Sarah Palin vs. the Marquis de Sade

I grew up with a mean older brother who was ten when I came on the scene. Family lore is that Tom ran away when my mother left to deliver me. When she returned he responded with disgust, "At least you could have brought me home a brother."

Tom's main passion in life was tormenting me. He delighted in mocking me, scaring me, making me cry. He'd laugh and make this strange, guttural sound when he saw my terror. As I got older, he enjoyed more menacing methods of torture, like holding me down and pretending to suffocate me.

It was easy to have access to me since my parents were usually galavanting around town with their pack of carousing adults, all of whom were in arrested development. When my folks were around, they'd yell at him but he'd just start up again when they were gone.

After I grew up and became a psychotherapist, I learned that there was a name for Tom's behavior, sadism. Sadists get a thrill out of being cruel and watching others suffer. While most abusive parents are motivated by a misguided effort to socialize and control, sadistic siblings just want to have fun by inflicting pain.

I rarely think of Tom, who disowned my family years ago. But when I reflect on what was done to Sarah Palin, I remember him and his sadism. And I look around and see more and more Tom's, all grown up; but they haven't grown up, actually; they refuse to grow up and use self control and restraint. And, alarmingly, many of them are in positions of power.

Let's call them by their true name. When an actress calls for gang raping Palin, she's a sadist. When people torch Palin's church with children inside, they are sadists. When bloggers call her a c___t and scorn her disabled son, they are being sadists.

Each day I wake up and the world looks more and more like my childhood: Tom's and Terry's who get a thrill out of terrorizing others; aging Peter Pans who won't grow up and enforce rules; parents too busy partying or saving the world to stay home, guide their kids, and teach them that all important word "no."

Television shows that humiliate people by publicly rejecting and demeaning them; movies where audiences are kept pumped up on sex and violence; an Internet where you can post the vilest things anonymously, unfiltered.

A secular society where anything goes, where self fulfillment reigns, where morals and values are as disposable as yesterday's underwear, to be thrown in the trash when you're tired of them.

A society gone mad, a "return to the primitive," as Ayn Rand described it forty years ago when she witnessed the growing power of the Left. Adults who have the impulse control of two year olds marching around, unhinged and uncontrolled, like Lord of the Flies. Teens beating up each other and teachers and uploading the video on YouTube.

Good people like Palin and Carrie Prejean being victimized in a manner so malicious that the intent is nothing short of destroying them. And the Powers that Be which could stop the growing brutality at any time by calling off the dogs, calling for order, won't do so because it serves their needs. After all, it's what Saul Alinsky preached: control the masses by keeping them agitated and paranoid.

Maybe what's happening today goes beyond Left and Right and speaks instead to the ancient struggle between good and evil. We live in a nation that has banished evil, that denies it even exists. But this is naive and foolhardy; good and evil exist hand in hand in the fiber of all human beings. We each have in us the seeds of Gandhi and the seeds of Pol Pot. It all depends on which ones we feed and nurture.

Evil, unacknowledged and unrecognized, takes root and becomes a virus so virulent, it threatens everyone whom it touches. Because evil changes people; it wipes out what makes them uniquely human; it turns them into something completely different, unrecognizable, alien.

And goodness is not just some old fashioned concept, some relic of days gone by. It's a privilege bestowed on us from the universe and we must cradle it and protect it as we would a newborn babe. We must never take it for granted, mock it or abandon it because it's the only thing that stands in the way of us and total anarchy.

Philosopher Jacob Needleman tells a story of walking on a bustling San Francisco street with a religious scholar from Tibet. Needleman asks his friend, "If it is so rare to be born a human being, how come there are so many people in the world?" His friend ponders the question silently for several seconds. Then he looks at Needleman and responds quietly, "How many human beings do you see?"

I look around each day and ask myself the same question, "Where are the human beings?" I see fewer and fewer each day. But there's a shining example in Alaska of a woman who maintained her integrity in the midst of cruelty that would have crushed many of us; who never descended to the level of the thugs; and who exits the scene with something that the sadists will never have, not even in their dreams -- her humanity.

A frequent AT contributor, Robin is a recovering liberal and psychotherapist in Berkeley.

I am so upset today, so full of love and concern for my nation, my homeland, that is being eroded by those whose vision is a sick, twisted, spirit-killing mass of those with power ordering the masses cradle to grave to do their will.

Where do they get off thinking they OWN everything about us, including our INCOME?

We do not even KNOW if our so called president (tyrant?) is even an American citizen. He sure does not ACT like one.

I will be praying for our nation, today, as well.

I sure hope a whole lot of people are motivated to do a whole lot of action to keep that freak from destroying our foundations.

Palin has to get off this victim stuff. It’s weakness not strength. Many in this country say similar personal things about Obama and his wife too. Let’s move on, we have Health Care, cap and Trade and the Supreme Court to worry about, Talking about how hateful the libs are may be republican base fundraising candy but it does nothing for me.

Au Contra ire....What Sarah is doing is much more significant than obsessing on mere issues.

Once morals and integrity are reestablished, issues can be addressed honestly without the dishonest, hidden, corrupt and lying dialogue that currently stinks up the debate.

RE :”If she is playing the victim card then we might as say Rush, Hannity, or Levin is playing the victim card when they point out the hypocrisy and total lack of objectivity of the press.”

Is this all leading to a radio talk show career? If so what she is doing is great. Hannity and Levin are sore subjects. Levin always tries to claim he is attacked to up his show ratings (loyal listeners love this) , but he rarely gets attacked because few know who he is. He is Like the MAC that wants to claim the viruses attack it when they all go to the PC (Rush).

If she is trying to show strength and leadership she needs to be on the attack (like on Health Care, Cap and Trade and the Supreme Court)not defense like “you made fun of my daughter”. And she shouldnt call Obama a Stalinist in public ( where it can recorded), that's dramatics more for Radio talk show hosts ,and Alan Keyes.

Couldn't disagree with you more!

The "gentlemenly" approach you are suggesting has gotten the GOP nowhere. Sarah is blazing a new road, one where the GOP will hit back and hit back hard whenever they are attacked.

GWB took the "gentlemenly" approach with a media and democrat apparatus that increasingly lost all decorum and objectivity and fairness they ever had.

The enemy, as defined as the Press and the DNC, behave like the more radical of the adherents of Islam, all they respect is strength.

They will not be cowed until they are figuratively beaten into a "bloody" pulp.

RE :”The “gentlemenly” approach you are suggesting has gotten the GOP nowhere.”

I will repeat. That is fine if all she wants is to sub for Levin, but getting elected it another story. Furthermore, if she beats the victim thing to death, it wont have any effect if she needs it in a pincgh like Hillary vs lazio debate in NY Senate election.

First of all, that is your characterization of her, not mine.

Secondly, I don't believe that most conservatives would agree with your characterization, therefore, your point is moot.

Levin always tries to claim he is attacked to up his show ratings (loyal listeners love this) , but he rarely gets attacked because few know who he is.

Says who, you?

So how are you going to prove your assertion?

For someone who has 7 to 8 million average listeners and has sold over 850,000 copies of "Liberty and Tyranny" and has been #1 on the NYTimes Bestseller List for 13 out of 14 weeks I think he is a little bit more known then you let on.

RE :”The “gentlemenly” approach you are suggesting has gotten the GOP nowhere.” I will repeat. That is fine if all she wants is to sub for Levin, but getting elected it another story. Furthermore, if she beats the victim thing to death, it wont have any effect if she needs it in a pincgh like Hillary vs lazio debate in NY Senate election.

The left is essentially playing by Saul Alinsky's Rule book "Rules for Radicals" by using our "Gentlemanly Rules" against us.

Essentially it is PC and fear that binds conservatives. We need to break these rules ala Coulter, with truth delivered with unqualified precision.

Click on the image to see how Sarah handled Matt Lauer giving no quarter and in the process devastated Letterman.

She stayed on offense during the entire interview swatting away Lauer's attempts to put her on defence.

This interview BTW was what got Lettermam to apologize.

click on image below

Last week, Pollster Frank Lutz was on Hannity. He had a focus group watch Palin’s resignation speech. When Palin rambled on playing the victim, the audience reaction dropped to her, even with conservatives. People want leaders, not whiners.

RE :”Last week, Pollster Frank Lutz was on Hannity. He had a focus group watch Palin’s resignation speech. When Palin rambled on playing the victim, the audience reaction dropped to her, even with conservatives. People want leaders, not whiners.”

No Joan of Ark

I saw some polls showing how after she quit it hurts her in the polls. I don't care if she wants to spend all her time talking about this stuff but when she is talking about it she is not fighting health care and taxes, so I don't understand the hero worship. Comment 3 has an embedded video of Palin vs Lauar over Letterman that is entertaining but she is on and on on that “Insult young women” theme. That's OK for a talk radio host or a movie star but it is NO Margaret Thatcher.

Poll: Most Say Palin Resigned To Help Her Career:Less than one in four Americans – 23 percent – hold a favorable view of Palin. Thirty-seven percent hold an unfavorable view of the former Republican vice presidential nominee. Another 39 percent are undecided.

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