Why?

Why do I do this? Sadbutmadlad poses the question over at Anna Raccoon’s.

I started back in 2004. At the time, I had time on my hands –  much like now. I had been reading blogs such as Samizdata and realising that actually, as a member of the labour party, I was probably on the wrong side. I had assumed incorrectly that Labour’s opposition to the authoritarian tendencies of Michael Howard’s tenure at the home office would continue once they were in power. Oh, no, in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, we saw David Blunkett roll out his ID cards meme no sooner than you could say “Michael Howard was my mentor”.

I was angry. Very angry. And while there are those who point out that this is ultimately a destructive emotion, it did have the effect of triggering a change in my politics.

Well, maybe not exactly a change, more of a realisation that I was travelling the wrong path. As a youth, I was firmly socialist. I believed all that stuff about social responsibility and redistribution, after all, it was someone else’s wealth I was advocating redistributing. As I grew older –  and some might say wiser and some not –  I realised that my taxes were being used to feed a monster and I didn’t like it. I realised that socialism while it all sounds nice and fluffy, really doesn’t work when exposed to the real world. Yes, it’s been pointed out that libertarianism suffers likewise. No ideology survives in its pure form when taken from the vacuum of ideas and exposed to the corrosive atmosphere of reality and, inevitably, compromise.

That said, libertarianism is closer to where I belong. In previous times, I’d be called a classical liberal but the label was stolen by the leftists who wanted to create a patina of respectability for their theft and burn policies of misanthropic destruction. Liberal, they are not.

So, here I was in 2004 burning to say something, anything, to anyone in order to get some of that anger off my chest. So this place was born. Initially on the Blog City platform and then eventually a WordPress blog using my own domain independently hosted. I tend to be less angry these days. Not because the Coalition are in power –  although it has to be said that they are not as incompetent, misanthropic and evil as their predecessors –  but because much of that early anger has already been expressed. The tone these days tends to be resigned cynicism as I expect the current lot to carry on abusing their power and making our lives a misery –  if not to quite the extreme of Red Ed, Balls and co.

I write for me. I am expressing personal opinions and tossing them into the ether. Sometimes I receive feedback and that is nice. Not essential, but nice. Sometimes I receive insults and trolls. If I feel inclined, I’ll toy with them for a while, if not, I’ll simply throw them back to whence they came.

Given that I am back where I started work wise, with time on my hands between looking for active work and carrying out the bits and pieces that I have, writing gives me something to focus on, a reason to do something. When I am busy with work, I use it as a means of unwinding after the rigors of the day. It’s a hobby and a hobby horse all rolled into one.

Why? Because I want to.