It’s been six months for this baby site, so what have we learned so far?

By David McElroy · November 13, 2011

On May 13, I opened the digital doors to this site for the first time. I’d never heard of most of you fine readers, and you’d never heard of me. So what have those six months brought?

Most importantly, I’ve met some pretty amazing people who just happened to start reading here. I’ve enjoyed your insightful comments and I’ve enjoyed private correspondence with a number of you. You know who you are. Especially you and you and you. If you think I’m talking to you, I probably am.

I’ve learned that a lot of people see the same tsunami of economic and social collapse that I do — and many of those people are scared and searching for answers. I’ve discovered that many people expect things to get bad, but they believe there’s nothing they can do about it. Over time, I hope we can start addressing more of that. (We’re still trying to attract more people to have a big enough group to pull that off.)

I’ve also learned that a lot of people just can’t see that the majoritarian system can’t bring about freedom. Four years ago, many people were certain that they’d somehow get Ron Paul elected, for instance. This year, I’m encountering many people who are the same way. They get angry when you explain that it’s not going to happen. If you still believe in the electoral system, good luck with that. The people I’m seeking are looking for alternatives.

I’ve also learned that people argue about things they haven’t read. Many of the most interesting discussions of the articles here take place on Facebook. (Send me a friend request if you haven’t yet.) I frequently find that people debate the merits of the articles without having first read them. I’m still confused about that.

I’m excited about the future. The past couple of months have brought a tripling of the daily average readership, so I’m hoping that will continue. (I’m also hoping that people will click on ads they find interesting, so we can pay the bills around here.) The site has had 100,000 visits in six months, which is about 99,500 more than I expected in the beginning. In addition to all the U.S. states, we’ve had visitors from 142 countries. Some of you even write to me from places such as Fiji and Pakistan and Nepal. Thank you. Keep it up.

Just last week, we talked about the possibility of adding a discussion forum. More than 30 people expressed interest in one way or another, so I might start looking at that seriously. (I’m going to need some people to be moderators and discussion leaders, so please let me know if you’re interested. I don’t want to have to twist arms when the time comes.) In the longer term, I’m also looking at a possible weekly podcast to make available through iTunes. And even longer term than that, there might be a book or two in the works. Stay tuned for more on all those things in time.

I really appreciate those of you who share some time with me every day. I know you have plenty of choices about what to read — online and offline — so I’m honored that so many of you are choosing to share some of your valuable time here. I appreciate you and I’m looking forward to a celebration of bigger things in the days to come.

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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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