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David McElroy

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Abortion debate gives us lots of candidates for ‘Idiot of the Year’

By David McElroy · June 25, 2022

I don’t really want to write about abortion. I can’t tell you anything new about this complicated legal and moral issue. My observations here aren’t about the issue itself. They’re about the people who are reacting to it — in ways that are irrational and downright idiotic.

Let’s get one thing out of the way. I didn’t support the Roe v. Wade decision. I also don’t support the decision which overturns it. I assumed my position about this would be obvious, but I was mistaken. Several people asked me Friday what I thought, assuming that I would either love the new decision or hate it.

I don’t “support” coercive government. Period.

I don’t recognize the legitimacy of the system which rules over us. I obey governments only because they have guns and can put me into a cage if I disobey. I’m not going to pretend I have a choice about any of it.

I have no say about abortion. Or taxation. Or wars. Or fiat money. Or anything else which politicians have taken it upon themselves to control without my permission.

But this doesn’t stop me from being both amused and annoyed right now at people on the progressive left who have loudly cheered for intrusive government for years — right up until the moment they discover they want some freedom after all.

Every time something controversial happens in the country, I read wildly irrational reactions on social media — from both sides of the controversy — and the dumber and more irrational the point someone makes, the more it’s going to be shared far and wide.

Most people are more interested in expressing the popular slogans of their “tribes” than they are in dealing with the facts of a matter. So far, the abortion debate has supplied plenty of candidates for “Idiot of the Year.”

But I’m just going to make a few big-picture observations. You’ll notice that I’m not going to give you some fiery words about what you ought to believe. The issue is far too complicated — both in the moral sense and in the philosophical sense — for me to give you a nice, neat answer. It’s complicated and I’m not going to pretend otherwise.

So here are my observations about the reactions to what’s happened:

— I suspect that fewer than one in a hundred of the people with very loud opinions about Roe v. Wade — for it or against it — have ever read the decision or understand the legal issues involved. If you have opinions about a legal document simply because on the outcome — you favor abortion or you oppose it — you’re being shortsighted, because legal reasoning ends up applying to other issues. And if you’re not paying attention to the reasoning, you might not understand what it might lead to next. (And let’s be honest. You might be too intellectually lazy to care until something you don’t like happens.)

— The actual reasoning of the Roe v. Wade decision — which required states to allow abortion — was always nonsensical. Whether you think abortion should be legal or not, the same legal reasoning in that decision would have made pretty much every decision we make into something personal that government can’t regulate. If some vague right to make your own decisions could apply to abortion, it would also apply to the rest of your life — which progressives would have hated. But the justices found this vague right to abortion, yet didn’t apply it to any other individual freedoms. It was a contradiction from the start.

— It’s amusing (and bizarre) that progressives online are suddenly talking about personal liberty. This crowd has been all about group rights and identity politics for years now, but I was suddenly hearing them talk about personal freedom on Friday. What’s odd is that they apply the notion of freedom only to abortion — and not to the rest of our individual lives. I could take them more seriously if they argued for individuals to have autonomy over their entire lives — but that would make them libertarians, so they can’t possibly allow that sort of intellectual consistency. Their heads might explode.

— For those who are upset about this decision or that decision — any political or legal decision — are you starting to see why secession is a good thing? Why should you be bound to obey a political system that you disagree with? Why shouldn’t groups be allowed to peacefully withdraw and take their property with them?

— I really wish people making sweeping generalizations based on their emotions right now could apply reason and principles to the broader issues, in context. Instead, all I seem to see are variations of either, “I hate you religious people for taking my rights away,” or else, “The baby-killers lost and can’t keep killing babies!” Reality is far more complex — legally, philosophically and ethically — than most seem willing to admit. But it’s easier to scream slogans and yell hatred of people who disagree with you.

— No matter what position you take about abortion and its legality, you should be able to understand why other people believe what they believe without having to demonize those people. There are a number of rational and morally consistent views on this issue. I don’t agree with most of them, but I can understand why people would accept those ideas instead of agreeing with me. Most people are not the monsters which your rhetoric right now makes them out to be.

— Here’s the position which is most popular right now: “Those who disagree with me about this issue are evil and stupid. I hate them all and they should die.”

And here’s what’s not so popular: “I think the people who disagree with me about this issue are mistaken, but their views must make sense from their point of view. Their intentions are probably just as honorable as mine are. I wonder how we can live peacefully with each other despite our strongly differing views?”

If you’re taking the popular and easy approach, you’re part of the problem, no matter which side you’re on.

— It baffles me that so many people are eager to insist that their political views must be forced on everyone — at the same time they complain about others trying to force their views on them. Why can’t they see this contradiction? Both sides of this debate are hypocrites about some issues — and they mostly seem blind to this fact.

— Progressives were acting Friday as though abortion was being outlawed in the country, but this wasn’t the case. All this decision says is that the U.S. Constitution is silent on the issue, so states have the right to allow abortion or ban it, just as they make a million other decisions — different from state to state — to control your lives.

— If Democrats want to pass a law requiring abortion access nationally, there is nothing stopping them. There’s nothing in the new Supreme Court decision that would stop it. The feds control all sorts of things nationally — often by claiming they’re regulating interstate commerce — and it would be trivial for Democrats to pass such legislation right now. Joe Biden would be happy to sign it.

— Those who keep claiming that the decision Friday was religious people trying to force them to obey their religion are delusional. If you believe that an unborn baby is a human being — as many, many people do — then this is no more about religion that it is when we have laws banning the murder of a child who’s just been born. Religious people tend to believe this more strongly, but many of the people who oppose abortion do so for reasons which have nothing to do with religion. Stop lying to yourself.

— I want to hate a lot of the people whose toxic rhetoric I’m seeing right now. I want to assume they’re just as stupid and vile and toxic as they appear to be. Part of me wants to lash out at them in anger. But I know this is wrong. It doesn’t solve anything. I know that there are things about them which I don’t understand — just as there are things about me which they don’t understand.

There’s already been enough hate and anger. Those never achieve anything. Sometimes, all I can do is try to love those who seem unlovable — and hope they can offer me the same grace.

There are plenty of times when I’m not loving enough. I know I should be, but I’m far too human. (I wrote about this not long ago.)

Unfortunately, I know that this is going to be a political and social tidal wave — as I also wrote about recently — not something that reasonable people will discuss and solve.

This is going to be used for political purposes. Republicans have used the issue for fundraising and campaigning for years (and will continue to do the same). Democrats are about to do the same thing on a large scale. These candidates don’t care about you. They simply want you money and your vote.

I wish people would decide to be reasonable and pragmatic and moral and loving. But I know better. We’re in for a bumpy ride. It’s just one more step on the long way to the national breakup which looms on the horizon.

Good luck with that. You can’t say you haven’t been warned. Repeatedly.

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On a live awards show Sunday night, one man made a joke about a female celebrity. The husband of the celebrity was offended and hit the man who made the joke. Or maybe it was staged for entertainment. Who knows? Who cares? Social media is full of discussion — and even arguments — about this idiocy today. This baffles me. Let’s assume for a moment that the event happened as reported. People have been having such idiotic fights ever since there have been humans. Half the bars in the world see such brief dustups regularly. It simply doesn’t matter. The fact that so many people believe they need to talk about this — or even need to have opinions about it — is more evidence of the bizarre media brainwashing that convinces many to care passionately about brain-dead trivia. Your life will be happier and saner if you focus on yourself, your family and your friends, not on whatever scripted (or spontaneous) bilge that the media wants to pipe into your home.

I’m in the middle of migrating this website to new servers this week. This means you might encounter some unexpected behavior until I get all the bugs worked out. Clicking on my links (including this one) might cause your browser to give you the message that it’s a site without a current security certificate. It’s not actually unsafe, but there’s something which isn’t yet set up for the security certificate. I apologize for any such errors you might encounter while the process is going on. If you notice any problems with content which didn’t migrate properly, I would appreciate you letting me know the details at davidmcelroy@mac.com. Thanks for your patience.

I often wonder what animals think when they look at us and consider the society we’ve created. Yes, I know this is fanciful and unrealistic, but what if they could? Would they be astounded at how we treat each other? Would they be disgusted by the ugliness and pettiness which fill so many of our daily interactions? The truth is that I’m feeling pretty disgusted with humanity tonight. I made the mistake of reading some online interactions that I should have avoided — and it sickened me. The people involved appeared to be vile and stupid and arrogant. I wish I could pretend they’re a tiny minority, but I know better. It’s times such as this when I most need to escape much of “civilization” and disconnect from their world. If humans are going to be worthy of “ruling this planet,” we have a lot of growth to do. And I fear that growth is nowhere in sight. So my buddy Thomas, above, and all of his friends would be right to judge us harshly — and to think, “Why do you folks get to be in charge?”

I should have expected this, but I honestly didn’t. The article I wrote last week about disagreements over treatment for autistic children brought me angry emails. You could almost call it “hate mail.” Of the five emails about it so far, two have been to tell me that I’m wrong to even listen to critics of the most popular therapy for autistic children — and the other three tell me I’m wrong for not condemning the treatment as the “obvious” abuse it is. If you read the article, you know I didn’t take a position on the issue, because I simply don’t know enough to have an opinion. But by talking about the issue, I stepped into a heated controversy. The emails from the two sides convinced me of nothing. But they did give me even more empathy for the unfortunate parents who have to figure out for themselves where the truth lies for their children.

Have you ever had what you thought was a new idea — and then discovered that “old you” had the same idea years ago? I had that experience tonight. And it’s been wonderful. I came up with an idea tonight for a very short satirical film that would be a promotion for a fictitious college. The point is to make the college promote — as good things — everything which is actually terrible about most modern colleges. Then I remembered a fake college that I invented back when I was in college. I had created student recruitment brochures and various newsletters back then, so I decided to call my “new” college by the same name I’d invented years ago: Ochita College. As I searched my computer for any old material I might still have about Ochita from the past, I discovered an email I sent to someone in 2009 — outlining essentially the same idea which I came up with tonight. Since I didn’t remember writing that, it felt like magic. So my next film project just might be this one instead. If all goes well, you might soon see “Ochita College: Your Future Starts Here.” This should be fun.

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