David McElroy

I noticed this morning that gasoline prices had jumped by another 10 cents per gallon overnight. I texted a friend to see if he had noticed.

“Unbelievable,” he texted back. “Biden gas is expensive! Biden inflation is expensive!”

I can’t stand Joe Biden. I also can’t stand Donald Trump. I detest what all these politicians collectively represent. All of them believe that they have the right to make decisions for your life and mine. All of them believe that you and I must be required to obey them — by force, if necessary.

But I know that gasoline prices would be sky high right now no matter who the president was. I understand that the dip in gasoline prices for the previous couple of years was because demand was reduced during a time of lower economic activity. And I understand that the Russian invasion of Ukraine last week caused prices to spike because Russia is a major oil producer.

These are obvious truths for anyone who’s being intellectually honest, but those who are filled with partisan hatred would rather find a ridiculously simplistic explanation that allows them to blame whoever they hate.

This isn’t new. Each time there’s a change in who controls the White House, the angry people of the political mainstream switch sides. The people who have spent four years blaming the incumbent president for everything suddenly decide the new guy — their new hero — isn’t responsible for anything that goes wrong.

And this idiotic game has gone on for decades, allowing almost everyone to ignore the economic looming disaster which was set in motion more than a hundred years ago.

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A friend and I were comparing addictions Tuesday. He’s trying to quit smoking and I’m trying to give up sugar.

My friend started smoking when he was 13 years old — behind his parents’ back, of course — and he’s wanted to give it up for years. But now that he’s 60, he’s seeing serious medical consequences hit him. It’s suddenly become important to quit. He hasn’t had a cigarette for 11 days — and it’s the longest break his lungs have had since he was 13.

I’ve talked before about my ongoing struggle with poor eating. Sugar is my real problem, but it’s far worse because I use food like a drug to self-medicate when I’m feeling down. At some point in January, I suddenly realized I’d been eating well for a few days. It wasn’t a planned thing, but I seized the opportunity, because I know I’m going to kill myself if I don’t make a complete change

Over the last six or seven weeks, I’ve dropped all the sugar and most of the carbs. I’ve felt great and dropped 31 pounds, but I still have a long way to get where I want to go.

My friend and I both have great incentives to kick our habits. But neither of us could compare to the incentive that another friend of mine had. I knew that this friend used to smoke — years ago — and I asked her last week how she quit. It turned out her incentive was her daughter.

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The hand-painted letters on the side of a van seemed to scream like an outraged shout. I was just east of Birmingham Monday afternoon — heading east on I-20 — when I saw the words.

“I AM A HUMAN BEING.”

That’s all it said. There appeared to be a young white man driving. The van had out-of-state license plates. There was no other clue about what the words meant. But, somehow, it made sense to me. I like to imagine that I know how the man inside felt.

A human being is naturally free. He doesn’t live with shackles on his hands and feet, but he also doesn’t allow shackles on his mind. He doesn’t live in a cage with bars and a lock on the outside. But neither does he allow his mind to be caged and controlled.

We don’t enslave people’s bodies anymore. The chains and shackles are mostly in museums. But we’ve done something far worse. We’ve given up control of our minds. We’ve turned over control to bullies and politicians and advertisers and carnival barkers.

And even though our bodies wander the world freely, this control of our minds leaves us doing and saying and being what someone else wants us to be. But every now and then, one of us wakes up to the reality of the culture we’ve created. And even before we fully understand what’s going on, something inside cries out.

I am a human being! I have a right to be free!

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