If you read this site yesterday, you probably noticed a new name — Michael van der Galien, who has the weblog Liberty and Justice. He is the latest co-blogger to join The Moderate Voice.
He is a law student based in the Netherlands and on his site describes his views this way:
LIBERAL CONSERVATISM – THE ESSENCE OF LIBERALISM The World Of Politics, From A European’s Point Of View European Liberalism Equals American Moderate/ Conservatism
Why did we invite him? If you look at CONTACT to the LEFT of this post, you’ll see we have a lot of co-bloggers. But due to various reasons (personal commitments, geographical and job changes, or blog burnout) several of them cannot post much, for now at least. We haven’t removed anyone’s name (they are more than welcome to resume when they want and can) but we wanted to ensure we have enough people posting due to TMV’s extensive travels when he can’t post.
Michael van der Galien is an exciting addition for several reasons. One of them: he’s based in Europe, Michael Stickings is based in Canada and Swaraaj Chauhan (our other newest co-blogger) is based in India. The rest of us are based in the U.S. (if TMV’s home state of California is considered the U.S.) This gives TMV a variety of perspectives.
And another word on that: if you read this site regularly you will see that some posts may be center, some may be center-left, some may be center right. Not all cobloggers agree on all issues. And why should that be a surprise: ALL POLLS shows that Democrats, Republicans, centrists, moderates, liberals, conservatives are NOT monolithic groups with every single person agreeing in lockstep.
And, SORRY we will NOT censor cobloggers or kick them off the site if they disagree with the owner of this site on an issue. If it were a huge disagreement, TMV himself would do his own post.
Over the past few months we’ve had emails complaining about each and every coblogger: people on the right think so and so is too far left; people on the left think so and so is too far right; people say TMV himself is either wishy-washy or if he raises a point about something stick him in a category right or left (he was blasted by right and left websites in the same week, several weeks).
But if you’re new to this site we should repeat something we learned a long time ago: if your eyes happen to read a thought or position you disagree with, it won’t give you brain cancer. You’ll survive. And since you’ll be alive, you might even be motivated to leave a comment in the comments section explaining why you disagree — which will add to the discussion and to the interplay of ideas.
Another reason why TMV invited our latest coblogger: if you look at his blogroll, it resembles this site’s in offering a huge menu of differing positions. And when we read his posts, on some of them he seemed to the right on others to the left. In short: he thinks and works through the issues and then gives you his conclusion.
Actually, yesterday he did this post and this post. But we officially say “Welcome” today. So: WELCOME!
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.