http://www.themudflats.net/2010/11/26/america-by-heart-the-introduction/
And so we begin the blogging of the book. Today, it’s just the Introduction, which will give us all a chance to steel ourselves for what is to come. As usual my internal mutterings will appear in red.
Page ix – The scene opens at the Boston Tea Party rally last spring. And the first line of the book, I kid you not, is:
“Do you love your freedom?!” The words rush out of me.
We can tell from this opener that this book is indeed a work of fiction, otherwise it would have read:
“Do you LOOOOOOOOVVVVEE your FREEEEEEEEDOMMMM?!?!?!?” The words shoot from my lips like blasts from a weaponized sound cannon, breaking glass in the Old North Church, half a mile away.
Page x – Reference to “mainstream media”. (Not lame anymore? What gives?)
Long over-explanation of how Tea Party people really are good and normal and ethnically diverse and happy and multigenerational. It’s a utopian scene at the rally including Don’t Tread on Me flags “glowing in the morning sun.” Nothing says happy tolerant multi-generational family outing like a hacked off rattlesnake.
Page xi – Here we get into a discussion about how the homemade signs are the real signs, and any pre-printed ones just mean that they are from special interest groups who “all want something from the government.” She does not comment on pre-printed anything else, and what that might mean. You know, like buses and stuff…
~Palin kicking off the Tea Party Express bus tour. Those Koch Brothers did a pretty good paint job on that bus for a homemade grassroots craft project, didn’t they?
More about how the motives of the Tea Party are pure and good. They just want their country “back.” Back to where or what is never specified. She doesn’t actually pick a year or time period that “back” is. Maybe we’ll find out later.
The average American spends the first ninety-nine days of the year working for the government. This is outrageous, she thinks. (Now, I’m all for efficiencies, but I wonder how much the average American would spend, if they had NO taxes at all and they needed things like roads, sewer, medical care for their elderly relatives and for veterans, fire protection, police protection, libraries, postal service, snow plowing, street lights, education for their children, people to inspect food, etc. I’m guessing it would be more than 99 days.)
Page xii – She’s traveled a lot, and met a lot of people. They send her things to read like “snippets of speeches”, and “devotionals” and she’s talked to them in their kitchens. They are all patriotic and they want America to be great. It’s not a political awakening, “it’s an American awakening.” (Yes, the Tea Party is our new Age of Enlightenment!)
Page xiii – Her Uncle Ron and Aunt Kate are not political. They never cared, but now they do. They love the country and are concerned about what’s happening to “her”. They are the Tea Party.
Page xiv – Barack Obama wants to transform America from what it is now, and the Tea Party wants it back but still loves it the way it is now even though they are protesting it. America is special and the best but it’s not perfect but we don’t want to transform it because that wouldn’t be patriotic. We just want it back to the way it was in the beginning but better only not different. And we don’t like people telling us that something is wrong, because it isn’t, even though we’re all mad as rattle snakes and the Tea Party has had enough of things as they are, don’t go telling us you want to change it. WE want to change it, only we will not call it a transformation. Make sense? (Hint: No, it does not.)
She’s offended at a copy of the Constitution that came with a sticker that said,
“This book is a product of its time and does not reflect the same values as it would if it were written today. Parents might wish to discuss with their children how views on race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity and interpersonal relations have changed since this book was written before allowing them to read this classic work.”
A warning label on our Document of Liberty! (Hopefully, little Johnny doesn’t get bored and toss it aside after the part about slaves being 3/5 of a person. And we don’t need to explain that just because Article II Section 2 talks about the president being a “he” doesn’t mean that little Suzie can’t be president some day. If there are any more of those labels around saying how times have changed and people do think differently, maybe we can start sticking them on Bibles, because frankly, if we started stoning people for aberrant behavior, the GOP would be in a world of trouble.)
Page xv – More hysteria about the warning label. Those (like Obama) who talk about transformation believe that the Constitution is dangerous and outdated. They hate the constitution because it constrains government. But Americans still “cling” to our founding values. This is what she discovered on her “multistate listening tour” (aka cross-country money grab).
Page xvi – Worried that the government is in bed with big business. (REALLY? Welcome to our world, Sarah. Please see the photo above.)
America is exceptional and special just like Ronald Reagan said it was. Current leaders love to focus on America’s faults and apologize to dictators because we suck. Tea Party people know the country isn’t perfect, but it’s exceptional anyway and we shouldn’t apologize to anyone because we suck… (this is mind-numbing.)
Page xvii – Best quote so far:
“I have a kind of internal compass that keeps me sane and grounded when the media attack dogs bark and the days on the road get long.”
(Shaking with laughter and dabbing eyes with a Kleenex as I have a mental image of the internal compass that keeps Sarah Palin sane and grounded, spinning like it was at the geographic center of the Bermuda Triangle.)
Page xviii – God is the source of our rights, not government. The source of his miracles can be found in the “dangerous” Constitution and our other founding documents that the libruls want to destroy.
They pass out copies of the Constitution “like candy” at Tea Party rallies, and now people who believe in the sanctity of life no longer simply call themselves “pro-life” now they are “pro-life and pro-Constitution.” All the environmentalists who apparently now populate these rainbow coalition Tea Parties are now calling themselves “pro-conservation and pro-Constitution.”
Page xix – Quote from “Silent Cal” Coolidge about the founding documents. (Ah, if only we had “Silent Sarah.”)
Another gem. “Moms know better than most that we are all born unformed and fallen.” (Yes, hasn’t every mother looked into the eyes of her new baby and thought exactly that?) (headbang)
Page xx – Every parent of a child in the military “knows the sense of pride and accomplishment that comes with raising a good and decent child.” (So, every member of the military is good and decent? Including your Wasilla neighbor and family friend Jeremy Morlock? OK, I won’t go there.)
“Molding the crooked timber of humanity requires the grace of God.” (OK, OK, people are awful and bad, we get it.)
Quote from Reagan about how freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. She thinks this is sad. The only thing sadder than losing freedom is the thought of her grandchildren spending their whole lives working to pay off the debt. (Ummm. The one that Reagan and Bush are largely responsible for?)
“Passing peace on to the next generation” requires a strong military, free-market economics and “a healthy constitutional order.”
And the closer:
“This is my America, from my heart, and by my heart. I give it now to my children and grandchildren and to yours, so they will always know what it was like in America when people were free.”
Wow. That one leaves me a bit speechless, which is good timing. I shall speechlessly prepare for Chapter one - We the People.
