What to Expect

You know, I need to define this as much for me as for anyone else. My expectations are that nobody actually reads this stuff. Even your friends, they get into it for a little bit, but they read one or two posts and that’s pretty much it. A few fellow bloggers, perhaps – people “trading off” reading my stuff for theirs.

I am not sure this is going to be a journal. I already keep one of those. You see, I like to write, whether it is tip-tapped into a keyboard or scratching lead across wood pulp. But there are ideas I feel I do want to share that, while they are personal, they are less personal than my journal.

What do I mean? I suppose that my journal is for people who miss me to read after I’m gone. This blog is more for people to understand what I’m thinking now.

Disclaimers, provisos, quid pro quos, etc.:

I am a conservative. I would call myself the “essence” of a conservative, but I’m not sure every (or any other, for that matter) conservative would agree with me. So I don’t know exactly what you’d call me. I will explain it in a moment, and probably from the optimistic, positive perspective I place on my philosophy my liberal friends will call me a liberal, my libertarians a libertarian, my conservatives will nod, because when it comes down to it we all want to see the good parts of our philosophy and not the bad things that happen when someone tries to apply our philosophy to the real world.

I will begin by my most simplistic (and probably antagonistic) definition of my view of a conservative and anyone who is “opposition” to that movement.

To me, a conservative is an optimistic pragmatist. A “liberal” for want of a better “group term” is a pessimistic idealist. Blanket? Yeah. Fair? That’s up to you. This blog is not to make me popular. It’s to explain my thoughts and perspective.

The bottom line is damage control. No simple philosophy, when applied to the world around us, works exactly the way it’s supposed to. Almost all of them have the same flaw. They all rely on pure application – that is to say that nobody is going to try to take advantage of them for gains that actually run counter to the philosophy in the first place. In the real world, however, most people “not” of your philosophy will immediately attempt to take advantage of what you’re pushing through to make themselves more powerful. Power taking the form of money, fame, political clout, whatever.

Does this make me a pessimist? Wouldn’t that make me a liberal by my own definition? No. For two reasons.

First, because I firmly believe MOST people, if left to their own devices, even in a pure “working” libertarian environment (which I do not believe is possible, by the way, part of the pragmatist that keeps me from being a libertarian) would be honest, decent, and respectful.

Second, because I also believe that a near-perfect world environment IS attainable. I don’t think it can happen overnight. I think a lot of struggle has to happen along the way. I believe “world peace” is possible. I think coexisting with everyone is possible. I believe doing it without wrecking the environment is possible. I believe we will populate other planets. I believe we will become, for lack of a better example, “the best Star Fleet has to offer”, a society of people who work for the common good, defend those in need, strive for what is better, and attempt to make peace with our neighbors (whoever they turn out to be). I just happen to believe you can’t expect people to accept the same vision the same way all at once. You need to take practical steps to get there. Let your children be your teachers, and if you don’t have children, please consider having them. How you deal with your own children, what your goals for them are, and how they turn out, are true life lessons in “optimistic pragmatism”.

Let’s see how this blog turns out, if anyone ever reads more than one post, and if anyone likes or will speak to me after that.

- Chameleon

P.S. one of these posts is sure to explain why I use that name for those who don’t already know.