These both sort of sum up my feelings on blogging political discourse:

But I will … write about it because it is something about which I feel very strongly. I will not, as many liberals do, berate those of you who disagree with me. This is a matter of conscience. Each of us must examine our own beliefs, our own mind, and come to our own conclusions in this matter. –Rick Moran

It’s a larger piece of his, on American sponsored torture, but this fragment of a larger paragraph really struck me. Spot on, Rick.

In the above clip, Michael Douglas, as President Andrew Shepherd, uses flag-burning as his illustration, and I completely agree with him … but go further. Throw in Klan marches and parents who have the legal right to name their kid Adolf Hitler, and while I find those acts just as despicable as some find burning an American flag, they’re proof that despite the problems we’ve got, exercising our most basic right is — so far — not yet one of them.

Now that I’ve been corrupted by living in the capitol, and I’m writing about politics far more regularly than before, these are both emblematic of the tone I want to set. I don’t want to preach to the choir.