This month marks the end of "The Trommetter Times" as you've known it for the last four years. I will no longer focus on political issues, but turn more toward personal blogging. I look at this as a growth opportunity for me personally.
But I'm not going to stop writing about politics and current events. Jonathan Pait and I are working to start up a site called the Tarheel Voice. Jonathan is the editor of the Common Voice, based in Greenville, South Carolina. He has a vision to expand the Common Voice throughout the United States.
I consider the Common Voice and all it's sister sites to be a grass roots effort to educate people and get them involved in politics. By becoming the Managing Editor of the Tarheel Voice, I hope to do for North Carolina news and politics what Jonathan has done for South Carolina.
Some of you know I used to live in the Piedmont Triad region of NC. For the past three years I've lived in Greenville, SC. Now I'm moving back to NC to live in the Charlotte area. This is a stressful time for me, so Tarheel Voice startup may be a little slow but I'm committed to making it work.
I hope to be able to be able to promote the Common Voice on sites like wbt.com, The Rhinoceros Times and maybe even Charlotte.com. There are lots of sites out there that talk about North Carolina politics and I want to promote the Tarheel Voice through their message boards.
I really have to put myself in a category like conservative, liberal or moderate. In my Common Voice bio, I call myself a Christian Libertarian. That means I agree with conservatives on a lot of issues, but disagree with them on others. Some of my libertarian ideas shock my conservative friends.
As a libertarian, I'm open to the free discussion of ideas from all points of view. I don't like people who "drink the kool-aid," meaning they swallow the party line on everything. Think for yourself, express your ideas coherently and I'll engage in an honest discussion with you. It's OK to pick apart somebody else's argument, but you've crossed the line when you start to pick apart the person.
Getting content for the Tarheel Voice shouldn't be hard. There are a lot of issues that we can talk about in North Carolina politics these days. There's the potential breakup of the Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools, school re-segregation and funding. The NC legislature is considering a Constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage as a preemptive strike against judicial activism. There are issues of growth and protecting the environment here in Mecklenburg, Union, Cabarrus and Gaston counties. I know there have to be other people out there who want to write about these ideas, I just haven't met them yet. It would be cool to get a radio talk show host to write a weekly column, maybe somebody from WBT. (Jonathan scored a major coup when he got Ralph Bristol to write for the Common Voice.)
It will probably take a little time to get to a point where we could sell ads on the Tarheel Voice, but I think there's definitely a possibility to create some revenue for the Common Voice family of web sites.
I hope Jonathan and I can work something out. I want to jump right into the issues of the day here in North Carolina. I don't want family issues to get in the way. At least for a little while, I'll be able to devote my evenings to Tarheel Voice startup since I'm living in Charlotte while my family is still in Greenville.
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