Will I run for office? The short answer is ‘no’; the longer answer is ‘no way’

By David McElroy · November 29, 2011

I’ve been reading your articles in the last two weeks and find myself agreeing with what you say. Have you ever thought about running for office? We need people like you!

Have I thought about it? Yes. Do I have any intention of doing it now? No.

There was a time in the past when I believed it was possible to bring about change through the electoral political system, so I was seriously interested in running for office. Or maybe I was simply still egotistical enough to believe that maybe I could make a difference. Either way, I don’t believe now it’s possible to solve the problems, both because of the size of the problems and because of the nature of the voting public.

Even if I thought it might be possible — in the pragmatic sense — to fix things, I’ve come to the conclusion that the entire system of choosing a person to “run the country” is pretty darned immoral. (I know we have Congress to technically make the laws, but you know what I mean.) I’m happy to have you join us. If you stick around (and maybe poke through older articles), I think my position on this will become more clear. Either way, you flatter me by suggesting the possibility. Thanks.

I am currently a sophomore enrolled at [Big Name] University. I am currently in a Political Science course, in which I have to write a paper explaining the purpose of radical thought in our political tradition. I read a few of your columns on radical ideas and I was curious to see what role you think radical thought plays in U.S politics. Thanks in advance.

You’d have to be way more specific than that for me to even hope to give you any useful answer, but off the top of my head I’ll say that pretty much any change that’s ever happened in this country — even going back to its founding — was a “radical idea” before people accepted it. The idea of independence from Britain was pretty radical. The idea of freeing slaves was radical. The idea of women voting was radical. The idea of prohibiting people from drinking alcohol was radical. And on and on and on. Every break with the status quo seems radical at first, but once more people accept it, it seems obvious.

We are doing a writing project in our government class about the election and I am writing about President Obama and Mr. Romney the Republican. Can you tell me how thier position on issues is different and why they are different? It would save me a lot of research and you sound like you would know. Thank you.

This sounds like a way to get me to do your research. I’ll make you a deal. If you write me a really killer article that’s worth publishing here, I’ll write the answer your teacher is looking for you to do and you can turn it in if you don’t mind cheating. (I can offer this deal since I know you won’t take it.)

But the very short answer to your question is that the two men are pretty much identical except for skin color.

Do you think something terrible is going to happen in 2012? Also, what do you think about the chemtrails they’re spraying our atmosphere with? Don’t you agree the New World Order is trying to kill a large part of the population slowly so they can take us over?

I think a lot of bad things are going to happen in 2012. I also think a lot of really great things are going to happen in 2012. But there’s absolutely zero evidence that it’s the end of the world or that the Mayans predicted something bad. That’s just superstitious nonsense. If you don’t believe me, check back on new year’s day of 2013 and we’ll discuss the concept of gullibility.

As for so-called “chemtrails,” please take off the tin foil hat. I don’t trust much of anything that government says or does at face value, but nothing about the whole chemtrail conspiracy has ever made any sense. There’s nothing to it. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a black helicopter to catch for a meeting with the Masons and the Illuminati. I think the Bilderbergers are coming, too. But thanks for writing.

If you have a question for David, drop him a line at davidmcelroy@mac.com. He can’t promise to answer all questions, but he’ll try. He also can’t promise not to make fun of you if the question is especially funny.

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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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