Sarah Palin, Republican Vice Presidential Candidate

[Tyche]

lets lower the drinking age and the age to consent then.

I wrote an outstanding paper in college defending the lowering of the drinking age.

[Elvis]

Maybe they started having sex when they knew they wanted to marry?

Then why wasn't this public knowledge "shortly before" McCain asked Palin to be his running mate?

I don't doubt that some people out there want to have kids when they're 16-17 but I think it's a longshot.

[Sera]

because her mom is publicly prominant, it's a parenting issue.

YES! EXACTLY! Because she wants to decide what is taught to OTHER PEOPLE's KIDS! You're only proving my point here.

edit: ps, swampdonkey, even if that were true, he's 25 and she was 16. that's still illegal.

[Tyche]

Because it shouldn't be public knowledge. Her daughter isn't the governor. Also, where's the blame on the male's parents? Did they not teach him to use a condom? Abstinence-only? OMG HIS PARENTS ARE TERRIBLE!

[Tyche]

YES! EXACTLY! Because she wants to decide what is taught to OTHER PEOPLE's KIDS! You're only proving my point here.

edit: ps, swampdonkey, even if that were true, he's 25 and she was 16. that's still illegal.

Don't have kids please. Don't. You listen to politicians on how to raise your children.

[Rhinox]

The males mother isn't running for VP etc.

[Sera]

More like the male's mother isn't trying to change how my kid would be educated about health issues in public school.

No, what im saying is health risk issues should be addressed in public school, because health risks are a public issue. i told you, morality isnt my thing, i could give a shit.

[Elvis]

Because it shouldn't be public knowledge. Her daughter isn't the governor. Also, where's the blame on the male's parents? Did they not teach him to use a condom? Abstinence-only? OMG HIS PARENTS ARE TERRIBLE!

There's no blame on the male's parents because they aren't in the spotlight.

Being a governor is putting yourself out there in the open. I don't think anyone is talking directly about the kid. They are talking about the kid in relation to the parents views/beliefs, which I think is relevant.

People may get upset with Mitt Romney and his pro-Iraq war stance when none of his sons serve in the military. Are we upset at the sons? Maybe but I think it has more to do with the politician not instilling his or her beliefs into his or her children. This doesn't mean that the kids should just obey just for political reasons but it still makes you look ironic and hypocritical.

And while in the case of Romney, it may not be as purely an example of hypocritical behavior, it does bring up those ideas of "young men fighting an old man's war." Like it's easy for them to send people off to fight and possibly die for their country because its all politics to them. They (the politicians) can't relate to the issues they so publically care about.

[Maxxthepenguin]

Because it shouldn't be public knowledge. Her daughter isn't the governor. Also, where's the blame on the male's parents? Did they not teach him to use a condom? Abstinence-only? OMG HIS PARENTS ARE TERRIBLE!

We don't know them.

We are criticizing the policy of not teaching condoms as a viable tool, saying it's wrong and oh look, that's why.

[Tyche]

You have 2 sets of parents, 2 adults engaging that are fully capable of making decisions on their own, and 1 parent is getting the blame and being called a bad parent? Do you not see the problem here? As I said, if this was a preachers daughter who believed in no-sex-til-marriage, it would just be a case of an out of control child. Noone would blame the parent. There are a ton of reasons to hate Palin, I've said I don't like her, but some people just take shit entirelly too far.

[Sera]

we're just arguing that this demonstrates what statistics already show. its statistically ineffective, and risky at that, to just assume kids will be abstinent, tyche, even you admitted to that. i'm not even commenting on morality here, i'm saying it proves statistics that have already shown that her belief, her tactic for this issue, simply doesn't work, that its impractical.
i don't even NEED to argue it, the numbers show it, this just makes it more visible and more ironic.

[Xavier]

The hypocrisy coming from conservatives is mind blowing.

And to answer someones question from earlier, I personally don't think she's a bad mother for accepting the VP-slot with a 17 year old daughter who's 5 months pregnant, even though I think she should have been compelled to spare her daughter the national attention. I think shes a bad mother because she was an infant with down syndrome who can't possibly get the attention hes going to desperately need in his early development if shes spending her time running around the country campaigning for a job whose responsibilities she didn't even know about a month ago.

Much more importantly, however, it makes me question just what the hell McCain was thinking. I was seriously expecting McCain to nominate Lieberman, who would have generated controversy, but who wouldn't of made me question McCain's executive decision making.

[Tyche]

It's exactly that, ironic. You cannot purport that Sarah is a bad parent and responsible for her daughters pregnancy, which is what has been insinuated. Answer me, do you think Sarah knew her daughter was having sex? Do you think Sarah would have told her not to wear a condom if she was having sex. I don't want my kid having sex, but I'd tell her to wear a condom if she did. Do you honestly believe, seriously, that Sarah not once told her kid to use a condom if she ever had sex? Seriously? Too much of the honus is being put on the wrong person here.

[Elvis]

You have 2 sets of parents, 2 adults engaging that are fully capable of making decisions on their own, and 1 parent is getting the blame and being called a bad parent? Do you not see the problem here? As I said, if this was a preachers daughter who believed in no-sex-til-marriage, it would just be a case of an out of control child. Noone would blame the parent. There are a ton of reasons to hate Palin, I've said I don't like her, but some people just take shit entirelly too far.

I agree that some people will focus on this issue too much but it's not the case here at the moment IMO.

We all agree that both parents are responsible as well as both teenagers but no one is going to give a shit about the other parents because they aren't in the spotlight. They also haven't gone on record saying they believe in blah blah blah. They aren't politicians.

There is an element of hypocrasy here. If there was no irony involved, Palin would still be criticized. I think any parents would be but it would be leaning more toward her fault as a parent rather than as a politician+parent. Its the kids fault mainly of course.

All of this is interesting though. We can get very speculative about Palin's character because these are very big decisions she's making. So far she's all fail.

[Beckwin]

wait the guy who knocked up Bristol is 25?

[Tyche]

I read 18.

[Tyche]

Levi Johnston, age 18...

[Xno Kappa]

Guy has to be 18, I think the media would of had an orgasm of news if he were 25.

[Tyche]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/0..._n_123089.html

They've been dating for about a year. A lot of info at that link...

[Xavier]

One must assume that someone who truly believes that abstinence only sex education not only works, but is the form of education that should be taught exclusively to children, would in fact not have told her daughter to use contraceptives, simply because staunch advocates of a policy are unusually unwilling to accept the alternative that their policy is ineffective.

So she either advocated a policy that did absolutely nothing to prevent her child from getting pregnant, because the assumption that simply telling kids not to have sex will actually work is ludicrous, or, as you're suggesting, she actually did tell her daughter to use contraceptives and her daughter ignored her advice, in which case Palin is a hypocrite for pushing a public policy that she doesn't feel is effective.

In either case, the irony is unmistakable. Abstinence only education is a terrible policy that defies rational reasoning in favor of an ideology based in religion.