Teen Seeking Fellow Political Junkies

The Vindicator ^ | 7-06-07 | Lauren Polinksy

[RealTeen]

This teen has made disagreeing with his parents a money-making venture.

BROOKFIELD — A township teenager has been participating in online blogging for the past six years and recently took a step toward using his blogs for activism.

Justin Higgins hopes to rally his generation around politics and current events.

News, politics, opinion and discussion are all over the Internet, and it seems almost anyone can post thoughts on any topic in online forums.

Higgins, now 17, was searching blog sites after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. He was looking for anything that anyone had to say about the events. Only 11 at the time, Higgins said he understood the impact of what had just happened and wanted to talk about it.

"After 9/11, I started analyzing the events going on in the world. I was a computer junkie so I looked to the Web to see what people were saying about them," he said.

A conservative stance

He found a Web site that would let him set up his own blog at no charge and began writing about issues such as the war on terror and abortion, taking a more conservative stance than his Democratic parents.

Higgins said when he first started talking about the war on terror there was not a lot of disagreement online or at his dinner table. "Everyone was for the war," he said.

By the time people began to pick one side of the fence, Higgins had read and educated himself so much on the topic that he had formed his own unique opinions. "It was a me thing," he said.

Higgins' strong right-wing stance in a left-wing town and family is what got him national attention from radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh, which in turn helped expand his site.