Topic: About the Chart
An Introduction Article by Jamie Penfield
(Centrist)
Monday, July 28, 2008
I should have written this article first. Everyone has opinions and personal biases. Understanding my personal background my help you better understand my reasoning in future articles. I also wish to offer a good idea of what I plan to write about.I plan to edit this article to link to those articles as I write them.
My political background is not a long story. I have long had an interest in politics both domestic and international. I've been feeling more like getting involved the more I learn and observe. I speak multiple languages and love traveling. My personal background is not a long story either because I'm only in my 20's. I tend to watch a lot of movies, read everything I get my hands on, and enjoy many different genres of music. I am be extroverted but I still tend to be a private person. I get agitated when people take to much interest in other peoples personal lives because it is very petty and generally unimportant .
My decision to write a column was a simple one. I had read a few articles that came up when I was searching for political news and articles. Eventually I decided that it would be a good way outlet to voice my opinions and improve my written communications. The commentary is an added bonus. Interacting with an audience (that'd be you whose reading this) should be fun and always interesting at the very least. I like learning things and don't really take being corrected on things I may be wrong about personally but I also to hear other peoples opinions whether or not I end up agreeing, agreeing to disagree or arguing about it. I hope to at least be entertaining some of the time if not occasionally informative. This website seems to be a good place to express ones views on anything that can be construed as even slightly political( which seems to cover just about everything now days).
Most of the authors and commenters appear to be honest , responsive , thoughtful, logical , and genuinely interested and passionate about their beliefs. There are however a few that are disrespectful, incoherent, rambling, conspiracy spouting persons who do not take the time to look at various reliable independent sources and research the things they talk about. Those people make me cringe but I do not think it would be right to ban them or censor what they can publish comment. I've seen a few authors make comments of complaint but I honestly have the opinion that most adults should be able to handle someone insulting you for your opinion even though they should not level personal attacks over differing values and opinions. I tend to find the humor in it although I imagine after a while I might not. I have also noticed the disproportionate amount of Libertarians/libertarians on this site. The former sentence was not a complaint just an obvious observation. Of course I would like there to be more authors that are liberal,conservative,centrist or whatever there opinion may be but people tend to group with like minded people who just reinforce their beliefs ( psychological pull going on with that), so I won't be holding my breathe for the day the numbers become representative or even just more equal. I admire libertarians in the sense that they in my experience are much more open to dissent sometimes to the determent to their party. The various authors seem to be articulate and very involved in politics at various levels which makes reading articles more interesting and insightful.
I hope this article helped(s) the audience of my articles to understand my opinions and how I formed them. I hope to write many more articles about various topics. I plan on trying to publish an article about every three days. My future articles will either be responses to comments or other articles (on this site and in other places) that inspired me to pontificate an article or an article about something I have an genuine interest and/or strong opinion on. I hope to include the occasional original political cartoon and possibly a recurring series.
(these will be edited to link to articles as they will be published)
for the possible reoccurring pieces:
What Are You Even Talking About?-rebuttals and fact checks
Influential People to Watch (or read about)- people who an impact that catch my interest
cartoons
broad topics:
Abortion
Education
Religion
The Environment
The CIA
Media
Culture
Class/Social structure and it's influence
The Military
Libertarian Jokes
Drugs
Nuclear Power
Etc.(anything I haven't thought of or is more specific)
events:
The Democratic Convention
The Republican Convention
The VP selections of the two major candidates
(any somewhat important events I feel like writing about)
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The views expressed in this
article are those of Jamie Penfield only and do not represent
the views of Nolan Chart, LLC or its affiliates. Jamie Penfield is
solely responsible for the contents of this article and is not an
employee or otherwise affiliated with Nolan Chart, LLC in his/her role as a columnist.
Centrist...glad to see you helping with the challenge of diversification. I hear your desires for more views, you represent a good step as the founder of Nolan Chart always wants more balance. I'm looking forward to reading your future views!
Posted By: Walt Thiessen
Date: 2008-07-29 04:24:42
As the founder of this website, I'm glad to welcome you too. I will probably be a critic of what you write at times, but I want you to know that I'm glad you decided to help make this site more diverse in its viewpoints by choosing to be a columnist yourself. I wish other conservatives, centrists, liberals, and statists would do the same. It would make this site so much stronger and so much of a better resource for people interested in politics.
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