1000

On Tuesday, November 29, 2005, I wrote the first post for this blog:

The center is always a difficult position to occupy. If you think about it for a moment, you're surrounded in every direction by people with opinions, positions, and ideas that cascade toward you. You listen and evaluate, trying to make sense out of the noise.

Because you're at the center, those farther out -- on the left or the right -- accuse you of having no true convictions. Ironically, those on the left think you're a neo-con, and those on the right think you're a liberal.

And yet, it's been my feeling that the further to the left or the right you move, the more your lens on life distorts.

It's also been my experience that it's hard to hold a position at the center. You often hear a compelling argument (from the right or the left) and feel affinity with the position taken.

"I guess I'm right (or left) of center," you say to yourself.

But then you hear an idiotic or irrational position coming from the same source ... you shake your head in dismay ... and move back to the center again.

The intent of my occasional musings here will not be to support any position on either the right or the left unless it makes sense in the real world, not the fantasy world that idealogues imagine. I suspect there will be times when I side with the right, and other times when I side with the left. That's okay, I respect rational arguments, regardless of the source. Hope you enjoy my humble contribution to the blogosphere.

This is my 1000th OnCenter post.

Over the years I have been critical of both the Right and the Left, but in recent years the Left has has taken center stage for most of my criticism. Sure, the Right insists on maintaining antiquated positions on many social issues—positions that are sometimes mean-spirited, often out of the modern mainstream, and damaging to those who need a pull up the ladder. But their positions on the economy, personal freedom, the dangers of big government (debt, spending, and increasing dependency), and the need for a strong foreign policy are to be applauded. The Left tries to be the ideology of the people, but ironically, most of their positions hurt the very people they purport to care most about. The left is the champion of big government, even when every shred of evidence indicates that most government programs are at best ineffective and wasteful, and at worst, corrupt and damaging to those who participate. The Left has embraced class warfare—an ugly and potentially dangerous position—suggesting that those who have succeeded financially are somehow to be condemned, their wealth redistributed, and their contribution to this country denigrated. Worse still, the Left has encouraged greater and greater government dependency, tearing at the fabric of our national growth.

OnCenter remains in the middle, calling things as the are, not as some fantasy view might like them to be. Looking back over 1000 posts, I have been right a lot more than I have been wrong. That's not bragging or spiking the football, it a simple fact. Are there opposing views? Of course. But those views must be grounded in reality, not wishful thinking. They must be supported by facts, not beliefs. They must be debated without ad hominem attacks and demagoguery.

I'll continue to post to this blog with the same intent I had with post # 1 — to make "a comment or two that might provoke you to think."