Sarah Palin was on Fox News on Monday (November 11), being interviewed by Sean Hannity. I expected her to talk about Obamacare, the government shutdown, and other political news. I even expected her to suggest that she might run for President in 2016. She did talk about current news, but she was also there to promote her new book: Good Tidings and Great Joy: Protecting the Heart of America.
Here are the book's chapters:
DedicationShe writes here in the first chapter:
Epigraph
Introduction
1. Angry Atheists with Lawyers
2. Knowing the End from the Beginning
3. The Real Thing
4. True Grit
5. Bad News, Good News
6. Seeing Double.......Standards
7. Who'd Make up a Story Like That?
Recipes
Acknowledgements
But while our worked hard to hold tight to our Christmas traditions, I wonder just how easy it will be in the future to joyfully and openly celebrate. Christmas has come under attack in recent years, and it's not just some figment of the religious right's imagination. I think about this every time I see a news story about an ACLU letter warning a school district not to sing "Silent Night," or when a college group isn't permitted to advertise a Christmas tree sale, or when "Merry Christmas" is replaced by the more politically correct "Happy Holidays" - all to avoid giving offense. I'm concerned that the years of relentless attacks against the holiday will eventually drain the joy from our public spaces as well as from our minds and hearts.Hannity summarizes the book by saying:
[...]
[Our cultural elites] send us the message that "Christmas" is something best practiced at home, as if it's a shameful and potentially exclusionary personal lifestyle choice.
[...]
The pundits like to pretend that anyone who belongs to the "Christmas with Christ" version is picking a fight over a non-existent problem. They trivialize the topic by reducing the whole issue to whether the cashier at the grocery store wishes customers "Merry Christmas" or "Happy Holidays." They say it's about the kids' two weeks off in December is called Winter Break...They claim the whole conversation is the result of hypersensitivity, intolerance, or - their favorite criticism for us "bitter clingers" - ignorance and fear of change...
But let me tell you what this conversation is important.
This book is not about isolated trivialities. It's not really about gingerbread cookies, or stockings hung by the fireplace with care, or the big fat man with big white beard. It's not about a holiday at all. It's about a little baby wrapped in swaddling clothes, who arrived long before hope and change became political manipulations. It's about Christ and our ability to worship Him freely. It's about America, and what liberty truly means in our day-to-day lives.
"The book is great. Great Tidings, Great Joy [he gets this a little wrong - it's Good Tidings and Great Joy], Protecting the Heart of Christmas..."
And Sarah Palin jumps in and says:
"Which is protecting the heart of America."
The only serious criticism I have of this book, from listening to interviews with Palin, reading reviews on the book, and from Palin's own comments, is that Palin is trying to be "multicultural" about worship.
She says in the interview:
It is unquestionable that there is an attack on Christmas, which is again the tip of the sphere [why doesn't she say iceberg?! And is "the tip of the sphere" an actual phrase?] when it comes to an even greater battle brewing, and that is an attack on our freedom of religion, where we can exercise our faith - whatever that faith may be.Palin is parroting the main stream American idea of "freedom of religion." In the next sentence she says:
There are double standards being applied to those who wish to celebrate Christmas, for instance, in a traditional way. Those who would - I refer to them as Scrooges - they are usually angry atheists armed with an attorney, and they want to tell us, they want to tell patriots, the want to tell traditional Americans that no longer can you acknowledge that Jesus is the Reason for the Season [I admit, I laughed at the last Palinesque phrase].When Palin gets talking "from the heart," she says sensible and reasonable things. Despite her "freedom of religion" mantra, she believes that Christianity trumps all other religions, and that American tradition is not based on a multi-faith amalgam but on Christianity. I think probably her internal litmus test for these other non-Christian faiths is Islam, and how radically and violently different it is from Christianity, and how it is endangering this American tradition, as well as the American nation.
Also, Palin understands that these angry atheists are angry at Christianity, and at the Christian roots of Western society. They want to destroy Christianity, and consequently a West based on Christianity, which according to them has oppressed and marginalized the non-Western, and non-Christian world. And these oppressed religions and cultures deserve acceptance and respect by the West's whites (which is also what these angry atheists almost exclusively are). These atheists are even willing to fight for these oppressed peoples. And alongside them, Muslims, blacks, Hispanics, and a slew of other "oppressed" people can then unite to rid the world of whites.
At some point, Palin will be able to decipher (if she hasn't done so already) that this ideological, and opportunistic, alliance the non-West has given these angry white atheists a formidable, but volatile, ally: Islam. Muslims can fight Christianity and the West through a variety of strategies including violent attacks on Christian societies and communities; immigration of Muslims into Western societies to dilute Christian populations; and internal violence (suicide bombs, killings) once in these societies. But Muslims will not stop there. There are no atheists in Muslim societies, as there are no other religions besides Islam. It is Allah or nothing. At some point, when they have enough force and presence, Muslims will attack these very benefactors who fought to let them into these societies: the angry (white) atheists.
Palin is lucid and intelligent in the interview. She has matured politically and intellectually since her last public appearances running for Vice President with McCain. She has a trace of her colloquial accent, but that makes her more authentic, compared to the uniformly accented talking heads we hear in the media. I could see her making another run at politics, perhaps taking on Hillary Clinton in 2016.
She looks thinner, though, and little strained. Perhaps one never really recovers from politics. And I'm not so sure about that glittering halter-neck top she has on (probably for the glitter of Christmas, along with the Christmas red cardigan). And the pendant around her neck is the American flag, but it looks undecipherable from the distance of a television screen. She used to wear crucifixes. I would have preferred that.
Below is the full interview. The section on her book starts around the 6 minute point.
I will find, and read this book.
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Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat
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