God help me, I’ve started a blog. The learning curve is steep. But new experiences keep us young; at this rate, I expect to be three years old soon. So stick around and as I master the technological impedimenta of website-building and blogging, we’ll explore the weird and whacky world of self-rule in America, on all its levels: where it came from, what it is, the ideas on which it is built and especially, where it’s going in this, a most turbulent century.
About me:
I’m a retired US Foreign Service Officer who for almost thirty years lived and worked around the world in countries like Saudi Arabia and Turkey, Armenia and Australia, Mexico, Panama and yes – the District of Columbia. Those who don’t understand the last have never lived and worked there; it’s as far from my native eastern Washington state as the Moon. Maybe farther.
I’ve also been as adjunct professor of US History and Western Civilization for over ten years in Texas, Colorado and (briefly) in Virginia, and have written opinion columns for Colorado and Virginia newspapers.
Growing up, I was possessed of the customary liberalism of the young; I remained a Democrat through the Nixon years and reluctantly voted for Jimmy Carter. I then paused and took stock. Living outside the United States gave me a rare opportunity to compare the actualities of the life Americans enjoy to those lived by others in, say, Turkey or Mexico. These comparisons and the continual lurch of the Democrat party – formerly the abode of such multifaceted men as Henry Jackson and Warren Magnuson – leftward moved me to reconsider my political options which, through the above movement, had become conservative. So like many others, I didn’t leave the Democrats’ party; that party left me.
Much has been written about American conservatism, some of it correct. Without a hereditary aristocracy or established church to defend here, American conservatism’s basic values tend to liberty, personal responsibility, prudence, patriotism, respect for tradition and a healthy suspicion of the motives of politicians and bureaucrats. Many – though not all – favor our republican form of government and distrust the “centralizing tendencies” of Washington, D.C. under both major political parties. Conservatives generally trust incremental change, value the lessons of history and believe the US Constitution and the political reasoning surrounding it represents a singular achievement in the history of human government.
Yep, that’s me. And in these pages I’ll try to explore the reasons for these beliefs, and their implications. I also value civility, so if you want your words to reach a wider audience than one, be so.
Site address with apologies to Ronald Reagan…