Warning: this post is about politics, so please skip it if that doesn’t interest you. I’ve got a few more political posts over the next couple weeks, but things will die down in that department after the election, I’m sure. Until then, thanks for bearing with me

As I wrote last week, I’ve decided to vote for Barack Obama. Many of my family members and friends who are conservative Republicans were dismayed to hear this, but the feedback I got overall from people on both sides was generally respectful and intellectual, with a few notable exceptions. One of the excellent questions that many people sent my way was this: if I disagree with Obama on many issues (which I do), why vote for him at all? Why not sit the election out or vote for a third-party candidate as a matter of principle? It’s a great question and I wanted to talk a bit about my reasoning here.

The option of not voting or voting for a third-party candidate was one that I wrestled with for some time before making my decision. I actually campaigned for Dr. Ron Paul during the primaries, which might surprise some of my readers, as Dr. Paul’s views and positions are drastically different from Obama’s. But the truth is that I have never met a politician that I agreed with on everything. So in some sense (though I disagree with the term), I’m always voting for the “lesser of evils”, even if I vote for a third-party candidate. In this case, I made the judgment to vote for Obama instead of a third-party candidate for two reasons:

1. I’m a pragmatist. Either Obama or McCain is going to be President, and I want the one that will do the better job. One of the valid points that someone has raised is that this position sounds like all I’m interested in is winning, rather than the defense and support of the truth, as I have accused many in the Republican party. I think the crucial difference is that the Republicans that I’m speaking about are so consumed with the attainment and retention of power that they are unwilling to admit any failings or shortcomings in their own party, or admit anything positive in the other. And as I talked about at length, they have turned a blind eye to lies and injustice if they believe it will help them win. On the other hand, I’ve tried to speak out against lies on both sides (and I will be doing so more). I certainly don’t agree with the Democrats or Obama on everything, and I’m willing to speak about those things when asked. But I still believe that Obama will make a much, much better president than McCain.

2. Positions and policy aren’t everything. Despite the “lesser of evils” theory and being practical, there is a tipping point at which both options are too evil to support. However, though that point has been reached with McCain for me, that point has not been reached with Obama. I truly believe that Obama’s motives and integrity are in the right place, though this is just my opinion and is very subjective. If I felt the way about Obama that I feel about McCain, I would vote for a third party or not vote.

Both of these points are very subjective and personal in nature, so some may be unsatisfied with this explanation. All I can tell you is that it was a tough decision and I only made it after significant research and reflection. I hope that everyone puts as much (or more) honest effort into making their decision in the coming weeks, and I deeply respect those who do, regardless of whether their conclusion agrees with mine.

I’ve made a very tough decision: I’m voting for Barack Obama. I’m sure that many of my Republican and conservative friends and family will be deeply dismayed to hear this, but I would ask them to hear me out with an open mind before firing up the prayer chains. I would also ask that before contacting me, you read this post in its entirety and take some time to ponder. I would absolutely love to have a logical and well-reasoned discussion with anyone on the things I’ve written below. I am determined to fight to discover the truth and defend it at all costs. I’m absolutely willing to change my mind if the case can be made that I should. However, if you intend to contact me with an emotional diatribe about how I’ve been swayed by the liberal media, how Obama is a baby-killing terrorist sympathizer, how you just know in your heart that the liberal establishment will destroy everything we hold dear, accusations of my faith being in jeopardy, or any other unfounded hysterics, please don’t bother.

Also, please be aware that most of this post is my opinion and is to be treated as such. Also be advised that I am well aware that not all Republicans (or Democrats) feel the same way. I have tried to qualify my statements as much as possible and make it clear that I am speaking about the majority of Republicans and the direction of the Republican party in general, not every single individual.

Before I get into the meat of my post, I should give you a little background on my life. I grew up in a staunchly conservative and Christian family, which in my mind was synonymous with being a Republican. I remember watching the election results in 1992 with a group of people that included my parents and many of their closest friends. I remember the deep dismay and disappointment in that group when Bush lost to Clinton, as if we were at a funeral. I remember it again when Clinton defeated Dole in the 1996 election. I remember the mood among many Republicans (elation?) when Clinton was impeached in the late 1990’s. I remember our excitement when Bush, a no-nonsense Christian conservative (that I voted for) defeated Al Gore in 2000.

I graduated high school and enlisted in the US Navy, graduating boot camp on September 13, 2001. I was sent overseas to Italy, where I was stationed for 2.5 years. The military already tends to lean conservative, and in the years after 9/11, we tended to view Bush as a tenacious defender of freedom and democracy around the world. I argued stridently for the Republican cause, convinced that our actions in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other parts of the world were justified in name of defeating terrorism. I voted for Bush again in 2004, though by this time, Iraq was starting to look a little less black-and-white to me.

I got out of the Navy and went back to the University of Colorado for business. I took all the usual business classes, but I also took a few classes which would end up having a huge effect on my perspective, including topics like macro- and micro-economics, formal logic, human anthropology, developmental economics, energy science, and globalization. For some of these classes, I couldn’t get enough, and for others, I was a voice of dissent on much of what I viewed as liberal thought. But being exposed to some very different perspectives than I had grown up with was good for me, especially since the environment there was one that encouraged dialogue, examining the evidence, and forming conclusions based on that evidence.

I’m sure that many conservatives will read this looking for some clue of exactly where I was misled or duped into believing the great lie of liberalism. Well, I’m sorry to disappoint, but there’s nothing there. I’m not a liberal, and my political views fall much closer to true conservatism (or libertarianism, as some like to call it) than they do to liberalism.

As recently as a couple years ago, I viewed John McCain as a maverick, a man of honor, and someone who was willing to place himself in political peril to follow his conscience. He had a record of crossing the aisle and working with Democrats, and I admired that. He was a war hero, clearly a man of courage, and independently-minded. Though I didn’t agree with his policies or positions in many areas, particularly the war in Iraq, I admired him for being willing to tell it like it is.

But over the last few years, something gradually began to change. McCain started voting with his party and the President more and more. He started changing his positions on things, and he started saying things that didn’t turn out to be true. The trend has worsened over the last six months, but the tipping point was McCain selecting Palin as his running mate. That a man of his experience would select an arrogant, inexperienced, ignorant, and dishonest woman that he had only briefly met twice to be a heartbeat away from the Presidency indicates that McCain is no longer the man of character that I once thought him to be, but rather a man who will do anything to win. The last three weeks have only confirmed it, as Palin has repeatedly demonstrated her ignorance and arrogance, repeating the same discredited lies over and over, often with McCain at her side. It seems as if almost everything either of them say at this point is either a distortion of the truth or just empty words with no meaning.

However, what’s even more troubling to me than McCain’s and Palin’s repeated lies and distortions of the truth is the complete and total unwillingness of a single Republican that I know personally to admit it. Not one Republican that I know has been able to say “That’s not true. I support McCain and his policies, but he’s lying. He should apologize immediately.” Not a single Republican that I know or have talked to has been able to admit that picking Palin was a cheap political trick. Not a single Republican that I have talked to has had a single good thing to say about Obama. Not one. Only one has had anything negative to say about the prospects of a McCain / Palin presidency.

Why is that? Why would so many Republicans, who pride themselves on having the moral high ground and many of whom are people of faith, tolerate (or encourage) such blatant lies and distortions of the truth? Well, I believe it’s because they want to win, more than they want to be champions of truth. Like so many who determine to fight against something worth fighting against, the Republicans have become the very monster they hate, in three ways:

They’ve lost their focus on small government
Traditionally for small, limited government and states’ rights over federalism, the Republicans of today offer not small government and a policy of fiscal conservatism, but big government and a policy of spending far more than we bring in and borrowing the difference. Bush ran in 2000 on a platform of a humble, non-interventionist foreign policy. Now we’re mired in two wars that will cost the taxpayers over a trillion dollars. We have seen the Federal government attempting to consolidate more and more power under Bush. But perhaps the most telling change we’ve seen is the sheer increase in the size of the Federal government combined with a huge decrease in the revenue we bring in. Here’s a quote from an article about the official estimates from the Congressional Budget Office:

In 2001, CBO predicted the federal government would amass surpluses totaling $5.6 trillion over the 2002-2011 period. Now, CBO data show a cumulative deficit of $3.8 trillion over that same period. That’s a $9.4 trillion deterioration, $7.2 trillion of which was caused by policy actions. Tax cuts and security-related spending increases caused 83 percent of that.

They’ve lost their moral compass
Ironically, I believe that the reason that Republicans have lost their moral compass is due to the commingling of the Republican party and Christianity (the Religious Right). Evangelicals in particular, convinced that they needed to save this country from its impending moral downfall, resolved to become more active in politics. This in itself is not a bad thing, but somewhere along the way, Evangelicals began to focus more on political power to defend virtue than the virtue itself. They assured themselves that they could defeat evil through legislation and judicial influence, and pursued those aims with fervor. The results have been disastrous, as Christians and conservatives have fought to change the heart of this country from the top-down via legislation and judicial decisions aimed at defending “traditional values”. Aside from the fact that this approach can never be effective, the greater travesty is that in their pursuit of legislative and judicial influence, Evangelicals have lost sight of the very values they were trying to defend. The pursuit of justice and truth became less important than winning elections and passing laws. Exacerbating the problem has been political strategists like Karl Rove and Steve Schmidt, who have shamelessly exploited the propensity of this demographic to be “single-issue” voters, usually around abortion. These strategists have worked hard behind the scenes to inflame emotions and passions in the party faithful and painted the debate in terms of these moral and social issues. The result today is a party made up largely of Christians and other believers who are unwilling to condemn dishonesty and injustice if they believe the results will be in the favor of their cause. After reading too many accounts of voter purging and other electioneering tactics in the 2000, 2004, and perhaps the 2008 election, almost always at the behest and benefit of Republicans, I am convinced that many in the Republican party no longer care one whit for fairness, democracy, or liberty, but only for the protection and exercise of power at any cost.

They’ve forgotten what makes America great
Republicans over the last eight years have repeatedly shown that they are willing to sacrifice freedom and liberty for the sake of security, with the War on Terror serving as the battleground for this ideological battle. Let me be clear: terrorism is a horrific thing, and deserves our full fury and strength in response. We should never tolerate it, and we should never negotiate with it. But if our response sinks us to a level where we’re no better than the monster we fight, is it worth it? We have stripped away the rights of thousands of terrorism “suspects”, thrown them into secret prisons without explanation or notification to their families, held them for years without charges or trial, tortured them, and then released them without apology or explanation. Many of these people were treated this way on the slimmest of evidence, perhaps only because they happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. To watch those who claim to follow the teachings of Christ try and justify these actions turns my stomach. Domestically, we have seen the encroachment of more and more of our civil liberties in the name of security, and the executive branch has attempted to lay claim to far more power than it is entitled to, laying waste to the system of checks and balances our founding fathers so carefully crafted. On top of all of this, much of this has been done in secret and in violation of the Constitution. And rather than offering a message of change and accountability, Palin throws out snarky comments about how Obama is too concerned with reading terrorists their rights, to hysterical cheers of the party faithful. No, Ms. Palin, we’re just concerned with making sure that people like you don’t strip away the rights that our founding fathers called inalienable.

The Republican party of today uses fear and the constant threat of a terrible enemy to justify violating the Constitution, impugning the character of their rivals, and attacking the patriotism of any who disagree. One need only spend a few minutes watching the Republican National Convention with an open mind to understand what I’m talking about. How many times have we heard Bush and Cheney tell us about the grave dangers that we’ve been spared as a result of allowing further encroachment of our rights? How many times have we seen Republican pundits imply or claim outright that liberals hate America, hate freedom, tolerate terrorism, or any other despicable nonsense? This sort of ideological terrorism is designed to silence all dissent and appeal to a part of the human psyche that devalues reason and logic in favor of panic and acquiescence for security’s sake. And too often, it is successful, as people cower in fear and refuse to speak out against such propaganda for fear of being labeled unpatriotic or a terrorist sympathizer. The case is often made that if we don’t strip away these rights “just for a little while”, there will be nothing left to protect. So be it! This country was founded on the unquenchable fire of belief by a group of determined men and women who risked everything–their lives, their fortunes, and their reputations, in order that liberty might be bought. As Patrick Henry proclaimed, “Give me liberty or give me death!” Where are the patriots of today in the Republican party who are willing to sacrifice anything for freedom? If the price of security is the loss of liberty, then we as a nation should be willing to lay down our lives, just as the great patriots who came before us were willing to do. As Benjamin Franklin said, if we give up our freedom for the sake of security, we will ultimately end up with neither.

I’m sure many conservatives at this point are wondering why I think Obama is any better. Just like I do with McCain, I disagree with many of Obama’s policies and positions. I don’t care for his trend towards larger government and his views on gun control. I disagree with him on abortion, though not with the vehemence and vitriol that many Republicans do. I disagree with him to some extent on health care, though the health care debate in this country is far more complex than most people understand or are willing to admit. To the extent that his campaign has misrepresented the truth or the positions of their opponent, I strongly disagree. I do agree with him on some very important things, including foreign policy, the War in Iraq, and civil liberties. I am convinced that unlike McCain, Obama will not lead us into another war unless we are attacked.

Policy and positions aside, I deeply admire Obama’s character and background. He seems to be a prudent and temperate man who practices what he preaches. I admire the fact that he attended one of the best colleges in the country (Columbia), despite coming from a background that certainly didn’t predispose him to that. I admire him for being willing to serve some of the poorest parts of Chicago as a community organizer for a cause that he believed in, not for money, fame, or power. I admire him for attending one of the best law schools in the country (Harvard) and graduating Magna Cum Laude. I admire him for using his legal training as a civil rights attorney, helping give a voice to those who have none. I admire him for teaching Constitutional law at another of the best law schools in the country (Chicago) for twelve years, demonstrating a commitment to knowledge and to the Constitution, two qualities that have been sorely lacking over the last eight years. As one conservative who has endorsed Obama put it, it’s comforting to consider having a president who has actually read the Federalist Papers.

On a side note, I despise the vicious streak in many Republicans today that tend to view all of the above and disregard it. “Community organizer…haha! Civil rights attorney…who cares? Graduate and teacher at some of the world’s best schools…whatever, they’re just liberal institutions.” The worst of these displays was at the Republican convention, when several of the party’s leaders openly mocked Obama’s commitments and accomplishments in these areas. Disgusting.

I’m not sure how much weight this should have on how we vote, but I also admire his personal life. Though wealthy by most standards, his family owns one car (a hybrid, of course). He has been married only once, and by all indications, has a great relationship with his wife and daughters, despite the stress of the national spotlight. You can tell by looking at his children’s faces and the way they interact with their parents that they have grown up in a loving home. I also admire the fact that his wife is well-educated and well-spoken and has served in a leadership role for non-profits for causes she believes in. And I deeply admire their marital relationship, which is a phenomenal model to the nation of what marriage should be, something we’ve not had in the white house for quite some time.

I admire that he has been willing to put himself in political peril to work towards goals he believes in. A good example is the fact that he spoke out against the Iraq war in 2002 and 2003 as a state senator, despite widespread support for the war on both sides of the political spectrum. As a state senator, he had nothing to gain from making such statements; the easy thing would have been to say nothing. And I know this is going to shock people, but I actually admire him for working with Bill Ayers on a cause he believed in. To have refused to work with Ayers on a worthwhile goal for fear of hurting his political image because of something that happened four decades ago, deplorable as it was, would have been a cheap and self-serving political move. Knowing someone and even working with them on a cause does not mean you agree with them on everything.

Finally, I admire his ability to grasp complexity and nuance and wrestle with it appropriately, rather than painting the world in black and white. This propensity has cost him, as trying to explain a balanced position on some complex and emotional issues makes for poor sound-bites, causing people to accuse him of being verbose and waffling. But I do not want another President who shoots from the hip, who makes decisions with his (or her) gut, or who fails to recognize and assess complexity. Increasingly, McCain has shown himself to be that kind of leader, and Palin has no other choice, as she apparently has virtually no experience or knowledge to fall back on.

As I said, I do not agree with many of Obama’s policies, and I think that some of them will eventually do harm to this country. But the Republicans have lost something far more important than having a better policy position: their integrity. They’re so consumed with winning the culture war at any cost that they’ve sacrificed the very morals and values they claim they’re trying to defend. Perhaps one day they’ll realize it and return to the roots of the true conservative movement. Until then, I cannot vote for a candidate who repeatedly lies to the American public and continues to advocate stripping away our freedoms with the hubris that only comes from knowing that his constituency will allow it.

Shame on us all.

WARNING: This post is about politics, so please skip it if you don’t care

This post makes me very happy to be able to write. Here are five conservatives who have had the courage and decency to speak up with the truth about McCain and / or Palin. I don’t agree with them on all points, and I think they’re being far too generous to McCain / Palin in some cases, but at least they’re speaking up. Perhaps there’s hope for true conservatism yet.

“Palin Problem” by Kathleen Parker

“Palin’s recent interviews with Charles Gibson, Sean Hannity, and now Katie Couric have all revealed an attractive, earnest, confident candidate. Who Is Clearly Out Of Her League.

No one hates saying that more than I do. Like so many women, I’ve been pulling for Palin, wishing her the best, hoping she will perform brilliantly. I’ve also noticed that I watch her interviews with the held breath of an anxious parent, my finger poised over the mute button in case it gets too painful. Unfortunately, it often does. My cringe reflex is exhausted.

…

If BS were currency, Palin could bail out Wall Street herself.

If Palin were a man, we’d all be guffawing, just as we do every time Joe Biden tickles the back of his throat with his toes. But because she’s a woman — and the first ever on a Republican presidential ticket — we are reluctant to say what is painfully true.”

“Experience Matters” by David Brooks

“Sarah Palin has many virtues. If you wanted someone to destroy a corrupt establishment, she’d be your woman. But the constructive act of governance is another matter. She has not been engaged in national issues, does not have a repertoire of historic patterns and, like President Bush, she seems to compensate for her lack of experience with brashness and excessive decisiveness.”

“Palin the Irresponsible Choice?” by David Frum

“Should John McCain lose in November, Sarah Palin has just pole-vaulted into front-runner status for 2012. Should Mr. McCain win, her grip on the next Republican nomination will become a lock.

So this is the future of the Republican party you are looking at: a future in which national security has bumped down the list of priorities behind abortion politics, gender politics, and energy politics. Ms. Palin is a bold pick, and probably a shrewd one. It’s not nearly so clear that she is a responsible pick, or a wise one.”

“McCain Loses His Head” by George Will

“Conservatives who insist that electing McCain is crucial usually start, and increasingly end, by saying he would make excellent judicial selections. But the more one sees of his impulsive, intensely personal reactions to people and events, the less confidence one has that he would select judges by calm reflection and clear principles, having neither patience nor aptitude for either.

It is arguable that, because of his inexperience, Obama is not ready for the presidency. It is arguable that McCain, because of his boiling moralism and bottomless reservoir of certitudes, is not suited to the presidency. Unreadiness can be corrected, although perhaps at great cost, by experience. Can a dismaying temperament be fixed?”

“A Conservative for Obama” by Wick Allison

“But today it is so-called conservatives who are cemented to political programs when they clearly don’t work. The Bush tax cuts—a solution for which there was no real problem and which he refused to end even when the nation went to war—led to huge deficit spending and a $3 trillion growth in the federal debt. Facing this, John McCain pumps his “conservative” credentials by proposing even bigger tax cuts. Meanwhile, a movement that once fought for limited government has presided over the greatest growth of government in our history. That is not conservatism; it is profligacy using conservatism as a mask.

Today it is conservatives, not liberals, who talk with alarming bellicosity about making the world “safe for democracy.” It is John McCain who says America’s job is to “defeat evil,” a theological expansion of the nation’s mission that would make George Washington cough out his wooden teeth.

Barack Obama is not my ideal candidate for president. (In fact, I made the maximum donation to John McCain during the primaries, when there was still hope he might come to his senses.) But I now see that Obama is almost the ideal candidate for this moment in American history. I disagree with him on many issues. But those don’t matter as much as what Obama offers, which is a deeply conservative view of the world. Nobody can read Obama’s books (which, it is worth noting, he wrote himself) or listen to him speak without realizing that this is a thoughtful, pragmatic, and prudent man. It gives me comfort just to think that after eight years of George W. Bush we will have a president who has actually read the Federalist Papers.”

The truth is devastating, is it not?

My wonderful wife got me a membership to the California Academy of Sciences for my birthday, which is officially reopening this weekend after being under construction for the last several years. It’s one of the ten largest natural history museums in the world and houses the Steinhart Aquarium, Morrison Planetarium, a four-story rainforest exhibit, penguin exhibit, and more. I absolutely love aquariums, and we didn’t have a great one here in the city until now, so I’m really excited. We went to a member’s preview today, and I was very impressed. The building design is phenomenal, with lots of open space and natural lighting. And the aquarium is sweet, with catwalks over the water so you can view from above, below-waterline viewing areas, and even a tunnel that cuts through a sunken rainforest freshwater exhibit. Very cool.

I was also very excited to learn that they’re looking for volunteers to help with all aspects of the museum, including hands-on stuff with at the aquarium. If you’re rescue diver certified, you can even be a volunteer diver to help feed the animals, clean the glass, etc. I’m not rescue certified yet, but I definitely will look into it.

I didn’t bring my camera, but here’s a Flickr group that has some good photos…enjoy!

http://flickr.com/groups/calacademy/pool/

I’m getting a little tired of Republicans attacking the integrity of my political positions and assuming that because I don’t agree with them on something, I’ve been duped by the “liberal media”. If you want to actually talk about the issues, then we can. However, avoiding intelligent and reasonable dialogue by questioning the intelligence of anyone who disagrees with you is insulting and only highlights the weakness of your position.

Most Republicans that I talk to always seem to assume that to the extent that I disagree with them, it must be due to my being influenced by the bias and attacks of the “liberal / left-wing media”. What’s worse is that they’re always peddling conservative pundits and commentators like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity as better sources of info. They freak out if I post an article from the Wall Street Journal or The Associated Press, but then gleefully send me articles from CitizenLink, WorldNetDaily, and ExposeObama.com. Many of these people might be surprised to know that I already regularly read articles and posts from sources like that, some for the info and some for the pure comedic value. I’m also happy to check out the ones that I haven’t read before and see if I find anything interesting. I regularly read conservative and Republican blogs and websites, and I look up clips from conservative TV shows when they deal with something interesting. Anytime I’m in the car, I try to listen to political talk radio, which is overwhelmingly conservative. But you have to keep something in mind: for almost ALL of those sources, I am listening to them for their OPINION of the facts, not for the facts themselves. Here’s why:

Almost none of the sources that Republicans (at least the ones I’m always hearing from) trust are sources of original research. In other words, those organizations, which are almost all self-described as being biased to the conservative side, have a mission of giving a conservative viewpoint and perspective to the facts. There is nothing wrong with that, but it is crucial to understand that they are editorial sources, not original sources. They do not send out reporters, they don’t conduct investigations, they don’t interview people, and they don’t cover events live. They are NOT news sources, they are opinion sources.

So ask yourself this: where do THEY get their facts? If you read pretty much any article on any of those types of sources, they talk about how Obama did this and McCain did that and this is what it means. They quote people and they give numbers and they build a case for their opinion. All this is well and good, by the way. But where do they get that information in the first place? What’s the original source? How does Rush know what Obama said at a press conference, or how much McCain has collected in campaign donations, or where Palin was mayor? Where do the quotes and financial numbers come from? Where do the photos come from? None of these organizations are collecting them themselves, so they must be getting them from someone else.

Turns out that they’re getting their facts from the same place I am: the mainstream media. They watch the wire services (Associated Press and Reuters), TV news channels (CNN, MSNBC, Fox), newspapers, and other “mainstream” journalistic sources.

(Side note: I’ve often wondered exactly how these people determine what sources are “left-wing / liberal”? Is it just anyone who disagrees with them or ever prints anything positive about Obama or negative about McCain? What’s their evidence to support their indictment that certain sources are “left-wing” and therefore not to be trusted? I haven’t gotten an answer yet.)

Now, journalists aren’t perfect. They’re human beings, and they have natural bias that DOES creep into their work. This bias goes both ways, but let’s assume that bias in the “mainstream media” is primarily liberal in nature (highly debatable). The fact that there is some bias doesn’t mean that those sources have no value. We must be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Journalistic integrity is not completely dead, at least not yet. Journalists actually DO strive to be fair and balanced for the most part. Some might disagree with that last part, but my question is this:

Why not go to the original source? How can one make the case that instead of going to the slightly biased original source, I should instead go to someone who takes that original source, wraps it in their opinion so it fits their ideology, and then feeds it to me as news? And I should have that be my only source of information? And the worst part is, those sources have told me that they’re biased! So why should I trust that the picture they’re painting for me is the whole picture? Why should I believe that they’ll faithfully report the facts, even if they’re damaging to their cause? Why should I think that they’re going to show me both sides equally, the pros and the cons? Of course they won’t: they’re in the business of selling a conservative ideology, and those things don’t sell their product very well.

The entire problem can be avoided by going to as many of the original sources as possible for yourself, taking them all with a grain of salt, listening to the conservative and liberal editorial voices on both sides, and making up your mind for yourself. But some people can’t stop advocating for only listening to the conservative editorial voices. So either they can’t think for themselves, and thus have to rely on a “conservative” editorial source telling them what to think, or they’re not really interested in the truth, just in hearing what they want to hear, so it doesn’t matter to them if the conservative source is biased to the point of distorting the truth.

Which is it?

Warning: the contents of this post are personal and probably won’t interest the majority of readers. These “progress update” posts are as much for me as anyone, but I encourage you to read through them and post any questions or encouragements in the comments. Thanks!

I’m halfway through my first month under my new goal plan, and I just wanted to give a quick update.

Habits
The first week of the month was rough…I got caught up in client work and trying to get BlueSwarm.com out the door and things unraveled quickly. I spent last week trying to get things back on track and stabilized. Things are running smoothly again and hopefully I’ll be able to keep it up through the end of the month. I’m also considering dropping the “morning pages” daily habit, but we’ll see.

Oh, and I didn’t manage to do my weekly review for GTD on Friday, so I’ll be doing it today instead

Projects
I had a bit too much on my plate, so I’ve cut one of my projects out and severely de-emphasized another. I’m hoping that this should free up some time and mental cycles. I’m hoping to clean out a couple more projects within the next few months.

Goals
My 30-day goals are going ok, but I’m running about one week behind where I should be on most of the goals. I’m going to severely kick it up a notch over the next seven days, which should put me in striking distance to most of the goals with a week to go in September. I’ve also decided to drop one of my goals, which was to go completely paperless in my record-keeping. The scanner I want to use for that costs several hundred dollars, and I feel that some other things are a higher priority right now, so I’m bumping that goal back to the 90-day mark.

Thanks to all of you who have asked how I’m doing with my goals and habits. Your interest and encouragement have been most helpful. Please continue to keep me accountable!

The last week has been a rough one. I’ve been very busy juggling client work and working feverishly to get BlueSwarm.com out the door. We’re very close and I hope to be posting about that any day now. Anyway, my daily habits fell apart sometime around last Wednesday and I’ve been fighting to catch up on things and get back into the swing of it since then. I realized today that a third of September is now gone, and I can feel the weight of my 30-day goals pressing in on me. I think I’m going to hit most of them, but there’s one or two that are going to be a real stretch.

Sometimes I feel like I can never get ahead, but I have to remember that perfection is NOT the goal, progress is. If I set perfection up as the ultimate aim, I tend to wait until things are perfect, but they never are.

So I’m jumping back into things today, even though it’s already past 5pm and I’m swamped and the easy thing to do would be to tell myself that I’ll get a fresh start tomorrow. The problem is that tomorrow turns into next week and next month and next year and never. Today is all that matters.

And please, If you see me on Twitter, ask me how my daily habits and goals are going

I’ve spent the last few weeks putting together a master goal plan, and I wanted to share a few things that I’ve learned from the process.

1. Keep it SMART

It’s cliche, but the SMART acronym is actually a useful device for ensuring that your goals are as effective as possible. It stands for Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic, and Timely. These five words vary slightly depending on who you ask, but the basic concept remains the same. Goals like “get in better shape” are not that useful because it’s hard to know when you’ve achieved it, or even what you’re working towards.

2. Categorize for balance

I like to break my life into different areas, like Personal, Professional, Financial, Physical, Spiritual, etc. and ensure that I have one or two goals for each category, to ensure that I’m not ignoring a large swath of my life as I strive for success in another.

3. Consider scope

I’ve got my goals split into different timelines for different periods of time. Here are my current time periods:

• 30 day
• 90 day
• 1 year
• 3 year
• 5 year
• 10 year

I generally have more goals in the timelines that are sooner, and fewer goals in the timelines that are farther out. And the goals get a little more general and higher-level the farther out you go, because so much in my life will change over the next ten years that it’s hard to say who I’ll be or what I’ll be interested in.

4. Don’t forget habits

In addition to the actual goals that I want to accomplish, I maintain a list of habits that I want to do on a regular basis that will help me move towards those goals. I have seven daily habits that I do Mon - Fri, a couple weekly habits, and a couple of monthly habits.

5. Plan for review

One of the biggest reasons that my lists of goals have slipped in the past is that I didn’t have a clear plan or process for reviewing my goals on a regular basis. One of my daily habits now is to review my goals. I’m currently reviewing all the goal timelines, but I think it would be fine to review the ones farther out on a more infrequent basis, such as weekly or monthly. The point is, determine an actual schedule to read through your goal plan and consider whether your current daily actions and habits are moving you closer towards those goals.

6. Track your progress

In addition to reviewing your goals on a regular basis, you’ll need to keep creating new goal plans and recording the outcome of the previous one, in accordance with the timeline of the goals. For example, at the top of every one of my goal timelines, I’ve got the date where that goal plan ends. At the end of that period, I’ll record the progress for every goal and write a new one for that length of time. For example, at the end of the next 30 days, I’ll record the progress for my 30 day list of goals, and then write my list for the next 30 days. After 90 days, I’ll put together my next 90 day list of goals, and so on. That way, I’ll always have a list of things that I’m working towards, and there’s a natural and organic progression of creating new goals based on the latest

7. Be accountable

You have your goals, you’re rocking along, and then you hit a snag. You’ve got a goal deadline coming up and you’re just not there yet. The easy thing to do is just push it back to another timeline and not worry too much about it. This is especially easy when no one will know except for you. But when you’ve got friends and family asking you how your goals are coming, it becomes harder to put them off until later. Find someone who is as passionate as you about reaching their goals and ask them to keep you accountable. It makes a difference.

8. Be flexible

People change. What you think you want in ten years will almost certainly change over the course of a decade, and it doesn’t make any sense to force yourself to adhere to an end that you’re no longer passionate about. So don’t be afraid to change your mind along the way, and adjust your goals accordingly. On the other hand, sometimes you gotta stick it out. One of my favorite books for figuring out the difference is The Dip by Seth Godin

Warning: this post is personal in nature and relatively useless unless you like dogs. So if you’re looking for action-oriented info or something other than entertainment, this isn’t the post for you

About five weeks ago, my wife and I welcomed two new members to our family: two beagle puppies named Barkley and Bianca. They’ve been a lot of work, but we’re really enjoying them. They’re almost twelve weeks at this point, and we’re both really shocked at how good they are. They sleep in separate crates at night, they sleep through the whole night, they don’t cry when they’re left alone, they don’t really bark, they sleep a lot, and they have a pretty well-adjusted nature in general. Hopefully this isn’t just a phase, but we’re working hard with them on training and we’re taking them to puppy classes so they get plenty of early socialization with other people and dogs.

Though they’ve been great overall, it’s not all awesome. For example, it’s been pretty difficult to get into a routine with them. Before we got them, I would get up every morning at 4:15am and head to my office, but now Alexis and I trade off days getting up with them in the morning and taking care of them for the bulk of the day. As I can’t get a lot done while at home, this has impacted my productivity. However, we’re getting back into a routine and I’m hopeful that my productivity will end up close to pre-canine levels.

If you want to see more pictures, check them out here:
http://flickr.com/photos/ryanwaggoner/sets/72157606335459315/

Today is my 26th birthday. It was a low-key affair, just hanging out and spending a bit of time with my wife before grabbing some dinner. Relaxing. I can’t help but be a little depressed on my birthday…I always feel like I should have accomplished more over the previous year than I did.

I just finished reading “How to Get Rich” by Felix Dennis, a British publishing mogul worth somewhere in the neighborhood of $900 million. The book is an incredibly frank appraisal of wealth, what it takes to get it, keep it, enjoy it, and the prices you pay along the way. Best of all, it’s actually written by a guy who built incredible wealth, rather than a guy who made most of his riches off of books he’s written telling people how to get wealthy. Anyway, one of the things that stood out to me was where he said that he would give it all up and everything he would ever make just to be young again. And I think that many wealthy people would say the same. He states that if you are young, you are far, far richer than anyone much older than you can ever be, because you have a lot more time than they do, and time is the most valuable resource we have.

I completely agree, and for me, building wealth is about building the ability to own my time and do what i choose with it. Additionally, wealth buys access to better health care, which can both improve the quality and the quantity of the time that we have in our lives. And if radical life extension becomes a reality during my lifetime, the unfortunate truth is that those with wealth will have access to it sooner than others.

I guess the trick is finding an area to build wealth in that you enjoy, so that you don’t spend your entire life toiling away at something you hate just to build wealth, and thus lose the time you were trying to save in the first place.