Where do we go from here? Things are about to get very interesting

By David McElroy · September 25, 2011

Most of us know what we don’t like about our current political systems. When we share our frustrations, we hear the inevitable question: What can you do about it? I think we’re getting closer to answering that question. Soon, it’s going to be time for you to decide which path to follow.

When I’ve talked here in the past about potential alternatives to sticking it out under the current system — or even worse systems, in the case of the places some of you are reading from — the answers have had to be pretty theoretical. We’re at a point at which the theoretical takes halting steps to become the possible and then the practical. And that’s when it gets exciting.

One of the most exciting projects in the world right now is going on in Honduras. It’s not the final goal of complete independence that I’d like — when people can build their own countries as easily as they can start companies today — but it’s a huge step in the right direction. It has the potential to be a game-changer for those of us who believe that economic and other freedoms can give people a chance to bring themselves out of poverty and find a better way to live.

In late July, Honduras approved a constitutional change that’s going to allow groups to petition to start new cities — charter cities or free cities, for instance — on undeveloped land in the country. In the new cities, the applicable law will be Hong Kong law and economic freedom (or better), according to Michael Strong, who is working closely on the project.

I’m telling you about this now because there’s something coming up later this week that I’d like to encourage you to watch. (And you know that I don’t watch television, so it has to be special for me to encourage it.) John Stossel has a show on the Fox Business Network looking at the question of “What if Libertarians Were in Charge.” As the final segment, Strong and his wife, Magatte, will be discussing how free cities will reduce poverty and create jobs, hope and prosperity in the developing world.

I’ll mention it again later this week, but here are the times: Thursday, Sept. 29, at 10 p.m. eastern; Saturday, Sept. 30, at 9 p.m. eastern; Sunday, Sept. 30, at midnight eastern; and Sunday, Oct. 1, at 9 p.m. eastern.

Sometime later in the week, I’ll also be directing you to a new website that will go live explaining all about free cities and their potential to bring much higher levels of freedom and prosperity.

So now that there’s an alternative to work toward — one that’s about to get off the ground as a real, pragmatic alternative in Honduras — we’re much closer to answering the question of what can be done. It’s just a first step, but it has the potential to be an interim step toward something much bigger that can bring real competitive governance in the long run.

No matter what your motivation, this has the possibility of being a game-changer. It’s a chance to show that more economic and social freedom can create prosperity, but it’s also an opportunity to lay the foundation for changing an entire country. Honduras is poor and has many people with little hope of a better future economically. The free zones will create jobs and wealth that will change their lives and create tremendous opportunity for those of us who would like to work with people’s social and spiritual needs. Any time a society is undergoing huge changes, people are open to considering things they wouldn’t have considered before. It will be an exciting time and it will require people who are willing to sacrifice and work hard — in a place that’s not going to be terribly developed at first — in order to build new enterprises and help change the world for the people who live there.

Most people aren’t going to want to go be a part of it. I understand that. (It’s something that I probably will want to be a part of if I can.) But even if you don’t want to directly be a part of it, it has the chance of having a ripple effect in the rest of the world — by showing what can be done when you allow people to be free.

This is a future I can be happy about — helping work to build a free society and also working to meet the needs of local people who are desperate. I don’t know whether that appeals to you, but it makes me a lot more excited than staying here in my nice little suburb and wishing I could change things.

I’ve always wanted to change the world. This seems like a good small way to start, in a way that can meet physical, financial, educational and spiritual needs of poor people who can be set free in many ways.

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I’ve never been attracted to skinny women. There’s nothing wrong with someone who’s naturally thin, but it’s never been my preference. What has shocked me, though, is the judgment I’ve heard from women all through my life — about themselves and others — about who’s “fat.” I concluded long ago that most women in our culture have been brainwashed to believe that skinny is attractive — and that anything other than skinny is ugly. I first assumed that I was the oddball — for preferring women with bigger and heavier bodies — but I’m coming to the conclusion that most men naturally feel this way to one extent or another. I just ran across new research by a couple of Northwestern University psychology professors that shows that women seriously overestimate how much a straight man will be attracted to a skinny woman. In a perfect world, we would all be at a healthy weight, but when it comes to attractiveness, too heavy is more attractive than skinny. At least to me — and to a lot of men, too.

Years ago, I heard a question that seemed very insightful at the time. You’ve probably heard it, too. What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail? The question is intended to help you uncover things you really want to do, but which you’re afraid to try — for fear of failure. In an interview today, I heard the great marketing guru Seth Godin give a different point of view. He said the better question is to ask what you would do even if you knew it would fail. That struck me as far more insightful than the original version. We ought to be doing what we know is right, not what will maximize our success or praise from others. There are some battles that are worth fighting even if you believe you’re doomed to failure. Those battles are often for love or important ideas or our children. Some things are simply worth fighting for — and the truth is that you might win anyway. Do the right thing. Take the chance.

The more I understand about myself, about human nature and about the nature of reality, the more I realize I’m a radical by the standards of both Modernism and Postmodernism. Seeing the things which I’m stumbling toward makes me an enemy of many of the core ideas upon which contemporary culture is built. It exposes the culture as a monstrous lie — like a dangerous infection that’s slowly destroying what human were created to be. My “inner observer” has always known that truth was found in the ideas of the Enlightenment, but I’m slowly finding words to explain what has merely been instinct until now. The Enlightenment was humanity’s great leap forward, but shallow and arrogant thinkers for the next two centuries threw away the fruits of that achievement. We can’t go forward as a species until we go back to correct this intellectual and spiritual error — and part of that is acknowledging that our collective attempts to do away with our Creator will always fail.

I’ve come to believe that some of us — including me — aren’t very good at knowing how to be happy. I don’t mean that in the sense that happy talk and positive thinking should be able to make us happy regardless of the circumstances. I mean that some of us had so much experience with being unhappy when we were young that we were trained to be unhappy — and that being happy is an unconsciously uncomfortable thing. When I look at times in my past when I should have been happy, it rarely lasted. I believe now that I found reasons to be unhappy — and caused real problems for myself — because being comfortable and happy felt so foreign to my programming. If I’m right, this means that some of us have to do more than just change our circumstances. It means we have to learn how to accept the happiness that we unconsciously fear we don’t deserve.

After I wrote last night about being happy, I thought of an old song that mirrored what I was feeling. After listening to the entire album, I found it remarkable how well the emotions of that music match my own heart at this point in my life. Bob Bennett’s “Matters of the Heart” came out while I was in college. Even after all these years, it holds up really well, and you can listen to the entire album on YouTube. The specific song which matched my feelings last night was “Madness Dancing,” but I still find every song on the album to be strong with the exception of the eighth and ninth. (The song about his parents, called “1951,” is especially poignant.) In fact, the opening and closing songs paint a picture of my heart at its best now in these lines: “A light shining in this heart of darkness, A new beginning and a miracle, Day by day the integration of the concrete and the spiritual.” It’s old music that you’ve probably never heard, but it means a lot to me.

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