Blogging Reigns Me In Until I Feel Like Bursting

Blogging has an “anything goes” reputation. Bloggers are known to go off on extreme tangents and tell you exactly what they think. Sometimes anonymous, sometimes angry, blogging has traditionally been known as ranting.

For me, blogging is the opposite. Sometimes around elections I feel like I’m going to burst.

Through the years, I’ve never been one to tell people how to vote. Often people ask me, even on Election Day, when they show up at the poles and want to do the right thing but realize they haven’t been paying enough attention. They don’t know the difference. They want someone they trust who has been paying attention to tell them how to vote. I won’t do it.

I’ll never forget the time I took an Iranian neighbor to the polls to vote as an American citizen for the first time. She asked me to explain the issues. I fairly and evenly laid out the arguments on both sides. After all, I was a philosophy major and that’s what we do. Then she proceeded to tell me how she was voting and it was opposite of how I was voting. At least I had proof of my abilities.

So here I am blogging for our local community blog. We don’t endorse candidates and welcome the arguments on both sides of the issues. I see comments on the blog and I can’t respond. I can’t join in with my opinion. If there are facts, I can correct them, but I can’t even tell my friends who I’m really supporting.

Last night I sat there for a long time on Facebook staring at a friend’s status. I completely agree with him. I feel people are not saying it enough. I had the comment open. I stopped myself.

Thank goodness for my husband. He gets the brunt of it and we’re not even in the same political party.

I’ve argued with a journalist on her blog about whether I can actually write about my community while participating in it. I know I can. If I have an opinion, I tell everyone up front but I won’t ever admit who’s getting my vote.

Lately I feel like everyone’s entitled to their own opinion except for me. How crazy is it that a blogger can’t give her opinion?

This really is a whole new animal.