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What does that say about us?

I wonder what Sarah Palin thinks about our educational system.  I wonder is she is concerned that almost twenty other nations seem to be doing a better job teaching kids to read, and do math, and think critically.  What does she think our schools really need to do?

I wonder what she thinks about industrialization; whether she has ever tried to understand what happened to the automobile and steel industries.  What does she think we might do about Detroit, or Cleveland, or Gary, Indiana?

Does Sarah Palin think that war in Iraq was a good idea?  What did it accomplish?  What does she think the end result of war in Afghanistan will be?  What does she hope it will be?

Is she in favor of a graduated income tax?  A value-added tax?  Unemployment insurance?

What does she think about Social Security?  Are there ways in which it should be changed?  

When she needed medical care, she and her family went to Whitehorse, to take advantage of Canada's socialized medical plan.  Does she believe everyone should have access to health care?  Should anyone be left out?

Sarah Palin says a lot about people's patriotism, about the right and advantage of carrying a gun, about mama grizzly bears and how fierce they are, and about loving glaciers and smoked salmon.  She obviously loves high-end department stores and hair dressers.  She didn't like being Governor of Alaska, and quit after two years.  She liked running for the Vice Presidency (or was that the Presidency?).  But what does she stand for?  If she were the President now, what would she do?

Sarah Palin isn't ever going to be our president.  She isn't really the issue here.  But she is an example of something empty that fascinates us politically.  She is a non-answer to real questions.  She cheers for Joe the Imaginary Plumber, and for good, decent, gun-loving, Bible-quoting, angry people who distrust everybody east of Eden, and who want to be elected to go there, themselves, to change everything, you know!

But change what?  To do what?  To remake the nation in what way?

She doesn't have to have memorized the names of all the Presidents, in order.  She doesn't have to know all the Articles of the Constitution by heart, or even be able to explain to Christine O'Donnell what the separation of Church and State is all about.  But she surely must have thought about something concrete having to do with us as a nation!

There is nothing there.

What does that say about us, as a nation?

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