When I first heard that McCain had picked Palin as his running-mate, I was excited – until I found out they didn’t mean Michael.
Seriously, though, this strikes me as a fiendishly brilliant move (and it’s probably making Obama wonder if he shouldn’t have picked Clinton after all instead of bland apparatchik Biden). Since I prefer four years of Obama to four years of McCain, fiendishly brilliant moves from the McCain camp are a bit depressing.
On the brighter side, though, at least we’re now virtually guaranteed that one of the two top slots next year will be someone other than a white male. Admittedly that thought is only mildly cheering, given that I don’t want anybody in those slots. But it’s still somewhat pleasing.
I could almost see McCain rubbing his hands together and licking his lips whilst cackling ominously when he made the decision to nominate her.
I have to wonder if he’s hoping to pick up some of Hillary’s disaffected supporters, but considering that Palin’s anti-choice, I wouldn’t think such a tactic would work—if that is indeed the calculus.
But she’s got other qualities going for her that may appeal to those who regularly vote for one of the 2 major parties: she’s an outsider to Washington; she favors windfall profit taxes on oil companies; but YET is also in favor of drilling in ANWR; and she’s perceived as having taken on the good old boys network in Alaska and won.
It’s like she’s tailor made to please a variety of constituencies.
Roderick,
Is your preference for Obama over McCain based on his more anti-theocratic views?
McCain’s theocratic?
Tracy
What McCain’s real domestic policies would be is anybody’s guess, he’s oozed so much from one position to another. But he is surely less militaristic than Obama (even though Obama isn’t quite the peace candidate some of his supporters are fantasising) — and he’s less likely to do something belligerent out of sheer anger, while McCain seems like he’s on a hair-trigger. Plus on purely aesthetic grounds Obama’s less grating to watch and listen to. And electing an African-American with a Muslim name would be a nice cultural shakeup.
Why does it matter that someone isn’t a white male? Shouldn’t we judge a person by the content of their character and a political candidate by the quality of their ideas and the likelihood they can implement them?
Would you really rather have, say, Alan Keyes or Phyllis Schlafly as president than, oh, I don’t know, pick a white male: Lew Rockwell, a zombie Murray Rothbard, Barry Manilow?
But he is surely less militaristic than Obama (even though Obama isn’t quite the peace candidate some of his supporters are fantasising)
I’m pretty sure you’ve switched something around that you didn’t mean to.
Will:
Shouldn’t we judge a person by the content of their character and a political candidate by the quality of their ideas and the likelihood they can implement them?
Of course. But what I said had nothing to do with “judging” Obama or Palin personally.
Would you really rather have, say, Alan Keyes or Phyllis Schlafly as president than, oh, I don’t know, pick a white male: Lew Rockwell, a zombie Murray Rothbard, Barry Manilow?
No, of course not. But I never said or remotely implied that I would rather have a less libertarian nonwhite and/or nonmale over a more libertarian white male. I suspect that knee-jerk anti-leftism may be causing you to react to imagined versions of what I said as opposed to what I actually said.
Black Bloke:
I’m pretty sure you’ve switched something around that you didn’t mean to.
Oops; yes. Let me try that sentence again:
But Obama is surely less militaristic than McCain (even though Obama isn’t quite the peace candidate some of his supporters are fantasising) — and he’s less likely to do something belligerent out of sheer anger, while McCain seems like he’s on a hair-trigger
So what is cheering about the fact that Palin and Obama are not white males?
Why does it matter?
I’d say that the only thing that’s cheering is that it represents a change in priorities for the ruling class. Rather than seeking out women and racial minorities as special targets for oppression, they are now beyond that and have embraced them as worthy to join them in ruling over the remaining oppressed people. For someone who keeps in mind the monstrous past injustices levied against the former groups (i.e. women and blacks) by the ruling class, it is a mildly cheering fact to behold this, but ti’s still cold comfort to one who wants no ruling class at all.
I suspect that Roderick might say something like that ^^^, and if it’s not, it’s now what I’ve just said.
Yeah, what BB said is about right.
More broadly: liberty is a good thing, and race and gender equality are also good things. Liberty and race/gender equality are connected by various thickness relations (and have often been violated in tandem), but are not identical. The status of Obama and Palin is no advance for liberty, but it is an advance for race and gender equality.
I’m very intrigued by this pick. This woman is about as un-DC as you can get. Keep in mind that she comes from the state which has probably has the most significant secessionist movement of all 50 states.
I rather like the thought of Michael Palin as the vice president. Perhaps the United States could also acquire a Department of Silly Walks. (It wouldn’t be a Ministry in this country. . . .)
“The status of Obama and Palin is no advance for liberty, but it is an advance for race and gender equality.’
But in this context, equality of what? Equality of power over others. I don’t know if the prospect of a black man or a woman being as privileged as any white male bureaucrat to initiate violence against the rest of us is really such an advance for racial and gender equality in principle.
The prospect of President Obama bombing Afghans or Vice President Palin helping President McCain overturn Roe v. Wade is hardly any victory for racial or gender equality to which I could even give a half-hearted cheer.
The thing to keep in mind though is the fact that the state or ruling class does not derive ex nihilo, or exist in a vacuum, as Roderick and Charles have said in other contexts the state is mutually supported by other oppressive institutions or behaviors (e.g. the patriarchy, racial hierarchy/white privilege, etc.). In other words the state is supported by the attitudes and beliefs of the people. If the state is finding that it is able remain successful even with a black man, and a woman, it represents a watershed shift in the attitudes of the people, the very people and attitudes that support the state.
I’ll have to do more thinking on this topic, so forgive me if I don’t make the most sense in the above.
I like her foreign policy experience and not having passport until last year. If hopefully McCrazy gets a heart attack or whatever you might have a president who does not know or care about what other countries do.
“The status of Obama and Palin is no advance for liberty, but it is an advance for race and gender equality.”
Why is a place in a hierarchy of a criminal gang of a black or female person an advance for race and gender equality? Would you say the same if they had secured the top position in the mafia?
Surely it is better for “gender and race equality” that black and female persons be dissuaded from taking up such immoral pursuits and not encouraged in them however?
not having passport until last year
I guess she travels to the lower 48 by plane, not car.
Would you say the same if they had secured the top position in the mafia?
Yes, of course I would.
Surely it is better for “gender and race equality” that black and female persons be dissuaded from taking up such immoral pursuits and not encouraged in them however?
If the lower representation of women and minorities in the highest political spots were the result of women and minorities being disproportionately antistatist I’d say hurray. But when they’re just as statist as the rest if the population but still don’t get into the top spots, that shows that society has a racism/sexism problem in addition to its statism problem. Any diminution in the racism.sexism problem is a good thing and worth cheering for even when it’s not accompanied by a diminution in the statism problem (and of course vice versa).
Why is representation in political spots any kind of indicator of a lack of, or excess of, racism/sexism? Asian Americans are badly represented in politics proportionate to their numbers in the polity but hardly oppressed generally speaking, if oppression is defined as somehow deficient in socio-economic power. They “do” rather well.
A racial group can be simply uninterested in political activity and simultaneously without an anti-statist philosophy.