Posted on 09/09/2008 2:15:32 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
I assume it is unnecessary to answer the logically prior question of whether or not they hate Sarah Palin. The level of vitriol flung at her over the past week and a half by critics in every liberal outlet ranging from The New York Times to Air America is particularly awe-inspiring given that this is all the longer they’ve even known her name. Ordinarily, such hatred takes years to cultivate. The force and acceleration of their vehemence virtually demands psychoanalysis. Since this sport is in vogue, I’ll give my diagnostic skills a shot at the trophy.
Preface: There Is a Pathology
The natural first reaction of a Palin-hater to this column is to deny the hatred. They will say it’s her politics, her religion, or possibly the whiff of scandal some have managed to ladle upon her. But if they’re honest with themselves, they’ll have to admit three simple facts.
First, the reasons they give aren’t the reasons they hate. If they didn’t have these, they’d manufacture others. There’s an old story about a man asking to borrow his neighbor’s lawn mower and being told, “No, I’m making potato soup.” “What does that have to do with me borrowing your lawn mower?” the incredulous man replies. “Nothing, but if I don’t want to loan you my lawn mower, one excuse is just as good as another.” Likewise, Governor Palin is not hated because of whatever reasons they offer. These are afterthoughts to an animosity which is embarrassed to admit it was born prior to reason. Hence, refuting them will prove futile.
Second, even those who persist in asserting such reasons as their motive will have to admit that all of them put together still can’t justify the disproportionate vigor of their attacks upon her. To use an aging phrase, this is the politics of personal destruction; a nuclear response to what their own arguments admit is a merely conventional threat.
Third, no one can hate this deeply this quickly. Conservatives generally despise certain political figures such as Bill Clinton, Teddy Kennedy and John Paul Stevens. But it’s taken us years, sometimes decades to detest these people. Similarly for liberals, contempt only begins to describe their feelings toward George W. Bush, Rick Santorum, and Antonin Scalia. But, again, at least such a sentiment has developed over time. It took Sarah Palin less than a week to receive treatment these men have taken years to earn. Such an immediate mauling of someone’s character says far more about the predators than about their prey.
So, what explains this pathology? I have two mutually compatible theories.
Theory 1: The Cult of Personality
Barack Obama is the left’s messiah. Their hopes, their dreams and even their patriotism are at this point invested in him. He cannot be criticized. He cannot be joked about. And he most certainly cannot be mocked. All such response to him (perfectly normal with any other politician) is viewed as blasphemy rather than politics. Not only is the left salvifically invested in him, they secretly fear they have been too rash to the altar call. Calm reflection proves Barack Obama isn’t ready to be president yet, but who can resist the hope beyond hope that he’s more than just a golden voice reading a teleprompter?
So when little Sarah Palin comes along and castigates him with condescending satire, they react as any devastated schoolgirl with a crush would. Her speech stated every major flaw with his candidacy. Not just honestly, but with a Reagenesque comedic flair. And since their deepest fear is that everything she said about him is right, the only option to reconsidering their betrothal was to destroy her.
It’s pretty simple. If we disagree, you correct me. If I am silly, you ignore me. But if I articulate your own fears in attacking something you cherish irrationally, you excoriate me … as cover. As Robert Pirsig explained in his lovely novel on motorcycle maintenance, no one jumps up and down screaming that the sun will rise tomorrow. Highly emotional responses indicate fear and uncertainty, not the opposite.
Sarah Palin’s on-target reductio of Barack Obama turned their messiah into a joke, earning the very predictable treatment a heretic deserves. Disabusing people of a savored fantasy always does.
Theory 2: Her Non-Feminist Feminism
I used to marvel at the rudeness so often publicly shown to parents with many children. But then I saw how the very existence of such families exposes the guilt and self-doubt others feel about their own decisions to stop having children. The surest way to avoid dealing with these stifled concerns is to assault the character or intelligence of parents who dare to expose them with their large families.
So, too with Sarah Palin and the left. Her very life rebukes them.
She has five children, two of them after the age of 40. When her infant son was diagnosed with Down syndrome, she chose life. And when her own daughter was discovered pregnant, she helped her choose life, too. Without ever saying a word about being pro-life (to say it would have been superfluous), she demolished all the common arguments used in favor of abortion and family planning, totemic doctrines of the left.
But it’s more than just doctrine. It’s that so many people on the left have condoned abortions, helped others obtain abortions, or even had abortions themselves in the very same circumstances under which Sarah Palin chose life. Honest people are an affront to liars. Law-abiders are an affront to criminals. And the woman who has made pro-life “choices” is a stinging affront to modern feminism, which has spent decades trying to convince women that an unwanted pregnancy is like a disease and the unborn child something like a parasite.
They must demonize her because her choices so clearly condemn their own. Make no mistake, when your example disproves someone else’s deeply internalized rationalizations, they will try to destroy you. After all, the only other option would be to repent.
Conclusion
In “Beyond Good and Evil,” Nietzsche said, “Anyone who has looked deeply into the world may guess how much wisdom lies in the superficiality of men … let nobody doubt that whoever stands that much in need of the cult of surfaces must at some time have reached beneath them with disastrous results.” His critique of religion so perfectly fits probamaism that one is forced to conclude the latter is but a new flavor of the former.
There may be other pathologies at play here, but these explain both the left’s tsunamic response and why it struck last Thursday morning. It was the speech, stupid.
John 15:18-19
Jesus said:
“If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the
world hates you.”
They hate her because, like spoiled brats do, the truth hurts.
For normal people, hate is not something that is instantaneous upon meeting someone. It usually grows over time due to a person’s actions. The left’s hatred of Palin erupted so volcanically that it could not be based in reason. It was there already for anyone that opposes them. Palin is just the latest target. It speaks volumes that their first reaction to hearing her name was to try and destroy her and her family by any means necessary (and then blamed her for it). That’s not the reaction of normal people.
It illustrates what I have been saying for years about how intensely the left hates conervatives. Given the opportunity, they would shove us into a gas chamber without a moment’s hesitation.
Tallman is profound.
They hate what they fear.
Thanks. They’ve always been this way...it’s just come more and more out in the open. They’ve been embolden and drawn out...right into the line of fire, hehehe.
I can see three reasons:
1. She really is the antithesis of what they are striving for and is therefore the ultimate threat to their model of the universe. Her charisma trumps Obama charisma largely because in a loud voice it says “he is not qualified.” Sarah is is the boy crying out that the would be emperor has no clothes and, good grief, he does not. Those who have fooled themselves are not mad at the would-be emperor, they are mad at the boy who exposed their foolishness.
2. They are reacting to her the same way they reacted to Clarence Thomas. The strength of their reaction is proportional to their failure to understand what makes Gov. Palin and Justice Thomas who they are.
3. I have a lot of colleagues who generally are pretty reasonable people. They are aghast at this VP selection. Without data they dismiss her. At the same time, without data, they accept Obama. I think they want so much to lance the boil of past and present racism that they would embrace any “clean cut”, talented African American politician. In truth that is how I felt about Deval Patrick, the current Governor of Massachussetts. It proved a point - perhaps out of guilt but more out of simply being able to say “we are not racists”.
I think the reaction is so very strong because all three arguments are in play and they amplify each other.
“They must demonize her because her choices so clearly condemn their own. Make no mistake, when your example disproves someone else’s deeply internalized rationalizations, they will try to destroy you. After all, the only other option would be to repent.”
Love it. Right on the spot.
The Leftists are the ultimate in seeking to become members, and participants of the “IN CROWD” where they can find solace, comraderie in their insecurities, and guilt(s).
Just look at whom they denounce, mock, or otherwise slander.
A truly confused lot purposely agitated by false prophets, and lead by their noses to destruction. It wouldn’t matter that much if they were disallowed the vote, thus take us down to the gutter with them.
Intelligent people with ideas scare the unintelligent with no ideas!
I have personally overheard the most vile and vicious personal attacks against Sarah Pailing since her nomination.
Last night in a local restaurant, two guys were apoplectic, and shreiking. Using the most foul language, including the “c” word. I live in NYC.
IMO hate comes from fear...and they are afraid, and rightly so.
Be afriad, very afraid
Cause they can’t tell her to sit down and shut up.
Like they did to Hillary.
Like they did to Hillary.
Like they did to Hillary.
The left and their willing accomplices in the media hate Sarah because:
She is NOT who they TOLD McCain to nominate for VP. They wanted him to nominate someone who would MIND them and lose!
They had chosen John McCain and think they are responsible for putting him in the candidate for the position of POTUS for the Republican Party. That part worked.
With the “help” from the cyncal MSM, McCain is SUPPOSED to lose! - With flattery, the MSM was supposed to CONTROL that guy who they think loves the media ‘cause they’ve thrown him a crumb or two.
The media has beaten the “hate Bush” drum tirelessly for years now, and WE are supposed to have fallen hook, line and sinker for their long, tireless crusade to sink the Republicans.
Gov. Palin IS the embodiment of what the feminists have been shooting for in their own lives all these years, but most of them have been going about it in a lazy, angry, phony way and have mised the mark. Palin is the GENUINE REAL DEAL, and the light makes the darkness manifest.
Briefly, the MSM crusaded to elect Pelosi and the bunch; for a whole year, all we heard was media bias and outright lies - so the MSM gave us “Nine Percent Nancy and the Crew” and we ain’t about to fergit it!
So, keep on digging MSM - MSM is digging its own grave.
“Bottom Line”. You are absolutely correct. There is not an issue that causes the left more consternation and loathing than a Christian, especially one who claims to be “born again”. Anyone can frame it however they want , but this is the front lines in “the culture war”
I like to annoy Obamarobots by expressing great sympathy for Obama’s sagging poll numbers. “Oh, poor poor Obama, I feel so sorry for him and his followers. Poor poor Obama. I can’t stand the way people keep picking on him. Poor poor Obama.” I’ve been thinking of placing a bumper sticker on our pickup with the words: “Poor, poor Obama”
Individual liberty is a frightening concept to some people. Consider that the American Revolution pitted those who wanted individual freedom against those who preferred the status quo, even though it meant shackles. Liberals fear individual liberty with its demands for self-reliance, self-control over passions and impulses, critical thinking skills, a ‘can-do’ attitude, an ability to suffer consequences, a readiness to work and to fight for home and hearth, the self-sacrifice necessary for the raising of children, and so much more.
Liberals know deep inside that they don’t measure up to those who want individual liberty, and their pride (narcissism) and envy gnaws them. Hence their constant belittlement of Conservatives, orthodox Christians, our military, Boy Scouts, traditional family, and so on.
Palin symbolizes everything that Liberals-—even emasculated Liberal males-— are not, and which they fear. America’s steadily declining culture of decay is due mostly to the efforts of Liberals. They’re most at home in cultural rot. Palin signals a revival of morality, principles,standards, and all of those things most feared and hated by Liberals.
It is you and I they hate.
So when little Sarah Palin comes along and castigates him with condescending satire, they react as any devastated schoolgirl with a crush would. Her speech stated every major flaw with his candidacy. Not just honestly, but with a Reagenesque comedic flair. And since their deepest fear is that everything she said about him is right, the only option to reconsidering their betrothal was to destroy her.
[ ... ]
Sarah Palin’s on-target reductio of Barack Obama turned their messiah into a joke, earning the very predictable treatment a heretic deserves. Disabusing people of a savored fantasy always does.
Ouch! That's going to leave a mark!
Excellent find, 2IDV. Thanks for posting it!
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