Time to Start Blogging Again

I've been away from blogging for quite some time now.  There are many reasons for it.  However, I can assure you that it is not because I've softened in my convictions on various subjects.

One of the reasons I stopped blogging was because I was shocked at the continuing escalation of insanity in the various Republican Presidential candidates.  I mean, you can only call someone quanophrenic so many times before it loses its impact.  I really didn't think they could keep topping themselves in stupidity, and yet, here we are, experiencing ever increasing levels of bat shittery.  I simply ran out of adjectives and I haven't really found any new ones.

Second, I just felt that many people didn't care, so why bother.  It's not like I'm an expert voice on many of these subjects.  In fact, what I realize now is that blogging about some of these things have helped me to really think about some of those gray areas and moral dilemmas.  For example, the death penalty.  I've been neutral on it for quite some time.  I felt that I could justify it at times, but not others.  I read a lot of other blogs on the subject and listened to their arguments.  Then came the realization that if you can make arguments for and against a position, then you should probably adopt a morally defensible position as the default, and that is, quite simply, to be against the death penalty.

Third, I found myself in a very unexpected relationship.  I simply didn't feel the need to sit down and and write about a bunch of this stuff.  Again, not that I changed my position or abandoned those beliefs, but for the first time in a long time, I simply had something much more important to do, and that was to engage myself quite happily into this relationship.  I'm very happy to say that we will be getting married in October.

Now, for the reason to start blogging again.  There have been some news items recently that have left me with some dilemmas as to how I feel about it and the best way for me to resolve those dilemmas is to write about them.  The two big things recently are the Bradly/Chelsea Manning and Snowden affairs, and Syria. Just today, the suicide of Ariel Castro and how that all plays into the right to die/assisted suicide issue.

There are other subject that I want to comment on such as Obamacare and the game of chicken the GOP is playing with the debt ceiling.  The implosion of the atheist blogosphere with respect to the war on feminism and rape culture.  Recent rulings in marriage equality.  And, all the other usual suspects that I have written about in the past.

So, expect to see some blogs on these subjects over the next couple of weeks.  I can't promise much in terms of blogging frequency, but I will try and write something a couple of times a week and see how it goes.