I love to talk about politics. I think it takes up the same chunk of my brain that religion would, had I found a faith I liked. It's the warm fuzzy center that keeps you aware of your own morality and shortcomings. Instead of thinking about god or gods though, I think about the law and the evolution of our culture.

This is why I blog. I know that my conception of the world is nothing more than a model I've built in my head to help me keep track of reality. In attempting to share parts of my model with the world, I'm really attempting to both introduce my world view to others, and at the same time, check my assumptions. You will probably never see a post from me without links because I think it's so important to tell other people why you think the way you do. I've often argued with my mother and father about the possibility for humans to be truly objective, and I think this is the best I can do with those ephemera that we know to be important, yet constantly wrestle with. The less time we take to make certain we define our terms, the more divorced our discussions become from the real world. How does anyone know what your vision of love or justice is like, unless you take the pains to describe it?

I think this is tremendously important to recognize today when we have the ability to commit our thoughts to infinite paper on the internet. We can take these spaces to articulate the emotional, reactionary experience of being human. It may be true, but it also tends to make any discussion of that experience impossible. Anyone who has watched "the other side's" propaganda has felt this. I watch FOX sometimes just to marvel at the world they describe that I can't see.

Or, we can acknowledge that the point of sharing that experience is to help others understand the realities we've dealt with. This requires some care and craftsmanship as we try to assemble a reflection on events that not only feels right to the person, but is portable enough to be understood by those who disagree with you.

Maybe this is futile, but I think we have to start learning soon. The media has already evolved two mutually exclusive propaganda arms that seem to have no facts or opinions in common. It might be too late to hear individual voices without assuming they're part of some invisible army.

But I promise you, every post here will reflect my experience and analysis. I will never close comments. I will attempt to answer questions as they arise. I never want to be the person who declares that the time for talk is through. In a country where the clarity of law is still horribly blurred, we must try to free each other from the confines of the party lines.  We must learn to speak to each other again, and put down the sticks we thought we needed.

I am loth to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.