Bluelens

Sam Harris recently wrote an opinion piece for Newsweek that talked about his fear of Palin and defended ‘elitism”

Some of the arguments on Palin are common in the media and other places while others are more directly tied to her religion and faith - which seems to be mostly off limits by the media…kid gloves much there people?

Harris states:

In the churches where Palin has worshiped for decades, parishioners enjoy “baptism in the Holy Spirit,” “miraculous healings” and “the gift of tongues.” Invariably, they offer astonishingly irrational accounts of this behavior and of its significance for the entire cosmos. Palin’s spiritual colleagues describe themselves as part of “the final generation,” engaged in “spiritual warfare” to purge the earth of “demonic strongholds.” Palin has spent her entire adult life immersed in this apocalyptic hysteria.

The other bit of the article that resonated with me, and in face-to-face discussions I have defended, was the inappropriate use and abuse of the term ‘elite.”  I have defended and embraced the term ‘liberal’ as a way to describe my political leanings.  Liberal is not a bad, 4-letter (plus 3) word.  And the more we allow the GOP to self-define that word as bad the more people will use it as a derogatory term we will never prevail.  Just as we should embrace - or as I like to say, ‘own’ - the term liberal, we should defend and turn the tables on those who try to paint liberals as elite.  Harris writes:

Ask yourself: how has “elitism” become a bad word in American politics? There is simply no other walk of life in which extraordinary talent and rigorous training are denigrated. We want elite pilots to fly our planes, elite troops to undertake our most critical missions, elite athletes to represent us in competition and elite scientists to devote the most productive years of their lives to curing our diseases. And yet, when it comes time to vest people with even greater responsibilities, we consider it a virtue to shun any and all standards of excellence. When it comes to choosing the people whose thoughts and actions will decide the fates of millions, then we suddenly want someone just like us, someone fit to have a beer with, someone down-to-earth—in fact, almost anyone, provided that he or she doesn’t seem too intelligent or well educated.

These are the points I wish I was hearing from the campaign.

You can read Sam Harris’ article here.