Paradocracy

The fastest 60 meter split in track & field history was set by Su Bingtian in a semifinal heat at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics. A recent YouTube video covers the story in spectacular fashion. While I wouldn't dare to diminish the veracity of the story, nor its worthiness to be shared, it demands further exploration into the implications about performance and the sport of track & field. Undoubtedly, most people who watch inspirational YouTube videos are distinctly unfamiliar with the actual mechanics of the topic at hand; in fact, most are amenable to the story simply because they want to be inspired. Because of this, most people are left taking the story at face value, never to question the narrative.  What the story truly achieves is distinctly different from the portrayal of a titan of the sport. The story of Su Bingtian highlights what is possible when a person maintains unwavering commitment to his goals. His story stresses the importance of making calculated changes and ad...

When a people have succumbed to tyranny, the punishment doled out assumes a certain quality, a kind of official capacity, business as usual.   Not only do the ‘officials’ come to view their egos as one of their leading qualifications, one of the basic job requirements, they come to view their hostility as one of the  primary  requirements, one of the most reliable tools on their belts, their preferred tool for any task. Indeed, that general hostility, the heavy hand of government, has become part of the very archetype of the ‘professional law enforcement officer’, business as usual for that institution maintaining a monopoly over the initiation of force and coercion; that institution specializing in torment, torture, intimidation and trauma, often to the point of permanent bodily damage and occasionally to the point of death, all in pursuit of social paralysis (or assuring the public’s obedience) in the name of ‘official business’. Indeed, the ‘officials’ and the ‘enforce...

It is vital that a people invoke the Highest Authority to affirm and safeguard their rights; that they reject any effort at the same by any institution or chief executive who seeks to substantiate oneself on the basis of some 'justification' beyond reproach, beyond mere mortals  —  a 'justification' amounting to (or delivering) the kinds of men who believe themselves superior and unaccountable to their contemporaries who lack of substance and thus require the remedies administered through the edicts and dictates of institutions or individuals claiming authority over them.  For this reason, it is especially important that any governing body, especially that which asserts and maintains that monopoly over the powers of force and coercion, be prohibited from staking any claim beyond the terrestrial, beyond the provable, beyond that which can reasonably be restrained and held to account. For this reason, it is essential that the people, in defense of the individual, retain t...

While traveling, I am often struck by the interesting social dynamics and peculiarities present at such places as airports . Whether it be the manner in which queues form, the way that people negotiate for space, or the inconsistencies in the enforcement of TSA policies over the years, there is much to be learned about humanity through simple observations at the airport. One of those lessons is available to us at baggage claim, where a process offers some interesting parallels to our relationship with government. Of course, with the promises of baggage claim being far less ambitious, and with airlines having a slightly greater interest in customer satisfaction, baggage claim generally tends to deliver on its basic promise; government, on the other hand, generally betrays its basic promises in favor of much more ambitious agendas. And where it betrays its promises and the very premise of “just government” (i.e. “the consent of the governed”), the individual has little to no recourse for...

While proverbs, Biblical or otherwise, tend to represent general truths that have and come with exceptions (which the Bible actually acknowledges), I do find many such proverbs troubling, such as the proverb which asserts that it is wiser or more prudent to remain silent and thought wise than to voice a thought and be known a fool.  This proverb, I believe, properly encourages carefulness with thoughts, words and actions, but if taken to the extreme, it can easily stifle dialogue that might turn constructive while actively running the risk of exposing one’s own (and others’) mistakes, foolishness and misjudgments.  I also find fault with the proverb which asserts or implies that the quietest man is (or often is) the wisest in the room.  Where this may occasionally be true, it seems in most cases that the quietest person in the room is the one with the least to contribute, or in other cases the one too socially inept to engage, too afraid of rejection, too arrogant to trou...

One of the reasons that we must deal directly with history, not just through raw data, academic abstractions and generalizations but through the physical testimonies of the real people who actually experienced it, is that we must necessarily appreciate the personal and often the anecdotal to see how they square with expectations, to see whether and to what extent the data and the academic profiles (published in texts) account for essential nuances and accurately represent the truth in its knowable totality.  We must admit information that might dispute or contradict the conceptions of the present day, where the analyses (or revisions) are naturally always taking place: conceptions inevitably altering (and reflecting) our perspectives on (and attitudes toward) history; conceptions constantly evolving, not always for the better and not always for the benefit of the truth; and conceptions always limited by the prevailing or preferred theories, models, and indeed subjective prejudices ...

A very strong (if not impenetrable) argument might be made that members of the LGBTQIA+ community are suffering from illness or, scientifically speaking, some kind of disorder — the latter being true by definition for the fact that each lifestyle represents not only an obvious departure from the natural course of the species, a course necessary for its very survival, but a lifestyle that would have never been possible if not for others specifically rejecting them in favor of procreation and pair bonding. While this is not necessarily a criticism of any individual’s personal preferences, it is to show that our species has survived, and will continue to survive, through that same kind of rejection; there is no other option.  And while that language may seem harsh to those with deviant sexual preferences, the ‘rejection’ is not a rejection of the sexual deviant as a person but squarely the rejection of any claim which seeks to normalize a set of sexual preferences which cannot be univ...

Allow me to elaborate on what I view as infecting society: that political attitude of indifference or apathy, or the idea that all political matters should be satirized or lampooned as a source of humor or the butt of a joke, and that only select political matters are sacred, so sacred that they shouldn’t be contested, and that detractors should be silenced or killed as ‘bigots’ who represent the defense of the former culture since infected; that those willing to withstand the insults and the assaults, those willing to stand resolute, to remain curious, to speak seriously, those willing to abstain from applause when the crowd is applauding and to refuse to laugh when everyone else is laughing, those willing to go to whatever lengths to defend that which is worth defending, should be met by a collective sigh or a countenance of reproach, a comment quickly typed or a trigger instantly pulled. That is the infection.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, people all around the world were placing their trust in “the science”, believing the unbelievable and the unproven for a variety of reasons not specifically related to “science” at all. For instance, people worldwide bought into mandates around masking, experimental treatments, and the “six-feet rule” for “social distancing” — ideas promulgated at the time under the banner of “the science” but ultimately unsubstantiated by “science” and even later admitted arbitrary by the individual responsible for the “six-feet” rule.  For most people, this was a matter of ill-placed confidence in their mainstream media outlets (which ultimately galvanized support by politicizing the issues), but even more so a case of people fearing what they didn’t (and still don’t) understand, placing their trust in the appointed “experts” and going along with the plan — especially when that plan made them the “good guys” aligned with “the science” against their political enemies ...

Socialism is a scourge on humanity, the evisceration of initiative and individuality, the unwelcome imposition upon family and culture, the weaponization of common men and common language against neighbors suddenly termed “common enemies”.  It is the erosion of human rights and human productivity, a veritable assault on life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness — the fruits and pursuits that make life worth living.  It is the regimentation of society to the extent that it rejects humanity, the rewriting of fact to the extent that it rejects history, reason and evidence, and even the very ideas of objective truth and objective morality.  Ironically enough, the socialists claim that “true socialism has never been tried”, but that’s because “true socialism” isn’t even achievable: that is because it predictably fails each time well before the socialists are able to “successfully” implement all of their ideas — ideas which are always half-baked and ever changing in...

The modern doctrine of ‘eminent domain’ is symbolic of the nature of government, encapsulating the essence of the chronicled expansion of federal authority. The encroachments of government through the fiction of ‘eminent domain’ have not just weakened the Fourth Amendment’s protections against seizures; they have willfully distorted the original intent, language and purpose of the Fifth Amendment, while making all persons and private property susceptible to the will and weight of government — a government growing ever haughtier and heavier. Federal officials have willfully betrayed the spirit and the language of the Bill of Rights by construing it to disparage the rights of the states and of the people, by interpreting the language as license to expand at will the power of the federal government on the basis of loose interpretations; that is despite the fact that the legislative powers of government are strictly enumerated not in the Bill of Rights but in Article I, Section 10, of the ...

Tucker Carlson asserts that he will never support identity politics or tribalism, that as an American he supports that which is best for Americans.  This sounds noble, but it is rather naive.  The problem with this limited thinking is manifold: that “American” culture and “American” identity have changed dramatically, particularly as more and more “Americans” have departed from institutions of faith and moral values, and as a consequence of this and of “progressive” public education progressively more have come to reject American heritage and traditional American values; that, for related reasons, many modern “Americans” don’t particularly identify as “Americans” and don’t actually want what is best for America; and that identity politics consistently prevails in the battle between propaganda and reason, while tribalism — the rule, not the exception, in the evolution of the human species — ultimately dominates, particularly where its chief opponent is little more than ideas or...

Wherever any individual condones or advocates for spanking or any form of corporal punishment in the household — indeed, any physical force not limited purely to restraining or redirecting a child — it is not only morally objectionable but almost always the consequence of a complete misreading of a situation which likely has its roots somewhere in some kind of poor parenting: whether it be in the modeling of poor behavior, the mistreatment or neglect of any of the children, the mishandling of conflicts or disputes, a distinct lack of self-knowledge, self-awareness, or self-control, or the mere fact that the parents are uninvolved or uninteresting, the ‘remedy’ all too often considered — spanking or any kind of violence — often follows not only a complete misunderstanding of the causes but also their indifference to peaceful alternatives.  What’s more, their preferred ‘remedy’ — which all too often serves as a pressure relief valve rather than to edify, to instruct, or to constructi...

The Wright brothers belonged to the age of the pioneers, a time of tinkerers and original thinkers, in the twilight of the Western frontier. With the likes of Ford, Edison, and Bell among them, they are men remembered for their revolutionary successes but men, nonetheless, whose innumerable failures and the challenges they overcame no doubt substantiate their standing among America’s celebrated pioneers.  In their own ways, these men carried on the pioneers’ legacies of personal risk-taking, exploration, ingenuity, curiosity, and adventure; the same qualities which initially built the very first American settlements and later its cities and skyscrapers, which made migrants hardy and successful along the Oregon Trail, which kept the destitute persevering along the Mother Road en route to greener pastures, and which together represent the very spirit of America — the pioneer standing alone on the prairie as the free-willed possessor of his own destiny, the architect of his own future...

Physical gold and silver are money; everything else is credit.  Where any asset ceases to present a use case independent of its price, where any asset ceases to present any use case whatever without a quoted price, and where a secular price decline eliminates every case for owning the ‘asset’, it is not just a form of illusory credit (seeking more stable forms of wealth in still other terms, denominated outside of the given asset class — i.e., US dollars) but a highly speculative risk asset incapable of functioning not only as collateral, an investment, or a store of value, but ultimately as money.  Much of the development in the financial sector has been in the interest of steering asset holders away from value investments and real, physical assets (with limited premiums) to more synthetic, volatile alternatives structured to benefit sellers and brokers, where a distinct lack of downside insurance puts ‘holders’ at the risk of losing not merely on speculative bets (where they...