By Way Of Introduction

After some lengthy delays and false starts that bogged this process down, here I am at last, starting what should have begun last year, when many relevant issues were only beginning to unfold. Recreated here is the opening blog that was used on the original account, soon to be followed by more serious articles as time allows. Please enjoy.

It only seems appropriate to open this with both something in the way of a proper introduction, as well as a disclaimer. I write because I write, and acclaim is the least of my interests. We live in a complicated time, like many before us, and there are things that well deserve discussion and consideration, politics chief among them. We are fortunate enough to live in an era of unprecedented communication, where many can exchange thoughts and beliefs with relative freedom, and because of this, I choose to blog. Not so much because my opinion is better or worse than anyone elses, but because with so many hats in the ring, mine has just as much right to be there as any other.I might be no more than a white, male, middle-aged, blue collar worker with a penchant for writing and a passion for reading, but it isn't my background that matters as much as my desire to push questions into the forefront of people's minds. More questions, and better questions, ultimately lead to better answers, and in this difficult time many good questions go unasked, and thus unanswered. If I contribute but a single better question to the vast traffic of communication, then I have done as well as I could have hoped.

So, having said a little of myself but not too much, we move to the disclaimer, which is completely called for on a blog that will be dominated by thoughts and opinions on social and political problems.The articles that follow may be controversial, to one group or person or to another, but they are merely opinions, possibilities and notions, and in voicing them I exercise the same right I acknowledge and respect in others, including you. I am largely non-partisan, having grown cynical enough to place faith in almost no one involved in politics, and nothing has yet convinced me that I was wrong to adopt that cynicism. I reject political correctness, but not as an excuse to exercise deliberate acts of hate. I reject the idea that someone who differs in opinion from me is inherently bad, just because they disagree. I reject the notion that there are taboo subjects, because trouble brews in shadows, and turning a bright light to any topic strips it of its power to to sway us through fear. I reject censorship and the restriction of speech and expression, because they are weapons that steal from people of all parties and beliefs the power to speak their mind freely and participate in the governance of their nation.

I am a walking contradiction, a blend of left and right and moderate, conservative and liberal, yesterday and today and tomorrow, and really just a man who thinks too much for his own good. Please don't take any of this too personally, and remember that your opinions have the same value to me, even if I disagree with them. To paraphrase Voltaire, "I may not believe in what you say, but I will defend unto my death your right to say it."