EIGHTY-FIVE
"I wasn't part of any political machine,
or the Juneau good ol' boys club..."
or the Juneau good ol' boys club..."
On p. 85 of GR, Sarah continues to talk about her race for Lieutenant-Governor of Alaska. She writes, "Having advocated for local control across the state as president of the Alaska Conference of Mayors, I added that principle to my campaign platform. I had great respect for the need for state government to preserve locally enacted policies.
"Likewise, I believed that national leaders have a responsibility to respect the Tenth Amendment and keep their hands off the states. It's the old Jeffersonian view that the affairs of the citizens are best left in their own hands. So when I discussed economic policy, I wasn't shy about calling myself a hard-core fiscal conservative. Some folks liked what they heard, and I picked up a couple of endorsements here and there and won some opinion polls. But I wasn't part of any political machine, or the Juneau good ol' boys club, so I was definitely seen as the outsider."
I would like to follow two brief lines of reflection this morning on these words of Sarah. The first concerns what is sometimes called the principle of subsidiarity; the second concerns that word that is the final one in this citation from Sarah, "outsider."
First, let us observe Sarah's perfectly aligned "hierarchy" of responsibility and governance. Families and local communities come first. Whatever can be resolved and managed at this most basic level should not be touched by the States. Similarly, what can be disposed of at the State level should be off limits to the Federal Government.
Sarah, BTW, beautifully defends and vindicates the Tenth Amendment, and its central place and role in our polity, on pp. 72-76 of her second book, America by Heart!!
The Feds under the usurping obama are acting in exactly the opposite way.
Not only does the central government usurp the Constitutional prerogatives of the States, but it reaches out its long, sticky, evil-smelling digits and attempts to manipulate and dominate Americans even in the sanctity and sanctuary of their own homes!!!
Sarah's Presidency will help end this madness and monstrosity, and restore the proper balance and order and equilibrium in our beautiful system of government!!
The second element from this passage I would briefly like to examine is its final word, "outsider." IMHO, this is one of those words that we often toss off from our lips, but perhaps do not pause to really weigh and examine.
An outsider must be outside SOMETHING, some edifice, whether it is literal or figurative. If the building is bad or evil or dangerous, then it is a good and healthy and salubrious thing to be "outside" it; if it is a good and wholesome and clean place, the opposite is true!
It is a good and grand thing that our Sarah is outside the "clubhouse" of the good ol' boys. These guys seem to have a sign posted on the door of that clubhouse: "People with ethics and principles need not apply."
However, if Sarah Palin is an outsider with respect to this clubhouse, where is she an "insider"?
She is an insider within a grand and ancient and glorious assembly; within an edifice and structure built not of brick and stone and wood and mortar, but of principles and guts, and timeless, unshakeable, eternal verities!!
She dwells inside the congress and congregation of REALISTIC philosophers and thinkers, like Aristotle and our Founders, like the economist Milton Friedman and so many like him.
Sarah is on the inside of the Fellowship of the Heart and of Patriotism, to which tens of millions of Americans belong!
I would like to conclude these reflections with a few words about the White House.
Right now, Sarah is a true outsider vis-à-vis 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, and this is so in two senses.
First, literally, she is not occupying it right now.
Second, under the control of the Chicago thug and his minions, the White House has become a place that is totally outside of Sarah; that is at the opposite end of her spiritual and philosophical universe.
However, if the American People choose Sarah for their President, this White HOUSE will become a model HOME, as well as a "House." Imagine Trig, precious little Trig, in this House!!! Imagine the stalwart First Dude of the United States of America there!! Imagine all of Sarah's beautiful family there.
The ultimate outsider will have become the ultimate insider, in a GOOD and NOBLE sense of the term!!!
Let us all unite hearts and hands to carry the outsider INSIDE this venerable House!!!