For equality, we must redistribute eyeballs fairly, my friends

By David McElroy · June 30, 2011

Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 7035, the Federal Eyeball Inequality Act of 2020.

Our great nation was founded on the principles of liberty and equality. Without liberty, we can’t be equal. Without equality, we can’t have liberty. So when some Americans are treated unequally, it’s an assault on the liberty of each and every one of us. We have a sacred duty to those Founding Fathers who fought and bled for our freedom to bring equality to every American.

Some may say that we are free and we are equal, because we see freedom and we see equality everywhere. But do we? Sadly, not all of us see those things equally — because not all of us see equally well. It is to rectify this incredible injustice that I beg you to join me in using the full moral might of this government to bring equal sight to all. To do less than pass this legislation is to confess before all of us that you hate equality and that you hate liberty.

Most people in our great land have two functioning eyeballs, while some struggle to exist in a dreary and barren land devoid of color or light or hope. No, friends, it’s not Detroit that I speak of. It’s the land of blindness. While most Americans take their sight for granted, these poor souls struggle to live. Those with two eyes aren’t morally superior. They didn’t earn their eyeballs. No, it was just a cruel twist of fate that gave some people sight and others darkness. And we are here today to bring light and hope to those without sight and without hope. No American could oppose this effort except out of greed and selfishness for himself and hatred for those who aren’t as fortunate as he is.

The plan we have presented to you is a compromise. Many activists in the Blind Rights Movement have long advocated cutting out the eyeballs of every sighted person, but this compromise legislation not only prevents complete blindness on the part of every driver and pilot in the land, but it shows just how far our blind friends are willing to go to compromise.

So how will our great plan work? This legislation will create a new Federal Sight Management Agency (FSMA), which will have the full power to control who has eyes and who doesn’t. As Jesus said in the Bible, “In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.” So Jesus was clearly teaching us that there should be no blind among us, but to be a one-eyed man is to be a king — something that any man should want. Our great new national plan will have the task of equally dividing the available eyeballs among all Americans. Yes, this will mean that some Americans will have to get by with only one eye for part of the time, but the FSMA will rotate the available eyes among the population every six months — to ensure that sight is shared and that partial blindness is shared by all.

If you can’t see that this program is all about liberty and equality, my friend, you are just as blind as the man with no sight at all. And if you feel that way, I’m very ashamed of your selfishness.

I do want to assure those who have asked that this bill includes a small provision that exempts members of Congress, their staffs and their families from this act. This small concession has been made in the name of national security, because we must always be vigilant in the protection of our citizens — and we need full sight to protect them.

My friends, some selfish people have tried to poison the discussion of this bill by discussing the issue of whether eyeballs are easily transplantable, but this is simply a diversion. We must trust the experts in the Blind Rights Movement and those of us here in Congress, not get bogged down in what eye surgeons might believe is possible or reasonable. Being fair and being equal is far more important than what might or might not be medically possible. Others have pointed to the deaths of thousands of people in 2015 when the Federal Kidney Redistribution Act was implemented, but to those selfish people, I say shame…. Shame on you. How dare you point to the past when sight and equality are shining as beacons calling us forward? Our good intentions are all that matter. The light of our moral goodness casts out the worries of the doubters who bring up unpleasant facts.

Bring the blessings of shared sacrifice to all, my friends. Make us all equal. Make us all free. Give Americans the vision they deserve. Make us all equal and make us all free by sharing the available eyeballs. Our Founding Fathers would be proud. Our blind children will be grateful — and never forget when you vote, we are once again doing this for the children. I urge you to join me in this moral crusade. Support this bill today.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Note: This is a shameless ripoff of something my friend, Doug Douma, has already done. Doug came up with this idea months ago and the version you just read was my input on the direction I’d take with it. You can read his published version here.

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Something small just made me happy. The specifics don’t matter, but I found myself smiling and I felt a kind of warm joy filling my heart and mind. In that brief moment of ecstasy, I felt the irrational desire to talk with a particular person. It wasn’t a calculated thought or a rational want. It wasn’t even that I wanted to tell the person about this particular thing. I simply felt ecstatic joy — and I somehow connected that feeling to this person. I can’t explain it. If we’re wise, we’ll pay attention to such moments, because the instincts of our hearts and minds often know more truth than our conscious and rational brains do. The same thing can be true in moments of great pain and suffering. If we pay attention to who our hearts are drawn to in such moments — of extreme joy or extreme hurt — we learn something about ourselves. I don’t know why. I only know that our gut instincts sometimes understand deep truths about ourselves that our rational brains haven’t yet figured out.

It started out as a satirical joke, but some friends liked the idea, so now it’s a real Facebook profile picture frame. If you’ve never heard of Moms Against Virtue-Signaling, let me explain. One of the dumber elements of social media is that it allows people to publicly signal their goodness and virtue to others — without actually doing anything of substance. So you see photo frames around profile photos saying things such as, “Moms Against Racism,” as though they’re standing up against those evil moms who are in favor of racism. It’s meaningless virtue-signaling and it deserves to be mocked, so I made a frame and published it on Facebook’s frame system today. If you go to your own Facebook profile picture and add a frame, then search for Moms Against Virtue-Signaling, you can select it. About a dozen of my friends are using it so far. It’s just fun satire — at least until Facebook decides it “goes against our community standards.” Or something. It’s just a fun way of mocking something that deserves to be mocked.

When I first told you about the project that would become DavidMcElroy.TV, I thought it would launch by mid-May. Since today is the last day of May — and I’m still not close to launching a finished product — here’s a brief update. The graphic above is the latest rough mockup of the format, but it’s still subject to change. Even the logo isn’t yet set in stone. Motion graphics are really difficult when you’re starting from scratch. Sunday night, my camera stopped recording, so it has to be sent off for repair. I have an older camera that I’ll keep using for testing, but I can’t launch without the better one. The audio system developed a low buzz this weekend that has me puzzled. I’ll be taking all the equipment over to the home of a local audio engineer who’s volunteered to help me figure out what I’ve done wrong. On top of all that, my on-camera performance seems to get worse with each test I do. There are days when I think I’m crazy to be attempting this. And in truth, I probably am insane to do it, but being crazy has never stopped me before. I’m at least a month away from launch and it could be a few months. Thanks for being patient — and thanks for all the support and enthusiasm for the project that you’ve sent my way.

I received the first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine Monday — and I’m happy to report that I’m neither dead nor a zombie controlled by Bill Gates and Co. Eligibility was recently opened in Alabama to everyone who’s 16 or older, so I signed up for the Pfizer vaccine at a site run by a local university. I know this is a political issue for a lot of people, but that honestly baffles me. We can disagree about whether such a vaccine should be mandatory — which I’m against — but as a voluntary choice, it seems like an easy choice now that it’s been safely given to millions of people. Is it a perfect preventative? Of course not. But the decision seemed obvious to me when looking at the statistics and evidence. I haven’t had any of the side effects that some people have experienced, but that’s supposed to be more of an issue after the second dose, which I’ll get on May 3. In the meantime, I’ll let you know if I grow a third arm — or if the secret microchip kicks in and someone starts trying to control me remotely. All kidding aside, getting the vaccine seems like a rational voluntary choice to me.

I get a lot of email from readers. Some of it is fascinating and useful. Some of it is full of confessions that people want to share with a stranger. Some people write to ask advice. What’s really surprising, though, is the small percentage that seems to come from mentally unbalanced people. When I started using the metaphor about being an alien — the tagline at the top of each page here — it never occurred to me that I’d start hearing from people who took it seriously. But every few months, I get a strange email — such as the one above from a few months back — from someone who seems to think I’m claiming to be an actual alien. The first time it happened, I laughed. By the time it became a semi-regular thing, I was simply appalled. For the record, I can provide no proof that I’m an alien, because … well … it’s just a metaphor. I do feel like an alien among human beings, but as far as I know, I’m just as earthbound as you are. It’s just a metaphor. Honest. Or at least, that’s what my lizard-beast overlords told me to say.

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