David McElroy

making sense of a dysfunctional culture

If we disrespect skilled trades, we’re ignorant and arrogant fools

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As I walked into Lowe’s tonight, I realized I was too ignorant to even ask for the part by its name. Was it a socket? A plug-in doohickey? Or “the stuff under where the plug goes”?

I don’t remember what I called it now, but a couple of employees looked puzzled until one of them realized what I wanted and directed me to Aisle 12. After wandering that aisle and confirming how hopelessly ignorant I was with these parts, a nice fellow shopper asked what I was looking for. She directed me to the right place — on Aisle 13, it turned out — and advised me about which one to buy.

I was completely out of my element and it made me feel shame and regret — not for the first time — about the utter disdain which I used to have toward people who did the sort of blue-collar work which I looked down upon.

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‘Don’t ever be afraid to turn page,’ but leaving comfort zone is scary

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Do you remember what it felt like when you thought you could do anything? If you experienced any kind of success when you were young — as I did — you know what I mean. There was a kind of exhilaration and eagerness — a feeling that the world was about to open up and make all your dreams come true.

And then the dream eventually starts turning to nightmare. Not immediately. Not all at once. The years move along. You do well but don’t reach the spectacular success you dreamed of. You’re not the brilliant young know-it-all anymore. There are some bumps and bruises along the way. You’re no longer the talented genius moving up the ladder toward ruling the world.

And then you start settling. You settle for less than the success you planned. You’re being paid well, so why would you take any risks? You settle for a relationship with someone who doesn’t know you and doesn’t really care to try. But it’s stability and people think you’re lucky, so why would you take any risks?

If this is you, Warren Buffett just tweeted some advice for you.

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Partisans defend every kind of evil when it’s done by their own allies

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A child who is put into a cage doesn’t care whether his jailer is a Democrat or a Republican. He just wants out of the cage and he wants to return to his parents.

I haven’t had anything to say about the obscenity of ripping children from their parents and putting them into fenced cages — literal cages — because if you know this is evil, I don’t have to explain that to you. And if you don’t know this is evil, I can’t help you understand something so obvious.

The problem with political partisans is that they are willing to see evil when their enemies do it, but are blind to such things when their allies do the same things.

In the last week or so, pictures such as this one have been shared all over social media in order to attack the border policies of Donald Trump’s administration. The only problem is that the mostly progressive left folks who were sharing it didn’t realize the photos were taken four years ago — when Barrack Obama’s administration was in control.

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