If you ever feel optimistic, remind yourself what we’re up against

By David McElroy · February 13, 2012

If you’re ever optimistic about our odds of changing society through persuasion and voting, take a look at what people outside of your own circle of friends believe. In some cases, even those in your own circle are scary enough. Sunday, I ran into a guy who’s convinced that the way to get rid of illegal narcotics in this country is to have a “10 to 20 year war with Mexico.”

For me, there’s no issue that touches on as many infringements of personal freedom as the “drug war” does. It violates people’s right to decide what to consume. It costs everybody a tremendous amount of money every year as governments — federal, state and local — pour billions of dollars down the rathole of “eradicating drugs.” And in the zeal to prosecute this “war,” innocent people (and even family pets) are being killed pretty regularly, but it’s shrugged off as necessary. Maybe worst of all, the fight against drugs is being used as an excuse to erode more and more of our freedoms. And even if you think recreational drugs are good — which I don’t — the problem isn’t getting any better. It never will.

Some people can’t accept that, though. On Facebook, a friend of a friend was blaming cocaine for the death of Whitney Houston. He said, “Cocaine sucks!! So do the nations and organizations that pump it into the U.S. May the iron rod of Jesus come down on the narco-nations now. In Jesus’ name. She might have done more cocaine than anybody in history; even though she might have kicked it recently. Know who brought cocaine to the U.S.?”

I responded that if anybody is the “narco-nation,” it’s the United States, because this country is the market that makes all of that possible. (I didn’t even try to get into the bizarre theology of “the iron rod of Jesus” coming down on nations.) I told him that our drug Prohibition was destroying these other nations as criminal gangs had the incentive to profit from selling to people in this country. This was his response:

Afghanistan – makes the most Heroin / Opium. Mexico – makes the most cocaine and meth. We consume as rats would consume if it were placed in front of them. People in the U.S. purchase their poison, but if we Nuke Mexico – the production would stop, wouldn’t it?

I”m not suggesting we Nuke our neighbor (not too smart), but I do fully support using heavy military action against Mexico’s cartel. I mean – take their weapons, their money, and Mexican oil – and start really cleaning up. Yes – 10 to 20 year war with Mexico is what is needed.

How do you respond to that? How do you explain to people that this sort of insanity wouldn’t work and it’s immoral, too? I have no idea. I don’t believe it’s possible to change their beliefs. People who believe such irrational, immoral and disturbing things aren’t suddenly going to see the light. And while there might not be a majority who are ready to go to war with Mexico over drugs, I think you’d be surprised just how many would favor some sort of military action if you made the fight about drugs and immigration.

By the way, you might find yourself thinking that this man must be some ignorant southern redneck white guy who simply hates dark-skinned people. (It’s OK. You can admit it. Most outsiders quickly jump to such conclusions.) But the guy I’m quoting is a black man who lives in California.

Quoting one irrational man who wants to kill lots and lots of people because of drugs doesn’t prove anything. It doesn’t mean a large percentage of people are this way. It doesn’t even (technically) prove that this man can’t be persuaded with sweet reason. But do you believe that? When you look at his words, do you believe facts matter to someone such as that?

This is what we face. As long as you have an attachment to majoritarian systems and support them with your participation, this is the kind of person you’re putting into power over you. Even if you think the “majority rules” system is moral, do you honestly think it’s smart to give power to people who think like this guy?

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When I first heard about this, I thought it must be satire. When I discovered it was real, I was appalled, but I still thought it must be a one-time thing from some nutty activist. But it turns out it’s the latest bit of pandering to a bunch of far-left activists who believe that a man can become a woman if he decides to claim he’s a woman. As everybody knows, men have prostate glands. Women do not. Period. End of story. Men can get prostate cancer. Women cannot. But political activists are so eager to pretend that a man claiming to be a “trans woman” is really a woman that they are insisting that “women” be included in public health messages about the issue. This is nothing but political virtue-signaling. If you’re a man, you know which parts you have. You know that you ought to be screened. Nobody is made any safer by dragging far-left gender ideology into simple medical reality.

Every time someone tries to tighten requirements around the use of absentee ballots, I hear screams from Democrats and others on the political left that such efforts are nothing but “suppression of black voters.” These protests have never made sense to me, especially because it’s never been a secret that absentee ballot fraud goes on all the time in certain areas. (Everybody knew it when I worked in politics.) The people who engage in such fraud are rarely caught — often because the local political establishment approves of the crime — but a Democrat who won a primary election in Clay County, Alabama, last year has pleaded guilty to this sort of cheating. Terry Andrew Heflin was running for a place on the Clay County Commission. He was caught ordering seven absentee ballots in the names of various voters and sending them to his post office box — after which he used the ballots to vote absentee for himself seven time. Did he have other people cast additional fraudulent ballots? We’ll never know. But in a primary in which he was able to win with only 141 votes, it wouldn’t take many fraudulent votes to change the election. The next time you hear “civil rights activists” claim that it’s just “voter suppression” to hurt blacks which is at the root of efforts to stop this fraud, remember Terry Heflin. If you care about fair and honest elections, ballot security and voter identity should matter to you.

A state legislator in Maine has been stripped of the ability to speak in the state Legislature — and her votes are not being counted on legislative issues — all because she made a truthful social media post. Rep. Laurel Libby (R-Auburn, Maine) opposes allowing boys to compete against girls’ teams in school athletics and she’s become known for making an issue of it. On Feb. 17, she posted on Facebook about a recent example that she found outrageous. She posted side-by-side photos of a boy named John who competed last year in a state track event and won fifth place against other boys two years ago — and a photo of the same boy (now called Katie) who won first place in the same event this year against girls. Whether you find this outrageous or not, Libby is clearly being honest and truthful about the objective facts of an issue of public importance. But the state Legislature censured her. Democrats decreed that she could not speak in the House and that her votes would not count on legislation — until she apologized for the outrage of telling the truth. She refused and her constituents have been unrepresented in the state House since then. The people who promote this ideology are out of touch with reality and won’t rest until they force the rest of us to join them in this delusion. But even if you agree with “trans” ideology, you should be appalled at this heavy-handed attack on political speech.

The late Steve Jobs was at the center of our culture’s transition from analog to digital. He co-founded Apple Computer. He led the team that revolutionized personal computing with the first Macintosh. As CEO of Apple, he led the development of the iPhone and later the iPad. You would think the children of such a man would be surrounded by technology. But Jobs and his wife Laureen didn’t let their children use iPads. Their home had few screens of any kind. Even though Jobs spent most of his time developing and selling Macs and iPhones and iPads, he was home with his wife and children for dinner when he was in town. The family ate together at a simple wooden table in their kitchen — and there were no digital devices or focus on popular culture. Instead, he’s said to have guided his family toward deep discussions of art, philosophy and education — with no iPads to be found. If the man who guided the development of such products chose a different path for his own children, does that suggest that his digital experience taught him that children need human connection, not screens? And does it suggest the possibility that we might be better off if we made the same choice for our families?

For four years, Donald Trump’s supporters screamed that everything that went wrong was the fault of Joe Biden. They were sometimes right and they were sometimes delusional. (Anybody who knows me understands that I can’t stand Biden any more than I can stand Trump, just for different reasons.) But for two months, Trump has rampaged through U.S. political life — vandalizing pretty much everything in sight — and the vast majority of his supporters are silent at best. Many watch as he blows up the world economy and they make excuses for him. They’re in absolute denial, even about things that Trump is doing very intentionally. Anybody who understands economics and history knows that tariffs are a terrible idea from a pragmatic point of view. Anybody who values individual freedom knows that tariffs are massive taxes on individuals — and they’re a tool of political control over the ability of people to trade freely. Trump is the antithesis of everything which political conservatives stood for just a few years ago. It’s far past time for people who claim to be conservatives to reclaim the principles and values which they used to claim — and stop this mad man before he can accelerate the day when we experience economic and social collapse. Open your eyes to reality and reject this lying narcissist.

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