God Save the Flag

Washed in the blood of the brave and the blooming, 

Snatched from the altars of insolent foes, 

Burning with star-fires, but never consuming, 

Flash its broad ribbons of lily and rose.

 

Vainly the prophets of Baal would rend it, 

Vainly his worshippers pray for its fall; 

Thousands have died for it, millions defend it, 

Emblem of justice and mercy to all;

 

Justice that reddens the sky with her terrors, 

Mercy that comes with her white-handed train, 

Soothing all passions, redeeming all errors, 

Sheathing the sabre and breaking the chain.

 

Borne on the deluge of all usurpations, 

Drifted our Ark o’er the desolate seas, 

Bearing the rainbow of hope to the nations, 

Torn from the storm-cloud and flung to the breeze!

 

God bless the Flag and its loyal defenders, 

While its broad folds o’er the battle-field wave, 

Till the dim star-wreath rekindle its splendors, 

Washed from its stains in the blood of the brave!

Flash its broad ribbons of lily and rose.



 

—Oliver Wendell Holmes

Status Update

Things have been slow this last week, both on this blog and in the world of American politics. There are two reasons for this.

The first reason is that I moved to Hillsdale College this weekend, and spent most of last week in preparation for that. Things are going well here at Hillsdale, and I am excited to be part of such a unique institution. At the convocation today new students entered into a partnership with the school, that the school was responsible to teach and help us, and that we were responsible to learn and to seek knowledge.

The second reason is that August is also known as a “Dry Month” in political term. In the founding days, Washington D.C. was so unbearable in August that Congress had no choice but to vacate the city, a tradition that has continued to this today. With no Congress in session, and the Presidential campaigns getting rather boring, there simply isn’t much to report. The candidates are getting rather tiring to pretty much everyone by now, including the candidates. As things settle out here, and more begins to happen on the political scene, I will try to post more frequently. Thanks for reading,

Bloggers Unite?

As if things weren’t already strange enough at the YearlyKos Convention in Chicago, now comes the news that some of the leftist bloggers in attendance want to form a union for bloggers. The goal would be to gain prestige, bargaining power, the ability to buy health care insurance at a discount and all the other “benefits” that come from being in a union.

What I find so curious about this proposal is that it seems to undermine one of the core tenets of blogging: independence. The majority of bloggers don’t work for a newspaper or other media outlets, but on their own and for themselves. Most don’t do it fulltime either, and usually aren’t paid.
Now there are exceptions of course. James Lileks wrote for the Minneapolis Star-Tribune for years before being reassigned to head a new blogging project. Popular talk radio host Hugh Hewitt blogs on the side, and both of these gentlemen are paid staff members of their organizations.

Corporate-sponsored blogs are going mainstream meanwhile, and some news sites are even made up primarily of blogs (Politico.com or RealClearPolitics to name a two). In this sense, bloggers are increasingly moving into the ranks of journalist and will most likely continue to do so for some time, until the two are one and the same to the average reader. But does this mean we should create a bloggers union? What benefits do the journalist receive from their union?

For the sake of argument I’m going to assume that journalist derive some benefit from being members of unions, and that such benefits are fair and deserved. Perhaps a fallacious assumption, but I’ll still use it. Such journalist unions are formed for the authors of a newspaper, which is a company with stockholders, employees, directors, managers, and finally, reporters. A union for newspaper employees has something to represent the reporters’ case too: the corporate leadership of the newspaper. Bloggers have no such captive audience. They don’t receive a salary or benefit from their readers, nor are they responsible to anyone but themselves.

It seems to me that the idea of a “union” for bloggers may be mislabeled and misunderstood. If what they want are discounts for health insurance and a trade group, perhaps the term “guild” would be better suited to their purpose. Trade guilds in 16th century Europe were the predecessors to trade unions, and represented the independent merchant and tradesman to the consumer and not some corporate body. Independent bloggers could easily form the same thing with the same intentions.

Rebirth

My blogging past contains several scattered and ultimately unsuccessful attempts to consistently write about some subject or another. All have failed for a variety of factors, the chief of which is me. But now I am at it again. I have four reasons for starting up again.

1) I have for several years, and still want to, keep a blog. Why? Simply because (a) it makes me think about issues of importance and take the time to express them on paper, (b) because it seems to be the cool thing to do (all my friends are doing it….)

2) While it is “only” July 2007, the 2008 Presidential campaign is already in full swing. Politics is one of my main interest, both on this blog and in my regular life, and the advent of the upcoming election gives me a fresh and steady source of material to work with.

3) Circumstances in my life are about to change in ways that may open up whole new possibilities for blogging or make it even harder than before. That is, I am about to start attending college, far away from my family or anything that I am use to. Time will tell if this will allow me a new start or hinder my progress even further.

4) Finally, I have recently been reading a new book that has reminded me of questions that I had about conservatism, and has raised new ones. While the book is not radically changing my political views, it may be changing my focus and emphasis. The book will be introduced in the next post.

Until then (and may it not be long!),go ahead and add me to your RSS feeds or bookmarks and check back soon for the beginning of what I hope, pray and think will be an interesting journey into the realms of conservatism and politics.
Salvete!