Sarah Palin's "Fear"

Scott Horton at Harper's

In a speech in Des Moines, Iowa, on Saturday, Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin told the crowd that an Obama presidency would present the specter of a socialist state in which fundamental American freedoms are undermined.

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Does Sarah mean a state:

* That snatches its victims off the street, denies them all form of legal process and whisks them away to secret “blacksites” where they can be tortured using all the techniques described in Arthur Koestler’s Darkness at Noon?
* That arrests and prosecutes its political adversaries for imaginary crimes so as to eliminate them from the running in election cycles in which they could do some damage?
* That destroys the careers of professional military men because they got promotions under a prior regime and therefore considers them disloyal?
* That believes it can detain and hold its enemies forever without any charges or any evidence against them, denying them access to courts to prove their innocence?
* That constantly manipulates the population’s fear whenever its public popularity slips and elections begin to approach?
* That believes that it can make no errors, and that those who point to its errors are traitors?
* That systematically spies on millions of its citizens in direct violation of a criminal statute which forbids such surveillance?
* That signs new laws with its fingers crossed in the form of signing statements, so that no one knows whether the laws—or any part of them—will actually be enforced?
* That lies to its people about threats from abroad in an effort to build popular support for a series of wars and then cites the existence of those wars as a reason to suppress dissent?
* That nationalizes the debt of predatory capitalists so they suffer no punishment for their misconduct and then nationalizes major financial institutions, converting the nation’s free market system into a socialism in which crony capitalists are a privileged elite?

Sarah, you have no need to fear the future.