I'm Baaaaack! I Promise!

For some, this will elicit a hearty "Oh, no!" For others, it will be a "Who gives a crap?" But just maybe -- and hopefully -- a few of the folks who still check in from time to time will say "Hooray." Whatever the case, my minions, I have returned.

I have officially retired from insurance customer service, hopefully for good. This last job of mine came closer to literally sucking the life out of me than has any previous experience in my life. Although I managed to finish a novel, a two-act play, a couple of one-act plays and a Bible study during the six months I worked there, I just didn't have the energy to blog much. For that I am truly sorry. Writing is my vocation -- my calling -- and as I truly believe that blogging will constitute an important part of it, I must return to it.

Looking back over "Born on 9-11," I still think that it shows promise. I started this blog at a time when my political views were in a state of flux -- not so far as the convictions undergirding them were concerned, but on the issue of party affiliation and (for the sake of easy-labeling) what to call myself. I'm not as worried about this as I was then, which is a good thing. Because I still don't know for sure in which party (if any) I belong, and I'm not sure I can be that easily labeled.

I suppose the more accurate label is libertarian-leaning liberal. I am about as progressive as it's possible for a person to be and still be an orthodox Christian -- teetering right there on the far-left edge of orthodoxy -- but though I teeter, I hang on. Capital "L" libertarianism is too social-darwinist for my liking. No Christian -- especially a progressive one -- has any business getting tangled up with social darwinism, as it is antithetical to everything Jesus stood for. I'm once again a Democrat, but I'm just as disgusted with the Democratic Party as I was when I briefly left it.

What, you might ask, about the Greens? Very frankly, I know very little about them other than what I've heard: that they're starry-eyed dreamers, and that they play the spoiler in big elections and vote for wacky people as a protest against Democrats who act too much like Republicans (thereby electing Republicans). As there are enough starry-eyed dreamers in this world already, and voting against Democrats who act like Republicans obviously gets us nothing but more elected Republicans, that has never appealed too much to me. If I can ever corner a real-live Green long enough to get him or her to answer my questions about the party, maybe I can be converted. Cornering one may be difficult, though, as Greens are elusive little critters.

Judging from the actual Green literature I have read, conservatives misunderstand them. Far from being big-gummint lovers like the establishment Dems, the Greens sound almost as skeptical of the State as are Libertarians. The difference, it seems to me, is that Greens are even more paranoid than Libertarians, because while the latter merely fear big government, the former think big business equally dangerous.

In a close race, I'm NOT going to vote for Ralph Nader, or Donald Duck, or my dead old Great Aunt Bertha, and help some Right-Wing whackjob defeat a centrist Democrat. But if my take on the Greens is essentially correct, and they do understand that big government and big business (far from being enemies) exist in a hand-in-glove partnership that poses the real threat to our liberties, then they may be the party for me. For that, in a nutshell, is what I believe. And though my beliefs can be neatly encapsulated in a nutshell, I hardly think that makes me a nut.

We're going to have fun, folks. I've got time on my hands again (or at least a little of it). If I manage to drum up some readers, maybe I'll even take on a co-blogger or two. And who knows? Maybe we can get into as much trouble as one of my blogging heroines, the indominable Amanda Marcotte!

Bring on the trouble. Let the fun begin.