A Conservative Viewpoint on The Huck Upchuck

I'd like to introduce to the readers of The Huck Upchuck an experiment in ideological blogging pluralism. As some of you may know, I tend to frequent a fair number of blogs that represent the full range of conservative thought and ideology. Some of these blogs are just downright partisan hackery; but there are a number of respectable and honest ones out there. One of the best of these latter blogs is produced by a blogging buddy of mine, Christopher Taylor. His excellent blog Word Around the Net has been a longtime member of my Con Blogger blogroll. Christopher and I disagree on just about everything when it comes to politics and ideology; but we have come to respect one another's sincerity and honesty in expressing oppositional viewpoints. In the spirit of this healthy opposition, Christopher recently approached me and asked if I would contribute a weekly posting to his blog that represents a liberal's perspective on the issues of the day. I thought it was a great idea, so much so that I asked Christopher if he might be interested in a kind of inter-blog exchange of posts whereby I would send something his way to post on his blog and he would send something my way to post on my blog. We exchanged our first postings at the end of last week with the promise of uploading these posting sometime this week. I am happy to reproduce below Christopher's first posting for the Huck Upchuck. Please feel free to critique Christopher's ideas (he has thick skin and a strong backbone, and can take whatever you think to dish out to him); but please keep your criticisms focused on Christopher's ideas and not on Christopher himself. And, who knows, perhaps you might find yourself agreeing with him. In any event, I am pleased to be able to bring to you some different perspectives on The Huck Upchuck. I'll put Christopher's first contribution up in the next posting. Let's see how it goes!