AmbivaBlog, a moderate blog, writes about the U.S. presidential election: "Last night I heard Barack Obama declare to a rally in Missouri, 'We're going to totally transform the United States of America!' Totally? Does it need it? Do we want it? I mean, sure, it's got problems (it's the worst except for all the rest, etc.), but I thought it was pretty good and evolving to be better, in spite of the inevitable setbacks. That reminded me of the one truly scary thing -- only one -- I've heard Michelle Obama say, and it hasn't been much commented on. She said, 'We know how the world should look! We know how the world should look!' She felt so strongly about that she said it twice. People who are sure they know how the world should look (they are not found only on the left, of course) can get quite totalitarian about 'transforming' it, given the chance. This, it strikes me, is a major argument for limited government. I wouldn't want to be governed by right-wing Christian theocrats, and I don't want to be governed by left-wing utopians."
It continues: "Barack Obama and a Democratic Congress; Sarah Palin and a Republican Congress -- those are the two scariest scenarios I can imagine. They both amount to takeovers by control freaks who 'know how the world should look.' We're a lot closer to the former than the latter. We could be subjected to two years of intensive leftist social engineering before Congress changes hands. Sarah Palin and Nancy Pelosi, on the other hand, would kinda cancel out. I doubt that John McCain thinks he knows exactly how the world should look (though I'm sure he has a strong sense of how it shouldn't look). In that respect, his age is in his favor."
That Utopian Impulse
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It doesn't take a very long look at how Palin has governed Alaska to see that this view of her is an outright invention on the part of her opponents. I'd like to see a list of all the anti-evolution education board members she appointed, for example. She's certainly reform-minded on a number of issues, and that involves some kind of vision of moving things toward the way she'd like them to be. Any politician with any views does that to some extent anyway/ But control freak? She's been relatively hands-off, and she hasn't put much effort into pursuing issues where her views are more controversial. She resisted a lot of funding increases. I just don't see how this is remotely reflective of what she's really like.
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