Author: Kilgore Forelle

Pangolins

Kilgore Forelle

Nobody asked but …

Once again, I have anecdotal evidence about humanity that is very dreary.  Mark Twain said, “Always do right.  This will gratify some, the rest will be astonished.”  The reason for astonishment seems to be that there are damned few who are compelled to do right — much fewer always to do right.

Take, for instance, the sad tale of the pangolin.  Statists will insist that we need states to prevent the illegal trade in pangolin scales, and consequently the extinction of the species.  I would ask, “How’s that working out for you?”

The thing is that it would be a long time before logic and order corrected the ills of the state — if ever.  But there is also the thing that statists are clueless about statism being necessary THOUGH evil.  Statism is useless AND evil.  Statism is wrong AND evil.  There is nothing that government does which non-government can’t do.

— Kilgore Forelle

Open This Content

Anarchy Just Is

Kilgore Forelle

Nobody asked but …

Statists and ancoms, too often, ask, “How does anarchy work?” or “How does your version of anarchy work?”  They somehow think that because I am an anarchist that I am obligated to explain it to them as a system, like a tractor or ice cream.  I am under no such obligation — in fact, my own conception of anarchy evolves from day to day.  My thoughts on anarchy are chaotic (in process of change) and anarchical (derived from no single ruler).  The marginal segment of the Universe(s) that is archical and static (that is, ruled and held at a status quo) is minimal — unworthy of note.

My alter-ego, Verbal Vol, once posted a consideration of the tardigrade.  “Could it be that constitutions, by-laws, and governments are not necessary?”

Anarchy doesn’t “work,” as a fiction — anarchy “is,” as a fact.  The history of human archism is but a molecule on a hairline scratch on a minuscule shard in the dust of the Universe(s).  Perception and perspective, my friends.

— Kilgore Forelle

Open This Content

Basketball

Kilgore Forelle

Nobody asked but …

I love basketball.  I love it from the women’s grade school level, in which I used to coach, to the Olympic level with NBA and other international superstars.  Why?  I love it for the same reason as I do rugby.  The games are models of chaos.  They are models of life.  They are models of anarchy.

A great deal of hoopla has been raised about the end of the semi-final NCAA Tournament game between Auburn and Virginia.  Of course, the Final four weekend is attended by a mob of muckrakers, gamblers, and self-appointed analysts.  This gaggle of elites sweep through the sporting meccas on an annual circuit, this week in Minneapolis for the Final Four, next week in Augusta for the Masters.  They will cram the after-contest tavern scene, shouting observations over one another.  The topic du jour is a couple of calls made or not made by referees.

The thing we forget here is that basketball is chaos.  Certainly it has rules and hierarchy and officials, but these exist only to define the confines of the chaos — and sometimes, as in the case of dribbling, to induce chaos.  They are fundamental, just as are the dimensions of the court or pitch.  But nevertheless it is chaos.  If basketball were not chaotic, who would watch?  It is because the unexpected can happen that we aficianados are hooked.  In a basketball game there are a conglomeration of convoluted, complex, confounding collisions of chance encounters.  There is free will and determinism.  The stochastics of ten players, three referees, two coaching cohorts, and a howling spectatorship, cannot be fully described.  Each of the entities is operating both dependently and independently.  Each of the entities has competencies and incompetencies, and each property for each entity varies with time.

Was there a double dribble?  Probably.  Such a thing happens throughout a game.  Did events occur before, after, and during the double dribble, dependently and independently?  Most certainly.  Was there a double dribble, in appearance or in fact?  Historians will disagree.

— Kilgore Forelle

Open This Content

Speculative News Is Fake News

Kilgore Forelle

Nobody asked but …

Today I took a dreary passage down the path of a slow news day, a day in the middle of the weekend news cycle.  It would be sort of OK if this phenomenon were marked with a drought of information, but instead it is littered with misinformation and disinformation (the first is inaccurate, the second is deliberately inaccurate).  Apparently, the media wants us to believe there is an endless cornucopia of critical news.

Examine the linguistic forms in the headlines.  They are bloated with tentativeness.  So-and-so will, shall, may, is to do, has concerns regarding, wonders if, looks forward to, expects, speculates, threatens, questions, rhetorically questions, promises, predicts, as often happens …

There is an old downhome saying, “the sun don’t shine on the same dog’s ass all the time.”  Therefore, speculation about the various permutations of the situation are mundane.  We don’t need an endless list of guesses while we await events.

Most of the small potatoes of human events can pass without remark.  Black holes, for instance, are vast, but seeing a speculative artist’s illustration of a black hole is small potatoes.

Most of the time, the media are just treading water, while the establishment is doling out quasi-info with dessert spoons.  Is it any revelation that sometimes the ink-stained ones get tired of waiting, to resort to speculation to fill that empty page, to make sure that the video crawl is not empty.

There is the thing called the Fallacy Fallacy, wherein the mere fact of speculation does not mean that a forecast may be untrue.  The sad part is that the status quo gives both the liar and the honest man a chance to cry, “fake news!”

— Kilgore Forelle

 

 

Open This Content

We’re Undecided Now, So What’re We Gonna Do?

Kilgore Forelle

Nobody asked but …

Reading, er listening to another audio book as written by James Bamford, Body of Secrets (subtitle: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency, from the Cold War through the Dawn of a New Century).  This is a belated follow-through on a published citation from Radley Balko.  I recommend the book highly both for the content on the stated subject, but more importantly for me, the implications about the basic nature of the state and its bureaucracy.  Sometimes Bamford supplies a heavy load of detail, but I honestly could not omit any of them.

This is a paraphrasing of Bamford’s account of the NSA during Nixon’s years — Nixon issued a directive approving of the most aggressive delineation of the USA’s meddling powers.  Some such as the NSA were delighted because it reinforced what they were already doing, while others such as the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover were outraged because it revealed what they were already doing.  Five days later AG Mitchell talked Nixon into rescinding the directive as problematic under the Constitution.  Most in the cloak and dagger community were unaware of either directive.  Why?  Bureaucrats and their bureaus are born out of the spoils system, not out of concepts of good governance.  The ideation of any plan is to serve a special interest, to intervene where we have previously chosen, through logic or care or neglect, NOT to intervene.  Write it down!

The concern arises that 99 and 44/100ths% of the agenda of agencies are out of the control of anyone.  There is a “set it and forget it” syndrome with them all.  I have been in close proximity to the state, man and boy, for over 7 decades (haven’t we all, for varying lengths of time?), and I have never seen a bureau go out of existence.  Please tell me I am wrong, please, I beg you.  Though many instruments of the rulers are obsolete, they are no longer connected to their founding justification, and/or were never connected to their founding justification.

Obviously, the chief attribute of any society of human beings is to foul its own nest.

— Kilgore Forelle

Open This Content

Confessions of a Blogging Opium Eater

Kilgore Forelle

Nobody asked but …

With a nod to Thomas De Quincey, I have had to deal with the consequences of an addiction once again.  As a life long University of Kentucky basketball fan, I now must look forward to a long, cold summer.  I will have fleeting moments, perhaps in the NBA playoffs, perhaps when they contest the Rugby World Cup to see who can deny the New Zealand All Blacks.

But this all got me thinking about the nature of undying love, freedom, individuality, and consequences, from the POV of a voluntaryist.  Nobody got me into this mess, but myself.  I know the risks, however, so I suppose I suffer gladly (acknowledging that I would celebrate even more gladly, as I have done countless times in the past).  Looking at my nearly 76 earthly years with the Wildcats and the All Blacks, it has been worth it.

The point, however, is that addictions are one of the consequences of voluntarily seeking joy.  If you do it in the true spirit of the non-aggression principle (initiate no violence), the golden rule (do to others as you hope they will do to you), studying war no more, and hearty acceptance of ALL the responsibilities conferred with your goals of liberty, you can have joy, even among the heartaches.

— Kilgore Forelle

Open This Content