Mona
Mona: a life-long, 52-year-old, lower-case “L” libertarian, who once tilted GOP, but never joined the party. My educational background includes a law degree from Notre Dame and a BA in Religion in America. A few years ago I stopped practicing law for health reasons, and also because I came to deeply dislike it. These days I’m a part-time librarian, copy-editor and writer.
My disaffection with the Republicans began with Reagan, for whom I voted twice; Iran-Contra was troubling to say the least, but Reagan’s escalation of the drug “war,” and invention of the “Drug Czar” office for the odious moralist Bill Bennett, caused me to give up on partisan politics and focus on issues advocacy. I stopped voting and primarily devoted myself to drug policy reform, as well as to ending government discrimination against gay people — whether in the form of prosecutions for “sodomy,” bans from military service, or marriage equality. (I’m straight, but not narrow.)
For reasons idiotic I voted (for the first time in years) for Bush in ‘04, and continue to attempt expiation of that political sin. These two posts explain my fundamental political philosophy, and why I do not believe a principled libertarian — as opposed to a Republican first who thinks it gives him cachet and a hip edge to claim the ‘tarian label — can abide in the current GOP.
I’ve written at several blogs, one now defunct (Inactivist) that disappeared when the server crashed in January of ‘07, and I still blog at Jim Henley’s Unqualified Offerings. Additionally, I’ve guest-blogged (under the pseudonym “Hypatia”) for Glenn Greenwald at his pre-Salon site.
Reading is my passion: politics, history, biographies, sci-fi, and true crime.
And sushi. Absent sushi, life would hold no meaning.