David McElroy

One of the ironies of modern political life in America is that some people can’t get over the fact that a middle-class suburban black family has more in common with its white neighbors than with black families in a poor, uneducated inner city. So well-meaning but unthinking people keep trying to perpetuate political racial segregation instead of letting people decide what they want for themselves.

The latest example of this comes from the county next door to me. Shelby County in on the south side of Birmingham, and it contains much of the metro area’s wealthy and middle-class suburbs. There are pockets of lower-income people, but it’s typically home to a lot of middle class and upper middle class people.

It should be a sign of progress that quite a number of the families in the upper middle class neighborhoods of Shelby County are now black. They’re certainly still a small minority, but it’s common — and it’s not an issue for anyone. For an area that was seen as Ground Zero for racial discrimination less than 50 years ago, it’s huge progress. But some people are now unhappy that those black families — spread out through all those majority-white neighborhoods — don’t see black skin on any members of the County Commission.

Keep Reading

If Jesus wanted to reveal Himself to you, how do you suppose He’d do it? A South Carolina couple is convinced that Jesus is blessing them by mysteriously superimposing His fuzzy image onto a Walmart receipt. If this is the best Jesus can do, the photographic equipment at the right hand of the Father leaves a bit to be desired.

It’s easy to make fun of people such as this — and I’m not discouraging that in this case — but there’s a more interesting point to be made. Most of the time, people see what they want (or need) to see. It’s a well-known phenomenon, although it goes by different names. (This article by Michael Shermer is a good overview of the science behind it, although I have to caution that I think Shermer has a history of being too quick to dismiss everything he can’t explain.)

I’ve seen this in my own life when somebody saw Jesus’ face in a door at a local hospital. (More about that in a moment.)

This tendency to find simplistic explanations for random events affects most people. When folks just see Jesus on their Walmart receipt, it’s not a big deal. But what about cases in which people start seeing irrational things in economics (“Imports are bad!”) and then insist that society be reordered to fit their prejudices? It can lead to the idiocy of the modern state’s economic policies. What about when people see conspiracies by racial or ethnic groups (“The Jews are out to get us!”) and start trying to destroy those people? It can lead to Nazi death camps.

Keep Reading

I’ve struggled for a long time to figure out what to call my current political position — or whether I have have a political position anymore. It depends on what you mean by “political,” I guess.

As the word is normally understood, I’m apolitical, almost to the point of indifference. If you’re talking about the bigger question of how power is organized and distributed, that’s a different matter entirely. I’m certainly not a statist. I’m also no longer what you’d consider a minarchist. But I’m finding that none of the variations of “anarchist” really work for me anymore, either. (All of the labels just seem to confuse the issue.) I’d like to take a look at why I think the debate between anarchists and minarchists is going to cease to matter soon.

Let’s say the debate is among plantation slaves about whether to co-operate with plantation owners for better treatment or to openly revolt. You could quibble about how good the analogy is, but I’d say it’s reasonable.

You could make good arguments on both sides of that argument. The ones arguing for co-operating and working for better treatment and better working conditions would be the pragmatic ones. That position would especially appeal to the slaves who might have built up a bit of status or privilege with the owners. For them, it could seem foolish to risk everything, especially when the chances of success seemed low and they weren’t sure what would come next. The ones arguing for open revolt would take the position that being a slave of any sort was immoral, demeaning and unacceptable. I can understand how each would feel. I’d like to think I would opt for open revolt, but if the danger were really great, I might not. I might play it safe.

Keep Reading