After an extended absence, it's about time for me to get back into blogging. I've done it before, and done it elsewhere. Why here? Why now?
Well, there's a few small reasons. Occasional posts on the law and changes to the law. Maybe analysis of a few big cases that might not be able to fit in on another site. And possibly a few things about my own life.
But every site needs its own niche, and here's mine.
Mainly, I see conservatism at a crossroads. While we have several "conservatives" in Congress willing to deify Ronald Reagan (including but not limited to renaming the Capitol after Reagan), few understand Reagan's philosophy or even his record. Reagan was small-government in every sense of the phrase. His insistence on getting government out of people's lives didn't simply stop at the pocketbook. He understood that a government that can control your most intimate actions is a government that can control every one of your actions. Reagan--and Barry Goldwater as well--had a disdain for an overarching government in all forms, not just financial.
Too many of our current class have no clue what it means to be a "Reagan Republican" or a "Goldwater conservative". What do I mean? Let's see...
- Tax cuts are no longer a solution for the vexing problems of government overspending and consumer underspending--they are now pure dogma, and with the lame-duck fights of December 2010, we realize that the fight exists mainly to provide the cuts for the top bracket of society. While Reagan and Goldwater certainly sought to cut taxes whenever possible and feasible, they also realized that our government needed money to operate, and they weren't going to be bound to a dogma no matter what. And they did raise taxes when needed--look it up.
- Republicans, conservatives, and libertarians to a person will tell you that our nation needs to get our spending problems under control. But what do we propose? Military spending? Despite the epic waste that occurs in the military budget, that is off-limits. Social Security? Well, here we get more people who are willing to tackle the issue--at least in talking points. But no serious solutions have been proposed to counteract the fact that Social Security will go bankrupt by the time most twenty-somethings are ready to retire, because that might cost some votes now. Medicare and Medicaid? Same as Social Security, which is to say same as it ever was. So, in our era of overspending, since we obviously can't cut our spending in paying our debts back with interest, we have relegated 81 percent of our budget to "untouchable" status. Weakness, in other words--something else Goldwater or Reagan was never known for.
- Finally, many of our current crop of "conservatives" want nobody policing people's wallets, but want at least 3 officers in every person's bedrooms. George W. Bush ran his re-election campaign on making sure homosexuals couldn't get married. For what reason? The sanctity of marriage? As the late comedian Greg Giraldo put it to married couples in his audience: "What's so sacred about marriage? Does it really feel like a gift from God?" Conservatives have rightly treated the Second Amendment as sacrosanct and absolute, but are willing to ignore the First Amendment if they think it violates their own religious principles.
But I also seek an outlet for my writings, free from oversight and banning. I tire of being excluded elsewhere because I don't buy into the notion that religious bigotry should be the basis of our law. I tire of being excluded elsewhere because I tend to be rational rather than rigid. So there's that.
And that's what I'm doing here. I don't expect this to grow into much. If it does, then so be it. But I'd be perfectly fine with presenting a somewhat unique point of view that causes a few people to think and reassess where they're at. And, if not, at least I'm trying.
So there you go. If you like what you read, stick around. Post comments. Engage in the debate. And if you don't like what you read...tough. Get your own blogspot.
