Methinks she and her family are made of pretty sturdy stock.
"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." -Edmund Burke
Indeed they are. I've researched my family tree pretty thoroughly, and found at least eight connections to the Heath family. I believe we are sixth cousins, Sarah and I, and seventh and eighth and ninth cousins several times over.
We both come from the very earliest New England settlers. These are the people who were among the most stubborn and independent and adventuresome of all Englishmen. They came here in the early 1600's and built a shining city on a hill in New England.
Over the subsequent four centuries, the most stubborn and independent and adventuresome of their posterity struck out West to live their lives as they saw fit, bowing to God and no man, each generation escaping the moochers and flatterers and petty tyrants who followed in their train but had not the same moral fiber. My people, and Sarah's people, won this country, blazed its trails, and built it up for others less worthy.
At each generation, this winnowing process continued. From Massachusetts, to Connecticut, to New York, to Ohio, to Arizona and Idaho and Alaska, my ancestors and Sarah's turned their backs on the voluptuaries of encroaching government and unearned privilege.
Their descendants, like me, like Sarah Heath Palin, are now children of the Far West. We are the most stubborn and independent and adventuresome among many generations. We are the residue of those who first escaped from stifling, unfree Europe and made this country what it is. We are the scions and remnants of the New Jerusalem.
We've run out of frontier, and now we stand with our backs against the wall against the encroachment of Old Europe and its ant-hill ideologies. Sarah has chosen to fight, and I am right beside her. Here we stand; we can do no other.