This Be Luke: The New Kid on the Block

The Boss (Ian) and I had gotten into it a little bit a couple of months back as to whether that Over Oratorical Southern Buffoon, Byrd of West Virginia, had ever been a member of the KKK. (He was, in 1938.) In the process of online discussion, I checked out DMY.

It really is a remarkable piece of work, and I haven't yet reached the bottom. There are probably thousands of political sites, blogs mostly, strewn across cyberspace. Very few of them have any real merit. Wading through a minefield of unsubstantiated dogma and shrill opinion, it is a real pleasure to discover one of the good ones. It is a privilege to be invited to enter this august precinct.

And a caveat�I must disagree with most of what is posted or guess I will, for I am not a liberal.

Neither am I a conservative. Nor am I a Libertarian. Neither Democrat or Republican. Certainly not a socialist or communist. Not a Nazi. Maybe an 'independent', possibly an 'anarchist', but not, please, of the bomb throwing variety. Just the kind of anarchist who fears our individuality is being slowly drowned in a growing swamp of group identity.

I supported the over-the-hill Ralph Nader in 2004. That was a mistake. The current incarnation of the one time giant has feet of clay and a brain of mush.

Now I have been called many things�some of the favorites being 'you little shit', 'stupid kid', 'traitor', 'who the hell do you think you are', and 'Your mother should have drowned you at birth.' These are among the more printable ones. I learned the art of cussing reading my email. And yes, that is a rhetorical exaggeration. I learned to swear simply by copying my two older brothers and father, all of whom will be mortified when they read this. Serves them right; they started it. They curse like stevedores on steroids.

Over the coming weeks, I hope to be able to express some opinion and, if all goes well, indulge in dialogue with those who disagree�and agree. This business is really about communication. Basically, there are only two kinds of political websites on the Net: First, there are the sites with a strong liberal or conservative bias in which the contributors preach only to the choir. It must feel pretty good to have everybody agreeing with us all the time, but it would be a little like an argument between Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh in adjacent toilet stalls. The other type, of course, allows for healthy controversy and disagreement. We might call this 'fair and balanced', but we won't because we do not want to run afoul of Bill O'Reilly and the FNC legal department.

Like hell we don't!! O'Reilly learned to hate us two months ago for a little article entitled NEAL BOORTZ KICKS BILL O'REILLY'S POMPOUS ASS, http://expage.com/luciusson259

There is a danger when a web site presents opposing views. I began to see this about ten months ago when I started writing, as a positional conservative, for a liberal west coast site. People were sending in columns and commentary, but so heated was the rhetoric, so angry the prose that nobody was paying an iota's attention to the other side. Fortunately, the site has undergone a total change of attitude and direction thanks to the remarkable leadership of its chief wizard and bottle washer, and it is fast becoming a model platform for civilized and entertaining debate, usually.

Many liberals hate President Bush with all the passion and poison that conservatives reserve for their loathing of Ex-president Clinton. Some estimates have it as high as 25% of all people who identify themselves as Republicans and Democrats fall into these categories. This has tended to polarize our political process. I wasn't around then, but I bet that the vitriol many citizens had for Nixon in the months before his resignation was nothing compared to the dripping venom currently abroad in the land. We have more than enough politicians; we have no statesmen left in D.C.

The Republican nut thinks Clinton an evil liar who should have been impeached; the Democrat hard case is convinced that Bush and the Supreme Court stole the election down in sunny Florida.

Both are wrong. I remember watching the thirteen mincing little pissants, the so-called Republican House Managers traipsing over to the Senate side of the Capitol to impeach a sitting president for what was clearly a low crime and barely a misdemeanor. So, too, the shrill cry of 'we wuz robbed' coming from defeated Democrats in 2000, and their subsequent pledge to undermine the elected President's administration every step of the way were exercises in spoiled bratism.

Once upon a time a Republican President, Dwight David Eisenhower regularly met on Friday nights in the White House with the Congressional leaders of both parties for drinks and strategy. Sounds a hell of a lot better system than the warfare going on all around us today. Politics is a tough racket even in the best of times. It need not be completely devoid of any measure of genuine civility. How about morality?

What is missing in our nation right now is a little thing called common sense. It is absent in the arenas of politics, law, education, business, journalism, and just about everything else.

So in the next few weeks we shall have much to talk about. A number of my favorite targets include: the sorry state of American education (including teachers, the NEA, knee-jerk liberal college faculty), Political Correctness, anti-gun nuts, dishonesty and chicanery among politicians, the 24/7 news outfits, parents and parenting, and a host of others. I am, to the core pro- Bill of Rights (including the Second Amendment as I interpret the thing). I also believe that it is an individual's duty to look after his family, take care of his own retirement, and pay for his own health insurance. I am convinced that kids need firm and constructive discipline. The Woman's movement has gone too far. This country needs to control illegal immigration. Racial profiling has a legitimate place in law enforcement and in controlling terrorism. Common sense stuff, please.

My adoptive father has been involved with Civil Rights since the 1950's; some of his idealism seems to have rubbed off.

I also stand four-square behind a woman's right to make decisions about her own reproductive system. I fear the potential abuses of Mr. Ashcroft and the Patriot Act as much as I do what seems to be the Hillary Clinton agenda. Billary I can stand; Hillary I can't. He would have made a great president if he weren't married to her.

An atheist myself, I have no problem with prayer in schools, Christmas assemblies, manger scenes, and baby Jesus on the steps of city hall. I also believe in gay rights. But I do not want some Christian Fundamentalist or homosexual trying to cram his personal agenda down my throat. Live and let live. Be tolerant. But don't tread on me or mine.

Anyway, let's have some fun this year; maybe make a difference.

FYI I graduated from a public high school here in Middle Georgia last May and start college this week. A crazy family adopted me after mommy dearest ran away to feast at the trough her father's bank accounts up on The Bay State's North Shore. I was twelve then, in the seventh grade, and a pretty messed up little dude. Will turn eighteen in December, just in time for Christmas. Guess that means I can kill and be killed for my country, but can't buy a beer in a bar. Common sense?

My new Pop started me writing mostly to keep me out of trouble. He was afraid, I guess, that I would either be locked up or 'fried' as an adult before entering high school. I guess it worked. Been at it ever since. Writing is my absolute and total passion. It most probably will be my life's work.

If you go to http://members.aol.com/luciusson/contents.html you will find the TABLE OF CONTENTS to my own web site. Listed are the titles to over two hundred and fifty separate stories, fiction, raves, rants, discussion, and just plain horse-crapola. A server glitch at expage.com wiped out about a hundred of these in April; I finished rewriting them just a few days back. Some were penned by a very young Luke; some by the mature creature who now stands before you. Each title is a direct link to an online article.

For about ten months, I have also done a weekly column at http://politicalpulpit.com That experience has been a total hoot. David Allyn, the web guru, is one very classy and understanding guy who has put up with all the bull crap I could send his way.

We have a new domain at http://gospelaccordingtoluke.com which is under construction at this time.

Ciao, Until next week

Luke Angelo
The Cyberbrat Out Of Hell
Macon, Georgia
A Backwater of a racist Southern Burg
C. Joke Ellis, Mayor

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Luke Angelo, Cyberbrat Out Of Hell, lives in Macon, GA, where he regularly causes trouble and proves that the pen is far mightier than the Mayor