Why I Blog.

There is a bit of a debate on the nature of political blogging in Ireland at the moment. So here I think I shall lay down my thoughts on the subject.

Why do I blog. First thing you should know about me is I like a good scrappy debate and blogging lets me do this. But the real reason I do it is because it gives me something to do. What else would I be doing at this time if I didn’t have my blog watching TV probably. Einstein once explained relativity like so. "If you are talking to a pretty girl an hour seems like a minute, if you are sitting on a hot stove a minute seems like an hour. "

The difference with TV is you get the time dilation of talking to the girl with the accomplishment of the stove.

With Blogging you are also wasting time but you are learning as you go. You are getting to know your own beliefs. It makes you think about them something I rarely ever did before.

Now considering that I designed the Irishelection.com site and am the largest contributor. You would think that I would be one of the biggest fans of the site. And believe that it has the ability to really be a force in the next election. But in reality it doesn’t. Not due to anything to do with the quality of the writing which is very well written or the quality of the arguments. It is due to the fact that blogging as a force will not take of in Ireland for now. What has fuelled it in America has been division. Ideological division. When you think that the liberal socialist greens could go into power with the Right wing conservative Fine Gael. You begin to realise this will not happen in Ireland. Without this divide people will not be driven to find alternatives to the mainstream media to back up their side. Division leads argument, consensus leads to apathy. We vote for managers not ideas and who wants to dissect what a manger does. They are either good or bad.

As for Richard assertion that most bloggers post wouldn’t get past editors. Well considering some of the tripe that gets into papers these days (This is not a dig at Richard before anyone says anything) you have to wonder. Is there any editors in this country? But that is not the point of blogging. Blogging will never replace the media. It will mearly replace the letters pages. Where the really people get to air their views.

I probably do suffer delusions of grandeur and get a kick out of being asked on to a radio show. But I know deep down it is simply just that a delusions. My paltry readership is never going to make me a force for change. But still I get a kick out of it and in the end of the day that is all that matters.