There were times, before I started this blog, that I thought I had what it takes to be a Pundit. I do have a point of view that is unusual, and that helps. It's ideologically pure and seamless, so far as I can tell. I am, in a word, Right, and the world (including practically everyone who'll ever read this), Wrong. But especially for an ideologue, I tolerate human difference, ideological impurity, and just plain error. I hate the immoderate language that characterizes too much of our modern political discourse. I understand my liberal enemies; after all, at one time I was one of them, or at least, one of them on certain ideological points.
But these things do not make for good punditry. A good pundit needs the desire to be heard, most of all. But also: motivation to write even for nobody, and an eye to controversy. Oh, and also: the ability to write really, really fast, so as to develop volume, volume, volume.
Most of those things I'm just not that strong on. I can, if I work at it, generate a post or two a day. I did for months, anyway. But in the long term, unless I was getting more out of it than I do, I just can't sustain that. And in any case, in this biz you need more than a post a day to keep the traffic coming.
But anyway, the dream of being a Bigshot Pundit was never much more than that. This blog remains of interest to me, because it allows me to "say" all the things I'd like to say to people I may not know now, or ever. It's a diary, but public. It gives me a voice to whisper with, into the darkness perhaps. But even a whisper is enough for I told you so's, or to tell someone who you are. And for that I think, in this internet era, that laying down a record is a great thing. Ten years from now, people will be able to look back and see that way back when, I was a libertarian anarchist with exactly the same views as I now have. (Indeed, you can look back into usenet and see some of my views if you know how to find them, and I've been ideologically pretty constant since about 1995 when I got interested enough in refining my already libertarian political ideology to purchase The Machinery of Freedom and Anarchy, State, and Utopia, on the recommendation of net anarchists that I respected for their writing ability and style.)
Anyway, this brings me enfin to the proximate motivation for all that, which is a letter received from the blue from a reader, one Frank Kelly, who likes this blog. He's just started his own, and thus far I like his stuff. Let's see if he can sustain it; good luck and welcome to the show, Frank.
A little shout-out from the ether keeps you going.
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