Long ago, the right suffered from intemperate overreaching by rabid analogues who clamored for "in your face" pro life activism. Today, after a national backlash that elected Bill Clinton, these same groups just want to be allowed to raise their own kids as they see fit, and to be left alone. They still vote republican, but the rabid enthusiasm (and high turnout), are gone. Now, apparently, the shoe is on the other foot, and the consequences are equally predictable. If he cannot corral his uber-exuberant base, Obama will be in trouble. Sarah Palin is merely the lightening rod that is drawing sparks from his over charged supporters. She resonates with republicans because she apparently wants to raise her kids as she sees fit, and believes people have a right to be left alone. The right to be left alone is under appreciated for its importance as a campaign issue. Obama ignores this at his peril.

Wow. That's all I can say about Ms. Paglia's article about the current stirrings of the Presidential race and the response we have seen from our people speaking on behalf of our party related to this Ms. Palin. I consider myself a conservative Democrat (registered as a Democrat) and have found it difficult to ferret out others who feel the same about our party. Ms. Paglia's statement "When they become baying bloodhounds of rigid dogma, Democrats have committed political suicide" seems to be happening. Why can't we control these idiots who are creating such a negative atmoshere that it is affecting out candidate's chances? Why don't you shut up about Palin and get back to the issues! (and you know who you are!). There seems to be mass hysteria going on in our party all of a sudden. Let's get a grip before we drive this country back into the Republican's hands.

Camille, my Mother was one of those upstate NY women you describe...except she took a no-nonsense progressive position on most issues, and would find your position on death penalty versus abortion as untenable...

Still, I love when you write:

Over the Labor Day weekend, with most of the big enchiladas of the major media on vacation, the vacuum was filled with a hallucinatory hurricane in the leftist blogosphere, which unleashed a grotesquely lurid series of allegations, fantasies, half-truths and outright lies about Palin. What a tacky low in American politics -- which has already caused a backlash that could damage Obama's campaign. When liberals come off as childish, raving loonies, the right wing gains...

This is an argument I have made here and many times..the more liberal bloggers like the noxious Daily Kos or the painful to endure Huffington Post continue their virulent smears of Palin, the more McCain will succeed...it is a losing strategy to continue, one I am sure Karl Rove is delighting in.

And she wanted nothing so much as for her children to have a better life than she did. In point of fact she HATED slaughtering and dressing chickens and hogs, churning butter, milking cows and so forth. As soon as she found an escape route - my Great-Grandfather, a tradesman who earned very good money - she took and never looked back. Moreover, she worked hard her whole life to see to it that she and her family never wanted for anything (straight through the Great Depression and WWII), and took full advantage of the prosperity of the 1950s. This led to a very comfortable and secure retirement for both of them in the 70s and 80s, until they both passed away in the early 90s.

My Great-Grandmother would have laughed out loud at Paglia's hagiography of rural life, largely in disgust. Paglia has, in this essay, reproduced the same ignorant romanticizing of the rural class that infected early Communists. Talk about irony!

Camille, the problem is too many Eastern folks really have

no idea what the Western United States (including Alaska which is a whole other Country) and its people are like. You people cover ten or eleven states in a day--most are surprised it takes the better part of a day just to drive across Montana--

and live in a dream world created by the media and Madison Avenue. I have been since College a GDI ( "Fuck those frat

rats" was our slogan). Like all too many I was raised by

working parents (Dad was a logging contractor and Mom raised eight children: Dad logged from the Redwoods around Arcata and Eureka, California to amost a decade in Southeast Alaska; one question I asked my mom in later years was had she had access to the pill would she had had eight kids? My lands no, she screamed!) To hell with Al Gore and his Bull Shit: No

body in power ever cares about working people laid off over

such malarky as the Spotted Owl. Being a Vetern, I want to vote for John McCain, even though I know he too old. Sara

is exciting but, like Obama, very inexperienced. I heard

a Republican bragg the other day about Iraq having 500

political parties. Why can't we have a geniune third party

without poor old, tired Ralph Nader leading the charge? Re-

gardless of who is elected, if things don't change in this Country to help the Middle Class, people will be marching in the streets. The one good thing about the candidacy of Sara Palen: Hopefully, it will put an end to the candidacy of

Hilery Clinton. Every time I saw her stand out front with Chelsa, I wanted to scream how come your daughter isn't fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan like my Son. Same thing for

the President and his two daughters. The elite of this Country don't mind sending other parent's children to war

but they won't send their own--except for Governor Palen.

#1, you write: Every individual has an absolute right to control his or her body.

Until that right affects the right of another person to control her own body. For example, I can't strangle you to death, claiming I have a right to control my hands. Abortion obviously falls into this category.

Another point, all cultures have agreed that parents have obligations to their children that others don't have. That's why we have paternity suits, and why when a child is neglected it is the parents that are arrested. Abortion turns that around, where the mother is the only person that has the right to kill her child, instead of being one of two people obligated to take care of her child.

#2 you write: My argument has always been that nature has a master plan pushing every species toward procreation and that it is our right and even obligation as rational human beings to defy nature's fascism.

So we can kill our children? At what ages of our children do we have this obligation? Can we kill our adult children, or only our pre-born children? Why?