Welcome Aboard, Tim Dickinson!

Tim Dickinson joins the RC staff...

I'm very pleased to welcome Tim Dickinson to the blog. Tim, a self described moderate conservative, works in the software industry in Atlanta, GA and brings a slightly more conservative voice to these pages. His interest in Politics and American History make him a natural candidate to add to my team, and I think will add quite a bit of quality to what we do here.

For the last few months, I've been playing with the thought of bringing a few new voices to the blog. Its a big step to do this, adding others means less control over the tone and message of the content, which I take seriously. The pros surely outweigh the cons as adding a fresh, moderate, thoughtful perspective to the blog, I think, makes it a better blog.

With the mission of Reasonable Conversation being what it is, I wanted to find a like-minded soul who had an interest in politics/current events but also felt facts were more important than rhetoric. RC will never be a site that intends to inflame the issues along partisan lines. About a year ago, Tim and I met through a mutual friend. Fairly quickly, as I got to know Tim a bit, he struck me as a kindred spirit. As we participated in various facebook political discussions both private and with others, I was impressed with his attention to facts and data, as opposed to tired memes, strawmen or red herrings as debate techniques. While politically in different places, he and I quickly found common ground more often than not. We could disagree while never being disagreeable.

As the healthcare debate was raging with the Affordable Care Act heading to the Supreme Court to determine its constitutionality, we often discussed its merits. At roughly the same time, I learned of an online course being taught by Dr. Ezekial Emanuel at the University of Pennsylvania on the ACA. Dr. Emanuel was one of the architects of the health reform package, so I jumped at the chance to take this online course. Shortly before classes began, I suggested to Tim that he join me in taking the course, as it would help us both  understand the ACA more fully and accurately. He agreed, which impressed me. I really enjoyed the numerous discussions we had about this aspect or that aspect of the ACA. It was fun and planted the seed that maybe Tim could become a part of RC someday. That time has come.

In our discussions over the last week or so, Tim has let me know, generally speaking, what topics he'll be active on. Economics, Government policy and current events will mostly define Tim's topics, but I've put very few restrictions on him, so if Tim thinks its important, it'll most likely get published.

Tomorrow morning, RC will post Tim's first contribution. In it, he'll say hello and tell us all what to expect.

I look forward to working with Tim. I've enjoyed getting to know him over the last year and find him to be a very smart guy. Where this collaboration takes us, we don't know, but we invite you to come along for the ride.

Bill