Gov. Sarah Palin breathes new life into the GOP ticket’s chances in November. Palin’s life experience will embolden women who feel pressured to abort their unborn children who may have physical or mental challenges.

She is living proof of a woman who has achieved much career-wise while embracing the gift of children, most especially her special-needs child, Trig. She is also dealing with the unplanned pregnancy of her teenage daughter, a situation that is not foreign among American families.

Her opponents know she will resonate across the board with women. Women will relate to the PTA member, City Council person and mayor in Palin because women all across the country know someone like her or they are doing those jobs themselves.

Hopefully the knee-jerk reaction by the left as to whether Palin can be both a mother and vice president will now be put to rest. It was a sexist response coming from the very people who would be touting Palin’s strength and character if she were a liberal, pro-choice candidate.

Julie Schmit-Albin, executive director, Nebraska Right to Life

Good ol’ boy Palin

When Sarah Palin rocketed onto the national political scene, many of us hoped she would break the “good ol’ boy” network — that fraternity of smug, dishonest, divisive, shallow, pandering politicians.

Her seminal speech at the convention started out well. She candidly described her background in specific terms, giving listeners a glimpse of who she was and what she had accomplished.

Then the logical fallacies began. Here’s a list from the next few minutes: glittering generality, false cause, ad hominem, straw man, name calling, slippery slope, card stacking, bandwagoning, equivocation, wrenching from context, red herring, oversimplification and outright falsehood. Playing to the roaring crowd, she delivered these fallacies with grating, enthusiastic nastiness.

“What exactly is our opponent’s plan? What does he actually seek to accomplish, after he’s done turning back the waters and healing the planet?”

“Al-Qaida terrorists still plot to inflict catastrophic harm on America, and he’s worried that someone won’t read them their rights?”

“My fellow citizens, the American presidency is not supposed to be a journey of personal discovery. This world of threats and dangers is not just a community, and it doesn’t just need an organizer.”

Shaking her head in dismay, my wife had to stop watching.

Much of the speech was written before Palin accepted the offer from Sen. John McCain, who the next night astonishingly promised that he would end “constant partisan rancor.”

By the end, sadly, Palin was smug, dishonest, divisive, shallow and pandering.

Despite appearances, she really is another good ol’ boy.

J. Christopher Blake, Lincoln

Overpaid bigwigs

I find it amazingly hard to believe that the bigwigs at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln are getting a 15 percent to 20 percent pay raise when they already make more than they’re worth.

Our budgets are being squeezed more every day. It’s just an outright crock, and don’t tell us they need to keep up with the Joneses. With taxes in Lincoln and now this, I’m seriously considering moving elsewhere.

Rich J. Soucie, Lincoln

Don’t limit opportunities

Petitions signed across Nebraska moved the affirmative action issue to the November ballot for a vote of the people.

Ending affirmative action would reduce equal opportunity for Nebraskans. No matter how you look at it, all Nebraskans do not have equal opportunities. While every child is born beautiful and innocent, their lives do not live out equally.  Economics, education, family life, health and well-being all affect opportunity.

Affirmative action is intended to bring individuals to the same starting place regardless of where they came from or their life influences. Affirmative action is not about quotas. Affirmative action has helped make strides in equal opportunity, but we are not yet finished. More work is necessary to lift up all people.

Nebraskans should be aware that ending affirmative action will hinder our state’s colleges and universities’ ability to attract a diverse population of students from around the United States. Young people are eager to see what lies beyond the borders of their communities and states, and Nebraska should welcome students from across the country. 

Nebraskans should be aware that ending affirmative action will only further the problem of attracting and retaining young professionals to our state. Take a few minutes and ask young people why they don’t stick around. They just might tell you that they have more opportunities for employment and education and a much more diverse array of experiences they can tap into in other cities and states. Some will even say that the city is simply more exciting. So, Nebraska should ask why we would create a policy that limits Nebraska.

I hope every Nebraskan seeks more information on this issue before voting in November. I hope people do not limit themselves to the misleading information provided by petitioners.

Lori Jensen, county chair, Lincoln County Democrats

An insult to volunteerism

The tone of the Republican National Convention not only sought to revitalize the battered base of the Republican Party, but it resorted to the less than truthful tactics of Republican strategists who are largely to blame for the pervasive cynicism and political apathy in the United States today. As former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Sarah Palin poked fun at Obama’s decision to be a community organizer in Chicago, they highlighted the line that today’s Republican Party should be trying to erase.

Obama’s work in Chicago was partially funded by a Catholic group and attempted to do what most Republicans often encourage: help people pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. Obama worked for a faith-based organization, doing the Lord’s work. What else could the Republican elite possibly want? What Palin and Giuliani really did was disparage those who choose to work with the poor and destitute because they believe it is the morally correct thing to do.

They have insulted those who work in churches, state agencies, nonprofit organizations and schools, folks who are rich in their lives but not always in their wallets. Folks who work hard and have been on the losing end of Republican policies that favor tax cuts for the wealthy and prefer to tell the working poor to help themselves. So when people listen to Palin or John McCain describe themselves as reformers, they should ask what the politicians need to reform. Is it an admission that something needs to be fixed?

If that is the case, why should we ask Republicans to fix what they broke? The chants of “Drill, Baby, Drill,” calls for extensive tax cuts while ignoring our massive debt, and blasting the judicial system for subjecting terror suspects to a fair trial are neither responsible, nor do they reflect American values.

The message Republicans sent from this convention is unfortunate because they are better than that; we all are. After eight years of cynical politics, it is time to think about the future instead of poking fun at the hard work of people trying to make their slice of this world a little better.

Tyler R. White, Lincoln

McCain more of the same

I love the headline that John McCain denounces partisan rancor.

Yeah, right. Like he hasn’t conducted the most viciously partisan campaign of lies and half-truths against Barack Obama for months now?

Yeah, right. Like he denounces it one day after his pit-bull VP nominee delivers the most partisan, rancorous (and untrue) acceptance speech in history — a speech that the McCain campaign wrote for her?

He claims he will work across party lines — oh, yeah, with the people and the policies he has been trash-talking for months? Suuure he will.

I guess people haven’t noticed that the policies he proposes are the same divisive policies that the failed Bush administration has used to produce today’s wonderful U.S. economy of lost jobs, mortgage foreclosures, unaffordable fuel costs, and a dollar that is nearly worthless on the international market? I guess people haven’t noticed that the national debt has almost doubled under these wrong-headed tax policies? I guess people haven’t noticed that they are paying taxes at a higher rate than Warren Buffet?

Why aren’t people getting the message that McCain’s words simply can’t be trusted? That he says one thing and does another? Wake up, Nebraska.

Another four years of Bush and Re-Bush will just continue to deliver more of the mess we have had the past eight years. Are you better off than you were eight years ago? If so, you are one of a very few.

Most of us are hurting. Why vote for even more hurt? McCain will cut taxes for the super-rich and the mega-corporations. Obama will cut taxes for the middle class. This is not a hard choice, Nebraska. I switched parties years ago when I figured out who was for me and who was against me. I suggest  Nebraskans do the same.

Berwyn E. Jones, Lincoln