It’s been a while since I have posted relies to reader mail, although I have replied to messages privately.
Here is a sample of email messages and questions, sometimes verbatim, sometimes paraphrased, along with my answers. The messages are in black, and my replies in blue.
What’s a good reference for blogging?
I would suggest the EFF, where there’s solid information for bloggers. Here’s the link:
http://w2.eff.org/bloggers/lg/questions.php
I am a member, and I would strongly encourage other bloggers to join.
What’s the farthest place from which you’ve received email?
Singapore.
What’s your goal for blogging and/or do you have a final outcome you’d like?
I write from a libertarian perspective, and I have no particular outcome in mind.
When one writes on a topic, that’s all one does. I have no plan to produce a given outcome – blogging is a lawful right, and it’s the exercise of the right that matters. Bloggers – just modern-day pamphleteers — over-think their role if they worry about producing a result.
It’s some of the critics of blogging – that is, critics of lawful, constitutional American speech — who typically want an outcome: they want to silence those who write, or intimidate them into writing differently.
I have committed to my second year of blogging, through my second anniversary next May. I will keep blogging past that, surely, but I am not concerned with a long-range plan.
I have no idea what kinds of posts will present themselves.
Do you care/know if some people in Whitewater read your blog? Do you want certain readers?
I am fortunate that people stop by, and that readership is strong and growing. Candidly, I was happy and contented even when readership was much smaller.
I am not writing for any one person. I never expect any given person to visit the site.
Sometimes, people will ask me if I know whether person X or Y might have read a particular post. I have no idea. Bloggers should not expect readers, especially among critics. It’s enough to write lawfully what one believes.
There are lots of clever people in Whitewater, Wisconsin, but there are also quite a few officials who have listened to their own voices for so long that those sounds are all they hear and know.
Will conditions ever change / can libertarians / can bloggers bring about change?
Yes, but changes happen over a long period, and in unexpected ways. Look at the amazing work of Radley Balko, at Reason, against the slipshod and disgraceful practices of Mississippi medical examiner Dr. Steven Hayne. Hayne was more than a fool – his aberrant professional practices led to innocent people being convicted of serious crimes.
Hayne disgraced himself, his office, his state, and his profession: he is an example of persistent and unrepentant failure. People all around Hayne looked the other way, rationalized his conduct, and lied in his defense. We mock other countries for people like him, yet he was a stain on Mississippi and America for years.
Balko wrote over and again about Hayne, but that disgusting official persisted in office for years, until being shoved out only recently.
Balko’s triumph, along with that of the Innocence Project, came about only though an indefatigable commitment, and dogged determination.
A man or woman committed to the truth should be willing to stay the course – it’s a small price compared to the hardship ordinary people experience from self-interested, dishonest, rationalizing officials.
Any changes in readership?
Yes, I have more libertarian readers than when I started. A statistics package cannot always tell that, however. It’s a solid guess based on email, and sites from which I receive visitors.
I’ll add a post on this topic soon.
There’s a tendency to read too much into stats, and to overstate readership, by many web publishers. I only report unique, human readers, when I comment on overall readership.
I have no idea why one post is more popular than another. It’s enough to keep writing, and be happy that readership is growing.