For those of the readership who joined past 2005 or so, here's a revelation: DowneastBlog is not my project. The blog started in early 03 as an initiative of three Maine people, Tom and Kerry D. and Scott F. In November 2003 Kerry, who had spotted me in the comments sections of several Iraqi blogs, invited me to join. My first post dates from December 22 of 03, a piece about the European Union. I started reluctantly, certainly not suspecting that seven years on I would still be on the team. Well, team. That word has become a bit awkward actually, since unfortunately, both Tom and Kerry disappeared along the road, IIRC somewhere in early 2005. Only Scott's still around, and his last post dates from mid-09 or so. Here's the weird thing: Tom and Kerry must still be paying for DB. Thus, either they have plenty of money so that they can't be bothered by a couple of bucks every year for keeping the thing up... or they still peek in from time to time and approve. Or, both. Whatever. Anyway, as I have repeatedly stated on these pages, if they ever decide to throw me out it's their right: even after seven years and after having become the most, ahem, regular contributor, I still consider myself a guestwriter. However, should they decide to kick me out, or stop with DB altogether, I'd very much appreciate it if they allowed me to save my material first.
That said, I realize full well I may have chased them away - as I have probably chased away a lot of people. I do not bring a happy message, at least not most of the time. Also, the package of the message - writing style, power words - must definitely not be to everyone's liking and is probably one of the reasons, if not the main reason, that our readership is still modest, give and take 70-80 visitors a day.
As long as I can however, I will continue in the same manner. This is how I am, and I'll stick with it. I am a westerner, more precisely a European. Even more precisely a Belgian, and if you got to know even more, a Fleming, i.e. a Dutch-speaking Belgian. I am also a conservative, a small business owner, an engineer by formation, a family man with a married partner and two great kids, and 44 years old. My experiences in life have taught, or rather convinced me, that generally, the best way to cope with the challenges of life for the majority of people is offered by a stout conservative mindset and ditto behaviour. I expressly added the 'for the majority of people' because naturally, if you smoke pot and screw around and beat your parents BUT you're otherwise a genius with, say, rock music, you can obviously still belong to the 'some guys have all the luck' category.
The thing is, most of us do not have the benefit of an exceptional talent that allows us to do a lot of stupid things and still end up with Talking Heads' proverbial beautiful house, and a beautiful wife, and a beautiful car. As for me, I do not have special talents either, or it would have to be a certain stubbornness when faced with challenges.
But even if personally, I would be blessed with some magnificent knack for doing this or that and making big bucks of it, I think I would still be a conservative. Because I would still appreciate the inherent nobleness of working hard, respecting your past, and loving and caring for your family. At the age of 44 I have also seen far too many young people end up in the gutter because, well, precisely because they didn't deem a conservative lifestyle a cool thing. Not only that - having read quite a lot of history, I have become convinced that if enough citizens of any society choose for 'the cooler things', the whole shazam ends up in the gutter. I recall here an anecdote in which a teacher of mine in the fourth year of High School read out some text that seemed to have come straight out a contemporary issue of Kerk en Leven (a Christian conservative magazine, and we're talking 1982 here). The exerpt my teacher was reading out aloud was in essence a rant by some elders on the laziness of slacking youngsters, it boiling down to that they couldn't even be brought to cut off the rope of the noose they were hung with even if someone handed them a knife.
My teacher, a dedicated lefty who, btw and perhaps a bit surprisingly I am still very fond of, then enlightened us as to date and author of that exerpt.
Turned out it was some Greek philosopher 2,200 years or so dead and complaining of the punks and hippies of Ancient Greece. My teacher's intention was clearly to neutralize the conservative talk which was doing the rounds among our parents' generation, who had seen the war and built Belgium back up in the fifties and sixties - I told you he was a lefty.
Toooooooo bad, in retrospect, that I have never been a quick-mouthed smartass, nor, at the time, all too familiar with the story of Greece post Alexander the Great. Because I would then have been able to point out to my teacher that not long after that Greek philosopher, Ancient Greece with its dandy Athenian pederasty was pocketed by the Romans.
To cut a long story short, as far as I am concerned, it's going to be more of the same here in times to come, interspersed with a few bikinis and decent songs to make sure people don't drop dead from boredom. It's going to be MORE of the blessings of unapologetical conservative behaviour, the lovely monocultural society, the enormous achievements of western civilization and christianity, and the genius of the supply side economists. It's also going to be more of the clear and present danger presented by socialism and islamization.
Because being aware of those plagues is a necessity, if you value your life and freedom and the life and freedom of your offspring.
Good night, and thank you for your attention. You can stay tuned if you want.
MFBB.
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