We're excited to share our opinions with you and, in turn, hear what you have to say. We'll be discussing a lot of topics. One day, we'll even take our Aggies/Longhorns debate public, even if it means you see how divided our family is. We're gonna save that for a downtime, though. For now, we have an exciting presidential race to cover.
As I watch Rudy Guliani speak at the Republican National Convention, there is an elephant in the room. Rudy is doing a great job shining light on John McCain's patriotism, a patriotism he proved enduring torture overseas during war. He's shining light on Barack Obama's lackluster political background. Guliani's shining a whole lot of light, but the darkness of biased left-wing cynicism is pretty overwhelming.
That darkness has created a gorilla sitting in the corner; Sarah Palin's family history is casting a shadow. The question of what effect her husband's DUI, her daughter's unwed pregnancy, or her children's needs should have on her standing is interesting. I think we need to answer a more basic question, though. Should her family history, or any candidate's, be put under the microscope in the first place?
Obama has answered no. I don't trust his answer, though. He's got plenty to hide for himself. My answer is yes, and that goes beyond partisan leaning. A candidate's family history is incredibly telling. Family tells of a person's ethics; ethics created by, most assuredly, family. It also shows how a candidate deals with crisis, and it forces candidates to put their money where their mouth is. Family history is an important part of a candidate's qualifications, but it should be used like any powerful weapon; with responsibility. Family history must come with no assumptions, focused solely on the candidate, and in equal portions.
Family history shows a persons ethical composition. Ask any psychologist where a person's values come from. They will tell you that values are created through careful (or sometimes uncareful in the case of our inner cities) nurturing by a child's guardians. A person's elder relatives do the majority of work in creating a person's values. Furthermore, those values, after being slightly modified and enhanced, get passed on. Looking to a candidates children shows which values they have passed on. Perhaps a candidate disagrees with their parents; it shows in how they raise their child.
Values as an argument, though, may seem weak. This justification for looking into family life is both obvious and abstract; we have no dna evidence to look at that lays out a person's values. There are other worthy arguments, though.
One subject that keeps coming up is the infamous "3 am call." Which candidate do you want fielding a call at three in the morning about a terrorist attack or other crisis? The answer probably lies in which candidate has already dealt with disaster. There is no more depressing a disaster than one that involves family. Be it a stroke, a car accident, or a daughter stealing a chair from a high school basketball game (ask about that story and I'll tell you in the comments), a person's ability to deal with crisis is most challenged during family turmoil.
And we can read a candidate's honesty best through family, as well. Sarah Palin is a great example. She was beligerently pro-life for years before being pregnant with her last child. When she found out the child would have Down Syndrome, she was forced to evaluate her beliefs. By not wavering, she showed both what she believes and how firmy she holds to that belief. When dealing with family, no person, including candidates for public office, can give lip-service to an ideal without such superficiality damaging the child. A candidate's family calls their bluff on certain important positions and values. Someone who claims to be tough on crime cannot be lenient with their children.
It is a gray issue, but these arguments are among others that make me believe a person's family history is a valid and powerful tool. I make this argument with some preconditions (Don't tell Barack). Family history is important, powerful, necessary...and dangerous.
A person's family background must be examined without assumptions. It is an assumption that Sarah Palin must have no issue with pre-marital sex or unwed pregnancy because her daughter is partaking in both. How assinine is that assumption? Our older brother passed away from illegal drug overdose, so does that mean our firmly Christian parents snort lines each night before bed? I think not. Assumptions are dangerous and unintelligent.
A person's family background must be examined with focus. Barack Obama's family history cannot remain hidden and relatively unknown, but his relatives have not asked to be persecuted. A candidate's family must not be destroyed, nor should they be put on a pearly platform. When a candidate's family history is investigated, it is only fair that the investigation focus on how the candidate is involved.
Finally, family history is equally important to all candidates. It takes only kindergarten knowledge to understand that we need to share. No candidate should be skewered as Sarah Palin is right now with no focus on other candidates.
Unfortunately, we cannot trust our media to follow these simple rules. To a biased media, kindergarten concepts are too difficult. Fairness is unnecessary to CNN and MSNBC does not understand how dangerous assumptions are. Thus, if you can't say something nice, don't say anything. The biased media should maintain the safety of candidates' families by ignoring them.
The meaning of family history is another debate. We could go on and on about Barack Obama's broken family. We could point out how wrong the media is in regard to Sarah Palin's family. McCain and Biden could even yield ample subject matter. Maybe I'll touch on that in my response. For now, though, it is important to justify that those ramblings are valid.
As a side note: how did Trig Palin sleep through his mother's speech? Cute. Just cute.
Susie's Response:
Howdy all. I'll start by setting expectations. This smallest (yet oldest sibling) is not near as eloquent (wordy) or as detailed as my baby brother. Between juggling work and being a single mother of a teenager, I just don't have the time to devote to research that my nerdy brother has. What I do have to offer is the point of view of a woman who has spent 10+ years raising an incredible daughter and worrying about what our elected officials will do to improve (or not) the quality of life for my children and grandchildren.
As for the Aggie/Longhorn debate, I think my brother is just afraid to touch me on that one-he knows he has no chance. I think he is hiding behind the political race to cover his butt.
As will often happen, I agree with my brother that ALL candidates' families should be put under a microscope; BUT, it is not the mistakes the family makes that are important in deciding whether the candidate is qualified to lead our country (or be second in command). It is the response of the candidate to the problems that is important. As McCain put it in his speech introducing Palin, she is a woman who, "Stands up for what's right and doesn't let anyone tell her when to sit down." (NO ONE puts baby in a corner). It would be easy for Palin to speak out about any "embarrassment" or disappointment she might have in her daughter regarding a "teen pregnancy" (is 17 really a teen pregnancy?) in order to appease those criticizing her. Rather, she is facing it like a true woman, and supporting her daughter (and the father), and even bringing them to the forefront of the Republican Convention proceedings.
Not that Palin needs to be any stronger than what she is (she'll even blow the whistle on those in her own party when corruption abounds), but, as our family can attest to, family turmoil often (if handled properly) leads to a stronger family. I do believe my brother took our family as an example a bit too far in speaking of assumptions. Rather than saying that having a son who died of a drug overdose might imply to some that our firmly Christian parents snort lines before bed each night, he probably should have stated that it does not mean that our parents in any way encouraged or "looked the other way" on his drug use (or were poor parents because of it). Regardless, our family did handle the situation without feeling like we had to hide it from people, because we knew people were smart enough to realize that it was not a reflection on our parents' upbringing or beliefs.
As for Trig Palin sleeping...he's used to going everywhere with his mother, and I'm sure she gets crowds fired up quite often.
Ashley's Response:
Every now and then this little LED in my head goes off and a series of random quotes will pop into my head. I should give it a name like a "quote-flow" or "Roberto." You just set Roberto a-blinking, Suze.
I really like this concept that we can look to a family's trials and, more importantly, their response to get an idea of how qualified a candidate might be. To establish some frame of reference, a few of Roberto's quotes come to mind…
Nietschze- "What does not kill us only makes us stronger."
This is a mantra our family has taken to. A family that deals with trials correctly should come out of those trials stronger. A family, therefore, that emerges from trials weakened must not have handled trials correctly. Is that a black-mark on their gene pool? No. It simply means that either they may not be ready for a 9/11-type crisis or they had better have learned their lesson.
(BTW, my favorite shirt ever involved Neitschze. On the front it said "God is dead. -Neitschze" On the back, "Neitschze is dead. -God")
Einstein, Franklin, China, or anonymous- "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result."
So some hardships are acceptable. Too many, especially trails stemming from the same mistakes over and over again, may show an inability to learn from mistakes. Be you liberal (Iraq) or conservative (killing babies), you probably know the consequences of making the same "mistake" over and over again.
Welch- "Have you no sense of decency, sir?"
I do think it is important to judge a candidate's ability to know decency. For instance, "they cling to their guns and their religion" is to decency what of-age gymnasts are to China.
I could keep going, but I'll stop there so as to appease the almighty rule of 3. I do have some questions for you, Susie.
1) Is it possible to observe the mistakes of the family while preserving those members of the family who had no choice to enter the campaign?
2) Do we, as newly-anointed bloggers, have a responsibility to explore families in the fair way we have laid out, or should we refrain due to the Main Stream Media's inability to follow suit?
I leave you with the last word. Cherish it; this blog may be the only place you get it from me. (You know I jest.)
Susie's Response:
Nice choice on the quotes, Lil' Brother. And to answer your questions:
1) I believe we are, in fact, by what we are doing ourselves, testing this question. We have brought members of our family into this, our first blog, in a very personal way-and we didn't give them a choice. We may get an answer to this one very soon-as soon as Mom reads this. Her response can give us some insight into this issue, and I'm not certain we want to hear the answer (or yelling, if it comes to it).
2) As newly (and self) anointed bloggers, I believe it is up to us to define how we handle things. But, you can be sure, as the people we are and the people we were brought up to be, the decision will not be made due to Main Stream Media. The decision will be made by looking to God and our own sense of what is right and what is wrong. As far as Obama goes, I don't think we even need to delve into his family-he gives enough ammunition on his own.
Jest all you want, but you know when I want the last word, IT IS MINE!!!
As for the Aggie/Longhorn debate, I think my brother is just afraid to touch me on that one-he knows he has no chance. I think he is hiding behind the political race to cover his butt.
As will often happen, I agree with my brother that ALL candidates' families should be put under a microscope; BUT, it is not the mistakes the family makes that are important in deciding whether the candidate is qualified to lead our country (or be second in command). It is the response of the candidate to the problems that is important. As McCain put it in his speech introducing Palin, she is a woman who, "Stands up for what's right and doesn't let anyone tell her when to sit down." (NO ONE puts baby in a corner). It would be easy for Palin to speak out about any "embarrassment" or disappointment she might have in her daughter regarding a "teen pregnancy" (is 17 really a teen pregnancy?) in order to appease those criticizing her. Rather, she is facing it like a true woman, and supporting her daughter (and the father), and even bringing them to the forefront of the Republican Convention proceedings.
Not that Palin needs to be any stronger than what she is (she'll even blow the whistle on those in her own party when corruption abounds), but, as our family can attest to, family turmoil often (if handled properly) leads to a stronger family. I do believe my brother took our family as an example a bit too far in speaking of assumptions. Rather than saying that having a son who died of a drug overdose might imply to some that our firmly Christian parents snort lines before bed each night, he probably should have stated that it does not mean that our parents in any way encouraged or "looked the other way" on his drug use (or were poor parents because of it). Regardless, our family did handle the situation without feeling like we had to hide it from people, because we knew people were smart enough to realize that it was not a reflection on our parents' upbringing or beliefs.
As for Trig Palin sleeping...he's used to going everywhere with his mother, and I'm sure she gets crowds fired up quite often.
Ashley's Response:
Every now and then this little LED in my head goes off and a series of random quotes will pop into my head. I should give it a name like a "quote-flow" or "Roberto." You just set Roberto a-blinking, Suze.
I really like this concept that we can look to a family's trials and, more importantly, their response to get an idea of how qualified a candidate might be. To establish some frame of reference, a few of Roberto's quotes come to mind…
Nietschze- "What does not kill us only makes us stronger."
This is a mantra our family has taken to. A family that deals with trials correctly should come out of those trials stronger. A family, therefore, that emerges from trials weakened must not have handled trials correctly. Is that a black-mark on their gene pool? No. It simply means that either they may not be ready for a 9/11-type crisis or they had better have learned their lesson.
(BTW, my favorite shirt ever involved Neitschze. On the front it said "God is dead. -Neitschze" On the back, "Neitschze is dead. -God")
Einstein, Franklin, China, or anonymous- "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result."
So some hardships are acceptable. Too many, especially trails stemming from the same mistakes over and over again, may show an inability to learn from mistakes. Be you liberal (Iraq) or conservative (killing babies), you probably know the consequences of making the same "mistake" over and over again.
Welch- "Have you no sense of decency, sir?"
I do think it is important to judge a candidate's ability to know decency. For instance, "they cling to their guns and their religion" is to decency what of-age gymnasts are to China.
I could keep going, but I'll stop there so as to appease the almighty rule of 3. I do have some questions for you, Susie.
1) Is it possible to observe the mistakes of the family while preserving those members of the family who had no choice to enter the campaign?
2) Do we, as newly-anointed bloggers, have a responsibility to explore families in the fair way we have laid out, or should we refrain due to the Main Stream Media's inability to follow suit?
I leave you with the last word. Cherish it; this blog may be the only place you get it from me. (You know I jest.)
Susie's Response:
Nice choice on the quotes, Lil' Brother. And to answer your questions:
1) I believe we are, in fact, by what we are doing ourselves, testing this question. We have brought members of our family into this, our first blog, in a very personal way-and we didn't give them a choice. We may get an answer to this one very soon-as soon as Mom reads this. Her response can give us some insight into this issue, and I'm not certain we want to hear the answer (or yelling, if it comes to it).
2) As newly (and self) anointed bloggers, I believe it is up to us to define how we handle things. But, you can be sure, as the people we are and the people we were brought up to be, the decision will not be made due to Main Stream Media. The decision will be made by looking to God and our own sense of what is right and what is wrong. As far as Obama goes, I don't think we even need to delve into his family-he gives enough ammunition on his own.
Jest all you want, but you know when I want the last word, IT IS MINE!!!
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