Category: Nobody Asked, But

Hiding in Plain Sight

Kilgore Forelle

Nobody asked but …

At the risk of jinxing myself, I will admit that I have never been audited by the IRS.  The interesting thing is that my late father, Kilgore Sr., got audited annually.  The other day, it occurred to me, why was this so?  On the strength of our names alone, it would seem that I should have been a marked man.  After much cogitation, thinking about an associated matter, I came to the conclusion that I was invisible to the watchful eye, statistically speaking.

We are not a statistic.  Each of us is an individual.  Each of us participates in a 1-to-1 relationship with every other person, place, or thing in the Universe, including how the other sees us.  My Dad went to the thoroughbred race track nearly every day of his adult life.  Now, the IRS maintains a presence at gambling establishments, if such entities are statistically significant, because the numbers are big enough to count on corralling a few big winners every day in the meet.  My Dad was never such a big winner.  Instead the IRS watched him on an annual cycle to ensure that he was not getting away with anything.  Their efforts were as economically unrewarding as was his playing the ponies — Dad always claimed that he broke even, and the only value he derived was to be around the equines.

I, on the other hand, have never been a track habitué.  Therefore, in the taxman’s eye, I am of little interest.  I have always played a statistical game, aka keeping a low profile.  For instance, back in the old days, when computers were unsophisticated and the IRS was pinioned by its own technological backwardness, I always filed my taxes only on “Tax Day” — figuring that that was the day on which the most numbers needed to be crunched.  I may be committing the wet sidewalk fallacy, but it seemed to work.

There are billions of tardigrades in a drop of water.  Perhaps you can tell us what you know about any single one that stands out from the rest?  Don’t be embarrassed; individual tardigrades do not statistically matter to us.  Don’t be superior, tardigrades don’t care about us either.

The best part about statistical anonymity is that one is free, at liberty, from the interveners who take no notice.

— Kilgore Forelle

 

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Who Fails to Learn the Lessons

Kilgore Forelle

Nobody asked but …

Some time I picked up the notion that some leaders name natural enemies (of one another) as their lieutenants, hoping to gain the benefits of survival of the fittest.  Perhaps the notion arose from a review of a Doris Kearns Goodwin book — the notion, combined with my earlier conclusions on statism and faux leadership, caused me to pass on Ms. Goodwin’s books.  I may have formed the opinion, rightly or not, that she was feeding the negative traits of human development rather than exposing them for what they are.

Daniel Webster said, “There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters.”  Let me rephrase that:  Some leaders mean to be GOOD but more than that, they mean to be FOLLOWED, at all costs.  I hope that reaffirms Webster, as well as clarifying and amplifying.

Does anyone dispute that the above is a set of fact?  Is not that an important lesson of history?  Why don’t we, as an intelligent species, escape?  Why don’t we focus?

— Kilgore Forelle

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Voltairine de Cleyre II

Kilgore Forelle

Nobody asked but …

I spent the whole week-end  being depressed after hearing (at Scribd.com) Voltairine de Cleyre‘s essay entitled, Sex Slavery.  One might say that VDC views this particular glass as neither half-empty nor half-full.  She may have felt that as long as there was one abuse, then that was (and still is) a tragedy.  But surely, no empathetic or logical reader doubts that there have been vastly more than one instance.

In any event,  Ms. de Cleyre’s essay caused me to re-examine myself, my life, and my principles.  I will not change my principles, but I will add new ones.  For as a voluntaryist, I bear responsibility for the ills that may befall my associates, and as a learning human being I have been too shallow perhaps in some aspects of my evolution.  I have the highest regard for women, but there have been times when my memetic self has been deceived by information that I should have suspected more.  I have had racist and sexist thoughts, promoted to me by ignorant and perhaps evil intentions.  I bear responsibility for not questioning these inputs more thoroughly.

In fact, I have never known personally an individual I could hate.  I have known too many who were terribly damaged beforehand, individuals who did not recover from abuse of a permanently damaging sort.  I have tried to apply the non-aggression principle to all.

— Kilgore Forelle

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Watching Sausage Making

Kilgore Forelle

Nobody asked but …

Have you looked under the hood of your car.  Unless you have a huge collection of information, as well as the gift of tolerance for its complexity, you had better leave that jumble of kludged systems to someone who does.  Sovereignty is knowing when the division of labor works.  Sovereignty is understanding comparative advantage.

The innards of an automobile are a kludge because they are the 4-dimensional accumulation of work-arounds.  Each system plugged into a car has a place (space, length/width/depth) and a time (a historical appropriateness as a system, supersystem, and subsystem — contemporaneous with its role in the whole system).  Typically, the newer system is orchestrated among the older systems.  The existing, working parts are not re-engineered around the newer.  Therefore, the resulting overall system is a collection of sub-systems that work together — more or less well.

In the sense demonstrated above, all systems are kludges — Wall Street, the Pentagon, a commercial airline, schools, POTUS, self-ownership, ad infinitum, ad absurdem, ad nauseum, …

How shall they be revolutionized?

— Kilgore Forelle

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Hoopla is Theft in the Age of Organized Lying

Kilgore Forelle

Nobody asked but …

I was piqued by a notice in the email system at work.  We were warned that there might be traffic problems on the day that POTUS visited town for a campaign rally.  I became curious as to who pays for the costs of these campaign rallies.  I did some Internet investigation, but fuhgeddaboudit.  There is no focus, there is no exactitude.  Perhaps you have heard George Bernard Shaw’s observation, “If all the economists were laid end to end, they’d never reach a conclusion.”  That also is true particularly of politicians, bureaucrats, and PR flacks, among many other strains of liars, but they will arrive at an instance of organized lying.

The lesson is clear.  Do not seek straight answers from those whose best interests are served by telling lies.  Rather, we should seek to dismantle the sources of organized lying.  We know that POTUS (and NOT just the current incarnation) campaigns for his second term on the public coffers.  Don’t be fooled into participating in the organized lying (the email notice cited above is part of the game, where everyone acts as if an activity is in the due course of events, hiding in plain sight).  The flood of misinformation is part of the confusion.

— Kilgore Forelle

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Voluntaryist Voices by EVC

Kilgore Forelle

Nobody asked but …

Have you noted Voluntaryist Voices by EVC?  This is one of my favorite features on EVC.  Thank you, Skyler, for doing the research on the availability of gems such as

… and many more.  There’s a Voluntaryist’s education, right there.  I try to listen every morning when I am shaving and showering.

— Kilgore Forelle

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