David McElroy

Cleaning out the notebook again…

Watching the bloody and useless battles over the funding of ObamaCare confirms for me once again that getting out of the system is the best choice for sanity and long-term logic. The forest is burning and it’s too late to put out the fire. The smart thing is to figure out how to escape the doomed forest, not fight over who gets to control certain trees. The whole thing is going to burn.

I’m frustrated by the utter lack of regard for the truth that I see in so many posts on Facebook and Twitter these days. Just because someone posted something and you’re reposting it doesn’t absolve you of responsibility for spreading lies. Show respect for the truth and your own credibility. Use some basic common sense before spreading obvious idiocy that can be debunked in 30 seconds. You’re making yourself look foolish when you do that. It seems that people are willing to post anything that appears to support their viewpoint, whether it’s credible or not.

For the last three months, I’ve waited through various delays for the person who had agreed to do the special effects makeup for my next short film. The continued delays in getting certain supplies were frustrating, but I thought everything would be on track once she finally got those supplies. She told me about two weeks ago that she would be ready to go in two weeks, but she sent me an email out of the blue last Thursday to say she was quitting because of “work and personal matters.” So I’ve wasted three months on this project and now I have to find someone else who can do the same effects or else switch to a different project. I’m frustrated, because I thought we’d have a finished film by now. I’m trying to find someone who can do the same effects, because I really want to make this film.

I have a Facebook friend who just had to endure a criminal trial in which his brother was prosecuted for killing their parents. The brother was convicted earlier this week and sentenced to life without parole Wednesday. Sometimes when I look at his situation — and the situations of others who’ve endured very difficult circumstances — it makes me feel as though I have less to complain about than I sometimes feel that I do. I know that you can’t really compare people’s heartaches, but I do feel fortunate that I haven’t had to endure what some others have had to endure. I don’t know how well I could deal with some of what I see friends deal with. In many respects, I have it pretty good.

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Most of what I read about politics lately is blatantly dishonest or at least badly misleading. There’s been a trend toward this — especially among True Believers of every side — for a long time, but it’s getting worse. Most people like to read this dishonest or misleading material, and they eagerly spread the graphic “memes” demonizing those who disagree with them. They love for someone to make them angry.

As a result, I’m not entirely sure what I have left to say about politics right now.

I moved away from an exclusive focus on politics almost from the beginning here. I started out talking about politics because I had worked in the field for so long. I had some things to say that were different from what the mainstream was saying (and different in focus from what was being said by other libertarians or anarchists). But my heart quickly led me to talk more and more about what I considered “real life” and less and less about partisan politics.

Although the numbers I see for readers has held up rather nicely, I’m not sure that it’s worth the investment of time for the small impact it might have. I don’t want to waste my time writing what becomes the equivalent of room noise in a world where social media and blogs are filled with angry voices catering to the worst in human nature — with lies and disinformation in the service of partisan propaganda.

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Conservatives have been fighting ObamaCare in one way or another since 2009. Republicans in Congress lost the battle and Barack Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act into law in 2010. The battle didn’t end there. With the law’s key provisions going into effect in slightly more than 90 days, some Republicans still haven’t given up on the fantasy that they can stop it.

The best chance to stop the law was when the Supreme Court heard a challenge to its constitutionality. Because of Chief Justice John Roberts’ bizarre defection from the conservative bloc of the court, most of ObamaCare was upheld on a 5-4 vote. The only other real chance to stop the law from being implemented was the 2012 presidential election. Even though Mitt Romney had championed a similar plan when he was governor of Massachusetts, he campaigned against the law because … well … that’s what conservatives wanted him to do.

Romney was an uninspiring candidate and lost badly. The chief sponsor of ObamaCare was re-elected. The battle was over.

But some conservatives are obsessed with the fantasy that they can stop the law by withholding the funding for it. The U.S. House passed a bill last week that would keep the government operating past the end of September, but Republicans didn’t include money to fund ObamaCare in their bill. The Democratic-controlled Senate obviously won’t pass the bill, so there’s something of a deadlock.

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