community organizers have the best interests of a part of the community at heart--this has nothing to do with Obama's experience.

Consider the following:

<<Obama seemed to realize that it was very, very hard to get anything
done. “He didn’t see organizing making any significant changes in
things,” Jerry Kellman recalled. The solution, Obama felt, was to find a way to political power of his own.

“He was constantly thinking about his path to significance and
power,” Mike Kruglik told me. “He said, ‘I need to go there [Harvard
Law School] to find out more about power. How do powerful people think?
What kind of networks do they have? How do they connect to each
other?’”

In a few months, Obama was gone. He had been an organizer for three
years. When he returned to Chicago after law school, he did some
voter-registration work and then joined a civil-rights practice. In
1996, he ran for the state senate. Eight years later, he was elected to
the U.S. Senate, and within a year after that he was exploring a run
for president.

THE ORGANIZER

We look to formative experiences to help us understand presidential
candidates. Visit an aircraft carrier in wartime and you’ll learn
something about John McCain.
Pilots fly off the deck, and sometimes they come back, and sometimes
they don’t. One day, McCain didn’t, and began the time as a prisoner of
war that both revealed his character and launched his political career.
No matter what he has done since, the U.S. Navy is the culture that
made McCain, with his heavy emphasis on duty, honor, and country.

Community organizing is just as essential in understanding Obama. But what does it say about him?

The first thing is that he has a talent for, well, organizing.
Everyone who worked with Obama says he was good at the job. And he has
used the techniques he learned in Chicago to organize his own
presidential campaign, going so far as to enlist Mike Kruglik to help
start a “Camp Obama” program to instill organizing principles into
Obama supporters. The result is a campaign that even Obama’s opponents
admit is a very impressive operation.

But Obama’s time in Chicago also revealed the conventionality of
his approach to the underlying problems of the South Side. Is the area
crippled by a culture of dysfunction? Demand summer jobs. Push for an
after-school program. Convince the city to spend more on this or that.
It was the same old stuff; Obama could think outside the box on ways to
organize people, but not on what he was organizing them for. >>

Craig, I have not enunciated what is a good or bad Jew on this thread--only good or bad results.

Regarding Andrea, we have freedom in America and if you wish to celebrate kssing your girlfriend's private part--that is your business.  When you create life and bring another soul into this community, in making that choice, you have committed an intentional cruelty and as I said, it is better that every child have the benefit of a mother and father.

"When you create life and bring another soul into this community, in making that choice, you have committed an intentional cruelty ..."

Second.Nuttiest.Utterance.Ever 

The funniest part of this whole thing is the unspoken arrangement where the reader has to pretend that, if only in theory, there is a Republican vice-presidential pick Andrea would actually approve of before noisily expressing her distaste for Sarah Palin.

 Come on, now.

RW-

Do you really think that, because Andrea's's political philosophy is likely to lead her to disapprove of any Repub candidate, her disagreements with any particular candidate are not interesting?

If established as a general principle, this would make for some very brief political conversations. 

It is such a scandal when people deny right and wrong--or the notion that there are objective standards.  Is it even possible that there is a legitimate Rabbi at this time, or in any time in Jewish history, that could accept the actions which have led to Andrea's publicized pregancy?  To say that this kind of behavior is controversial is an understatement. 

Andrea may well be as good of a person in God's eyes as myself--in fact, she might be better.  Only Hashem knows.  We are given a mind and a Torah to judge actions and her action here is not right by any standard--it creates an intentional deficit for the life of a precious infant.

Define "legitimate rabbi". Is it like a "true Scotsman"?

"We are given a mind and a Torah to judge actions and her action here is not right by any standard--"

Well, sure, if what you mean by "any standard" is "those standards espoused by a (vanishingly small) subset of American Jews".

This should go without saying, but if the moral algorithm you describe (mind+Torah=ethical correctness) were sound, we'd have only two ways of accounting for the different opinions we know exist among those who look to Torah for guidance: either those you disagree with have inadequate minds, or they really don't know Torah like you know Torah. For obvious reasons, neither is very persuasive.

Like the New Testament, the Qur'an or (getting to a realm I feel more comfortable inhabiting) the US Constitution, Torah is open to interpretation. I realize that you, like your friends on the Christian Right, are certain that you've stumbled upon exactly what the Deity had in mind when he inspired his amanuenses to scribble their accounts of his wishes, but....no, you don't. This is hubris, a useful concept despite having been developed by our theologically extinct predecessors.

Andrea's kid will doubtless need to deal with the insults and hurts of dopey cranks who think the kid's life lessened due to insufficient penile presence, so I guess in that sense Andrea's decision is going to make his life a little tougher. But just a little, given the salutary progressive drift of the US public re gender issues.

Look, we all bequeath our kids some reason for them to suffer. My kid has an Arabic surname. She's already encountered some bullshit on that account. Should I have foregone parenthood? Oh, wait...I'll bet you think that we towelheads should do just that-the fewer of us, the better. Bad example. But you catch my drift, right?

A legitimate rabbi in this case would be one that he agrees with.

And anyone else thinking of posting a giant picture indicating that Obama received donations from Gaza, or that McCain is pandering, or any side of the topic, please feel free to LINK to your clever images instead of posting them here. That is acceptable. Thank you!

Yes, Ismail, life can be difficult and children can suffer many problems and indignities in normal or what can be called optimal conditons.  That does not mean one should create a tough situtation by creating a life in this manner.  This is why it is so contrversial and damnable to do it.

A legitimate Rabbi is someone who has obtained a normal ordination by traditional Jewish terms and knows Jewish law in its entirety and in detail.  There is no kosher interpretation of Jewish law that would accept a lesbian woman going to a sperm bank to impregnate herself to create a life.  The point, (I'll make it for you) that Jewish law does not discuss lesbian relationships in detail has no bearing on the matter of the creation of life which is only permitted in the context of a marital unit. Regarding Sarah Palin's dughter, if she was under Jewish law, the young man would be required to marry her and this is what is happening.

Our society goes nuts about a pregnant woman smoking or consuming alcohol or taking drugs--these things are also bad choices by Jewish law.  I ask you why-- Ismail? It seems obvious that an infant can survive such bad choices without apparent difficulty.  In fact, children can easily survive all kinds of mistreatment including verbal and physical abuse  and I suppose one can argue that a child can even be raised by wolves and come out OK in the end. I think it is one thing for people to have the freedom to enjoy their personal choices however bad they may be and quite another to inflict bad choices on innocent children and this is why the reflex in favor of children makes sense.  I am sorry that it does not make sense to you.

" I am sorry that it does not make sense to you."

damnable?  Jews don't believe in hell, buddy.

...What's more, I still balk at your definition of "kosher Jewish law". You say it as if there is possibly any sort of benchmark of accuracy for the term. I've questioned it maybe 2 or 3 times on Jewcy in the past two years and everyone always seems to start the conversation in fervor only to have it peter out 4 posts in.

I was told some things that, really, don't make sense to me:

.. Reform Judaism is not "real" Judaism because it is watered-down to eliminate inconvenience.
.. Modern, Orthodox Judaism is not the same Judaism as what was going on in the Bible.
.. It doesn't matter if Judaism has "evolved" over the years. It must do that to work in different times.

I just can't reconcile the three of those. Everyone seems convinced that their version of Judaism is the real one, because anything more "reform" is too loose an interpretation of the Torah. And yet everyone seems to readily admit that they're not accurately following the Torah. I call shenanigans.

Your version of what's "Kosher" is not the original version and, hence, is just as important to consider, in politics, as super-loose, reform Judaism: not very important at all.

"And yet everyone seems to readily admit that they're not accurately following the Torah."  huh?

You don't seem have dinner with too many people to the right of yourself.

At places like Chabad, while people have enough humility to say nobody is perfect, they do indeed think they are "accurately following the Torah". 

It's not shenanigans, it's belief. This isn't a science. This is a belief system. (So is the map that says on it "Canada," when everybody knows that Canada is just a useful human construct that seems to work for people  but has no basis in nature or physical reality.)

People over-dose on science, but science is just a very big, detailed, description, analogous to a hat size. It is not going to help.

Yeah, science never helped anyone.

How about a link or reference to one time where science did anything good.

Ismail is in full agreement with Andrea--not wanting to engage in any conversation with someone else who does not share their point of view, and the preferred point of view is one without rationality, principle or logic.  But my complaint here is that there is always a personal condemnation instead of even an attempt to deal with the facts and the issues.

As I pointed out it, it is surely odd that disapproval of bad behavior is limited these days, as people have become brow-beaten with non-judgmentalism gone beserk to the point that artificially inseminated lesbians are supposed just as good as anyone else.  In the same way, rampant anti-Americanism is just as patriotic as anyone else and this point of view means that definitions have become worthless and meaningful distinctions become extinct.  Into the mix, the current propaganda has it that any bit of "trans-fat" is supposedly veritable suicide, smoking, drinking and TV viewing poisons--while poisonous ideas and ideals replace moral ones.  Sure, Ismail, if you want to try to prove that a smoking pregant woman harms her child--I could agree with you that there could be harm, if you want to argue that trans fats might have know medical harm--I could agree with that possibility.  Now consider the statistics with homosexual relationships--whoops, you just won't do that, will you?  What "science" is there to prove that any particular child will suffer psychological damage from lving with two women instead of a man and a woman--I might easily conclude that for any particular child there may be no damage in the SAME way as for any particular child, there may be no damage from a particular woman smoking or eating one too many hamburgers and yet logic tells us both are bad choices.  If two lesbians can rear children as well as a mother and a father--any one of us would be pleased or ambivalent about being willing to trade our reality as children for Andrea's son.  But we wouold never make such a trade and this logically infers that Andrea's choice is inferior and we should therefore not celebrate it any more than we wouild celebrate pregant mothers smoking or eating hamburgers day and night.  Indeed, why the left cheers lesbian motherhood as SUPERIOR and damns meat eating and smoking as immoral--a clear lack of rationality emerges.

As a principled and moral person who lives under Torah, I cannot claim any personal superiority to you or anyone else and this thought is not only sincere, it is true.  I can claim that some actions are better than others only because we have objective standards that have previously formed the basis of law and morality in our society and these are Biblical values.  The fact that these values are under assault is a problem and not a mandate to junk all of it.

Andrea's disclosure that she cannot speak red is another one of those damnable remarks since it reveals intolerance.  Perhaps the most striking thing about Judaism is the way in which we are called upon to come and reason together.  The Jewish left believes fervently that there is no other way except for their way, failing to see the merit of another position and even stating publicly that there is no need to even try--since they can't even speak the same language.

Science has helped plenty. Scientifically. Long live science! But it gets blank-eyed and tongue-tied around these "how should we think, live, and perhaps pray" questions which is what people discuss at Jewcy.

Craig was holding Belief to scientific standards of verification and consistency. Your beliefs are not verifiable! he says. But life isn't a science. It just has science in it.

People like, and use science. Great. But, science goes home at the end of the day. Leaving one with lonely questions. Religion addresses how to think and live. Science is glad to help, but refuses to be named CEO. Science is too smart for that. I am not taking line responsibility for that, says science. Not my job.

"Andrea may well be as good of a person in God's eyes as myself--in fact, she might be better."

"...people have become brow-beaten with non-judgmentalism gone beserk to the point that artificially inseminated lesbians are supposed just as good as anyone else."

Which is it?  

"Now consider the statistics with homosexual relationships--whoops, you just won't do that, will you? " 

What statistics? This is not my field, but the studies with which I'm familiar suggest no significant difference on measures of emotional difficulties, socialization etc between kids of straights and kids of gay or lesbian parents. Perhaps you know of others. If so, let me know. It'd be nice if the study appeared in a peer-reviewed journal and not in the personal newsletter of some medieval cleric or another.

Your command of logic is shaky and your heart is stony and cold. Go back to your self-imposed ideological shtetl and leave those who remain open to uncertainty, curiosity and love alone. 

Ismail, for someone so willing to expel Friedman from the discussion board for his intolerance, arrogance and unreason, you are strikingly unwilling to consider such attributes in Palin as a reason for the scorn she receives. (See first comment).

The pregnancy of Palin's unwed daughter invites attention because it exemplifies the well-known shoddiness of her own endorsement of abstinence-only education. One personal case does not prove the point, but it's an embarrassing reminder to anyone with a sense of reason or integrity. But alas, we are talking about Red-State Cultural Warrior Sarah Palin, so her illogic must be allowed a free pass lest it disrupt the left's sole claim to arrogance!

Along these lines, the fact that she was unwilling to have the city she led foot the bill for rape kits is also notably arrogant - if a bit more insidious from the perspective of victims' rights.

In any event, the cognitive dissonance of the right is so loud that it would have exploded in insanity in St. Paul, and later dissipated into ignominy, had they not patched together a last-minute narrative with which to cover themselves. That the right found a way to temporarily resurrect its pride by rallying around God, guns and the flag - with the image of a frontier woman as the symbol and focal centerpiece for their supposed resurgence, doesn't make them any less arrogant. It makes them more arrogant, while leaving their logic just as shaky and their hearts just as stony as they were before.   

If you find examples of the arrogance of the right in Ms. Askowitz's essay elusive, try pretending that people like Barry don't exist. I don't know about Arab American families, but in every other American family there are at least a few like him. They may not be the most up-front about it, but remaining that stallwart in the face of such obvious cognitive dissonance requires a special sort of arrogance that need not speak its name. Hence, the RNC dog and pony show: Nationalism, religion and miltarism will save the day. Except when they won't.  

This culture war that the right declared on the left will continue to proceed, as it has for the last 25 years, but not in the same manner as before. That's why it doesn't concern me. The left's largely learned their lessons from any legitimate complaints that could have been lodged against them on that score.  It's the right who have lost so much political credibility that even the claim they keep asserting to cultural dominance (let alone any demands for "respect") is finished - no matter how much they think they can keep shoving that claim in everyone's face. That they are now safely relegated to the three most primal symbols in American culture, says everything you need to know.

Jews are obligated to vote Democratic for the following reason. As Hitler came to power, US Jews were concerned that they would soon be deluged with foreign accented Jews from Germany who would endager their standing in non Jewish society. With the invasion of Poland, things looked even more bleak, because of the possibility of being overrun by hordes of ferocious Ostjuden. But FDR held firm, and kept the gates shut, just as Jan Sobiesky did when he stopped the Turks, or when Charles Martel did when he stopped the Saracens from invading France. FDR reocgnized that the Holocaust was an internal German matter, and his minister John McCloy made sure that the trains to Auschwitz ran on time. In gratitude, American Jews are obligated to vote democratic no matter whom the candidate was

If Elvis Baldwell had some common sense, he'd realize that while Jews are obligated to vote for or support no person or party in particular, in 2008, those among them with a brain for associations that are more than merely symbolic in nature, will vote for Obama because they realize that God, guns and flags won't save them from anything. Or do anything more for them. Those things are not an answer for every predicament under the sun.

Ismail, my stand is transparent and easy to understand.  It is proper to not judge people since Hashem is our judge and we do not know how he will judge.  However, it is appropriate to judge actions and this is why, at this month of Elul, we are to judge ourselves--that is, the quality of our ACTIONS through the year.  I am no different from anyone else, I have committed damnable acts and I need to recall them and seek forgiveness for them.  Actions can be judged with reason and by known standards.

Therefore, Andrea (or anyone else) is no better or worse in merit before God than you or me.  Her action to declare her intolerance for half of the nation publicly is damnable since it is correct to denounce such intolerance.  It is a common problem among the Left, I have regularly sought to share argument and facts among my liberal friends and they will not read it, lacking the mere intellectual curiosity to even consider it.  I believe as national policy, we need to live and let live concerning our homosexual friends.  This is not the same as changing the definition of marriage to include their unions or applauding when a lesbian couple act in a controversial way by bringing an innocent thrid party into their non-marital union.  It is also damnable if a single heterosexual woman goes to a sperm bank and buys a donor male to bring a child into a world with no father.  

We all make mistakes, some more severe than others.  I generally hide my mistakes from public view, I regret them and I implore God for teshuva.  Andrea's decision to highlight her "Miserable, Lonely, Lesbian Pregnancy" speaks for itself.