Thank you for visiting my political journal. This journal serves as a comprehensive outlet for all the ideas I have about politics and society (or, at least, the ones I've finished writing down). It is in a perpetual state of construction, growing more and more as I discover new concepts and dive deep into a web of tangential thoughts. The content is a mix of argumentative or rhetorical work (essays, articles, etc.) and descriptive pieces that can best be described as "wiki entries." I am trained neither as a writer nor a political scientist. Considering this, it may be overly optimistic to hope that my writing is *illuminating,* but I do at least hope you find it informative, and perhaps even interesting. I can assure you there *will* be mistakes, and I encourage you to reach out if you have amendments to make or constructive criticism to provide. An additional disclaimer I would like to make with regard to the veracity or fallibility of my analysis is that **I am a liberal.** My frame of view is rooted in secular liberal democratic values, and though I am aware that this creates certain blindspots for me, I am not foolish enough to think I can discover all such blindspots without outside help. So, I would implore you again to contribute any additional perspective you may have. Before closing out this introduction, I want to clarify the standard I hold myself to pertaining to the usage of generative AI tools: *not one word of the content in this journal is written by AI.* The one exception to this would be quotes from other sources, where, though I try to avoid generated content, I cannot know with absolute certainty that AI was not used in its creation. All that being said, I *do* use AI to help me organize my notes into outlines for larger pieces, to check for grammatical or spelling errors before publishing, and occasionally to workshop ideas for nomenclature of tricky concepts. If you take issue with this, I fully respect your opinion, but know that I have already carefully considered this issue, and I will not be changing the policy to exclude AI usage altogether. If you have questions, comments, or any other feedback, please reach out to me via email: [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]) Sincerely, Lowell A. Thoerner