And so it begins...

This is a new blog for me. And if you're reading it, I'm happy to have you on board. However, before you continue, I think it only fair to give some disclaimers;

1) This is a political blog, designed to vent my rants and raves. Feel free to comment, but any flames toward anyone, especially me, you will be blocked.

2) I am left-leaning. Although I hope to be more centric than I am, (and perhaps this blog can help me achieve that) I make no apologies for my political preferences.

For most of my life, I have been pretty much apolitical.  So why start this?  My political leanings, if and when I decided to vote, used to be conservative Republican.  However, the administration of President George W. Bush, in particular his decision to go to war in Iraq, turned me away from that ideology, perhaps forever. Since then, the more I read what the Republican Party, and conservatives in general, have to say, the more hypocracy I percieve, and the further I go to the left.  So this is my self-created forum to fire back at all the irrational comments and articles I read based on my point of view and what I believe America stands for. 

I've never held political office, and have not really spent time studying politics, but there are many others "out there" that do not have a political background, either, and take pride in being "just a concerned citizen outside the beltway".  But that doesn't stop them from being completely offbase from what I believe America to be.  America is not for one particular group, one particular religion, one particular race; America is for EVERYONE!  And it stands in opposition to the liberty and freedom that America is when particular groups are not allowed to exercise the rights afforded everyone else, whether you like it or not.

Freedom is one of those things that seems to be different for everyone.  No one can have complete, unfettered freedom without impeding on the freedom of someone else.  That's why we have laws and rules, and a government to make sure everyone gets the prescribed freedom they are entitled to.  Freedom isn't free.  Sometimes it's paid for with blood, and sometimes it's paid for with taxes.  Sometimes that "freedom for all" can pop up at the most inconvenient times, but pop up it will, because that's what America is about.