It has been a fortnight since I last wrote. Seriously. I’ve been a busy, busy individual, but a happy one in many ways. I’m taking up the Healthy Challenge posed by a fellow author, swearing off the suds for 30 days beginning after the Cinco of Mayo festivities. For me this equates to beginning Saturday, so I’ll be a couple of days behind.
Secondly, I’ve been pushing my self directed rehab on my knee pretty intensely for the past couple of weeks; couple that with a healthier diet, and another workout that washed out but helped me get in a groove, and I’m getting into respectable shape again. Except the knee still hurts. Either way, the past two months have been me working out, eating better, and strengthening the leg, which has resulted in hitting sub 180 pounds for the first time since I initially injured my knee in 2008. Not that I put on a lot of weight, I just couldn’t do enough work rehabbing the knee to stay in shape.
I hadn’t heard of this position until very recently. It has been described as important. I believe the hype.
And finally, the one little bit that just has me in stitches. I’m running for a political position of sorts. A small, but relatively important one in terms of the power the position has in determining the composition of the party. I have decided to run for the Republican party Precinct Delegate in the third precinct of Benton Charter Township. I actually don’t know if what I’m doing is running for the office so to speak, but my name will be on the primary ballot on August 3rd for the position, so if you live in the third precinct, vote for me.
I’ve been interested in political matters for much of my life and it seems this is one of the best ways for me to get involved a little more seriously. I look forward to the primary, and hopefully the next two years of my life involved in politics.
Conservatism proper is a legitimate, probably necessary, and certainly widespread attitude of opposition to drastic change. It has, since the French Revolution, for a century and a half played an important role in European politics. Until the rise of socialism its opposite was liberalism. There is nothing corresponding to this conflict in the history of the United States, because what in Europe was called “liberalism” was here the common tradition on which the American polity had been built: thus the defender of the American tradition was a liberal in the European sense.[2]
This already existing confusion was made worse by the recent attempt to transplant to America the European type of conservatism, which, being alien to the American tradition, has acquired a somewhat odd character. And some time before this, American radicals and socialists began calling themselves “liberals.” I will nevertheless continue for the moment to describe as liberal the position which I hold and which I believe differs as much from true conservatism as from socialism. Let me say at once, however, that I do so with increasing misgivings, and I shall later have to consider what would be the appropriate name for the party of liberty. The reason for this is not only that the term “liberal” in the United States is the cause of constant misunderstandings today, but also that in Europe the predominant type of rationalistic liberalism has long been one of the pacemakers of socialism.
Editor,
This in response to Jim Vopat’s letter to the editor (Right-wing letter writers need to get a clue) published March 1st.
While I am not going to criticize the political views of the writer, I want to point out something important about one’s right to voice any views they wish, no matter how ridiculous or divisive it may seem—short of inciting harm to others, of course.
Mr. Vopat states, “Did these [right-wing] letter writers miss the news? Republicans lost the election and are a dwindling minority…the majority of your neighbors do not share your views. The right-wing letters The Herald-Palladium prints in such abundance are manipulative lies and meant to deceive.”
The founders, in particular James Madison, were keenly aware of the dangers of this attitude; he wrote of a tyranny of “a majority… united by a common interest or a passion [that] cannot be constrained from oppressing the minority.”
We can see oppressive rhetoric on either side of the philosophical debate concerning the government’s role in society and private life, but keep in mind that debate or ideas should not be stifled because they are a minority view or might simply be impracticable—if not outright offensive—to the sensibilities of a vast majority of people.
Our nation is great for many reasons; the most important of which is the freedom afforded to us by the first amendment to the constitution.
One is entitled to their opinion regarding even the opinion of others, but to actively seek to diminish another’s ability to express it simply because it is the opinion of “a dwindling minority” does little to progress political and social discourse.
Mike Mattner
Benton Harbor
This response has been sent but is yet to be published.
Update: This was published in the Letters to the Editor section of the Herald Palladium on March 4, 2009.
This is what I believe in and fight for; this is where my government belongs; this is conservatism. The progressive/liberal attitude today does not reflect the mood of the constitution nor the mood of the people, but merely the mood of change.
The words Regan spoke in 1975 are a stark reminder of what we face from the slow boil of socialism; it is unnerving, really, that Regan’s words can still mean so much in 2009, but less so when you consider the unchanging nature of the progressive agenda.
Read through this speech and find the parallels I found. This speech was brought back to my attention via a reminder, and some interesting commentary, from Bookworm Room. It truly is interesting indeed.
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