Introduction

For anyone that might by some random chance have fallen upon my blog, first welcome. This is my place to express my random thoughts. I think they will be mostly ruminations on politics and family life, but who knows where this may lead.

Let me start with this....

Hi, I'm Jon, and I'm a recovering Republican
[Everyone: Hi, Jon!]

Yes, once upon a time, I was a die hard, right wing, Clinton bashing, Rush Limbaugh listening proud member of the GOP. Not so much anymore. What happened? I think I just engaged my brain and thought. I also read more and observed the world.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think that Republicanism is all bad. However, I do not recognize the party known as the GOP today. The Republican party that I grew up in was the party of Reagan. It was an open, inviting place that had space for people of all opinions. The party was a coalition of ideas, carefully balanced, and open those who shared some, not necessarily all its positions. The Democrats were the party of litmus tests. If you were anti-ERA or (G-d forbid) pro-life, there was no place for you.

I supported Reagan as a teen, placed my first vote for Pappy Bush. Despite Dan Quayles inability to speak coherently (or even spell), I supported their reelection in 92. I believed that Bill Clintons trespasses could possibly be the end of this great country as we know it. I even voted for G. W. Bush in 2000. Don't even get me started on Congressmen, Senators, and local government.

I am not really sure how I changed my direction. Like many others, 9/11 had something to do with it. But my change was in a different way. Where others saw an administration trying to make the world safer following 9/11, I saw superficial changes that even I (if I were a terrorist) could get around. I mean, come on- take of your shoes before you get on an airplane? No cigarette lighter? We do stupid things that are very showy to make the public feel that we are doing SOMETHING.

We need to remember, on 9/11 not a single hijacker had a gun, knife, or other traditional weapon. In fact, box cutters were the weapon of choice. Anyone could have just as easily pulled off those attacks with ball point pens.

You see, one thing changed on 9/11 that prevents that particular type of tragedy from ever happening again. It had nothing to do with the TSA, airport lines, air marshals on planes, bomb sniffers, or any of the other myriad things that we have enacted in the name of "prevention". The thing that changed was mindset.

Before that tragic date, the US, and other industrialized nations, had a standard mentality, if not a policy, of how to deal with terrorists. The common line was that terrorists who hijacked a plane wanted something. By appeasing them and buying time, a peaceful settlement to the situation could be reached. It never crossed our strategic minds that a group would simple use a plane as a weapon. However, on 9/11, they did. And that changed everything.

I say fervently that if that situation ever occurred again, we would simple shoot down the plane.

That moment of thought changed everything for me. It started me on an exploration of my own ideas that led in turn to research, reading, and discussion at a level that had never occurred to me before. I began to question everything. When I see political ads, I look up the underlying basis for the accusations and evaluate the facts for myself.

And somewhere along the way, I began to associate with the devil- the Democrats.

Where this blog will take me from here, I don't know. What I do know is that I need somewhere to express the thoughts that come to my mind and to explore the the evaluation of the information I come across. I do hope that it is interesting, although I am more interested in truth than entertainment.

Good reading