My endorsement goes to the man who can make coercive state work

By David McElroy · November 13, 2011

Much to my surprise, people sometimes send me email to ask who I support for the Republican presidential nomination. I can only assume those people don’t read the site thoroughly, but I’m going to make an endorsement today — just for them.

What is it we want in a president? We want a person who will respect individual liberty across the board, someone who will end government intervention in the economy, someone who will pull U.S. troops back to our own states and use them only to defend that territory, and someone who will dismantle the social welfare state that has been built for the last 80 years or so. There are other details we want, but those are some broad strokes.

Taking the requirements of the job into account, I’m throwing my complete support behind that great, patriotic American named Mr. Nobody. That’s right. Without question, Nobody gets my endorsement.

Since Congress controls the laws that decide how much individual freedom we’re allowed to keep, the other candidates won’t respect our freedom. They can’t. They don’t make the laws. Nobody will respect our freedom.

Because Congress mandates that the executive branch control more and more aspects of our personal lives, the president isn’t allowed to decide to let the economy operate on its own. Obama can’t do that. Romney can’t do that. Not even Ron Paul can do that. Nobody can.

Because wars and the use of the military are so popular, Congress is going to insist that U.S. bases around the world continue to operate — inevitably angering someone in the countries where they’re located. Because building expensive weapons puts massive amounts of money into the pockets of the military-industrial complex — and employs a good number of people doing it — Congress will continue to buy that equipment. No president is going to be allowed to cut military spending. Obama doesn’t want to and couldn’t if he did. Romney and the leading Republican contenders are chomping at the bit already to invade Iran. They aren’t going to stop the foreign adventurism. Nobody can.

Since the programs of the “social safety net” (such as Social Security and Medicare) are so popular, Congress is going to continue to fund them. It’s not only going to continue funding them, but it’s going to pile on additional programs, no matter what the economic conditions are. Obama is dying to keep adding programs, so he’ll co-0perate in adding them. Romney and the other Republicans who have a chance of winning will give lip service to ending a few programs, but they don’t really want to end them. (Remember that Romney is the architect of RomneyCare in Massachusetts, which was the blueprint for ObamaCare.) None of the other candidates will end the social welfare state. Nobody can.

So now you know. The candidate to support is 2012 is Nobody. Let me spell it for you. That’s N-O-B-O-D-Y. If someone asks you who you’re for, just give them that one name and then realize that you’ve said all you need to say.

I’m voting for Nobody. I suggest you vote for Nobody. It’s the only pragmatic and moral choice.

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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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