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David McElroy

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If you want life outside of hatred, get away from political cesspool

By David McElroy · January 30, 2018

I keep hearing that certain Democratic members of Congress are boycotting Donald Trump’s State of the Union speech tonight, but they’re way behind me. I’ve been boycotting all presidential speeches for a couple of decades now — no matter who’s president.

I strongly recommend you turn your television off tonight and do something that matters. Find something productive to do. Call someone you love and connect with him or her. Go right on with your life as though the spectacle of hatred in Washington, D.C., doesn’t exist.

Nothing that’s said there will matter. None of the praise or vitriol in the social media commentary will help you. There is absolutely nothing you can do about the insane partisan fighting there.

So I urge you to get on with your life and remind yourself what it’s like to live outside of that bubble of political hatred.

When I was younger, I never missed any presidential speech. As a child, I thought there was nobody more important than a U.S. president. I thought every informed person should watch and have opinions about what was said. I carried that notion with me into my early adult life.

And then I realized how much time and mental energy I was wasting. Slowly — over a long period of time — I broke myself of this insane habit of paying attention to these monsters. I’m a lot more peaceful and happy since I ignore them today. If you could ever understand how little effect you can have on them, I suspect you would find the same to be true for yourself.

We are brainwashed by our education system to believe responsible people express their views and change their world through electoral politics. This is a lie. The partisan political system is about nothing more than determining which violent mob will seize enough power to force its will on everybody.

You have a natural right to live your life as you please. You have a natural right to keep the money you earn and to spend it as you please. The more you get sucked in to the partisan political system, the more you believe the lie that one side or the other has a moral right to impose its will on you — to make up rules for you to follow and to spend your money as they see fit.

Partisan politics is based on hatred. You might not realize it, but most people hate their political enemies far more than they admire the people they claim to love and support. Most people vote and pursue political activity to avoid the people they hate having power over them.

Isn’t it time to accept that this is a morally bankrupt idea?

Until enough people reject the politicians, they’re going to keep forcing their will on us. It is immoral to be part of that system — in any way — in the meantime.

You can’t stop them from doing what they’re going to do. You can’t make a difference in whether they steal from you or not. Any time you invest in their political cesspool is time you are taking away from the people you love and from the life you claim to care about.

Ignore Donald Trump’s speech tonight. Ignore what pundits say about it. Spend your time focusing on things that matter to you. And if you honestly think the political system matters to you, I strongly suggest you rethink your priorities.

Ignore Trump — and ignore the next president and the one after him. And the one after him.

Invest your time and energy in people and places where you can have a positive impact. Choose to love those who need and deserve your love instead of wasting your emotional energy on political hatred. You will be a happier and healthier person.

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Alex was willing to cooperate with me for a new po Alex was willing to cooperate with me for a new portrait late Wednesday night. It’s been roughly three and a half years now since the cold night when I was able to lure him out from behind a garbage dumpster into a trap — but I don’t think he’s sorry at this point that he fell for the trick. 😺
This is the face of a man who’s thrilled that the This is the face of a man who’s thrilled that the weekend is finally here. It was a very long (and productive) week, but the time has finally come that I have time to write and read and think. Late Friday night, I’m at the McDonald’s near my house with a Diet Dr Pepper and a MacBook. For me, it’s like Cheers without the booze.
Donald Trump has figured out who to blame for the Donald Trump has figured out who to blame for the the D.C. Reflecting Pool turning green. The dastardly deed was carried out by a specially trained squad of Antifa cats trained by the Far Left. It’s not his fault. Arrest all the cats! #satire #parody
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Here’s proof that reality and satire are indisting Here’s proof that reality and satire are indistinguishable these days.
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This little parody was inspired by my trip to buy This little parody was inspired by my trip to buy gas a little while ago. Even at a no-name brand, the price was $4.09. If I remember correctly, it was $2.29 a gallon at the same station on the day the war started. I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of winning. 🤣
For the best and most sophisticated in lawn care, For the best and most sophisticated in lawn care, check out the sponsor of one of my upcoming YouTube video episodes. 🙃 #parody #threestooges
Have you felt as though you’re living through Grou Have you felt as though you’re living through Groundhog Day lately? Me, too. Here’s a quick-and-dirty political satire I made this evening for fun and stress relief.
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From the CritterCam: I was just reviewing some sho From the CritterCam: I was just reviewing some shots that the webcam saved from earlier in the day and noticed this one. The camera is aimed at the bed in which Alex frequently sleeps, but Oliver apparently thought he deserved to be the subject for a change, so he wandered by. I’m surprised he didn’t turn and smile at the camera. 😺
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It turns out that the radical far left has been training “Antifa cats” to sabotage anything important to Donald Trump. Everything he did was perfect. Honest. It was all the cats’ fault. Arrest all the cats! This is the latest of my ridiculous satirical shorts. Please go watch it. Then “like” it and subscribe. Please. I’m begging you. (Too much?) Although a couple of the previous videos have had views in the hundreds, most have still been seen by fewer than 20 people. So I seem to be having trouble letting people know that page exists.

Here’s the latest of my ridiculous parody shorts. It crossed my mind Tuesday to wonder what a slick and fast-talking car dealer might do right now to try to turn the high price of gasoline to his advantage. So I conceived of a fat and lovable character who tried to sell cars that don’t use any fuel — and then I started wondering if it would be funnier if all the characters were felines. Designing the King Cashpaw character took about four hours, but the rest took only another four hours, so this was a relatively quick piece that virtually wrote itself. I know it’s almost impossible for these parody videos to find a larger audience, but at least they amuse me — and there are 19 of them on my YouTube page now. The first few were very limited, but they’re getting more complex.

The Republican Party is dead. It still exists in name, of course, but it’s nothing but a shell. All that’s left are idiots and stooges and con men of the MAGA party. When Donald Trump is gone — which won’t be long — those populist idiots and pragmatic fools will have no one to follow. Democrats will thrive. They will take more power than ever and they will push the federal government further to the radical far left than ever. When that happens, don’t just blame Trump if you’re a conservative. Blame every person who has claimed to be a conservative and has given up on principles, character and everything else that Republicans once claimed to stand for. As someone who worked as a GOP political consultant for many years, this is disgusting and disturbing to me. Those who have enabled Trump to have almost unchecked power are going to be shocked when they see what they will unleash in the long run. It’s been plain all along what this narcissistic con man is. It’s your fault that you chose to pretend not to see what he really is.

We are ruled by the dumbest and most incompetent people among us — and we have a system which allows stupid and irresponsible people to force the costs of their idiocy onto smarter and wiser people. Can we get away with that? Yes, for quite some time. But we eventually reach a point at which the dumbest of the dumb — who are habitual liars and mentally ill fools — lead us to the disasters and destruction that some of us have seen coming for years. We are approaching that point. And yet most of the idiots around us still wave their rhetorical banners of support for the evil people who are leading us to ruin — and all of them point their fingers at someone else, never noticing that their own enthusiastic support of evil is to blame. When things finally fall apart, blame yourself for your blindness to the evil, not whoever happens to be in power when it happens.

I’ve been making some changes to the site lately and there are more changes coming in the days ahead, so don’t be surprised if you some small differences. This is not a wholesale redesign, but rather the addition of some features. Since they’re smarter than I am, I’ve put Oliver and Alex in charge of the technical work, which you can see in this action photo from the control room of our media complex. I recently added a series of landing pages for readers who randomly discover the site from an Internet search. I’ve also changed the YouTube link at the top of the page to go to the new YouTube channel for video essays that reflect things I’ve already published here. (Here’s a little bit about both of the YouTube channels I’m working on.) In addition, I’m trying to move away from using Instagram, so I’m experimenting with photo plug-ins that will eventually allow me to host the pictures — cats, dogs, sunsets, whatever — that I often take. So don’t be surprised to see more changes. Thanks for your patience. Let’s hope Alex and Oliver know what they’re doing.

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