Tags: environment politics sarah palin energy abortion
Published : 3 months, 1 week ago (Fri, 29 Aug 2008 18:44:49 PDT)
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Why was this not a super excellent move on McCain's part? After attacking Obama for youth and inexperience, McCain chooses someone youthful and inexperienced for his veep. Inconsistent.
Otherwise, though, it's a good move if you're familiar with Palin. Which, of course, most people are NOT. But if you live in Alaska, you know who she is, and you probably like her. She's got some pretty stellar approval ratings.
So why don't I like her? Mostly because our politics don't jive. I've split it up into two items, instead of a single item saying that she's Republican.
ITEM ONE: Energy. While Palin has a group of advisers talking about global warming and reducing Alaska's greenhouse emissions, her ideas about energy independence center a lot around drilling for oil, which she wants to do in Alaska. Yes, she runs the state, but the places where the oil lives include the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve-- federally protected land-- and other places that are as close to pristine as we can get. Drilling in these places would upset the very delicate balance of those ecosystems and wouldn't really do much to offset our oil consumption; rather, it would just make us feel okay about consuming as much as we do. Also, considering the volume of oil we consume even on a daily basis, it wouldn't do much to relieve us of our dependency.
She also objected to moving polar bears to the endangered species list-- not, of course, because it was a publicity stunt anyway and didn't help the bears at all, but because polar bears are living on top of her precious oil. She has said that the data on the melting sea ice is "unreliable." Is she a statistician? No. Has she seen this data? I don't know. Is there plenty of data from several sources showing that the sea ice is melting at rates dangerous to polar bears? YES.
ITEM TWO: She toes the party line. She's pretty Republican about everything. Pro-life*, anti-gay marriage, anti-gun control, kind of flip-floppy about teaching creationism alongside evolution. In one respect, she's SUPER REPUBLICAN: She eats moose. Any Republican would want to do that. It's super badass.
So I personally am pro-life. This is to say that if I were to get pregnant, then I would have the baby. This is because I am pretty prudish and won't have unprotected sex before I am in a longterm relationship which I feel confident will become family. Also, I don't want to have a baby whilst in college. That would suck a lot. But as far as everyone else is concerned, the option should be there, I think. It's a very serious decision to have a baby, and it's a very difficult decision to get an abortion. I haven't had an abortion, but as far as I know, they're not really pleasant. They're not. But neither is carrying an anencephalitic baby to term, or a baby with Patau syndrome, or any other baby who either will not live or whose chances of living are very low. And neither is being in high school and having made possibly the worst judgment in your life and not remotely prepared to have a child. I'm not saying, "Abortions for everyone!" I'm saying that the option should be made available. Women who really want abortions will get them anyway. If it's legal, it will be safer.
Read "A Defense of Abortion" by Judth Jarvis Thompson. She makes a really good argument for making abortion available while emphasizing the fact that if it won't hurt you to have the baby, for instance, if you're thirty-something, married or in a committed relationship, fairly secure financially, healthy, etc., you should go ahead and have the baby.
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