A Day In The Life: Liberty vs. Tyranny USA 2010

Yes, the post title is a veiled reference to the Beatles’ song – one of my favorites in a catalog I consider mostly overrated by the general populace.


I have a more or less repeatable, if not exactly auditable, process for writing my blog posts.

I try to allocate 1-2 hours most days to review the day’s news online. The time allocation is sometimes a little less, sometimes a little more, depending on circumstances. As an aside, just in the past year or so I made the decision to stop reading printed newspapers altogether. (My personal journey from “paperboy” throwing printed newspapers onto porches, while riding bicycle, to my current mode of acquiring news entirely online, might just be a good idea for a future posting. But I digress.)

I have a couple of dozen news, opinion, and blog sites on my long list. I have a loosely defined top 3 (short list), and top 5 (medium list?) that I can fall back on when time is tight. All of these sites are basically national in nature. Regardless of which list I’m working off of, the nature of the Internet (sites linking to other sites) often brings me to local media sites. This has resulted in me occasionally commenting on local boards all across America, as well as internationally on boards in countries as unlikely as Israel and India. I use this phase of operations to consider what my next post might contain. Usually I am listening to my customized Pandora radio stream while this phase of operations is in progress.

I also use this phase of operations to essentially “market” my blog by posting comments, with my URL as a signature. I will only post comments that are relevant to the parent article, and will only post comments to articles that connect to the content of my blog. (The connection is always real in my mind – but I do admit it may sometimes be tenuous to the outside observer.)

I have been rebuked exactly once by another blogger (a Lefty of course) for violating etiquette by signing my comment. Not that it mattered to me in that particular instance, or or will ever matter if it occurs again. I will contend before the Creator Himself my practice is decidedly NOT spamming - because I am disciplined about following the rules previously stated. Plus the practice allows me to later submit Internet searches to reassemble the comments as a complete set on demand. I even provide a convenient link on my blog for anyone else to do exactly this; the link I call “random droppings.” A completely transparent and fully integrated Internet personality – what could be more American, I ask you? In this spirit of transparent disclosure, I should point out I have also settled on the Daily Caller as my home court. The Daily Caller is the only site where I try to make sure I am notified of all replies to my comments, so as to subsequently ensure I always get the last word in (which seems very important in the blogosphere – go figure.)

While going through my daily drudgery (day job and all that), I perform thought experiments when circumstances allow - to first select a theme, and to then outline the content of the selected theme for the next posting. When I reach the point of believing it is worthy of sharing with other people, I’ll move on to publishing. When I started this blog project the rate of production was approximately 2 posts a week. I think going forward the rate will be a little slower – maybe 1.4 per week. There is a kind of creative frenzy involved in creating a process *versus* a kind of lazy comfort associated with settling into the process. Or maybe it’s a case of undiagnosed A.D.D. I have with defined processes. I’ve seen it in myself before.

Most of the past week I was mentally working with a theme around the idea of recent news reports being comparatively quiet under the current administration. Just because nothing blew up without explanation, and no one was witnessed screaming “Allah u Akbar” while inflicting mayhem on anyone who happens to be in their proximity. But day to day it just felt weak, and unworthy of publishing.

Then I participated in this comment exchange on the Daily Caller’s board.

It motivated me to switch gears and give birth to the posting you are now reading.

The thought experiment process for this post mostly occurred today on the lunch time walk I regularly take when weather allows.

The publication process is usually pretty quick - because the post is damn near already written mentally when I’m satisfied with the thought experiment. Draft in Word; grammar check; fact check; copy/paste to blogger, final formatting touches. Wham, Bam, thank you ma’am (gratuitous David Bowie reference).

The theme of this post is finishing the conservation with @PartisonPoision (whoever the hell that is).

@PartisanPoison, my friend, I am reminded of a phrase the Army sometimes uses – “situational awareness.” The present situation is very perilous. It, therefore, calls for extreme measures. Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice (gratuitous Barry Goldwater reference).

Making reference to the recent analysis of Tony Blankely (critically important lieutenant in Newt Gingrich’s 1994 Conservative Revolution) – the 40 to 50 percent of us who are “shocked and appalled” by the policies of BHO and the Progressives are motivated. Motivated to spend our time and treasure to push back against their unprecedented assault on the American Founding and our liberties. Motivated to keep up the drum beat until BHO and the Progressives are removed from power once and for all.

In short, we are pissed off. Simply run down my blog roll to begin to grasp the tip of the iceberg.  Backyard Conservative in Chicago looks pissed off to me. Sharp Elbows in St. Louis looks pissed off to me. Neo-Neocon in New England looks pissed off to me. And on and on. At an early stage in this blog project I considered trying to include an exhaustive list of conservative bloggers. It didn’t take me long to realize this was an impractical objective (for me), because there are simply too many. But, never fear, if anyone out there wishes to take on this task – just follow the links. Think of it as LinkedIn for Conservative Bloggers. (Funny aside – I myself am 3rd degree connection to Barack Obama himself on LinkedIn. Then again, I often get people listed in “people you may know” on LinkedIn I would never, ever, recognize on the street.) And, guess what – we (the pissed off) can read, write, and we vote- every single time. And we have decided (individually – no conspiracy committee meeting required) to begin by clearing the field in the blogosphere.

So, @PartisanPoison, if you want to have a cordial conversation about politics, choose an older mode of interaction, with more cordial rules of engagement; like face-to-face or email. We (the pissed off) intend to clear the field in the blogosphere - using the rules of engagement we inherited from the contemptible Left. From contemptible Leftie sites like MoveOn.org and HuffingtonPost.Com (who, incidentally, has banned me from commenting for no reason but my opinion – see my April 6 post here. LOL.) We intend to clear the blogosphere field of these contemptible Lefties. We will consider revising the rules of engagement once the field is cleared of the contemptible Left.