What Defines Patriotism?

Here I go, asking questions again, but everytime I listen to or read anything about Palin, my mind starts filling up with questions. I look for answers, I read, I research and while I find lots of other people's questions and concerns, I don't always find anwsers. During the VP debates last week did you really learn anything positive? I'm afraid I didn't. According to what Palin said in the debate with Joe Biden, if you’re in the middle class, in her neighborhood, it’s not patriotic to pay taxes. Say what??

Thomas Friedman of the NYT wrote a great column today about “Palin’s Kind of Patriotism” and he is surely as outraged as I am by such a statement. He writes that he wishes she had been asked: “Governor Palin, if paying taxes is not considered patriotic in your neighborhood, then who is going to pay for the body armor that will protect your son in Iraq? Who is going to pay for the bailout you endorsed? If it isn’t from tax revenues, there are only two ways to pay for those big projects – printing more money or borrowing more money. Do you think borrowing money from China is more patriotic than raising it in taxes from Americans?” That is not putting America first. That is selling America first.”

He goes on to say, that he grew up in a very middle-class family in a very middle-class suburb of Minneapolis, and his parents taught him that paying taxes, while certainly no fun, was how we paid for the police and the Army, our public universities and local schools, scientific research and Medicare for the elderly. No one said it better than Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes: “I like paying taxes. With them I buy civilization.”

I also agree with Mr. Friedman when he reminds us that our country is in serious trouble right now and like him I wonder if the people so ardently supporting Palin have any idea of just what serious trouble our country is in now?

According to him, we are in the middle of an economic perfect storm and we have no idea how much worse it is going to get. People all over the world are hoarding cash, no bank feels they can fully trust anyone they’re doing business with anywhere in the world. And it’s just the beginning.

Only good governance can save us right now and, according to Friedman, he isn’t sure that this crisis will end without every government in every major economy guaranteeing the creditworthiness of every financial institution it regulates. That may be the only way to get lending going again. Organizing something that big and complex will take some really smart governance and seasoned leadership.

It’s not even a question of whether or not John McCain has the stuff to be president, he is endangering this country by putting a total novice like Palin in a position to possibly have to steer us through the most serious economic crisis of our lives and that is total recklessness and the very opposite of conservative. Well, what about advisors? She can find those can’t she? And if they disagree, what happens then?

I also agree with Friedman when he says his biggest fear about Palin is the fact she is promoting our further dependence on oil, which means further dependence on countries like Saudi Arabia and that surely isn’t patriotic! Patriotic is offering a plan to build our economy, not by tax cuts or punching more holes in the ground, but by empowering more Americans to work in productive and innovative jobs. Friedman hasn’t heard of her having that kind of a plan. And needless to say, neither have I.