Politics, Religion and Sex are the three subjects Toastmasters International suggests a speaker should stay away from. There is not much to be gained from speaking out on any of those topics. But you can get into huge trouble really quickly.

The same, it seems, is true for bloggers – at least meandering bloggers like myself, who don’t have a clear blog theme. My theme, Daily Thoughts of a (hopefully) Critical Thinker, suggests that I pick up controversial subjects and voice my opinion on them.

I should, however, be more conscious of the Toastmasters rule and stay away from the Politics, Religion and Sex. Today a friend sent me a private message saying she enjoyed my blog but frankly found my political posts somewhat offensive. She was therefore unsubscribing so she could visit from time to time and enjoy my non-political posts.

That comment gave me pause.

True, I had made some political statements, but as I read back through the last few weeks, none of them seemed very strong or very offensive to me. Perhaps I am simply hardened to my own view, and I suffer from the boiling frog syndrome and I don’t notice anymore that I am an extremist and therefore I offend people.

I found that my religious views could offend people, since my views are entirely void of any religion. If you search for the keyword “Mormon” on this blog you might see some examples of this. Since I know and care for many people who are religious, and since more than 80% of the general population belongs to or identifies with some religion, anti-religious rantings would therefore offend 80% or more of my readers. This prompted me to withdraw most of my religious musings from this post about a year ago and move those to a little blog called Reliphorism that gets a few lonely hits a week and therefore doesn’t do any damage.

Same with sex. I am not disinterested in sex, but I have no desire whatsoever to write about it. No damage there.

But politics, ah, there is a subject that’s more difficult to put away in a closet.

The friend that unsubscribed from my blog said that she wished I was a Republican. I wonder how she knows I am not a Republican? Actually, I confess, I am an independent. I have never in my life belonged to a political party, and I pledge that I will die that way. I vote for the candidate, not the party, every time. Since our country is divided down the middle between the two sides, and we independents get to slosh back and forth as we please, chances are that 50% of my posts will offend one reader or another. Since I have friends on both sides of that proverbial aisle, perhaps it would do me some good to hold back my political views and retain readership – and respect.

What’s left then? Time travel and art. Way to go!