Okay, Okay…

Over the last couple of days I’ve been thinking about anonymity, of this blog, and of the internet in general.  I wrote a post justifying why I keep the site anonymous, and the post’s comments section rapidly devolved into a pissing match with long time reader Tim Weaver.  You will note that said post has been deleted.

I also fulfilled the request of someone whose name I had reposted from an online petition in an earlier post, after saying that I wouldn’t.  I changed my mind.

The reason that I changed it is actually thanks to Tim Weaver.  I read a post of his on his new blog about how Obama is basically a failure of a president.  Tim and I first started bickering on each other’s blogs during the 2008 campaign, and I recall stating not so subtly that Obama was not a fit and proper person to be president.  Not that McCain was much better, but I knew Obama would make a mess of things and he has.

So it got me thinking about this person whose name I initially didn’t want to redact.  One of the observations I made in my initial post on this subject was that when you Googled her name, my blog was the #2 hit, and actually, any links that were relevant to this person in question fell below my post, because there is more than one person with that name in the world and the first hit wasn’t her.  I also pointed out that the internet is forever.

But then I thought longer about it and I realized that I love the internet because it lets you be anonymous when you want to be, but at the same time, it punishes you when you aren’t (whether by choice or by accident).  I know that the internet is forever, but I wish it weren’t.  Every person says things they may grow to regret, and we should all be allowed to grow out of our beliefs.  The petition signer may have come around to the fact that the notion of forgiving student debt outright is ludicrous, but were I to leave that petition signature and its accompanying comment on my blog in perpetuity, the world would never know that because all they’ll see is what this person may have thought when she was 24.

Ultimately, one of the reasons that I write these posts is because I want people to change their minds about things and come around to my superior worldview.  It would be hypocritical of me to ask people to change their minds, but then never actually let them by enshrining what they used to think on the internet forever.

I do want to reiterate one point that I made in my original work on anonymity, though.  It’s not cowardly to host an anonymous blog.  In my view, it’s foolish to host a blog which discusses polarizing topics (e.g., politics) under your real name unless you are making a career for yourself as a political analyst.  The only people who would find my blog by Googling my real name (were I to use it here) are friends and family.  I don’t want to offend my friends or my family.  I do share this blog with some people (who therefore do know my real name), but I do so selectively.  I only share my blog with people who won’t get their panties in a bunch.

My godmother defriended me on Facebook because I commented on her wall that I didn’t think Obama had done anything to deserve the Nobel Peace Prize.  A general rule of thmb is not to discuss politics at work, or with family, and that’s why I don’t use my real name on this blog.

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