WELCOME TO FIC’S NEW BLOG
December 1st, 2006 by Brian
This is the blog formerly known as “Connecticut in the Crosshairs.” Why did we change the name of a successful blog? Primarily because everybody kept referring to it as FIC Blog, so we figured that the if the name fit, use it. More importantly, we have done a complete blog redesign and upgrade so this was the perfect time for a shorter and more fitting name.
FIC Blog is meant to help fill the massive vacuum created by Connecticut’s liberal media. We provide the perspective you won’t get reading the Courant or Post editorial pages. (Read here front pages too . . . then again, these papers let their liberal elitism seep through in even the business sections, so pretty much the whole papers). Don’t worry: your old links and feeds to Connecticut in the Crosshairs will still work, but we will now have the functionality of a professional blog with all of the bells and whistles. We’ve added comments, better permalinks, and all sorts of other geek-related functionality.
Connecticut in the Crosshairs began in 2004 and quickly became one of the most viewed political blogs in the state. The media tried to ignore us and the liberal blogs loved to mock us (which just made us smile and blog more!) but we kept growing until we were receiving over 32,000 page views a month. Given that the technology we were using was, frankly, junk, this was a major coup. But we’ve learned a lot since then and we now have one of the best blogging platforms around. In the future we will be adding even more functionality, with a video and audio podcast already in the works.
Faith, Family & Freedom – sounds like a great mix!
Hello.
Congrats on your new blog.
I just read Colin McEnroe’s blog that pointed out your blog, and your “opponents” list. I would like you to add my blog, “ConnecticutBob.com”, to your list of “opponents”.
My blog represents Progressive Liberal Values in Connecticut.
We are a Pro-Choice, Pro-Women’s Rights, Pro-Gay Marriage blog, and we are in favor of complete separation of Church and State, to the point that we feel we should remove the words “Under God” from the Pledge of Alliegence.
Basically, you can safely assume we’re pro-choice “across the board” when it comes to personal freedoms and responsibilities.
I like the idea of an “Opponents” section. Even though we may be “opponents” in our positions on the issues, I would be happy to add your blog to a list of “opponents” that I will create. We’re way more “opponent-worthy” than middle-of-the-road CTLP.
However, I would rather call it the “Distinguished Adversaries” list. That would be a little more respectful, I think.
Sincerely,
Connecticut Bob
Hi CT Bob,
We don’t mind giving people space on our blog and as you are indeed opponent-worthy we will be happy to add you to the list.
We disagree that CLP is middle-of-the-road; the vast majority of the commentary on that site skews left, and their professed “tolerance” at times seems to mask a passionate intolerance of views they define as outside of the conversation. See my Sept. 13 blog, “Religion, Politics, the CT Blogosphere and Us” for more on this.
Hi Peter,
Thanks for your prompt reply.
I’ll agree that you’re correct that CLP does tend to skew left somewhat, but you should acknowledge their inclusion right-wing and “centrist” contributors in the forum. Moreso than any other blog in CT that I’ve seen, they do allow people from both sides to post their views. If they’re intolerant of views that are “outside the conversation”, perhaps the issues raised were off-topic to the discussion.
I feel that the situation in our nation today precludes any attempt to be truly “middle-of-the-road”. The polarization that exists today is largely a product of the war in Iraq and many of the subsequent policy decisions made by the Bush Administration.
Being a centrist today is a sort of wishy-washy non-committment to taking a stand. The situation IS partisan today directly because of Bush’s policies. That’s why Joe Lieberman’s hollow rhetoric about being “bipartisan” annoyed so many of us “Lamonsters” (as you referred to us).
And for the record, I don’t condone religious intolerance. But there is a difference between intolerance and disagreement. When someone says there’s no room for any other beliefs, then I might get a little snippy.
But I also gave extensive space on my blog for the senate candidate’s interviews by Shane Griffiths from Crossroads Magazine back in October, because I felt there was very little coverage of faith-based issues in the campaign.
http://ctbob.blogspot.com/2006/10/videos-of-crossroads-faith-based.html
I feel there’s room for discussion on these issues, and because many people base their decisions on these faith-based matters, I’m very willing to blog about them.
Bob
Yes, CT Bob, thanks for linking to the Crossroads interviews. I blogged on it at the time and I think it was your site where I first noticed it.
Right now you and I are having a civil back-and-forth between a pro-lifer and a pro-choicer. For all its trumpeting–and Colin’s cheerleading–of CLP’s ideological diversity, this is what I find lacking there.
You say CLP included “right-wing” contributors. But it was only if they met a preconceived standard of what an “acceptable” conservative should be. Fiscal conservatives were tolerable but social conservatives were apparently beyond the pale.
That is what I mean about being “put outside the conversation” and not that there were off-topic comments.
There seems to be an attitude–and I see it throughout CT media: in CLP, Colin McEnroe, the Courant editorial page–that if we must engage this icky thing called conservatism then we will declare the libertarians as the legitimate right and take only them seriously. Pro-family/pro-lifers are just hateful religious fanatics who are outside of the political conversation taking place in our state.
If the Courant had just one social conservative columnist and CLP had just one social conservative among their front page bloggers I might see it differently. But that’s how it looks to me.
Some might say, perhaps looking at the current state of the CT GOP, “Well socially ‘moderate’ conservatism is the Right in CT. There are no social conservatives.”
But in order to say this you’d have to ignore the 100,000 people who signed our DOMA petition, the 6,000 we rallied at the state capitol and numerous other signs that it ain’t so. And in fact, that’s exactly what CLP and others do.
It may even be the case that we social conservatives are thicker on the ground in CT than the libertarians. Just off the top of my head, I can think of the 50 or so people who gather one Saturday a month–sometimes in freezing cold weather–to pray the rosary in front of Hartford’s abortion clinic. Maybe there’s a group of 50 libertarians somewhere that rally regularly outside of a local government building on cold, chilly days to chant “lower our taxes” or something but I haven’t heard about it.
It’s interesting to me that while “liberal Massachusetts” is willing to elect a Mormon and social conservative like Mitt Romney as their governor (twice!), social conservatives aren’t willing to tolerate moral views that come from secular society (85% of self-identified Christians state that they would be unwilling to vote for an athiest.)
I keep hearing about “liberal intolerance” from social conservatives, but I see exactly the reverse. Why lobby to block gay marriage, if you’re tolerant of moral values that are different from from your own? Someone with a different spiritual grounding than yours may not share the Family Institute’s views on abortion and birth control, so how does “tolerance” lead you to campaign for banning abortion?
Furthermore, even your specific complaints — that the Courant isn’t covering your rallies — is an argument full of holes. Not only does a cursory search of their site find ample coverage of the Family Institute, it turns up the fact that the Family Institute is quoted nearly four times as frequently as Love Makes a Family. (Indeed, you are probably quite aware of this, as even this blog has been quite happy to tout the Courant’s coverage when it suits you.) Also, you seem to resent the CT Republican Party’s drift away from religious-based social policy, but somehow find more fault with Colin McEnroe than your supposed political patrons.
To me, it seems that you are not being marginalized by sinister “liberals,” but rather are simply marginal. If no political party will carry your banner, and if the newspapers that carry the sorts of editorial activism you desire (like the Rep-Am) are outsold by the dastardly Courant by over a 4-to-1 margin, the day may come when you’re forced to realize that your views represent a passionate but miniscule portion of Connecticut’s populace, and that you’re being accorded at least as much news coverage and respect as your constituency merits.
If liberals can accept Mormon governors and Baptist presidential nominees (like Carter, Clinton, and Gore), surely you can acknowledge that your social views can form the basis of a dignified life… without forming the basis of the Connecticut state government.