Palin: Eagle or Ostrich?

October 03, 2008

There were many memorable moments from Thursday night's vice presidential debate. There was Sarah Palin's faux-folksy use of "doggone it," for instance (take it from me, genuine rural and small town folks have no fear of a bona fide "Godammit!") and her shocking lack of understanding of the crucial separation of powers in the three branches of U.S. government. Then there was her stridently ignorant position on global warming. Naturally, this one interested me the most.

Yes, she admitted the existence of global warming. But then she not only dismissed humanity's part in causing it but went one step further and dismissed the whole concept of bothering to know the cause of any bad thing (unless she can pin it on a Democrat, of course).

In case you missed her coded message, I'll give you the translation: "I, Sarah Palin, oppose science and reason and prefer to shove my head in the sand and stare at dark specks of dogma." This general denial of reality popped up again in another of her bizarre assertions of the night: That it's not important to know the history that led to the current hornet's nest of U.S. crises (specifically, her repeatedly chiding Biden with "There you go Joe, looking back again. Tsk tsk tsk," whenever he pointed to the last almost eight years of grievous executive and legislative mismanagement).

Truth is, the causes of things like global warming are pretty well known. They are, however, totally inconsistent with Palin's world view and inconvenient for her special interests. So she just dismisses the causes. Then, pesto magico!: Someting without a cause is impossible to solve, so let's just continue doing nothing about it. Hurrah! Problem solved. Three cheers for Exxon, Mobile and Chevron! Drill baby drill!

It's all the same sort of fearful, selfish, asinine intellectual blindness practiced by our current President and look where he's gotten us. Rest assured, if Palin succeeds in getting anywhere near the White House we will be one giant step closer to becoming the first species on Earth with the capacity to foresee its own demise, but without the horse sense to do anything about it. Pig sense even. Heck, even a fly has enough sense to get out of the way of a swatter. Not Palin. Godammit!

Mature bald eagle spotted during the 1982 Midwinter Bald Eagle Survey. Photo by Wade Eakle, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. 

Comments

[Irene]

Larry,
Just curious if you've read Michael Crighton's State of Fear?

[Larry O'Hanlon]

Nope. Heard a lot about it. Nothing good.

[Frank]

You are no scientist. The earth's Globle warming/cooling cycle has been going on for billons of years. Globle warming is a natural action in the Earth's on going cycle. Yes , man has accelerated this action, not caused it. It will then cycle into an iceage.

[Larry O'Hanlon]

I know! Let's start an ostrich farm!

But seriously, there's one element of truth in what Frank says: Earth has seen many climate changes. However he neglects to mention (or probably doesn't know) that organisms played a role in those changes as well. Same sort of thing is happening now, except it's just one species causing the trouble. Are we smart enough to moderate the problems we create? Not if we continue to let willfully ignorant and anti-science & reason people like Sarah Palin have any say. The ostrich strategy does not work. I can't believe I have to point that out. Fear kills reason. And without reason, we are sunk.