A Change of Pace

I am not, by definition, an optimist.

Shocked yet? Didn’t think so.

I use this blog mainly as a sounding board for my thoughts on a variety of topics, and for the most part, it works pretty well as an exercise in in free writing as well. Not being in school had left me without a direct, mandated reason to write, and so as a result I simply stopped. Not intentionally, but just because I didn’t have to anymore, and it wasn’t a natural thing for me to do.

I love to write, however, and I love to read. I spend a good part of my day every day doing one or the other. And I would like to be able to make this someplace where I am not only writing for myself, but for others as well. As it is, I’m stuck between delusions of grandeur and dejected defeatism when it comes to what to do with this blog – namely, that I quickly get bored with writing if I know that there will be no one reading it. As a fairly new venture, I’m at a loss for how to handle this other than just to force myself to write and hope something will happen. Looking back at the blog you can see how well this has worked – regular updates for a couple weeks followed by a two or three month haitus. Not exactly consistency.

And yet lately I’ve had plenty on my mind to talk about to coworkers, friends, and family that could easily be put to paper and posted here. Most of it involving politics or the Christian’s reponse to modern culture. I feel like I am being heavy-handed when I write on these subjects, though, and as a result I get almost afraid to write what I’m thinking about, because I fear it will drive people away rather than cause them to continue reading.

There’s that optimism again.

But I still want to write. I want to make this blog something that I can be proud of, and the easiest way to do that would be to just start blogging everything that comes to mind and just hope people find a few interesting things here and there. I’m not a brilliant writer, and I’m rarely happy with what I write, but the act of writing is cathartic, and it gives me something to point to as an accomplishment. So what the hell, I’ll just start writing whatever I want, and if you want to stick around and read, be my guest.

Thanks to Rachel for getting me thinking about this, even as she steps away from her genius political posts. I’ll still be there for her scathing wit, though. Oh, and dogs. Gotta love the dogs.

So how ’bout them Cardinals, eh?

Veterans Day

To all those who serve us in the Armed Forces: today we honor you.

Whether you be home or abroad, your willingness to serve this country and risk so much for it and all that it stands for is a shining example of what makes this country great.

Ours is the greatest military the world has ever seen, and you make that possible. From the bottom of my heart, I thank you for your service. Today is yours, my friends.

On Moral Squirming

Via Leanna comes this link, which got my blood boiling for all sorts of reasons, as it attempts to invoke God’s grace as a reason for being accepting of not just political views based on sin, but the sin itself. The post is copied here almost in its entirety as I dissect it, and you can find the original here. This is going to be a little bit scatterbrained, but I needed to get this written down… Continue reading On Moral Squirming

Further Insight

Iowahawk (recently added to the blogroll along with a few others I’d been shamefully neglecting) has a brilliant piece summarizing what significance this election has in addressing accusations of racism, and other perhaps even less pleasant accusations entitled – and if the title alone doesn’t get your mouth watering, I don’t know what will – America Can Take Pride In This Historic, Inspirational Disaster:

Although I have not always been the most outspoken advocate of President-Elect Barack Obama, today I would like to congratulate him and add my voice to the millions of fellow citizens who are celebrating his historic and frightening election victory. I don’t care whether you are a conservative or a liberal — when you saw this inspiring young African-American rise to our nation’s highest office I hope you felt the same sense of patriotic pride that I experienced, no matter how hard you were hyperventilating with deep existential dread.

Go. Read. Now.

See you in 2010

So, McCain managed to maintain his deathgrip on an honorable defeat after all. The fact that the election turned out rather close overall was actually a pleasant surprise – it proves that we’re not as bad off as I thought. Per Bill Quick:

Think about it this way: if aging hack John McCain, unable to enthuse his own base, running after a disastrous eight years of a George W. Bush administration, in the face of an utterly hostile mainstream media, a collapsing economy, and the as-yet undetermined aftermath of an unpopular foreign war, can still be near or within the polling margin of error, this is not a liberal nation, or one panting for an Obama administration.

I’ll be drinking tonight in anticipation of a rough four years. It will not be pretty, and it certainly won’t be the salvation of the human race by a chosen savior, as this has been painted to be. Bear in mind we have just given yet more power to the political party that was almost single-handedly responsible for the financial crisis we currently face. We have given a group of fanatics who embrace ideals of wealth redistribution and “social equality” above basic human rights, and disregard entirely the Constitution on which the country was founded. We’ve almost certainly doomed the Supreme Court to a generation of activist liberal judiciating, which will cause untold problems for the future of our country. And at the helm of all this we’ve put down a man whose personal history lies somewhere between “shady” and “outright scandalous.”

Yes, I anticipate a lot of problems coming our way in the next four years, and future of conservatism in America will hinge on how we handle it. Hint: addressing it with soft-spoken “centrist” policy a la McCain will not get us anywhere. Gingrich’s failed Contract with America will not get us anywhere. This will require a true return to roots in the Republican party. And we will have the advantage of the Democrats showing their true colors in the next couple of years to give us a big boost in the 2010 congressional elections. So in the meantime, take heart, batten down the hatches and weather out the storm. We’re still free, mostly. See you at the polls in 2010.

As a side note… many of my friends are talking about how far we’ve come, electing a black man as president. And that’s indeed a great thing, and evidence that we’ve conquered a lot of the shadows of the past that haunt our nation. However, we elected a black man who is also an extreme leftist and fanatic. Regardless of his race, this is a tragedy, and leaves a nasty stain on what could have been a truly positive achievement.

To be clear: I don’t care one way or another what color a man’s skin is, and I feel that if you vote for or against anyone even partially because of their skin color that you are a despicable person and have lost all your credibility as a voter. Like Dr. King said, people are to be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. That judgment goes both ways, and as a nation, for the most part we already do that. The ghosts of racism have been tragically exploited this election, and if I never hear another person mention the subject again, I will be all the better for it.