Sarah Palin Was a Public Servant

A certain inexplicable sadness overcame me as I listened to Sarah Palin's resignation speech yesterday. I am not one of her most ardent supporters, but generally regard her favorably. I believe she is a genuine, sincere, and, most of all, good woman, which is why I shudder at the irrational hatred and condescension directed at her and her family for the past nine months. Some would say that politics is a cutthroat business and that if a politician cannot handle every meanness leveled against him or her in the process, no matter how destructive, he or she has no business being in that realm. But the fact is that, contrary to popular belief, most Americans do not want immoral/amoral cutthroat types in positions of power. They want civil people who represent them honestly and who seek to govern with both the interests and input of the populace in mind. In short, they want their elected officials to be public servants. Public servants tell the truth. They do not dishonestly rush massive taxing and spending bills through in the middle of the night without reading them, hoping that their constituents will be too busy or stupid to understand the effects of such bills. They do not look down on the masses as people "who don't know what's good for them," but instead seek to understand the concerns of regular people before implementing policy. In her role as governor, Sarah Palin was a public servant. She may not have been an arrogant Ivy Leaguer or spoken the Queen's English ( though these things do not determine intelligence ), but she knew how democracies, at least this American one, are meant to work, as evidenced in her resignation speech:

We need those who will respect our Constitution where government's supposed to serve from the bottom up, not move toward this top down big government take-over...but rather, will be protectors of individual rights...

Even though I am distraught that nasty people have obstructed Palin's ability to govern so much that she felt she had to leave, I do not believe for a second (in spite of my use of the past tense in this article) that her fight for individual rights and constitutional government is over.

I don't know what she has planned for her future or if she has even figured it out. That is up to her, but, to echo Palin's comments about Trig in her speech, I think that we can say that we need more Sarah Palins in American politics, not fewer. Indeed, we need more serious public servants as opposed to people with a god complex who only refer to themselves as such for political points.