Politics

I have tried writing about the election several times over the last week, but each time I am held back by the question of how much to disclose my own political leanings. It is a complicated question that I have tried to answer several times. I have wrestled heavily with the notions of objectivity and bias, with my own political history and that of my family, and with what my own political philosophy and policy positions actually are. Each time my writings descend into incoherence and finally end with the merciful application of the delete button. I think this is in part due to the fact that my political thinking is really all over the map.

I come from a long line of blue-collar, blue-dog, conservative Christian, FDR Democrats. Though I am less blue-collar than my grandparents were (my parents managed to bring us into the ranks of what Marx referred to as the petit-bourgeoisie), that description still fits in many ways. The problem is that conservative Christian FDR Democrats aren't supposed to exist any more, and I find myself increasingly isolated. I'm pro-life but think it's an incredibly difficult issue to legislate. I think organized labor has gone off the rails, but that unions are essentially good. I am an environmentalist, but I still love to drive my old clunker around the state, and I am concerned about undue burdens on property owners. I love the spotted owl; I also love things made out of redwood. I think that Communism was a massive failure, based on good intentions but fatally flawed. I think Capitalism has been a great success, but it tends to leave people out and promotes a culture of greed and self-interest. I am not convinced that supply side economics helps anyone but the most wealthy. I don't see why a sensible balance of free market and regulation can't work. I never knew what to think of the Iraq war, and frankly I don't now. I think it is an absolute scandal that bin Laden is at large seven years later, but I'm grateful we haven't been successfully attacked again. I think that the Democrats have too often maligned and misunderstood the Christian faith, but that the Republicans have too often thought they owned it and have co-opted it for their own purposes. I have never been fond of George. I am quite fond of Laura. I believe the U.S. is the greatest country in the world, but that we should celebrate it with honor and humility.

Some consider all of this schizophrenic. At least one of my mentors thinks I'm a conservative Republican in the making. But I think I'd never be more than a hated RINO. I don't think either party really has what I'm looking for. But in a two-party system being an "independent" doesn't make much sense to me. Sure it sends a message that party system is broken, which it certainly is, but I'd like to vote in the primaries and keep tabs on what the party of my forebears is up to. So for the moment I'm content to remain a hated Blue-Dog.

The irony as I write this is that it reminds me of the position I am in with the Episcopal Church. I don't like what has gone on in TEC, but I'm also suspicious of the Network in general and the secession movement in particular. So until my diocese goes totally overboard, or God calls me to another ecclesiastical body, I'm content to remain in Church of my forebears. And believe me, Anglican partisans think this is schizophrenia, too.

Why?

At the outset of any blogging enterprise lies the fundamental question: Why? Why do this? Why put my thoughts out for the world to see, galk at, attack, even rally around? Will anyone care? Will anyone even read? If the latter answers are no, why bother? Just to collect my own thoughts? If the answers are yes, then this whole thing is a different matter. But either way, is this not just an exercise in vanity?

Many bloggers try to tackle these issues head on, early on, with some sort of ontological exposition. I find most such explanations rather unsatisfactory and usually self-indulgent. Which could explain why many ignore those questions completely and launch into their e-careers. Ironically I find the lack of any stated purpose to be equally unsatisfying.

I have no easy answers, but I do feel compelled to say something. I don't know if anyone will read, or find it interesting. And I don't know if this is a useful way to collect and express my own thoughts. I can only describe what brings me to this place. The short answer to that "what" is simple: insomnia. I am five days into a bout of bronchitis...a late summer cold in short. It is remarkable what one thinks about as one lay awake, sometimes for hours on end, rousted by one's own coughing. I found myself composing mental essays on everything from the election to the Lambeth Conference, the geography of 19th century California to the problems with the Pelagian heresy. Obama, McCain, blogs, bishops, the media, the fires, the lost colony of Roanoke, the real landing place of Sir Francis Drake, whether I should take a vacation this year, and where I would go, all swirling around in my head. Laying there in the dark, swimming in a sea of disordered thought, the answer became clear, I simply must start a blog.

Insomnia....I wonder how many other blogs began in just this way.

Now mind you I have been tempted to start a blog many times before. When our Episcopal Diocese elected its current bishop two years ago, I actually thought about liveblogging the convention, as was common at the time in dioceses like Tennessee. But church savvy folk will know that things were interesting in Tennessee. They were downright dull in Northern California. But I knew things the general public did not, and the siren song of blogging was very strong indeed. Despite the lure of inside knowledge, despite the encouragement of folks like my brother, I have spent quite a bit of time resisting the temptation. It has been a rather easy temptation to resist. I spend much of my time reading other people's blogs and even commenting on some. But in the past few months the wear and tear of comment-sections has begun to take a toll on me. So much petty partisanship, be it over the election or the state of the Episcopal Church. So much time spent scoring cheap points, excoriating one's opponents. It is so taxing that I have almost completely given up making comments, or even seriously reading them. Even now I am almost talking myself out of this enterprise.

But as my insomnia has laid bare, I simply have too much roaming about my head. Too many ideas, too many loose neurons. Perhaps putting them out in a log, even a weblog, will put them in some order. And perhaps my friends and friends yet unmet will join me in dialog on some of them. Still it could be a risky venture. I have seen blogs rise and fall with great rapidity. I read somewhere recently that the average blog lasts less than three months, and has virtually no readership. That is a destiny I think I will embrace, if it comes, for then at least my cold will be gone and I'll be getting proper sleep. So, appropriately on this day, the Feast of the Transfiguration, I find myself changed, from an observer to a participant, from a commenter to a poster.

Besides, I have really too much time on my hands, and this will serve as a distraction. Frankly, I give myself a month.