PAGE 139
"Few prospective candidates wanted to make
the long commute to the state capital..."
the long commute to the state capital..."
On p. 139 of GR, Sarah continues her discussion of her Alaskan gubernatorial administration. She writes, "I built my circle of close advisers carefully. The opportunity to pull in the perfect partners was challenging because few prospective candidates wanted to make the long commute to the state capital.
"So I shook things up a bit and made concessions more readily than other governors about where my staff's home base could be. NEW COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES ALLOWED THIS (emphasis mine). I wanted the right people for the job, and if Juneau's location was the main stumbling block, I wasn't going to mandate that families uproot and move to a beautiful but isolated panhandle, especially when the previous governors had spent so much time in Anchorage and traveling out of state."
NOVA ET VETERA—things new and things old!! Behold how the Governor combines a wonderful flexibility and adaptability in non-essential matters with her faithful firmness in fixed and immoveable and eternal principles.
She is exactly the dynamic and moral and principled leader the nation needs in this hour.
She is not afraid of, indeed she embraces, innovation and change. She is not a "conservative" just for the sake of rigidity and a refusal to adjust and adapt.
And yet she, with all the LION'S COURAGE OF HER FEARLESS AND FAITHFUL SOUL, refuses to compromise on essentials.
Things like computer/electronic technology are in themselves MORALLY NEUTRAL; they are simply means that can be used for good purposes or for bad purposes; they are, to use what I believe is the technical term, "adiaphora" :-)
So consider the means of COMMUNICATION. From papyrus to parchment to paper to the printing press to today's seemingly miraculous computers and smart phones, through all of these amazing and successive innovations, the END has remained the same.
Communication should be used to transmit truth and beauty, or useful information in the practical order; to persuade people to follow what is good and right and true; to instruct them in quotidian and practical matters; to pass on and share scientific discoveries (Ben Franklin is a great example of this); to share matters of the heart (letters), etc., etc., etc.
But the new technologies, just like every "instrumentum," every instrument or implement, can be used for EVIL too.
Just look at the way the Federal Government, THE NSA IN PARTICULAR, is using the marvels of the electronic, technical world: To SNOOP; to SPY on innocent and law-abiding American citizens.
From the wheel to the sword to the musket to the rifle to the printed word to the art of rhetoric and oratory to the computer—all these things can be directed to the defense either of The City of God (St. Augustine) or of The City of Satan.
Hitler was, in his way, a "great" speaker and orator.
Sir Winston Churchill and President Ronald Reagan were great orators.
One art and skill … two ends or goals or purposes that were a universe apart in moral terms.
So, as KNOWLEDGE grows in the scientific and technical world, so must WISDOM grow, that WISDOM that concerns herself with ultimate ends and purposes.
The Governor, IMHO, is just the leader that the ordinary, hardworking, principled people of our nation are crying out for right now ("Sarah Palin, a nation turns its lonely eyes to you.")
In the passage cited above, she wisely employed and utilized technology to GET GOOD PEOPLE TO SERVE IN GOVERNMENT, people who might not have otherwise been able to!!
Her very status as the first woman President will admirably express this truth:
She will represent INNOVATION, on the one hand: A Lady in the Oval Office;
On the other hand, she will take America back to her ANCIENT CONSTITUTIONAL ROOTS AND PRINCIPLES AND TRADITIONS.
NOVA ET VETERA.
SARAH PALIN: A WOMAN FOR ALL SEASONS; MY PRESIDENT, YOUR PRESIDENT, AMERICA'S PRESIDENT!!!!
