At the request of the CBC, this post has been deleted. I have further details about this here.
Farewell to Ianism
Another blogger has hung up his keyboard. Ian of Ianism made his departure even more abrupt and final than Andrew at Bound by Gravity and I’m sad.
Before I ran into Ian, my dealings with libertarians were far less cordial. I should caution that my interaction with libertarians was (a) rare and (b) took place when I was far younger and far less level headed. Actually, my debates took place in the newsgroup misc.transport.urban-transit, wherein a self-professed libertarian (actually an objectivist deeply in love with Ayn Rand) parked himself there and called all users of public transit “welfare scum”. We had a few battles. He called me a communist, I called him heartless. It was all harsh and personal.
But when this individual actually got to talking about his beliefs, it became clear that there was intelligence there, and the internal consistency of libertarian thought was daunting to debate. I would still rather have debated that than gotten as down and dirty as we got, but my respect of the viewpoint remained.
Ian had that intelligence, that logical consistency, and he kept his debates from getting personal. On some issues we fought like cats. He could needle with the best of us, but much of the sting came from the intellectual strength of his positions. To all those who engaged him, he treated them with respect. His love for life, for winemaking and for his son also shone through in his writing. And now he’s gone. One more signal has been silenced in a whole lot of noise.
Good luck to all your endeavours, Ian. If you come back, please let us know. You’ll always be welcome in the Blogging Alliance of Non-Partisan Canadians.
7 Comments
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(Posted on November 22, 2005 2:27 AM )
Ummm.. wow.. you sure you’re talking about the same “Ianism” as everyone else? :)
Hey James.. thanks for your comments. I’m “emoting” on them and getting a swelled head.
I’m still reading blogs.. but at some point, some time ago, my blog kind of took over from my “doing” liberty - and when I realized that, it took me five minutes of thought to shut her down. And here I am, at 2AM, after spending a great day (to me), with my son, and sipping some wonderful (to me) homemade wine before I hit the sack.
On a personal note to you - keep in touch. I’d love to do a beer with you sometime.
I’ll leave you with this thought - I respect people, but I don’t always respect their opinions.
And for those who decide to think I was/am disrespectful of poeple.. well.. oh well.. I can’t help how you think :) What I find or found funny.. guess you didn’t :)
I might blog again.. I dunno.. but I do know I really need to get back to chasing women, making a enough money to support all the “bad” things I want to do and experience in life before I die, regardless of what others think of those things, and watch my awesome son learn and grow.
He’s just over three, and already he’s trying to read and sound out words!
Yeah, about five paragraphs ago, I said, “I’ll leave you with this…” but one more thing, James…
Forget everything everyone tells you about child raising, or what you are “expected” to do. That little baby of yours will “raise” itself as long as all you do is give it tons of love, let it explore the world, give her freedom (and in doing so, only being there to protect her from herself.. but not to stop her from learning and experiencing), and you’ll have a baby that will love you forever. You don’t own that baby. She’s her own individual. Let her discover things. Let her discover her own interests, limitations, and encourage her to go beyond those limitations as much as possible, regardless of what other experts say you should do with her.
Screw the “experts.” Your daughter will be her own expert on herself. All you do is provide love. She has no idea of “right” or “wrong” - the only ideas she has to learn more about her world. Never tell her something is too dangerous for her to do.. just let her do.. and be there to rescue her when she needs it.
Don’t worry about your mistakes - you will make plenty of them. Just recognize them and move on.
And by God, don’t be telling her about some “social contract” either!! :P
(Posted on November 23, 2005 5:05 PM )
Nice girl, Stephanie, but as a wiggeed out Engllish teacher, I wish she’d keep her singulars and plurals under control. I would have come, but who wants picky English teachers. Ivan
(Posted on November 23, 2005 8:02 PM )
Dear James: I have just read a couple of your other posts and my hat is off to you.
If you are truly a left wing type guy I gotta say it is pleasant reading your stuff. No Ranting and raving. I’m the one doing the drooling. Your funny. It’s refreshing.
I am definately right of Center and actually reading someone from the left with something intelligent to say is a treat.
I will probably never agree with you but I will certainly take the time to listen to you.
Ok thats incorrect your Advice to the mainstream parties appears pretty sound so well there you go.:nod:
(Posted on November 23, 2005 9:21 PM )
And they say the CBC isn’t biased…pshhh.
Good to know that they’ll be in the liberal’s back pocket again this time around…if you work in the PMO that is.
(Posted on November 23, 2005 9:44 PM )
It seems like the Canadian blogosphere is in a decline.
Alot of decent bloggers on the right (BBG, Mike Brock, Andrew Coyne, etc) have hung up the skates, so to speak.
I think blogging may becoming way to saturated where most of the content is political rheoric and not enough actual discussion.
(Posted on November 23, 2005 11:10 PM )
You write: “I expect to be voting Green this time around — unless the NDP mount another strong challenge.”
Aren’t you a member of the non-partisan alliance? You’re a (explitive) liar and should be exposed as one. Non-partisan? KISS MY (explitive) (explitive) !
(Posted on November 24, 2005 10:28 AM )
Thank you for your comment, Concerned Canadian. I hope you don’t mind that I cleaned up your profanity a little. Fair question, otherwise.
I organized the Non-Partisan Alliance, true, but I never said I was apolitical. As is stated in the criteria of the BANPC, the purpose of the alliance is to give those bloggers who may be political (or not) but who may not be interested in joining the partisan blogrolls (the Blogging Tories, LibLogs and Blogging NDP), an opportunity to share links and increase their traffic from websites which measure the number of blog links you receive.
Since then, the Green Party has established a partisan blogroll of their own, and one or two sites of the BANPC belong, but they will be grandfathered in. You will notice that I am not a member of the Green Party blogroll alliance.
I am very political, as are many of the other members of the BANPC. Look around, and you will see supporters of the NDP, Liberals, Conservatives, libertarians — even a George W. Bush fan or two. They’re welcome because they’ve decided against joining the other blogrolls. And I am pleased at the diversity of political thought that we’ve managed to gather under one banner.
I still consider myself non-partisan, in that I am not beholden to any political party. I am currently leaning towards voting Green. I might not. I might vote NDP, I might not. I might even vote Conservative if they get their act together and adopt a more libertarian social platform. But apolitical I am not, and I won’t apologize for that.