The Speech I Won’t Be Giving This Weekend (Part One Of Four)

This weekend in Washington D.C., the annual gathering of CPAC will take place.  CPAC, which is short for Conservative Political Action Conference, is a vital cog in the well-oiled conservative political machine that has in recent years produced win after win on the national scene and… oh, wait, that’s right…

The conference,  judging by the hyperactive hyperbole bordering on hyperventilation with which it is greeted by bloggers big and small, is the absolute to die for event of the year for everyone who’s everyone, aspires to be everyone, or holds ambitions so little as be in the same room with everyone.  It has been THE topic for weeks upon end, with Twitters twittering and Facebookers making face time and bloggers… uh, blogging.  Who’s coming?  Who’s going?  Who’s speaking?  Who’s next?  Who are you?  Who has the Who on their iPhone?  Oh wait, that’s me.

Alas, I will not be in attendance.  Not as a featured speaker.  Not as a guest speaker.  Not leaning against a speaker listening to someone speak through the speaker.  Just couldn’t swing the time off plus the $750 to attend — if I’m going to fly cross-country for an event, I’m going to go to every little everything — plus the airfare plus the hotel.  Ah well.  My schmoozing skills honed during assorted GMA Weeks will, alas, lie fallow this weekend.  And I was so looking forward to hanging with Mary Katherine Ham.  We’re such buds, y’know.

There is a tinge of regret at not joining the exhibitors, and I wish I knew how much that cost.  I have no doubt my modest collection of posters and shirts and such for this even more modest waystation on the information superhighway would be quite the hit.  Why, the blogging evangel tiles would be flying off the shelves.  Plus there’s the book.  Bet the place will be veritably crawling with people (or filled with crawling people after the assorted after-hours soirées have run their course) wanting to hear about the creators of Christian alternative rock.  Or not.  Needing to hear, yes, but I’m somewhat doubtful they’re aware of this void in their lives.  Working on it.  But back to the exhibitors: I’d do it, but only if I get the booth in-between the Catholic Family Caucus and the Islamic Free Market Institute Foundation.

Anyway, back to the title of this post.  I take some small comfort in knowing I’ll be in good company, since Sarah Palin won’t be giving a speech at this year’s even either.  At least not live; she’s sending a pre-recorded one.  Seems we both have this thing demanding our attention called — now, what’s that again — oh yes.  A day job.  Darn the luck.  But I digress.  While I don’t have a recording of my comments available, I can at least post the text of the oratory I would offer for the upcoming august assemblage:

Fellow CPACers… I’d say my friends, but I don’t believe I have any here:

We suck.

No.  Seriously.  We suck.  Seriously suck.  As in bite.  Blow.  Blow chunks.  Trailer trash transport blow.  Suck’n'blow.

I know that’s not what you expect to hear from someone standing in front of you at this event, an unabashed conservative at a gathering of like-minded conservatives.  You expect to hear words of encouragement and exhortation.  You expect to hear words challenging you to stand steadfast against the recent reversals in fortune.  You expect to hear words of comfort about how we are strong, we will be back, we will persevere, we will once again hold the reins of power.

Others will gladly tell you these things.  And, they’ll do a good job of it.  They’ll fire you up.  They’ll get you on your feet.  They’ll leave you convinced all will once again be right with the world as we move the world toward the right.  You will be delighted and determined.  You’ll be pumped to perform.

And you’ll still suck.

Instead of these things, I’m going to tell you something else.

It’s called the truth.

I have a thing I call the blogging evangel.  It’s been a work in progress for a few years, undergoing refinement and a bit of expansion.  It’s pretty well settled now.

It’s a collection of four tenets.  Hardly the four Gospels.  But four tenets nonetheless.  They are the foundation upon which I base my modest cyberspace scribbles.  They should also be yours, fellow bloggers.  Not because I came up with them, of course.  That has nothing to do with anything of importance.  Rather, they should be yours for one reason and one reason alone.

They are what is right.

The four tenets of the blogging evangel are quite simple, really:

1. The ability to broadcast ones opinion neither elevates nor validates said opinion.
2. Blog from and for the heart, not the bank account.
3. Answer your e-mail every time all the time.
4. Never become what you profess to oppose.

Let’s look at these, one at a time.

The ability to broadcast ones opinion neither elevates nor validates said opinion.

It’s not another way of saying who do we think we are.  It is another way of saying we are not who we think we are.

We’re very good at preaching to the choir and getting an amen.  Some of us excel at extracting a generous love offering from the congregation.  We are truly kings and queens in our phonebooth kingdoms.

And no one cares.

We have no impact on the world.  We have no influence in public discourse.  We have no say in public affairs.  We are a marginal, marginalized minority.  Nothing more.

Why is that?

Why do we persuade no one?

Why do we claim we are speaking truth to power when in truth we are shouting into the wind, enraged at it having the temerity to not ask our permission to blow?

There is a reason.

It is woven through the four tenets.  The ones we fail to follow.

We have forgotten the ones — and more importantly, the One — we have been called to serve.

More later.