Is This A Left-Wing Blog?

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April 30, 2005

Is This A Left-Wing Blog?

I would have simply commented on the post at Blogging for Bryant and not made an entry here, but since Blogger Sucks I cannot. So I am putting the question out to you, the readers: Is this blog "liberal?" I invite those at B4B to illuminate the rest of us as to how they arrived at that description.

I have usually made an effort to be neutral on this blog, although with certainty I have put forth personal opinions on many a topic. (Objectivity is more appropriate to the Candidate Pages than to the blog entries themselves.) I am an Independent. I find as much value in each political party's platform as I can, instead of simply rejecting a party in its entirety because of a few disagreeable planks, as most Republicans and Democrats tend to do. I use the same objective method when I endorse and vote for candidates.

If this more or less middle ground is as far Left as B4Bers can see, they are either further to the Right than I thought, or downright nearsighted. I am thinking it's the latter, because I don't imagine that most of them are out-and-out Nazis, and because this is what politically myopic people tend to do: they imagine that the views from their extremist corners are far more widely held, and thus closer to the Center, than what is borne out in reality.

If I were "liberal" or "left-wing" I wouldn't be endorsing Bob Corker. I wouldn't even be endorsing either of the Democratic candidates. Sure, sometimes my independently arrived at positions resonate with those put forth by those to the Left. Sometimes. At other times, I find harmony with conservative and libertarian tenets.

I have been berated, by friends who really are left-wing, for my support of Corker. Their view is that "anyone who is associated with the GOP's national platform in any way cannot be good." I happen to disagree. Even though Bob Corker, who emphatically supports the national Republican Party, has views that differ from some of mine, that does nothing to deter my support for his candidacy. Politics as a means to the end of actually getting things done, as opposed to politics for politics' sake, is a highly practical matter. In the end, practical matters outrank idealism and ideology, and extremists (on both sides) fail miserably to reach that conclusion.

So, go ahead, Bloggers for Bryant, more rightly called bloggers for sectarian authoritarianism, and label this blog however you wish. Since, as the saying goes, the shoe doesn't fit, it JUST doesn't matter. I'll be over here, walking down the center line (barefoot, naturally). If I occasionally veer a little one way or another, it's likely done to avoid stepping on something that has wandered (slithered) astray from its ditch.

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