As of this past Saturday, I’ve been contributing to Legal Insurrection for one year. The experience has been a truly gratifying one, and I’m very appreciative to have been given the opportunity to do so.
I’ve had the pleasure of writing nearly 100 posts for LI over the past year and in that time, we’ve experienced great victories, as well as frustrating defeats. There have also been a number of national tragedies, the most recent of which has probably put those frustrating defeats into perspective for many.
Yet, even that perspective doesn’t negate the fact that what is done here is not insignificant. The writers, the readers, and the commenters in the LI community produce an important dialogue, and I want to thank Professor Jacobson as well as all of you for allowing me to participate in it over the past year.
I think there is a nice balance achieved at LI, one that’s difficult for most political sites to attain. It represents a cross section of the passion that is deeply rooted in so many political issues, and the logical reasoning that finds its roots in approaching those issues from a legal perspective.
It’s true that not all of us are in the legal field, and that the Professor is the only attorney among us. But by following his lead, I think all of the contributors successfully provide thorough, cogent analyses of the issues they write about.
Passion is obviously an important part of politics. Indeed, it is vital for any political cause to thrive. But too often in politics, rhetoric trumps reasoning. I’ve found that when passionate rhetoric is unaccompanied by reasoning, it succeeds only in producing a shouting match between two diametrically opposed forces in which there can be no real winner.
I hope that by some measure, a majority of my posts have succeeded in being more than just unaccompanied rhetoric.
I also hope that you’ve learned something from me, because I have certainly learned a great deal from you.
Most of all, I want to thank the Professor for providing the platform for me to write, and you all for choosing to read. Thank you for all of your comments, whether they agreed or disagreed with what I had to say.
I have truly enjoyed the past year, and I am looking forward to continuing here at LI and seeing what the future has to hold.
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