Oh, this is too fascinating not to share!

[heidi]

It seems that Sarah Palin has been a member of the Alaska Independence Party.

ETA: Ah, not actually a member of the party in terms of her voter registration, but her husband was registered as a member of that party until 2002, and she has attended their events at least once and possibly more than that; she sent a message on video to their most recent meeting. /eta

Here's what their platform includes:

* A belief that "the vote for statehood was invalid because the people were not presented with the range of options available to them" and that "the federal government has since breached the contract for statehood on numerous occasions in over a dozen serious and substantial instances."
* A belief that there should be a vote on Alaskan secession.
* Remaining "steadfastly opposed to environmental regulations and actively promotes the private ownership and widespread development of Alaskan land."
* A platform which includes:

[A]mending the Constitution of the State of Alaska so as to re-establish the rights of all Alaskan residents to entry upon all public lands within the state, and to acquire private property interest there in, under fair and reasonable conditions. Such property interest shall include surface and sub-surface patent.

[F]oster a constitutional amendment abolishing and prohibiting all property taxes.

[S]eek[ing] the complete repatriation of the public lands, held by the federal government, to the state and people of Alaska[.]

She also said the following in a 2006 questionaire of all the gubernatorial candidates:

Q: Are you offended by the phrase "Under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance? Why or why not?

PALIN: Not on your life. If it was good enough for the founding fathers, its good enough for me and I’ll fight in defense of our Pledge of Allegiance

As Daily Kos said, "when John McCain's grandfather graduated from the Naval Academy in 1906, the Pledge of Allegiance, as first written, was only fourteen years old. It would not be made the official pledge of the United States until 1942, six years after John McCain himself was born. When John McCain was born, the words "Under God" were not in the Pledge. They would not appear there until 1954, during McCain's senior year of high school."

Is John McCain a founding father now?

And let's not even get into the issue of how well abstinence-only "sex ed" worked for her daughter (who I sympathize with a thousand per cent for having to deal with this in the public eye, which she obviously never sought for herself).

So, a poll, title courtesy of Starship, of course.
[Poll #1252017]

Comments

[heidi8.livejournal.com]

Living in the bit of the south that pretends that we're actually somewhat off the coast of Manhattan, I've grown up with the idea of secession being something that only crazy people do. I know the way Canada was structured is pretty different from the states-joining-together, so I can see why you'd have a different take on it, though!

What would happen, though, if one of the separatist party's members ended up as PM?

[effervescent.livejournal.com]

They'd likely promptly order a referendum in Quebec, or something like that. It won't ever happen, though, because the only people who vote for them are usually in Quebec... The separatist movement has mostly died down, to my knowledge, though I've heard stirrings that it's having a small comeback now. Lucien Bouchard and Jacques Parizeau were the last really charismatic leaders for the movement, though.

The way that they approached it the last time was patently ridiculous, though - they believe in having as many referendums as it takes to get a majority for separating (as in, 50 to 49 would be enough) - and would consider one 'yes' vote to be enough to split up the country. The idea of them actually functioning separately doesn't even work, since they're smack dab in the middle of us, their northerly section actually wants to stay with us, and there's little issues like the fact that they still want to use Canadian currency, which begs the question of why separate at all, in that case?

Anyway! Will stop rambling in your LJ now -g- I really do hope that all of what's going on with Palin will make people stop and take a look at the party they've been voting for. I hate to have a 17 year old girl be a focus, but maybe it'd mean a big difference for your country.