Sarah Palin Is an Evita Peron Lipstick Fascist, Republicans Hate America and How Dare They Call us Names

Frank Schaeffer is a religious Christian and a member of the Greek Orthodox Church. As he often likes to point out, he is the son of the late Francis Schaeffer and helped create the modern religious right during the 1970s and early 1980s, before turning on the movement. He is a strong supporter of President Barack Obama and a vocal critic of Republicans, the religious right, Tea Baggers and Libertarians. He calls Sarah Palin "our home grown very own Evita Perón" and "the new face of Lipstick Fascism." The Republican Party is castigated for being "the enemy of America" and "an insurrection against law, living and love." According to Schaeffer, Jesus hates American Christians for their "war against the poor who have no health care" and for how they have treated "the downtrodden gays scorned and mocked by society." I am not here to criticize Frank Schaeffer's politics. I have no great love for the Republican Party, the religious right, or for Sarah Palin. For my own part, I fail to see how Libertarians fit into all of this and wish he would leave us alone. I see Sarah Palin as an inexperienced and naïve small-time politician, who ended up, by circumstance, way over her head as governor of Alaska and then really over her head as a vice-presidential candidate. I certainly have no desire to see her in the White House in the near future.


I do believe that it is important to be open and honest about our political beliefs and that means being willing to pay the full consequences for what one believes. Unlike the parlor trick that politicians play when they talk about being for things (whether it is motherhood, apple pie, family values, or a strong America), intellectual honesty requires the recognition that everything comes at the expense of something else. This is most obvious in terms of finances (every dollar spent on health care is a dollar not being spent fighting the war in Iraq), but this also goes for ideology. Schaeffer expresses his horror that Christian opponents of Obama would wear t-shirts sporting Psalms 109:8: "May his days be few; may another take his office" as a "prayer" for Obama. The next verse is "May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow." Schaeffer is certainly justified when he wonders whether this is code for a call to assassination. My only request from Schaeffer is that he willingly turn the sniper scope upon his own words.


What would it mean for us to take his very words about Palin and Republicans seriously? Forgive my Asperger syndrome, which causes me to read things very literally and matter of factly. Take the example of Sarah Palin; let us assume that Schaeffer is right and that she is a fascist and the tip of the iceberg of a vast conspiracy being hatched by Rupert Murdoch and Franklin Graham to take over the United States, subvert the democratic process, and install a fascist theocracy. (In essence, of having the bad manners of plotting to take over the world and not allowing Jews like me to be in on it.) If this is the case then clearly we have an emergency situation where the Constitution is under threat and extra-constitutional measures become acceptable for its long-term salvation. I would give the examples of Phineas in the book of Numbers, of Mathias in Maccabees and Jack Bauer in the television show 24. (We can debate the relative sacredness of each of these examples.) Frank Schaeffer! I am calling you because I have Sarah Palin in the crosshairs of my sniper rifle and I wish to know whether I should pull the trigger or not. Can you give me a principled reason not to take the shot? By principled, I mean to exclude all arguments from pragmatism. It means nothing if you tell me not to do it simply because I might get caught, this might embarrass the movement, or that Palin can be defeated by less drastic measures. These arguments would rightfully be dismissed as dodging the real issue at hand, the morality and even the necessity of assassinating Sarah Palin in order to save American democracy. Either Frank Schaeffer is calling for the elimination of Sarah Palin or he is just mouthing off and defaming a politician above and beyond what she actually deserves.

This goes further. What can all those on the right, acting in good faith, assume about Frank Schaeffer and his president? Since Schaeffer has given a hit order against their leadership while lacking the intellectual honesty to openly admit to what he has done, it would seem an act of necessary self-defense to come after Schaeffer, his people, and his president. Both sides can, in the hope of defending our constitutional process, abandon peaceful democratic elections and turn to civil war; just as long as we keep things civilized.

Just as Schaeffer is willing to implicitly approve of violence in the name of condemning violence from the other side, he brings in his own form of religious totalitarianism in the name of defeating the Christian right. As a libertarian, I believe in the importance of charity, to make sure that everyone has their basic needs, such as food and healthcare, taken care of. I believe that these things are handled best through private charity and not the government. Does this make me a bad "Christian?" (Besides for the fact that I am Jewish) Would someone with my political views be welcome into Frank Schaeffer's church? How is his willingness to turn health care into a religious issue not simply another type bringing religion into politics?

When I first found Schaeffer he seemed to me to be an interesting voice that could move beyond the traditional political lines. Since then he has clearly fallen to the temptations of the internet and the extremist rhetoric it encourages. The democratic process requires moderation and a willingness to give those in the opposition the benefit of the doubt. You cannot view the opposition as something satanic and still claim to work with them in a democratic system. Either you are lying or you lack the moral spine necessary to defend democracy in its time of crisis.

Abortion Rights Versus the Rights of Special Needs Children (and All Other Inconvenient Individuals)

Governor Sarah Palin, now John McCain’s vice presidential nominee, is the mother of a Down syndrome child, Trig. In keeping with her strong anti-abortion beliefs, she carried that child to term and did not get an abortion even though she knew she was carrying a child with Down syndrome. In her recent speech at the Republican National Convention, she spoke about her child and pledged herself to be an advocate for families of special needs children. One should not underestimate the value of such sentiments in terms of its crossover appeal. There are liberal parents out there with special needs children to whom Palin may hold an appeal.

The issues of abortion and the rights of people with special needs are connected in ways that are problematic for those who support abortion rights. (A group that I count myself as part of even if only as a very moderate member.) In the case of Down syndrome, it is now common practice to screen for it. As such future parents of Down syndrome children usually know beforehand and are left with a stark choice, to abort the fetus or take on a lifetime of special responsibilities. How many unborn children with Down syndrome are being aborted? I do not judge parents who make such a choice. That being said this sets a troubling precedent; it means that as a society we are willing to condone the removal of those who are inconvenient. To make matters more difficult, the more people decide to abort such inconveniences, the greater the burden will become for those who, like Palin, do not make such a choice. The fewer Down syndrome children out there the harder it will be to advocate for them. Also, the stigma attached to them and their families will increase. This creates a cycle; as the challenges of being a Down syndrome parent increases more parents will opt out and abort which will, in turn, increase the challenges for the remaining parents and cause them to also opt-out until there will be few to none willing to take on the burdens of being a parent of a Down syndrome child.

As technology advances, we are likely going to find genetic markers for other inconveniences. This will create similar scenarios. What will happen if a genetic marker for autism is found and fetuses could be tested for it before they are born? What about Asperger syndrome? On a purely emotional level, my reaction to the notion that unborn children would be aborted because they have Asperger syndrome is that I would want those responsible, both the doctor and the mother, to be frog-marched directly to jail to do hard time. There is no way I could allow myself to stand back and allow myself to commit personality trait suicide. If there is going to be a future for people with Asperger syndrome then those with Asperger syndrome are going to need to be protected not just from birth but also from conception.

What would happen if they found a way to screen for homosexuality? Could the gay community stand back and allow themselves to be destroyed? Clearly, they would have to fight back and this would put them up against feminists. So much for NOWs pretense that women’s rights and gay rights are one and the same thing.

Contrary to traditional pro-choice rhetoric, there is more to abortion than a woman having control over her own body. There are many different things at stake amongst them is how, as a society, we are going to deal with people deemed inconvenient. In the end, abortion has the potential to split apart the left and change liberalism as we know it.

The Democratic party has good reason to fear Sarah Palin.

This November Expect the Unexpected

The race for the White House is in full bloom. The Democrats have had their nomination and Barack Obama has chosen Joe Biden as his vice-president. The Republicans are about to have their nomination and John McCain has pulled his surprise move and nominated Sarah Palin. So who is going to win in November? Here is my prediction for the coming election; more so than any election in recent times, the polls, one way or another, are going to be off. There are too many x factors in this election, too many things no pollster can predict.

Let us start with Barack Obama. His chief strength is his popularity amongst blacks and young voters (ages 18-22), two groups that are notorious for not voting. Will Obama’s popularity bring them to out to vote or will they stay home like they usually do? Obama is the first black candidate nominated by a major party. How many Democratic voters are there out there who, in the privacy of the voting booth, will find themselves unable to turn the level for a black man? I believe that there are still real racists in this country and not all of them are Republicans.

As for John McCain. He is unpopular amongst both evangelicals and economic conservatives. How many of them, come Election Day, will stay home? There are many women out there upset about the fact that Hillary Rodham Clinton not getting the nomination. How many of them, in the privacy of the voting booth, will find themselves unable to vote against a female vice-president.

With the possible exception of evangelicals and McCain, these are all things that are by definition unpollable. How do you poll if someone will actually go and vote instead of just saying that they will? How do you poll what someone will do in the privacy of the voting booth as opposed to what they will say to a pollster? Who is going to win? I have no idea and neither does anyone else.