"It's been a long road...getting from there to here...it's been a long time...but my time is finally near..."

(Post title from "Faith Of The Heart", by Russell Watson, the theme to "Star Trek: Enterprise")

This year marks the second International Weblogger's Day-- celebrating bloggers worldwide. June 14th is the day to comemorate the work of bloggers and their power to express.

I started this blog in August 2003...almost two years ago...on a lark. I use Google a lot, always have, and noticed a link to this "Blogger" thing one day. A little research (I'd heard the term "blog" knocked about for a while, was always a little curious) made me realize that a blog would be much easier to keep up than a personal website. Blogger does make it pretty easy, though at first there was no "Blog This" button, and tweaking the template has always taken a bit of HTML "under the hood" work.

But I was interested...though I figured it would be a passing craze. I'd recently returned from my 9 month deployment on my last boat, where we'd shot missiles in the opening moments of the Iraq invasion, and I started the blog to be somewhat of an online journal (and my own personal "reality show"). For about the first year it was more a running commentary on the odd, quirky stuff I found out there on the Internet, and a smattering of personal entries (diving, trips, other stuff like that). It was around July 2004 that I noticed a definite shift in my posting...while I'd touched on some political issues from time to time, it was more along the lines of "hey, look at this". In the leadup to the 2004 election I got much more political, and it was around this same time that I made the switch (that had been slowly building, especially after returning from deployment) from solid conservative to liberal.

Yes, I used to be as red, GOP, far-right as they come...though I didn't have any really good reasons why. My general impressions were that Republicans were "pro-military", I'd never had a lot of love for Bill Clinton (I fell for the myth that he was a military hater, and I used to be pretty anti-gay...and Clinton ushered in "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"). In 1992 I voted for Bush (the elder), in 1996 for Dole, and in 2000 for Libertarian Harry Browne (Gore just didn't do it for me, but I saw from the start that Bush was an idiot). I did, initially, support the Iraq war, though. My information was limited by being at sea on a submarine for 7 straight months before we invaded (and before that putting in long hours in deployment preps and extensive submarine maintenance), so I was pretty willing to buy into the "get Saddam" mindset.

All that changed when I got home. I had friends and family who (puzzling to me) were very against the war. I railed on about 9/11 and the years of Saddam flaunting the sanctions, about WMD's and Gulf War I. And a close relative poked holes in every one of my points, with the facts to back their arguments up.

Around this time, a good friend and fellow sailor "came out". That I had the utmost respect for him, and considered him a top-notch sailor, drove the few remaining vestiges of anti-gay bias out of me (that had been changing for years, his outing was just the final impetus to realizing how wrong I'd been).

I started doing research...burning up Google in revisiting my opinions on many, many issues. And I started seeing what my friends and some of my family had been saying all along. The puzzle pieces came together and it seemed for the first time I could see through the lies and bullshit of the Bush gang.

And I started commenting more and more on this in my blog. Hypocrisy really bugs me, and I see it more and more in the Republicans of today...and even those of the last several decades. And Howard Dean has a point, the Republican party is far to religious for me. Around this same time (actually starting back in 2002, maybe earlier) I left religion behind. I found I simply didn't believe any of 'em, really, and found many Christian groups to be annoying and pushy (not all, certainly not the more moderate folks, but the ones who have the death-grip on the GOP...yeah, those Christians...really annoy me). "Athiest" may be a bit too far, but I can certainly say I am not Christian nor do I hold to any religion...and that turned me further from the GOP.

All this needed an outlet, both for me to get it out (and on some sort of record) and to voice it to others. So I got more and more political (skirting sometimes what is considered PC for an active duty military type). And I became more and more liberal. Trust me, I get plenty of grief for it in the Navy...many are shocked to discover a "damn liberal" in their midst, and I've even had some ask why I'm in something that a "liberal" wouldn't believe in (the military). I've been lumped in with "traitors", too. But tell me, what does a liberal stand for if not for freedom? And I'll agree with the saying "Freedom Isn't Free", so in the military I am. Not that I am a warmonger or believe the cause in this war, but I'm not the Admiral/General/Commander in Chief, either...I'm one of the low rungs on the ladder, and I don't get to choose our policies. But I do believe America is essentially good (though misguided, as a result of GOP mis-management), and believe America is worth fighting for and defending.

My blog is an outlet for all that...my frustration with GOP hypocrisy, my political views, my liberal leanings, and still some personal stuff. It was never intended to be "political", and I'll probably never be one of the "A list" blogs (and that's not my goal)...but it is what it is.

I've been through some name changes...for a while "Rob's Blog" seemed rather pedestrian...but I came back to it because sometimes the simple answer is the right one :) I've gone on template change rampages, linked more links than a nest of gundarks, had times when I posted very little and days when I posted nearly 20 entries. It's been fun, frustrating, a rant, a mindless diversion at times, but never really boring or unfulfilling.

Not bad for something I had no real reason for starting, eh?

International Weblogger's Day