Sarah Palin’s Barbarism

The National Review's The Corner ^ | April 28, 2014 | Patrick Brennan, associate editor

[2ndDivisionVet]

It’s been no secret for a while that Sarah Palin, erstwhile vice-president candidate, is no longer a serious political contender — for evidence of that transition, note that even among her faithful, at CPAC this year, she got just 2 percent of the vote in the straw poll, tied with Condoleezza Rice. But as her crowd-pleasing performance in the very final speech of that event — and her lucrative contract with Fox News and huge social-media following — indicate, she’s gone from being a potential political leader to something of a cultural totem.

That means her speeches have gone from being standard political pablum to something even more substanceless — more or less a long string of hokey but often amusing jokes. But for all the lightheartedness, her appeal is to a set of people who take seriously their commitment to faith and freedom, right? Well, should this line garner laughs from such a crowd?

Oh, but you can’t offend [Islamic terrorists], can’t make them feel uncomfortable, not even a smidgen. Well, if I were in charge, they would know that waterboarding is how we baptize terrorists.

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)

As Rod Dreher explains, this is pretty perverse:

"Not only is this woman, putatively a Christian, praising torture, but she is comparing it to a holy sacrament of the Christian faith. It’s disgusting — but even more disgusting, those NRA members, many of whom are no doubt Christians, cheered wildly for her. . . . Palin and all those who cheered her sacrilegious jibe ought to be ashamed of themselves. For us Christians, baptism is the entry into new life. Palin invoked it to celebrate torture. Even if you don’t believe that waterboarding is torture, surely you agree that it should not be compared to baptism, and that such a comparison should be laughed at. What does it say about the character of a person that they could make that joking comparison, and that so many people would cheer for it. Nothing good — and nothing that does honor to the cause of Jesus Christ."

Torture — waterboarding being something reasonable people may consider to constitute it — is and should be a question of grave moral consequence for Christians, and is for any Catholic familiar with the Catechism. Palin wasn’t even just jokingly comparing a serious violation of human dignity into one of the most important transcendental recognitions of it – she was mounting an expansive defense of something near torture, on the grounds that our prisoners ”would obviously have information on plots,” and therefore ought to, apparently, be subjected to a horrible practice not as a morally necessary last resort but a habit of quotidian intimidation. There’s a word for that kind of practice: barbaric. The Greeks used to use it to describe the other guys.

[Yardstick]

No doubt a pair of docksiders if you pan down.

Reminds me of Iowahawk’s character, T. Coddington Van Vorhees VII, and his article, “Together, I Shall Ride You to Victory”:

http://iowahawk.typepad.com/iowahawk/2011/10/together-i-shall-ride-you-to-victory.html

[vetvetdoug]

I guess this is one of the first RINO journolisters to get their panties in a wad over Palin. Screw ‘em.

[GunRunner]

Agreed. Joking about torture isn’t funny. Dicking around with civil liberties and buying into the Bush version of the war on terror is what got us Obama.

[x]

"Baptism of fire" is now an idiom fixed expression in English (and I guess that applies to phrases like "baptism in combat" now). You say it and very few people actually think of the Christian sacrament, any more than anyone expects it to be literally raining cats and dogs.

Associate baptism with water torture and some people will object. The direct association with the Christian sacrament hasn't been bleached out by its use in an idiomatic phrase.

Whether or not you get morally indignant about Palin's comment, the observation that her appearances have a collection of one-liners that aren't really to be taken seriously is something to consider.

And while the waterboarding comment wasn't the focus of her comments by any means, even bringing it up suggests that she's a bit out of touch with where the country is now. I doubt anybody's main concern today is with bringing back waterboarding (if it ever really went away).

[Steve_Seattle]

"The atomic bombs were only a brief epitaph on a wide ranging bombing campaign that destroyed 50-90% of 67 Japanese cities, including the firebombing of the wooden city of Toyko."

That actually strengthens my argument. The relevance of my comment is that National Review suddenly finds a snarky comment about baptism "barbaric" and "un-Christian" even though it has often supported acts of war that were incomparably more barbaric.

[Mears]

What about the 1,000,000 civilians who died in Germany?

Should we have avoided bombing them too?

War is hell.

.

[2ndDivisionVet]

A Classic.

[HMS Surprise]

You’re ignoring the forest, but most carnivores are oblivious to everything but the meal in front of them. Palin scares the left because they have sensed her resolve from the beginning. Name the politician, OTHER THAN REAGAN, who has been so vilified by the establishment? You think her comments were scandalous? Go to Youtube NOW, and watch a few vids about the Twin Towers circa 9/11. Type “jumpers” in the search bar for particular edification. And then accept the fact that you are a putz.

[RginTN]

Being a Christian politician means allowing terrorists to kill fellow Americans...is this what Dreher(spelling wrong & don’t care) means & is ok with????

[Sarah Barracuda]

Its sad that the majority of the insults that Sarah gets is from her own party..I can understand libtards hating her, but coming from so-called Republicans is even more disturbing. I take it from this guy that he has NO problem with Obama using DRONES to KILL terrorists, without a trial, but he considers water boarding to be “Barbaric” gee, what is worse, getting your ass blown up or being dumped in water and living

[greene66]

Palin was great. She talks like Americans USED TO TALK. Wry humor, straight-arrow, and unfettered by a suffocating, fascist-PC culture. Just like almost everyone I used to know from earlier generations, from neighbors to family members. She’s almost a lone echo from the past, and America’s former greatness.

Back before the whole damned country became a bunch of cowering pajama-boys, crippled by a perverse PC culture and permeated with weakness, and pathetic, self-absorbed, holier-than-thou gamesmanships about moral virtue.

[Norm Lenhart]

Listening to Democrats redefine torture is what screwed up the WOT. Listening to Democrats and mirroring their words id something worse yet.

My daughter survived waterboarding in the military. the poor widdle musWinbs can find a better hobby than terrorism if they don’t like what we do to them for it. As can their supporters.

[2ndDivisionVet]

I’ve been “waterboarded” and while it wasn’t fun, it sure as hell isn’t torture.

[HMS Surprise]

Your country has been ruined by establishment types and political correctness. G. Bush was one, and suffered from the other. Bush should have parked a B52 over Mecca, armed every pilot, and put his Saudi buddies in jail instead of quickly sneaking them out of the country. Palin doesn’t equal Bush tenderfoot, and your soft sensibilities are useless in a 100 year war.

[Steve_Seattle]

"Agreed. Joking about torture isn’t funny."

People say things like "watching that movie was torture" or "I'm going to nuke those ants in my backyard" or "that battle was a baptism-under-fire for many of the soldiers" or "CBS's questioning of Romney was like an Inquisition" all the time. So analogies to terrible things are common and accepted.

True, Palin's comment was much more direct than that, but waterboarding-as-baptism is fairly mild, in my opinion, insofar as waterboarding neither kills anyone nor permanently injures anyone. Thirty minutes after waterboarding, the subject can be back in his cell reading his Koran and eating his halal meal. I think the NR did sound a lot like a Pajama Boy kind of guy, and his outrage seemed forced to the point of strangeness.

[Steve_Seattle]

I agree, but libs - and apparently some conservatives - seem impervious to your argument, which seems to me to be basically sound.

[Resettozero]

She ceased to be a serious political player a long time ago, and the waterboard/baptize comment was an unserious comment from an unserious person.

I don't see how any informed conservative on FR could make that statement. What am I missing? Who are the serious political players that FReepers should be focused on, rather than having such threads as this?

[Sarah Barracuda]

Wanna know what REAL torture is..having to go through what those people in the towers had to go through on 9/11..being on the 103rd floor and knowing that there was NO way out, that either way they were going to die and they jumped, that is the REAL meaning of torture. I dont see the same people blasting Palin for what she said going after Obama for DRONING people, getting blown up isn’t “Torture”

[GunRunner]

That actually strengthens my argument.

Not really. Emphasizing the atomic bombs alone in contrast to the reality that they were part of an entire campaign of strategic bombing that had been going on for four years is gross oversimplification.

If you have a problem with Hiroshima and Nagasaki, then you have a problem with almost the entire Allied strategy in the Pacific War. Without constant pressure through bombing and destruction on the Japanese mainland, it is unlikely the Pacific military campaigns would have succeeded.

With that aside, I don't think NRO's alleged defense of the atomic bomb in any way is relevant to the discussion. However I do agree that it is dumb to get wound up about Palin's comment (which was equally dumb).

[Sarah Barracuda]

Hey some people think that you have to kiss some Muslim extremist ass in order to make them stop killing us..it doesn’t work, the only way to destroy them before they kill us is to kill them first. Water boarded, poor babies, I feel more sorry for the babies left behind after their fathers and mothers are slaughtered by terrorist scum