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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If you have problems with high blood pressure, I’d like to encourage you to consider making serious changes to your diet. There might be some people who don’t have any choice but to start taking prescription medications for high blood pressure, but I’d like to tell you that I have completely eliminated my issue by eliminating all sugar and almost all carbohydrates. (A couple of months ago, my blood pressure hit 185/144, which was dangerously high — considered stage 3 hypertension.) By completely changing my eating habits, I’m down 22 pounds and my blood pressure is now in the “ideal” range — without taking any medication. In addition, I sleep better and I have more energy. Getting away from the sugar-laden mess that we generally refer to as “highly processed food” has been a life-changer for me. Now my challenge is to avoid slipping back into old habits — by eating in the dangerous ways that almost everyone in our society has come to see as normal.

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?

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