Philosophical Divide & Moral Relativism: Sarah Palin vs. Katie Couric & David Letterman
Posted By Vicki McClure Davidson on June 15, 2009
Sarah Palin, target of moral relativists like Katie Couric and David Letterman
Writer Michael S. Rulle, Jr. believes he knows why. He analyzes and compares the philosophies of Couric and Letterman to those of Sarah Palin in an insightful, brilliant analysis. He explores why Couric and Letterman are moral relativists and why Palin threatens their shallow, dangerous world views.
Here are several excerpts from Rulle’s essay:
…Palin is the philosophical descendant of those who created this country’s constitution; Couric and Letterman, on the other hand, like much of the Bi-Coastal Media/Entertainment Left, are more consistent with the self annihilating philosophy of moral relativism. While Palin is intelligent and constant in her views, I make no similar claims specifically about Letterman and Couric, relative to their views. They strike me as shallow and weak. Palin implicitly understands the limitations of Reason. Moral relativists do not. Our founding fathers also understood man’s limitations and established a constitution whose core principle was Liberty, supported strongly by laws to protect this Liberty. The Left, on the other hand, believe that “truth” can be imposed on individuals and society as a whole… This philosophical divide is one reason for the Left’s hysteria over Palin’s very existence. It is as if, somewhere down in the lizard portion of their brain (You Have Three Brains), they understand her way of thinking could lay bare the implicit nihilism in theirs. The more ignorant element of the Left pretends that Palin is so obviously stupid, vapid and reactionary that she is fair game for dehumanization.
Even as Couric continues to fail, she gathers awards and honors at a rapid pace. Most recently, she gave the commencement address to this year’s graduating class at Princeton, in my home state of New Jersey. She chuckled in her speech how “she can see New Jersey from her house”. This was a supposed ironic reference to Palin’s comment in Charlie Gibson’s interview about being able to see Russia from certain parts of Alaska. Palin’s comment was one of many “proofs” of her stupidity. Yet, any person with an IQ above 65 obviously understood her comment as a simple existential observation. Proximity makes things less abstract. Is this hard to understand?
[...]
The essence of Couric’s speech was simple, pointless, cringe inducing pandering. Katie Couric: My Speech To Princeton’s Class of 2009. People whose beliefs or principles are on flimsy grounds, or even non existent, can be very insecure. They emotionally survive by seeking the approval of others. So she played it safe. She praised Sonia Sotomayor and mocked 20 year old Carrie Prejean. She praised Michelle Obama and mocked Rush Limbaugh and Donald Rumsfeld. She quoted approvingly from Malcolm Gladwell’s awful book “Outliers”. She seemed frighteningly desperate in her initial comments. She clearly studied hard to appear “modern” and “young”. It was self conscious and artificial. She voiced opinions which she assumed were mainstream for Princeton graduates, and I am sure they were. She was a pure parody of herself.
But Sarah Palin is supposed to be the idiot…
Recall the movie, Jackie Brown, Quentin Tarantino’s adaptation of Elmore Leonard’s novel, “Rum Punch”? In one of the funniest “dark humor” scenes in cinematic history, Samuel L Jackson (”Ordell”) had just shot the bungling Robert DeNiro (”Louis”) in the head for losing $500K. Staring at his dead friend in the driver’s seat of their car he said; “What the f**k happened to you man? S**t, your ass used ta’ be so beautiful”. His point was Louis used to be smart and energetic. Now he had degenerated into a lethargic empty husk of his old self. So much so, that despite every benefit of the doubt he had extended to Louis, he was just too far gone. In their world, that meant he simply had to be killed. Louis is David Letterman. He should just walk off the set. He used to be really funny. He now seems to be aware, unlike Louis who was blissfully unaware, that he too has lost it. Apparently, this makes him very angry.
As with Couric, he goes for the pandering stuff. Palin is supposed to be easy pickings. His frustrated self awareness has begun to cloud his judgment. If you watched his monologue, you can literally see him try to restrain his anger, even hatred, as he leads the audience up to the Alex Rodriguez-Willow Palin “joke”. The audience seemed to love it. He now is apologizing for supposedly not knowing the difference between Willow (age 14) and Bristol (age 18), implying that the same joke about Bristol would have been fine. I guess in Louis’ world, all white trash tramps and their slutty looking mothers look alike. Misogyny is perfectly good when applied to people like Sarah Palin. Do you see what I mean by moral relativism? Ultimately, it leads to nihilism. Lost in the shuffle was the racial stereotyping of Alex Rodriguez. That is itself interesting.
The fact that she was in NYC for a charity supporting research for Autism was ignored…
Read the entire article: Michael S. Rulle Jr., Big Hollywood: Philosophical Divide: Sarah Palin vs. Pop Culture’s Moral Relativists
Related reading:
Hot Air: Video: Palin on Today and Video: Ziegler gets his mike cut off by MS-NBC and Video: Letterman doubles down, makes prostitute joke about Palin’s daughter; Update: Both Palins rip Letterman and Letterman: When I joked about Palin’s daughter having sex, I meant Bristol, not Willow
Patterico’s Pontifications: Goldstein’s Losing Argument Supporting Sex Jokes About Sarah Palin’s Child
Works and Days: David Letterman, Rev. Wright, and Thoughts on a Creepy Culture: The Demise of David Letterman
GayPatriot: Why Aren’t Feminists Upset With David Letterman?
Michelle Malkin: David Letterman: Perv and Why they hate us and Letterman to Palin: Now that I’ve trashed your family, come on my show! and Media Malpractice: The documentary
Big Hollywood: Prejean Attorney to Miss California USA Pageant Directors: Last Chance to Retract Defamatory Statements
Greg Gutfeld, Daily Gut: Letterman’s Obsession with Sarah Palin
Conservatives4Palin: Mark Hemingway: Who is the Palin Leaker from the McCain Campaign?
The B.S. Report: Easy As ABC…President Obama’s Official “State-Run” Media
Michael McGruther, Big Hollywood: Moral Relativism; The Liberal Lynchpin
Pam Meister, Big Hollywood: The Imus Standard: Should Letterman Be Fired?
GayPatriot: Obama & Palin: Blank Slates on Which “Journalists” Project Their Biases
ButAsForMe: “Cut the Mike” — Steamed Contessa Brewer Says After Palin Defender John Ziegler Destroys Her Arguments and ‘Pathetic’: Sarah Palin Responds to Letterman ‘Slutty’ Joke; Talks About the Media’s Bogus Plagiarism Claim, Failure of Socialism, Sotomayor
City-Data Forum: David Letterman – Jokes about Alex Rodriguez raping Willow Palin
Jenn Q. Public: David Letterman and the Culture of Liberal Entitlement
Josh Painter, RedState: David Lecherman’s weasel excuse not accepted – Gov Palin was right – even his excuse is pathetic.
Hot Air: Olby and guest on the Letterman saga: Palin’s kind of become the villain in all this, hasn’t she?and Award-winning news anchor sails to new ratings low
Frugal Café Blog Zone: CBS News Anchor Flunked Math? Katie Couric & Her Idiotic ‘Jelly Bean Economy’ Analogy and The DNC New Math: When 1 Equals 3… Must Be Taking Math Pointers from Math-Deficient Katie Couric
About the author
“Palin is the philosophical descendant of those who created this country’s constitution” Um…o.k. do you know anything about the founding fathers or the constitution? because there is something called freedom of speech something Palin knows about but dosen’t quite grasp the true meaning of…she seems to think it protects politicians from criticism when it really protects those criticizing the government (and politicians) from the government…by the way both Dave and Kati are exercising their rights whether you like or not (just as you are)
Did you actually read the essay? You’ve got some irrelevant questions and statements.
You wrote “she thinks it protects politicians from criticism” – none of Palin’s children are in politics. Palin is denouncing Letterman’s tasteless, demeaning attacks on her children; we have video embedded in a previous post of her interview with Matt Lauer on the Today Show and her radio interview with John Ziegler. Palin has actually been incredibly good-natured about being called “slutty airline attendant” and a bimbo and trailer trash, etc. Please cite your source of Palin saying that she expects the First Amendment to protect her from any criticism – judging by the thousands of ridiculously critical (and nasty) essays, blogs, news stories out there about her, I would be interested in your source to prove what you asserted. Please cite your source that she wants or has demanded or has requested that Letterman and/or Couric lose their First Amendment rights. Good luck with that, bud. I have a tremendous amount of text sources and video and audio documentation to quickly prove you 100 percent wrong, with one hand tied behind my back.
Mandating or suggesting that Letterman’s and Couric’s should be denied their Constitutional right of free speech because they’ve said stupid, irresponsible things is not ever presented nor suggested in the essay… I’m missing your point here, except that you’re inventing/fabricating information contained in the essay. Criticizing their philosophies is not the same thing as having the government silencing them. They have the right to be stupid… I have the right to call them on it. It goes both ways, although leftists think it only applies to themselves.
In response to your question, yes, I do know quite a bit about America’s founding fathers and our Constitution, and am learning more by the day. Thank you for inquiring.