I say this because over the last few weeks I've been labeled a racist, been accused of reveling in the recent spate of violence and have been labeled an anti-Christian and a liberal.

Unlike readers of this website, I can't sit behind a computer and use a fake email address and fake user name without having to log out of the system first. Any post I make when logged in shows I made it.

So if you have a question about me, please ask it.

Managing a very public website that has grown beyond my expectations, I am still a private person, and the only I thing I really revel in is private time where I don't feel I'm being used by people as an information clearinghouse.

The ideologies I have and the worldview I have developed have taken years to cultivate and come from a wide variety of reading and experiences so judging me for a column that you believe was anti-Christian when it was in reality far from being anti-Christian is merely an erroneous assumption on your part.

The private Lance Martin takes a dim view of the world anyway, is staunchly independent and not only follows the beat of a different drummer, but crafted that drum himself.

So if you have a question for me, please ask.

The problem is, even if I tell you I'm not a racist, that I don't revel in violence and am an enigma when it comes to politics, your mind is already made up to think I'm all these things.

I write these columns to give my readers a view of the world as I see it, a little insight into my psyche, especially when it comes to common petty annoyances or things I think are just too weird to be true that are true.

Trying to pigeonhole me, trying to typecast me, trying to make me some caricature usually doesn't work.

That hasn't kept people from trying to do it. I remember when I worked at the same service station for a summer where my father had worked. People only assumed that was I going to follow in his footsteps.

When I worked for two college summer breaks loading trucks I was typecast as some privileged white kid whose mommy probably pulled some strings to get him that job.

Those two summers really helped define the person that I am now, learning quickly that sometimes, no matter how passive you try to be, there comes a point where you have to fight back when someone is trying to test your mettle. The day I fought back, I wasn't trifled with again.

There were two people at that job who helped me learn to be the man I am today, two men I think back on with fond memories — Columbus Deloatch and Andrew Jackson Maddrey. They didn't care I was some college-bound white kid, they only taught me to do my job to the best of the my abilities, loading crates and baskets in stifling hot truck trailers and boxcars. If you were pushed to a certain point, they philosophized, the only recourse was to fight back, not run to an HR rep to whine.

So if you want to know the person I am, all you have to do is ask me.

My early driving record is abysmal and some people will be happy to revel in the fact I've had two, I think, misdemeanor charges for bounced checks, which I paid back.

That's about as honest as I can get, so if you're going to sit behind a computer using a fake email address and fake user name calling me things I'm not, encouraging businesses to strip their advertising because my satire went over your head, you should probably just shoot me an email and ask me.

Believing in the end of the prohibition of marijuana and believing the government should not be legislating the affairs of consenting adults, is about as conservative a belief as you can get and is hardly liberal as those platforms are designed to strip away the meddlesome control of government in our lives, yet, I'm some card-carrying, pinko, racist, commie liberal whose website should be burned to the ground.

Like I say, if you want to know me, all you have to do is ask.

I purposefully try to be as low key and low profile as I can given the fact this is a public website because the only person I'm liable to is myself.

I've made judgment errors, everyone in the news business has, but I staunchly defend the reasons for making some of the decisions I have made.

Still that won't hold for some folks who hide behind fake emails and fake user names and in their self-righteous zealotry call people they don't know a racist, an anti-Christian and a liberal when all they had to do was ask — Lance Martin