Simon Says

"Being willing to change allows you to move from a point of view to a viewing point--a higher, more expansive place, from which you can see both sides."

   - Thomas Crum, American motivational speaker, writer

Andrew Leigh, writing for National Review Online, has interviewed Rogor L. Simon, screenwriter, novelist and most recently, an avid blogger. I enjoyed reading what Simon had to say about his political transformation and the fun he's having with his popular weblog among other things.

On Blogging and His Blog:

"It caught on because I'm a disaffected liberal. There's a lot of others like that out there...It's the first time in my life that I have no editor, no publisher, no movie star editing what I write...I get email from all over the world--hundreds daily."

On the War On Terror:

"(September 11) was the point of no return. We are in a titanic struggle. I think it's bigger than the Cold War because God is in it. It's like the 30 Years War. It's going to get worse before it gets better."

On Economic Issues:

"I am puzzled. I'm more pro-market than I was. I'm pro-free trade, pro-NAFTA."

On Social Issues:

"I'm very liberal on social issues: pro-gay marriage, pro-choice, separation of church and state. I think racism and sexism are the greatest evils in the world."

On Kerry (when he was at Yale University with him):

"I was militantly antiwar. So was Kerry, publicly and vocally." (It threw Simon for a loop when Kerry volunteered for service, striking him as a supremely hypocritical act. Kerry's actions didn't match his expressed convictions.)

On Bush:

(Simon supports Bush's reelection because)...I don't want the world to see us repudiate what he's done."

In reading through Leigh's account of this interview, I was struck by how closely much of what Simon says he stands for parallels my own political orientation--neither all Democrat, nor all Republican, but a mixture of both. Maybe it's time we formed a new political party, for my sense is there are thousands of Americans who feel as Simon and I do. I believe we would support a party whose planks were based on these more centrist views.

Any volunteers?

Update: Well, I didn't expect this to happen so soon, but here's a potential volunteer. Joe Carter, on his weblog The Evangelical Outpost, also wants to start a new political party. I'm not sure he and I are singing from the same sheet of music, though.