This was never my intent

I have to be honest; the benefit of maintaining this blog is that it forces me to think. It forces me to view the world through a completely different set of glasses. The original intent of my blog was not to rail against injustice or governmental abuse of power. To the contrary, I have aspirations of being an author and of writing a novel. So I figured what better way to hone my writing skills than to write a little bit every day. I never really intended for my writings to turn so political, even though I have always been somewhat of a political animal. You see I was once very much like the person I referred to in my previous entry as a new friend. I was an ideologue, conforming my thoughts and belief system to fall under a specific political category or label. For my entire life, I considered myself to be an economically conservative, socially moderate Republican. Now how is that for a label? As a person who was comfortable with galvanizing political nomenclature, I was able to categorize others, easily identifying them as political friend or foe. Thus, I was able to discuss or discount their political views accordingly, often without even listening to them speak. Sound familiar?

As I stated in an earlier entry, I voted for President Bush in both elections and I honestly feel that I did this country a great disservice. It’s not that I feel that my one vote put the President into the White House; it’s just that I believe so passionately in our system and I know that ultimately every vote counts. So as I’ve said before, this web log is my penance, it is my attempt to engage people in such a way that they will critically think about the importance of what is going on around them. Because I voted for President Bush and in the aftermath of his war in Iraq, I became disenchanted with the President, his administration and with our government in general. Every article in the paper, every lead story on the news, highlighted some new scandal, some new abuse or some new crime perpetrated by our government in the name of liberty. However, I didn’t look at it in quite that way. The Declaration of Independence clearly states that the government derives its power from the consent of the governed. That said I honestly feel that these acts have not been committed in the precious name of liberty in as much as they have been committed in my name, our names, the consenters. So I will continue to speak out, regardless of political party or where issues may fall on liberal/conservative spectrum. I will continue to speak out because it is my right, it is my duty, and it is my penance. What about you?

Think about it.