Not Stupid.

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(Follow-up to the link to the "Going Rogue" NYT book review, cross-posted from my LJ.)

So far, I rather like what I've seen of Sarah Palin, though I have yet to do any serious research on her. (Beyond checking out her quotes at http://www.ontheissues.org, which I recommend.) And it doesn't entirely matter what I think of her, since it'd take a major miracle and/or gun to my head to make me vote Obama in 2012. And the thing is? I'm not stupid.

Really. I'm not. My husband likes Palin, and he's not stupid. The woman who leads my Bible study? Has an IQ a point above mine; she's not stupid either. My husband reads history voraciously. My friend reads theology and mystery. Me, I read everything.

Not stupid.

So I get irate when I read stuff like the link below, or more specifically the comments that were posted before somebody got smart and disabled them.

15 pages, 370+ comments, and I paid no attention to the ones that were only insulting to Palin herself, rather than the people who might conceivably vote for her. 15 comparisons to "Mein Kampf" and three Palin/Hitler comparisons (people, can't we find another dictator for a while? Please? "Hitler" /= "anybody you don't like", and it hurts me in my history-reading parts to see him continually resurface.)

There were a couple of relatively coolheaded comments like "They are a threat to the quality of my life and to the future welfare of the nation and the world. " (hyperbolic, melodramatic, but it didn't descend into pointless frothing at the mouth) and "a segment of the population that would like to see people who are no more intelligent than themselves in public office" (condescending, presumptive, but relatively restrained; at least it didn't call us out-and-out evil).

Then we get the fun stuff. This is just about people who LIKE Sarah Palin, not about Palin herself:

"Ignorant, small-minded people/dimwitted and proud of it"

"opportunistic, sloven, dismissive to the level of being punitive of others (especially those who disagree with her) and seemingly inarticulate/illiterate" (I'll get back to them on that whole "illiterate" thing once I finish figuring out how many bookshelves I need to buy for the new house.)

"ignorant and proud of it, unable to be reasoned with, and apparently believing that merely being American gives their views and opinions some special insight or righteousness."

"if her fans (clearly responding to the misogyny that Palin holds dear and tries to dress up as empowerment for women) are just incapable, as Fish is, of actually respecting her because she is a woman."

"uneducated, racist, intolerant White trash/Palin will send women's rights back to the Stone Age, just where all religion wants women to be!" (My not-stupid sense is tingling! Is there some irony in that whole "uneducated" concept here?)

"far Right Christian fundamentalist millennialism that's only Not frightening because it's nowhere near any nuclear "buttons" or other large-scale military power." (I grew up with far-right millenialist fundamentalists. One of them had NASA calling him on a yearly basis going "Um, so can you come do physics for us NOW?" Not stupid.)

"the required diminished intellectual capacity to take anything she says seriously"

"a jingoistic, simplistic and divisive crowd"

"provincialism, anti-intellectualism, bigotry, intolerance, and narrow-mindedness"

"know-little to know-nothing fans who might morph - again, under the worst of circumstances - from cheering morons to an extremely ugly lynch mob" (Thanks for that "worst of circumstances" exception! Guess you really must not despise us after all.)

The reason conservatives hold the "liberal elite" in contempt these days? Gee, I can't imagine.

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Hey, they're all about protecting the little people, not actually listening to them.