No one can emancipate, liberate, or free another man. People are inherently free or they are not. To enslave a living being is to deny them their obvious purpose. It is to interfere illegitimately with their living. People should seek to live together in a semblance of harmony, but there is no man empowered to…
Author: Kilgore Forelle
If You Have Nothing to Hide
Nobody asked but … One cannot prove a negative. That alone should be sufficient to disprove the cockeyed idea that if you have nothing to hide, then you have nothing about which to worry. Dan Carlin, on his excellent podcast, Common Sense, retells the story of the New Mexico man who suffered 14 hours…
Re: Honor and Snowden
Nobody asked but … Honor is a dangerous idea to me. To think for a moment that Edward Snowden might have entertained for a second the idea of behaving honorably due to a bogus contract with murderous bureaucrats makes my skin crawl. A contractor to the people has honor due only to the people, not…
Mandela
Nobody asked but … Skyler was correct when he posted that there are no gods on the Earth, but sometimes there are exceedingly unique persons. Nelson Mandela was one of those. Certainly he was a statist (in the end), but he was also certainly a voluntaryist. In fact, he was too complex to categorize. To…
There Is No Teapot Too Small to Have a Tempest
Nobody asked but … All that is needed is collectivism. Read this story in the Lexington, KY Herald. I have no problem with voluntary homeowners associations per se, at least until some member or members take it upon their bad, authoritarian selves to pull this kind of scam. I can see denying Ms. Boak the…
Words Poorly Used #9 — Private Sector
I quote my alter ego, Verbal Vol, from his upcoming EVC column, Finding the Challenges:” … there is no private sector; the entities cited are defined by the public (state) sector, in effect they are subsidiaries of the state. If the state did not believe they were beholden to the state, they would have no…
Words Poorly Used #8 — Accountability
Think, in 10 words or less, what the word “accountable” means to you — no fair looking in a dictionary, because politicians who promise accountability don’t. Politicians say “someone should be accountable.” This means an unnamed, later to be determined person might be singled out to take the blame for something. If we look at…
But Who Will Maintain the (Rail)Roads?
Nobody asked but … It was indeed Black Friday for this trainload of people. The railroad is apparently, if the news story is to be believed, subject to several layers of governmental undersight. Alphabet agencies are arriving on the scene like sea gulls at the landfill, preparing to fill the air with CYA. One of…
Words Poorly Used #7 — Nation
Many people use the word “nation” interchangeably with “country,” “state,” or “government.” This gives rise to confusion among those who are inhabitants of the latter three. The origin of the word nation is in its use to identify a group of people of common birth experience. An example would be the “Cherokee Nation.” An example…
Re: The Purpose of Life
Nobody asked but … Here’s a nod for happiness being the purpose of life. I have been happy all my life. On my favorite podcasts, the hosts always ask the guests something like when did you first become a voluntaryist/libertarian/anarchist? My answer would be never, since I have always been one. And by the same…