I'm a conservative. I'm also an eclectic reader and commenter, and most of my brain-dribblings that I put the most effort into are to be found in other sites' comments--see the links in the right-hand column, if you're curious. I'm to be found all over the map, from AlterNet on the left to Takis Mag on the right. I don't care to get further Out There than those two outliers. But lately I've found myself gravitating towards The Atlantic, The Guardian, NPR and such, and commenting at my old conservative favorites not quite so frequently as in the past. One reason I suppose is that I am more comfortable being the person regarded as too conservative, rather than the squish who's not conservative enough. Another is that I'm rather gun-shy about getting too emotionally invested in any one online community anymore. I was banned from Little Green Footballs a few years ago, part of the great purge of conservatives and warhawks and such, of which I remain one. I probably should have left earlier, but I didn't, and I won't pretend that ejection from the herd after being practically a plank-holder didn't leave me stunned for a while. Later on, I left Protein Wisdom of my own volition, in whose community I had been participating for an equal length of time. I was becoming an increasingly bad fit however, as the times changed, just didn't have that much fire in my belly. So I decided that, out of respect for Jeff & the others and the good times I had enjoyed there over the years, the best thing would be for me to just quietly vanish.
So I most often can be located in my Disqus feed, cordially debating or mixing it up with liberals and proggs, defending my views and enjoying the sight of people who aren't used to it being forced to justify theirs. I keep scribbling here a couple of times a week--who knows? Small blogs may come back some day. (Here's a tumblr I made recently, which so far as I can tell hasn't landed a single hit.)
And, truth be told, real life is being very good to me these days. I spend more time on Facebook, and my meatspace affairs are absorbing and fulfilling. All that tends to take the edge off of the acerbity I once wielded. You should have seen me in my usenet heyday, just sayin'...I suppose I'll continue to blog here for the foreseeable future, and if you're lucky it might even be worth reading from time to time. And if not, then I'm proud to say that my blogroll over there is bound to have something intriguing someplace, so try it out!
