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David McElroy

An Alien Sent to Observe the Human Race

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State-based ‘aid culture’ makes people believe they’re entitled to other people’s money

By David McElroy · May 17, 2011

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One of the insidious things about the state is that it fosters dependence and a sense of entitlement. In one Alabama community that was hit hard by a recent tornado, survivors met last night to complain that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) wasn’t doing enough for them. (This story is on the front page of the Birmingham newspaper.) Some of the people complaining about being denied money by FEMA were fully covered for their losses by insurance, oddly enough.

I’m a big believer in charity. I’m a part of a church where giving and volunteering are big parts of the theological culture, and I strongly believe in that. But nobody is entitled to other people’s money without consent. Our system of government takes what should be people helping people and turns it into another entitlement program.

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Does financial rot make U.S. ready for sudden collapse?

By David McElroy · May 17, 2011

Until last Friday, there was a huge tree that dominated a section of my back yard. From everything I could tell, the tree was healthy and vibrant — tall and lush and beautiful. But a brief thunderstorm Friday brought strong wind and rain. I happened to point my iPhone through the screen of an upstairs window to shoot a few seconds of video of the storm just in time to see that huge tree collapse like a toothpick.

When the rain ended, I was able to look at the tree. It turned out that the inside was rotten and dead. The outside of the tree and all the branches and leaves above were green and gave every indication of being healthy. But the core had apparently been dead for a long time.

Is the same thing going on in the United States today? The U.S. government appears strong. It has the world’s most powerful military. It still has influence far beyond the population that it rules. But decades of borrowing and spending are gutting the U.S. economy. Is the U.S. state more dead than we realize? Is it just going to take one powerful, sudden wind to knock it over, leaving its dead trunk lying around waiting to be cut up and carted away?

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Could ‘free cities’ — existing inside more restrictive states — be a first step toward freedom?

By David McElroy · May 17, 2011

There was a time in the distant past when I was naive (or delusional) enough to believe we could set the whole world free if we just worked hard enough. Today, I believe that the best we can do is to change little corners of the world and hope others decide to copy the successful models.

One of the more interesting “halfway” ideas I’ve heard about lately is that of establishing “free cities” inside existing nation-states. The idea is a head-scratcher at first, because you wonder why a government would see the value of real freedom, but limit it to just certain zones. For whatever reason, though, the idea is gaining strength. Zachary Caceres sent me a link to a story he wrote for the Adam Smith Institute about the development of free cities. (The Adam Smith Institute is considered the leading libertarian think tank in the UK.) He also points to an article by Michael Strong that looks at attempts to establish zones of freedom within very restrictive countries. He looks at attempts to do this in China, India and the United Arab Emirates. There are also videos of a recent conference devoted to trying these ideas in Honduras, which recently changed its constitution to allow such efforts.

Strong is working with Caceres and others on a “Free Cities Project website and a non-profit organization that will exist to promote the concept. Strong is also the author of a book that sounds like one I’d like to read, called “Be the Solution: How Entrepreneurs and Conscious Capitalists Can Solve All the World’s Problems.”

So-called “free cities” that exist at the permission of a state can’t necessarily be long-term solutions for those of us who would like to get rid of the state entirely, but they might be transitional solutions that can lead the way to something more radical. They certainly sound as though they’re worth investigating further.

What do you think? Is this a viable alternative that could lead to more freedom? Or is it too limited to make a difference?

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Merlin is a benevolent ruler, but he never lets yo Merlin is a benevolent ruler, but he never lets you forget who is head of the royal household around here. #cat #cats #catstagram #catsofinstagram #cute #cutecat #pets #petstagram #petsofinstagram #merlin2024 #instacat #ilovecats #birmingham #alabama
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Molly examines the latest box from Amazon with an Molly examines the latest box from Amazon with an expert eye and judges it harshly, concluding that it is not up to her high standards. #cat #cats #catstagram #catsofinstagram #cute #cutecat #pets #petstagram #petsofinstagram #greeneyes #instacat #ilovecats #birmingham #alabama
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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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