Friday, June 30, 2006

1 - Answer(s)

Q: Brett Gobe - What's your favorite flavor of Kool-Aide?
A: I've always been partial to lemonade. Kool-Aide lemonade isn't my favorite, but it's pretty good. Another winner is the ever-ubiquitous Fruit Punch. I know it's unoriginal to like that stuff, but I do, and so I'll put it here.

Q: Bill Jeffers - What is the ground speed of an unladen swallow?
A: "Flight speeds of birds are difficult to measure and verify, Estimates for
maximum speed of swallows is probably 40 to 50 mph. (Terres. Audubon Society
Encyclopedia of North American Birds)" - http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/zoo00/zoo00333.htm

Q: Bill Jeffers - How does a New Hampshire computer geek become a Bushy? Was there a conservative hazing along the way?
A: OK, let's tackle this one a piece at a time. First off, I think that your question is flawed. I do not consider myself a "Bushy". Saying I'm a "Bushy" implies that I blindly support President Bush no matter what he does, which I do not. I support him in some things (tax policy, foreign policy, abortion, etc) and oppose him in others (not putting pressure on Congress to limit spending, and immigration policy). I have always defined myself as a conservative, and as a result, I will often vote for and suppor Republican candidates for office, including President Bush. President Bush, despite what my friends on the left think, is NOT a conservative. He is a Republican. You may think it's a distinction without a difference, but I do not.

So with that out of the way, I will answer a modified version of your question: "How does a New Hampshire computer geek become a conservative?"

The first part of the answer lies in your question itself: "New Hampshire". As most of you know, NH is the site of the first Presidential Primary every 4 years. Because of this, every single Presidential candidate (from the wacko to the serious) comes to this state in the hopes of getting enough attention to win the primary. I found this interesting as a child, and therefore paid enough attention to the candidates to form my own opinions of them. These were the opinions of a child, but the point is that I became interested at a fairly young age.

The real answer to this question lies in a single name: Rush Limbaugh. One summer (I think it was between 7th and 8th grades, but I really don't remember) I was flipping channels around lunchtime and happened across a corpulant man talking politics. What made him interesting to me was not that he was talking about the issues of the day (probably the Socialized Medicine Plan, tax increases, etc), but that he was EXPLAINING them. He went to great pains to explain why he thought things were bad (or good) ideas, rather than just asserting that they were. Moreover, he did it with humor and as he put it, "good cheer". His name, I learned that first day, was Rush Limbaugh.

I was intruigued by Rush, and started watching his television show every day at lunch (it was a rebroadcast of the show which aired at night). I soon learned that he had a three-hour radio show every afternoon, and from that point on I was hooked. His show was (and still is) one of the best sources of news and commentary out there. I listened all through high school by programming my stereo to record the first hour and last half hour of the show (I only had 90 minute tapes). His show really opened up the world of conservatism to me, and remains a force in my life to this day.

So that's how I became a conservative. I won't get into WHY I'm a conservative, since that's something I really don't have the energy for at this moment, and also because my conservatism tends to put me at odds with my friends and loved ones. Someday I'll get into it, I promise, because frankly there's a lot that people don't get about conservatism, and I'd love to teach them.

Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Introduction

I'd like to try something here with the Jolinko community: open the floor for questions. Every Thursday I will put up a new blog entry asking for question submissions, and I will choose one (or more) of those questions and post an answer during the weekend/week (depending on the complexity of the question). Depending on how this goes, I may even create a topic for this. For now, I'll keep it in my blog and hope that people take notice. So please submit a question for me to answer. It can be serious, silly, whatever. I'll research the topic and answer the question.