At What Point Does Someone Become Unreasonably Humble?

At what point does someone become unreasonably humble?

Take this conversation Sarah Palin had with Sean Hannity:

HANNITY: You know, Governor, as I have watched -- I know you were out in Washington this weekend and you've been traveling around the country with varying candidates and you've been on the stump.

Wherever you go, it seems that no matter what you say, what you do, you seem to draw the most attention of any political figure out there today.

Why do you think that is at this point? What do you think -- what do you think the difference is? Because I know a lot of candidates would probably like to have your popularity, but they don't.

PALIN: You know, I'm -- I feel very, very blessed that a platform that perhaps I have been given at this point can be used for good to help get this country back on the right track. And it's quite humbling but no, there are so many people out there, Sean, you being one of them, with that megaphone, that voice that people are craving to hear.

And what people want to hear are time-tested truths and how they can be applied to the challenges facing America today. And just that acknowledgment that there is nothing wrong with America today that Americans can't fix.

You have that same platform, Sean. And there are a lot of candidates out there with the same and let's be thankful for that.

So, Sarah, you are our modern day great one. You tell us exactly what you think. You call on us to be patient and keep our powder dry. You sit atop a powder keg of a movement, an army if you will that will obey your every command and trust you even during moments when we don't understand. Yet you are humble.

I see the trends online. The polls have not caught up yet. But the writers, the bloggers and the tweeters are seeing it more and more. Whether Sarah Palin knows it or not, she holds our nation's future in her hands because her power comes from us - not an establishment, not a political machine and not an economic group. She controls something more powerful that that: the truth and an army of supporters who know that she owns the truth because it is the same truth we understand.

We know what the light looks like. Sarah sees that same light. And she leads us toward it.

UPDATE: More ridiculous humility. Go to the 11:50 mark.

The Risks and Rewards of Sarah Palin

There was a time when Sarah Palin was like a moose out in the open. The local ankle biting bloggers and frivolous ethics violation filers, the local and national media and her political opponents on the Left were the hunters who riddled her with shots taken with ease during the post election Obama euphoria. Smartly, Palin retreated into the darkness of the woods and, hiding behind the rock of a self imposed exile, began the process of reloading. She emerged not as the hunted, but as the hunter who was about to go on the attack. In shining her light on the sludge and corruption that infects our political system, she would be startling beasts that would instinctively attack and she took on that danger willingly and aggressively.

Media on both sides, the pro-Palin and the anti-Palin, have been engaged in a vicious battle for the hearts and minds of Americans who are too busy working and raising families to be engaged enough to understand what's going on except for what they hear or read in a blurb here and there in the mainstream media - which normally does not show Sarah in a positive light. But even for those of us who are engaged, we can sometimes miss key elements that should be communicated to the public to make them more aware of just how incredible this leader from Alaska really is.

It began to strike me the other day when I wrote about what happened when Sarah Palin was videotaped by a creepy stalker that this woman is taking incredible risks for America. The heart dropping thought of "losing her" crossed my mind again like it did after Mark Sanford went missing and when she resigned. I put these thoughts out of my mind as quickly as possible because I don't want to manifest them. But, it's a demon I battle regularly as I hope and pray that my country will be saved from the disaster that is now destroying it.

It only takes one Sirhan Sirhan to literally destroy a country's dream. And it only takes one Dean Scream to figuratively destroy it. As I watch Sarah Palin walk the tightrope of American politics, the stalker who shot only with a camera on this occasion reminds us that Sarah Palin is not a moose in the open anymore, but a politically armed hunter who is becoming a target now not because the Left is on offense, but because they are on defense. And, like a cornered animal, they are most dangerous now because they are in self defense mode. The existential threat to the ideology of liberalism (I must always credit Monica Crowly on this talking point) that Palin poses is "life threatening" to them and they will "kill" to protect themselves.

Taking shots at Sarah Palin is no longer a sport to be handled by the likes of Tina Fey or Kathy Griffin. It's life and death for the Left.

The physical threats to Sarah Palin will have to be addressed and security will have to be increased. She is a modern day Bobby Kennedy, albeit from the other side of the spectrum. History dictates that she be protected.

The political threats to Sarah Palin must be addressed differently because they occur in the arena of ideas and competition where winning and losing is not physically life threatening per se, but simply part of the fair game. All is fair in love, war and politics. In a New York minute a misspelled potato, a poorly timed photo on an aptly named boat, a ride on the wrong tank at the wrong time, an improperly timed scream recorded directly through the recording board without the context of crowd noise or the wrong political endorsement in one's home state could spell doom to the aspirations of the courageous ones who seek the golden ring of the presidency. The rhetorical Sirhan Sirhans of this world are the wolves at the door waiting for that one unguarded moment. Though the rhetorical gunshot will not snuff out the physical life, it could mean the end of a political life as we know it.

As our country heads into bankrupcy, economic collapse, military decline and social decay, we need someone to get us out of the mess. And just as Sarah Palin took a risk with her life when going through the airport , she took a major risk with her political life when she endorsed Joe Miller. She walked unsecured through the political airport of endorsements and credibility. She has stared political death in the face many times and she has yet to flinch. She is, as she has said, willing to "politically die" trying to save this nation. She is incredibly and amazingly unafraid. She knew endorsing Joe Miller could have killed her and she never told us.

Had Joe Miller not won or sent the Alaska GOP Senate primary into overtime, Sarah Palin would have opened herself up to legitimate criticism that she was no longer powerful in her home state of Alaska. This would have been one instance where the left would not have to rely on the lies and nonsense that populate their otherwise empty bag of legitimate criticism for the former governor.

Columns, blog posts and television pundit talking points were already written in advance of "Murkowski's landslide." The left would be able to celebrate the election of a liberal (albeit a Republican) and simultaneously give creedance to the notion that Palin could not win a national election if she was so weak as to not even garner respect or consideration from residents in her own state.

Let me explain the kind of risk Sarah Palin took in endorsing Joe Miller more bluntly: Mitt Romney could have won the 2012 nomination Tuesday night.

With this risk, Sarah Palin demonstrated not only an incredilbly high level of faith in God, but in the people themselves, not just the people in Alaska. John Dickerson of Slate explains:

Palin now has more support for a favorite story line of hers: The pundits and so-called experts said things were going to go one way but she had faith; she knew the real deal. This is part of her larger pitch: that she understands something fundamental about conservative voters. That, in turn, is what voters believe about her, which makes them think she has a special light to guide the country out of the muck.

To that, all I can say is "yup."

Sarah Palin beams the light of liberty's lamp as she joyfully walks through the minefields of detractors looking to film a "gotcha moment" and politicos who lambast her on the op ed pages of their local newspapers when she endorses "dogs" like Bondi and Ayette who supposedly should have no chance of winning. She draws forth the anger of a Bob Ehrlich when she endorses Brian Murphy just as easily as she draws forth the anger of a Lisa Murkowski when she endorses Joe Miller. Palin shines a spotlight on the sewer rats, even when they are in her own party. When they show their teeth she takes them out with their own negativity and a helpful nudge from her Facebook page.

This leader, who sometimes can appear to be leading us into a dark woods with no guarantee that we will make it to the other side, tells us confidently that our nation will be great again. She tells us to hold our powder when she knows we're within inches of reacting for our leader in a way our leader doesn't want us to react. We adore our leader, but do not blindly follow her like Obama's people did. We know her. She is us.

Like a mother who tends to her cubs, she leaves the cave to navigate the arrows and bullets of the hunters and becomes the hunter herself as she destroys those who threaten her cave and at the same time gathers the political food we need while boning up on the issues that she will have to handle with fingertip precision come campaign time. When she returns to the cave, her detractors think she merely took a Mary Poppins walk and her cubs don't even realize that she nearly got herself "killed" preparing them for the political adulthood of power where we will all be thrusted into in 2012.

The existential thrill of being as close to glory as to death is something she hides from us. She tells us constantly not to worry. Even when she resigned, she said not to worry, "it's a good thing." Even when the left is slamming her, she watches as her army fights desperately to protect her and laughs as she hits the send button on her computer that will put a Facebook note online that will slaughter her enemies like the Excalibur sword.

When a business associate laughed at me because I told him that Sarah Palin was smarter than I am, he meant it more as a compliment to me than a slight of her. But it told me right then that this guy doesn't know what I know, and maybe - just maybe - my greater intelligence is the result of knowing who the real Sarah Palin is and that the strength of what he sees in me as a businessman is rooted in my ability to study successful people like her and learn from them.

And because Sarah Palin does the things she does, she continues to evoke the loyalty, faith and love of her followers. We have no more room in our hearts for how we feel about our great leader, yet she makes us love her more. We have no more patience for those who want to destroy her, yet she makes us wait for her to handle it. We are sick as dogs about what's happening to our country, yet she makes us see a shining city on a hill - a vision of something that we can embrace during a period where unendurable madness would prevail if she was never here.


ASIA - Sole Survivor
Lyrics

Liberty's Lamp Quote of the Day 08/16/10

From Martha Cano at Palin Promotions:

Again, I ask…Is the torch still burning? It may still be burning on Liberty Island, but is it still burning inside of us Americans? Do we still have that desire for “enlightenment”…that enlightenment that will light the way to freedom showing us the path to liberty? It seems that everyday we lose more of those precious freedoms and liberties. Do we still care to “stand tall and strong” for this County? A Country for which many have given their lives? I believe the answer is yes and “you betcha”. So to all my freedom loving friends….Let’s Keep The Torch Burning!

Patrick's World USA

When I was married and would talk politics with my wife, she would joke with me saying "it may be that way in Patrick's World, but..." So from that, I came up with the idea for my website and my Blogtalk Radio show Patrick's World USA.

My world is Ronald Reagan's world. My America is the same America that our founders envisioned and that many hard working, freedom loving people once experienced and enjoyed during the time when the great Ronald Reagan led us from the darkness and despair of the Jimmy Carter years and took us home to that shining city on a hill - a beautiful, prosperous and majestic place that brings tears of joy to the eyes and warmth to the heart.

Patrick's World is not a fantasy land, but a real place that once existed between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans when I was a young man in college and then entering the work force. It still exists today in the hearts and minds of people like me who I see at Tea Parties, Townhall meetings and on Twitter and Facebook. While the "official America" may appear to be declining rapidly, the real America still exists in our dreams and vision.

Our journey will be a long hard fought one. We will fight many battles, take on many slings and arrows of smear and slander. We will be mocked. We will be marginalized. But our strength lies in the truth. And in keeping with that truth, we SHALL return to that shining city on a hill some day.

Our founding fathers designed our country to be a diverse and free society based on the premise that all of our freedoms and blessings come from God and that self government means limited government. God, not the government, is the source of our liberty.

Under Ronald Reagan, America brought great prosperity to its citizens and stood as a beacon of freedom for those abroad. His leadership resulted in millions of new jobs being created and a tide that lifted all boats at home and the collapse of the Soviet Union in a world that once stood on the brink of nuclear destruction every day. Free economies flourished as the United States economy positively affected the economies of other nations who reaped the financial rewards of having a free citizenry.

Ronald Reagan left the city stronger and more free than it was before. But after he left the world stage in 1992, we allowed it to decline. We did not hold our politicians accountable. We took it for granted that our leaders would automatically keep the city shining. But, in our loss of focus, we didn't pay attention to the growing progressive movement who planned to snatch the city from our control while we weren't looking.

As conservatives, we assumed that there would always be a protocol, professionalism and maturity in how our public business was conducted. We went about our daily lives not getting heavily involved in the issues or the candidates. When election day would come, we'd vote for the Republican that secured the nomination. In many instances, these people were party insiders or people who were professionally active in politics and the party.

We are a representative republic after all, and the Founding Fathers really wanted us to select "trustees" to do the day to day work of carrying out our public business while we focused on raising our families and working our jobs to keep the nation productive. However, as Ronald Reagan said, freedom is never to be taken for granted and must be fought for every day of our lives.

"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free."

As party insiders drank the Potomoc water, progressives took over key leadership positions, government spending increased and the size of the government grew cumbersome, the eyes of our leaders were taken off the public good as politicians lined their paths with cushy jobs, incredible perks and a sense that retaining power was more important than listening to the will of the people.

As progressives infiltrated our system and our institutions, political correctness, judicial activism and social and religious intolerance were institutionalized under our very noses. We watched as the left used the system to regulate our speech, even informally, to overturn laws they didn't like or to interpret into law stuff that they did, tear down our family unit and shut down our ability to worship God in the public square and in some cases the private one.

Since the passing of the great Ronald Reagan, we have been wandering leaderless in the political world. When he left the world stage in 1992, Reagan said "My dream is that you will travel the road ahead with liberty's lamp guiding your steps and opportunity's arm steadying your way." Yet, we still lost our way. Liberty's lamp had seemed to have gone dark.

Wandering leaderless in the political wilderness with the American ideal dying in the liberal onslaught made me question whether our best days were behind us. How did we nominate John McCain to be our presidential candidate? Was there nobody out there that could bring us the vision and leadership that Reagan did?

Providence gave us John McCain for a reason. He was a war hero whose service is a debt that can never be repaid. His political skills as a maverick gave him the ability to move more fluidly along the ideological spectrum than rigid ideologues could. There are many, including those who read and listen to me, who will take exception to my praising of McCain. They will call McCain a RINO. They will call him part of the problem.

But without understanding the bigger picture of history, we miss the key components of how Patrick's World works. It's not really my world. It's God's world. God created us to be free and inasmuch as he created history, a masterpiece of a picture that is complete in His eyes and His eternal time frame, we are still in the process of painting that picture.

I didn't agree with John McCain on some important issues in the 2000's. I wasn't pulling for him in the primaries. I threw my hands up. I was distraught, telling my friends in an Archie Bunker voice "geez, Edith, the woild is going to hell in a handbasket." I saw no way out. I had already settled for Romney, but now it seemed that society was crumbling and the liberals were moving in for the spoils.

How I lost faith in providence, I'll never know. But I gained that faith back and I realized the true value of John McCain on August 29th, 2008 when he introduced us to a beautiful woman with a killer ideology, Ronald Reagan's ideology.

When I researched Sarah Palin prior to McCain's introduction of her that day, I thought to myself "this is too good to be true." She was my age, she embraced, understood and knew Ronald Reagan the way I did and her political philosophy made her a true ideological soulmate for me much the way Reagan was.

Watching the Republican Party's vice presidential nominee give her speech at the 2008 Republican National Convention immediately brought to mind another "coming out" speech given for one Barry Goldwater at the 1964 convention. I saw a look in the eyes of the crowd that I had not seen since Ronald Reagan.

It was at the convention and at her rallies that I saw the America I love. I saw my America, your America, Ronald Reagan's America. We were no longer alone. We had a leader again. I saw it again when I went to Sarah Palin's campaign rallies at Richmond International Raceway on Oct 13, 2008 and Deep Run High School Nov 1, 2008. Tens of thousands were chanting "Sarah! Sarah! Sarah! They mobbed the stage after the speech.

Is Sarah Palin the next Ronald Reagan? There will never be another Ronald Reagan, as there will never be another Abraham Lincoln. But I also know there will never be another Sarah Palin. I am convinced she is the next great one. I am convinced she is the one who can lead us.

I spoke with a friend during the GOP primaries who told me that America was becoming an idiocracy. I said Americans were sheep sitting idly by as the liberals enacted their hidden agenda to undermine our Constitution and fundamentally transform America into a European socialist democracy. Like the Twilight Zone episode "To Serve Man," we were unaware that we were being led to slaughter.

And like the character in the show who discovered "it's a cook book," Americans by the millions woke quickly and took immediate action by forming Tea Parties and attending townhall meetings once they realized where they were being taken by the Obama administration. Americans become complacent, like before Pearl Harbor and 9/11, yet are quick to respond when awakened to action when their freedom is threatened. The first Tea Parties in 2009 showed us that Americans were waking up to institutionalized liberalism and a the soft tyranny that comes with an increasingly larger and larger government with stifling bureaucracies that slowly kill the goose that lays the golden egg they pilfer.

Today, the people in Patrick's World are politically active. We are numerous. We have an online presence. President Obama's favorables have dropped. The sheep are sheep no more as they speak out and wake up to the real intentions of the Obama administration. We are not an idiocracy. We are citizens who have heard the call to action and who now work feverishly to return home to that Shining City on a Hill.

Our journey will be a long hard fought one. We will fight many battles, take on many slings and arrows of smear and slander. We will be mocked. We will be marginalized. But our strength lies in the truth. As Ronald Reagan said, "may every dawn be a great new beginning for America and every evening bring us closer to that shining city upon a hill."

And in keeping with that truth, we SHALL return to that city. We are coming home.

Getting there will require us to understand Reagan's wish that we are to be guided by liberty's lamp. The one who leads us home must hold that lamp for us and with our support find that way back through the dark night. That person may have to take us through the dark forest and take on the cuts and bruises that come with cutting through a liberal underbrush that is thick and foreboding. But it must be done if we are to take back our once great nation.

Carrying liberty's lamp is not a task to be undertaken by just anyone. It requires bold leadership, vision and a strength to go against tides and fight for positions that some may brutally criticize you for.

Carrying liberty's lamp is not for the faint of heart or the philosophically weak. It is a task that should only be assigned to someone with Reagan's character, values and strength of convictions. It is the only metaphorical way we can keep the ideals of and fondness for Ronald Reagan alive and to pass these on to future generations.

We have found the one who can lead us. She talks of the light. She tells us "With hope and dedication nothing is impossible, and the Almighty never abandons those who seek the light." After speaking with a reporter who revealed emails between journalists conspiring to destroy her, she encourages us. She writes "May the light keep shining!"

The time has come to follow liberty's lamp and re-awaken the industrial giant that America once was. We have vast resources that go untapped because of the heavy hand of government. We have people who could spring into action by opening businesses if only the tax structure, credit climate and regulatory environment weren't such overwhelming obstacles. We are begging for help and we are willing to help.

We are asking ourselves to keep fighting and we are asking the ones who lead us to help us destroy all the impediments to prosperity, freedom and national security. We are asking that we repeal the horrors of the past two legislative years and replace them with just laws and just restraints on a government gone wild in a world that is increasingly growing more dangerous again.

Our city is going to shine again. Our dreams are going to have a chance to be realized again. We will win again. And when we come to power again, we will lead. We will never squander the opportunity like we did the last time by becoming like them or by blurring the lines between big government and Constitutionalism. Our world, Patrick's World, Reagan's World and with God's help and mercy, Sarah's World will be beautiful again.

We must keep our petty differences from destroying us. We must accept libertarians, independents, conservatives and Republicans into a tent that will grow in size and stature as the halls of power in Washington hear the sound that the Scots heard as William Wallace's army approached. We must embrace Sarah Palin as our leader and despite any reservations some may have about her, commit to the fact that if we all push her to the top, we will be stronger and better for it than if only some of us do.

And when we get there, whether a Ronulan, a Romneyite, a Huckster, a Newty or a Palinista, whoever gets that gate to open across the moat and whoever gets to the door first must hold it and let us all pour in. There are many tables and many seats at the banquet where we will all feast in the hallowed halls of our great city.

We will remember Patrick Henry, Samuel Adams, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan whose moments in history and whose great accomplishments have led us to the moment where Sarah Palin can stand on their backs and find that the compass, when properly read, still leads us to the better days which are yet to come in an American whose destiny still calls us to a greatness we may never know for generations to come.

We envision and manifest that great day on the mall with our desire and our hard work when our leader will step up to accept the office of the presidency of the United States and tell us "My fellow citizens, the grown ups are back in charge."

We are an exceptional nation. We are a great people. Given the right information, unfiltered by media lies, we can make the right decisions about Sarah Palin, conservatism, libertarianism and Constitutionalism. We can see freedom from our houses and if we are ever to support a death panel, may it be a panel that casts death upon the morally and intellectually bankrupt philosophy of liberalism.

We will remember the crack in Ronald Reagan's voice in 1976 and the tears in Sarah Palin's eyes in 2008 and resolve that we will never ever let it get to that again.

God bless all of you who read this. God bless all of you who are the inspiration for these words and for the support that we will need in order to make all of this happen. The fight will be tough, but we can do it. We can beat them at their own game because we are smarter than them and we have truth on our side. And when we do beat them, we will own the board and we will make the rules.

The discourse will be civil again and the focus will be positive instead of negative.

God bless all of you.

Now let's go take it back!

Fight The Good Fight