That's what I keep telling myself, and in many ways I'm sick and tired of this feeling that I can't write posts about anything anymore. Too much self censorship is getting in my way. There's a lot of stuff I want to write about and can't. Some of it is personal to me, but it might spill over and hurt other people.

I figured I could always write about my personal stuff. But it's tougher and tougher.

On top of that, it's increasingly impossible to write about political stuff. (And a longstanding complaint of mine is that the personal meets the political in the form of the god-damned "Culture War"....)

In a word, I feel whipsawed.

Politically, things have reached a point where the conventional right wing and the conventional left wing (here I'll use terms I hate -- "liberals" and "conservatives") are agreed around a basic communitarian "center" (again, for lack of a better word). This center consists of agreement on a huge role for government, on virtually unlimited spending, and on morality-based restrictions on both economic and personal life. Meanwhile, the "Culture War" pits people against each other by endlessly politicizing the paltry remnants still uncontaminated by government (or quasi-governmental bureaucracy) in their personal lives. Children are to be raised and indoctrinated by the state, and not only is no child to be left alone, but in a dumbed down world where adults are treated as children, no adult is to left alone either.

Sorry to sound so negative, but it's been bothering me.

I don't know which "side" I find more loathsome, and the "middle" is at least as bad as both. To be a libertarian nowadays means being SOL.

I hope I'm alone in feeling this way. I wouldn't wish such feelings on others.

Hence the need to shut up. But this annoying "need" places me in a conflict of interest as a blogger.* I don't know whether to bare my soul, or just bear it.

* Unfortunately for me, a stated purpose of this blog is to "End the Culture War."

Excuse me?

End the driving force of politics?

UPDATE: Speaking of "Culture War," I see that a high school student went on a rampage yesterday, killing an assistant principal and wounding two others. Glenn Reynolds' wife, Dr. Helen, offers some insights into the kid's mental pathology ("active depression that manifests itself in irritability, anger and blaming others for their problems"), and links to Michael Silence's roundup.

I'm against the usual orgy of blaming everyone except the kid and I agree with both Les Jones and SayUncle. Fortunately, most people with active depression don't shoot up schools. If their pathology consists of blaming others for their problems, I think society makes a similar mistake when it blames others for their actions.

There always have been and always will be bad people in this world. Arm the teachers.