Palin’s “America By Heart” – pre-release excerpts

BULLSHIT:  As noted by the Associated Press, which acquired a copy of Palin’s latest book (to be released tomorrow):

In a chapter about faith and public life, Palin addresses at length John F. Kennedy’s noted speech about religion during the 1960 campaign – a speech many saw as crucial to counter sentiment that his Catholic faith would hold undue sway over him if he became president.

“I am not the Catholic candidate for president,” Kennedy said at the time. “I am the Democratic Party’s candidate for president, who happens also to be a Catholic.”

Palin writes that when she was growing up, she was taught that JFK’s speech reconciled religion and public service without compromising either. But since she’s revisited the speech as an adult, she says, she’s realized that Kennedy “essentially declared religion to be such a private matter that it was irrelevant to the kind of country we are.” … Now, she says, America is “reawakening to the gift of our religious heritage.”

Also:

The former Alaska governor doesn’t detail her [2012] plans, but speaks of a need for new leaders.

“We’re worried that our leaders don’t believe what we believe, that America is an exceptional nation, the shining city on a hill that Ronald Reagan believed it is,” she writes. “We want leaders who share this fundamental belief. We deserve such leaders.”

Palin makes it clear she believes Obama is not such a leader. She accuses him of dismissing American “exceptionalism” as “a kind of irrational prejudice in favor of our way of life.”

TRANSLATED:  This is the worst kind of bullshit – a person that knows little, acts as if she knows a lot, and unfortunately has convinced a lot of American sheeple that the former is closer to the truth.  To begin with, she didn’t actually write America By Heart.  Just as with “her” previous book, Going Rogue, a ghost writer did in her stead.  Whoever wrote it, it’s sad that the “patriotic” platitudes contained within will inspire so many people.  I suppose it’s easier to digest than actual patriot Thomas Jefferson, whose documented musings, while intelligent and part of our country’s ideological foundation, are somewhat low on the self-righteous indignation factor.

Kennedy’s speech quite apparently makes Palin uncomfortable.  She says America is “reawakening to the gift of our religious heritage”, and that Kennedy “essentially declared religion to be such a private matter that it was irrelevant to the kind of country we are.”  Perhaps the millions of white-bread watered-down thoughtless conservative Christians that compose much of the Tea Party are happy to reawaken to their “religious heritage”, but the fact still remains that regardless of our Founding Fathers’ faith (or lack thereof), they explicitly kept it separate from public policy, which seems at odds with Palin’s agenda.  And Kennedy was following in some pretty big footsteps when he declared his religion to be secondary to politics as far as the public was concerned – Thomas Jefferson wrote “Religion is a subject on which I have ever been most scrupulously reserved.  I have considered it as a matter between every man and his Maker, in which no other, and far less the public had a right to intermeddle.”  He further wrote “I never told my own religion nor scrutinized that of another.  I never attempted to make a convert nor wished to change another’s creed.  I have ever judged of the religion of others by their lives, for it is in our lives, and not from our words, that our religion must be read.”  And finally, “I not only write nothing on religion, but rarely permit myself to speak on it.”  Palin, who never misses a chance to tell the world that she’s a conservative Christian (explicitly or implicitly), could take a few lessons from this Jefferson guy.  Oh, and given her public life, what with its rampant ego, ethical scandals, lack of follow-through on commitment, and blatant ideological contradictions, we could sure do worse than to judge her religion as quite fucked up.

Palin writes about leaders and their view of the country they’re leading.  I don’t disagree that we have some terrible leaders – and have had for quite some time.  But Palin, who quit her job as governor of Alaska just over halfway through her term, doesn’t really have firm ground to stand on while talking about leadership.  Furthermore, just because the aforementioned Tea Partier has no grasp of current global reality and still believes that America is “the shining city on the hill”, it doesn’t mean that our nation’s leaders have to subscribe to that same jingoistic, head-in-the-sand nonsense.  Get with the program, Americans:  We’re not the healthiest, the happiest, the richest, the biggest, the most free, or the smartest country in the world.  We rank at the top only, perhaps, in our delusion that we are at the top in every category.  We are the most delusional country in the world.  Hate to break it to you, Palin and Tea Partiers everywhere, but believing in contemporary American “exceptionalism”, quite frankly, is “a kind of irrational prejudice in favor of our way of life.”  Her ghostwriter hit the nail on the head with that one without even meaning to.  Believing that America and Americans are superior – exceptional – is irrational, because it simply isn’t true any longer.  It was in 1776, because we were trying something new, different, and world-changing.  Now, the only world-changing we’re doing is of the climate-change and economy-crashing varieties.  Applying that irrational belief to our daily lives makes for one wicked prejudice, one that allows us to use five times the resources our planet will ultimately be able to supply, one that allows us to use 25% of the world’s energy for 4% of its population, one that allows us to kill hundreds of thousands of innocent people in the Middle East in a poorly-orchestrated attempt to avenge only 3,000 American victims in a decade-old terrorist attack.

I can’t wait to read the whole book.  Oh, wait, that’s just bullshit.