What happens in national and state politics--environmentalism, health care, and every place else somebody is trying to shove socialism up my nose--does affect me personally. Ideology is imbedded in almost everything that's going on today. You know, we used to just call all this crap "weather."

But...

Nobody here is a policymaker. All together, we comprise a couple dozen or so votes. If every last person here other than me was a raving communist, it wouldn't affect my own life in the least.

Why die on this tiny grassy hill, far from the internet mainstream?

That gave me a lot to think about. I'm still not sure of the answer.

I think some of it stems from the fun I have just assembling information into an ordered point. I like researching, and finding out if the truth has anything to do with the Conventional Wisdom. So many times, it doesn't. I like to share this thinking--"Look what I found out."

I also like the back-and-forth, if it's real back-and-forth.

Both of these come under "mental exercise," I suppose.

Some of it might be a concern that if the point can't be made with a Space Board clientele, with an above-average knowledge of science and rational thinking, then where could it be made? There may be a basic flaw in this. ;)

Maybe it's something else.