Not Polls

I’ve written about polls and why I don’t pay attention to them. The information they provide does not include the thousands of folks who won’t take a poll survey.

We’ve always known that the Silent Majority exists so this video was very interesting to me. I sort of like Tim Pool but I can’t watch a lot of his videos – I have trouble getting through one – because he talks too much. He exhausts my ears. Ben Shapiro talks a lot as well but he does it so quickly, he’s done before my ears complain about assault.

So the title of this video surprised me and I watched it. I fast forward when I need a break from him talking. In an instance like this, where he is sharing an article, moving the red bar allows me to get past him and into the purpose of what he is talking about.

I did a piece for NEO awhile back about the art of glass blowing and a Netflix program about that. I was sort of on a rant and after censoring myself (on my own, no coercion), the point of the piece was misdirected and the piece itself was weaker than my intention. I sent an email to NEO and basically apologized because I had self-censored and it damaged the article. Neo replied that I didn’t have to censor but then I’d have to take the flack that might have ensued and simply mentioned that going too far out of bounds might possibly put the site at risk.

Until I had written – and then watered down – that article, I didn’t realize that I censor myself a lot. The Cato article that Tim Pool shares in the above video was reinforcement of how far the Left has won on the use of words, and how even someone like me, with no particular axe to grind, moderates themselves just because we don’t want people ‘in our faces’. There is another aspect as well, I believe.

The idea that I can use the weakest, most gentle words to describe someone or something to which I may take exception, and those words could be used to support someone’s claim that I verbally abused them or a group. I am a full-grown adult; I take full responsibility for the things I say, do, and write.

In today’s climate, where does that leave me? Who do I talk to? Who do I share my opinions with? I proudly belong to a site in the United Kingdom that shares my views and right here, at our beloved National Energy Observer, I can share my thoughts and insights. That’s two places – only two places – where I feel safe enough to take a shot at airing my outlook on life and politics. In the whole big world. Two places.

This place, NEO, is my ‘not poll’.