David McElroy

Some people oppose the state because of the evil intentions of the people with power. I’m worried about something far worse and far more common. I’m worried about the unintended consequences of those with good intentions.

In the ’70s, pretty much everyone agreed that overpopulation was one of the top problems in the world, especially for fast-growing poor nations such as China. Trendy U.S. environmentalists such as Paul Ehrlich were saying alarming things about the inevitable mass starvation coming just any day now. In his book, “The Population Bomb,” Ehrlich made predictions which were staggeringly wrong, including this:

The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At this late date nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate….

Although Ehrlich and his apologists remain unrepentant about his repeated wrong predictions, one group of people who listened to the same argument and decided to act. The communist government of mainland China enacted a draconian law to slow down population growth — complete with propaganda posters such as the one above, exhorting the people to “implement the basic national policy.” (If you’d like to know more about “experts” such as Ehrlich and why their predictions, I recommend Dan Gardner’s book, “Future Babble: Why Expert Predictions Fail — and Why We Believe Them Anyway.”)

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I have a confession to make. Over the last 20 years, I’ve regularly been a part of an ongoing scheme to exploit school children. If you live in a district where one of my past political clients has run for office, you’ve see the evidence. If not, I guarantee you’ve seen someone else engage in the same fraud.

So what’s the exploitive scheme? You can see Barack Obama doing his version of it here. I could show you dozens of examples of my own past clients doing it, but I won’t do that, because I don’t rat out my own clients. (When I get bought, I stay bought.) Here’s how it works.

Let’s say you’re running for a seat in your state legislature. Or mayor. Or city council. Or president. Or dog catcher. I don’t care what you’re running for, this works. Find a school with a principal or teacher who’s friendly to you. Show up there and pose for pictures of you with the students. You might do a shot such as Obama’s where you’re playing the big shot explaining the world to the kids. Or if you get younger kids, you gather several of them tightly around you and take a picture of the candidate reading to the kids. (That was one of my specialties.)

Then you plaster these warm and fuzzy pictures (or lofty and commanding pictures) of you with kids onto brochures and TV ads — and you make vague promises about how you will “work to fix schools” and that you’ll “make sure our kids get the education they deserve.” If you’re in a Republican-leaning district, you’ll make some vague promises (not too specific, of course) about more educational choice and cutting school waste. If you’re in a Democratic-leaning district, you’ll make vague promises about increasing funding, but never specific enough that anyone could accuse you of wanting to raise taxes.

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I didn’t want to live with a cat. I certainly didn’t want to live with a cat in my house. I was certain that I didn’t like cats. I was wrong.

Years ago, my ex-wife wanted a cat. She had grown up with felines and had great memories of them. I had grown up with a father who would sooner spontaneously combust than have an animal inside his perfect house, so I knew very, very little of cats or dogs from experience. At best, I was indifferent. But Melissa wanted a cat, so I decided to find one for her.

It was my sister, Mary, who found a stray kitten in Mountain Brook, which is an upscale Birmingham suburb very close to the local zoo. I had mentioned to her that I was looking for a cat, so she called me to come take a look when Melissa wasn’t around — so it would be a surprise for her. I went to Mary’s apartment to see this tiny furball who seemed more like a starving street urchin than the healthy kittens I’d seen in cat food commercials.

I got got down on the floor with him. He came over to me and rubbed against my face — gingerly at first, but then with abandon. I smiled and suddenly felt warmer inside. I didn’t want a cat, but something inside me did. What was I getting into?

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