Welcomes From the Team: Armed Liberal

Well, first off my name really isn’t ‘Armed Liberal’, although both of those adjectives usually fit me pretty well.

I’ve been blogging over at www.armedliberal.com since way back in May of 02, when you had to build your own computers out of sand and tinfoil, (or actually use Blogger which felt like you were doing that). I started, as many did, because of Glenn Reynolds, Ken Layne, and Matt Welch.

I’m joining this blog because my real life is sagging under the demands of a solo blog, and I’m hoping to do fewer better posts and still have time to take care of the boys, work, take care of the cats, take care of the house, and get snuggled by Tenacious G, my wonderful sweetie.

I started blogging because I’ve struggled for years to figure out how I could vote Green and be a member of the NRA at the same time, and why it was that my head never exploded from containing those two worldviews. And blogging seemed like a way for me to work out my political problems with the help of an unsuspecting public.

Because what I’m trying to do is rope that unsuspecting public into helping me figure out where I ly want to go, politically. Because I think that I’m actually pretty typical, and that the frustrations I feel with the current slicing of the political pie are felt by others as well.

And my goal in writing this stuff is to force myself to try and articulate some of these notions about issues and engage you in trying to bat them back and forth and see if there’s anything there.

My core focus is simple: How can we construct a liberal politics that respects individual rights? How can we accomplish liberal goals…helping the poor, improving the environment, equalizing the imbalances of power…without creating a stultifying bureaucratic state? I think it can be done, but I honestly don’t know how. And how can we do it in the face of a world where the imbalances within and between societies in power, wealth, and culture are running up against cheap communication, transportation, and weapons.

This is about testing the first assumption and solving the problem. I’m more of a ‘root causes’ guy than a ‘technique’ guy; I think we’re engaged in a War on Bad Philosophy, and that we’ll need to change our worldview as a part of the overall changes that will be necessary to get us through the next fifty years.

Stuff about me: I’m a middle-aged, middle-class guy who lives in the South Bay region of the Los Angeles SMSA. I have an advanced degree in urban economics and planning theory, and have worked in a variety of jobs in a checkered but wildly entertaining career. I’m the proud father of three wonderful sons, the proud ex-husband of two ex-wives, and the owner of too many motorcycles to fit in my garage and not enough shelves for my books.

I’l suggest three of my old posts as introductions:

Why be an Armed Liberal
Romanticism and Terrorism
The War on Bad Philosophy