Wesley

Lately I have been dealing with things about my mother, trying to remember and evaluate what happened in situations when I was a child and such. I have had 2 different dreams on 2 nights in a row (which is great compared to how often I normally dream) which had cats in it. In the first, a large cougar-like black cat attacked me and I shot it like 6 times before it went down, then later in the dream a second one seemed about to attack me, but when my gun jammed I was wondering if it was actually attacking me but rather just seemed to scarily lunge at me and then turn around and try again. In the second, my mom was talking with a cat-sitter about the cats while my cat and another cat I randomly see around were chasing and scratching me as I tried to run upstairs. One of them got upstairs (which as a child, my dad wouldn't have allowed) so I had to sneak up on it and put it downstairs quick. The cat bit me in process of trying to do that. In real life, I always find cats kind of pointless as they don't interact with you and only care about themselves. You''ll also pet them and be having a great time, then it'll randomly scratch you. We have had several cats as outdoor cats in order to hunt mice as we live near a farm and a creek, so it can be pretty bad without a cat. I have never had any real personal attachment to a cat. I have searched, and there seem to be 2 possibilities. One is it is representative of female power, which makes sense as I am working on analyzing my mother right now in which case it attacking me is a bad sign. The other option is that it could represent my intuition or trying to get me to notice a problem that is going on, by which case it attacking me is trying to be helpful and get me to notice something. I can provide more info on the dreams or circumstances if people want, but I didn't want to make it super long as the dreams are a bit on the long side for me. I am starting to put together bits of the dreams, but I do not know if the cat is the danger or it is trying to get me to notice something else and thus being helpful.

I am currently working on a similar plan to move to a big city and here is what I found helpful, though there certainly could be better advice out there from other people. For me, the biggest thing was to plan things out as to the steps I wanted to take. When I thought in abstraction that I would move eventually or do things at some point, then it kind of took forever for me to get around to it. Once I sat down and calculated out how much money I needed for a car, home furnishings, how much of a safety net I would want for like 2 moths or so expenses in case things dont work out at my job. Now I have an exact list and number I am trying to achieve so it is much more straight forward when everything can go down.When I hit the number I need, then everything excecutes and I am gone. If entreprenuership or un-jobbing is your fancy I know Dayna Martin does some talks along those lines. However, you may just be trying to get whatever you can and I do not know you well enough to be able to suggest a field or job or anything like that. Best of luck on your transistion!

I am actually surprised it is not higher. I was only remarking that it is likely to be learned behavior from abusive parents. Especially these parents quoted in the story as believing that sibling abuse is good for the development of the younger kids. I tend to think that without abusive parents, sibling abuse would be minimal. It seems like a "tip of the iceberg" thing where 90% of the problem is still hidden. At least some people are beginning to see the iceberg.

I need to ask her to clarify what she was talking about. In the past she has agreed that we can't change our emotions, only what we do in respnse to the emotion (bury it, ignore it, express it, lash out at the person, lash out at the wall, etc) That's why it seems to strange as it seems to contradict previous statements. I will need to ask her what was meant. It was right at the end when it was stated as the time was up, so she may not have explained it fully.

http://www.ctvnews.ca/health/bullying-by-siblings-as-harmful-as-schoolyard-bullying-study-1.1328875

Right now we are just meeting in the chat room at noon EST on Saturdays and making a private chat. However, we already got up to 7 people who met (with some great conversation I may add) but if we continue to get more interest we may need to add more times or do Skype or something. We probably will talk about some options and see what people's interest is or availability. It is quite enjoyable to talk through some of these things with other people on the self-knowledge journey.

I agree that it seems like the way to avoid the manipulation is to get myself out. However, while my therapist agreed I shouldn't have abusive people in my life, she seemed a little hesitant at first about cutting them off completely (which was just a feeling I got as the idea was new to her). Thus, I don't think she would have originated an idea encouraging me to get manipulation out of my life- but I may be wrong. I think I am going to have to talk to her again about what she meant exactly as I seem to be confused a bit by it.

I would like to say welcome. I was very interested by this call and the idea of psychopathy in general. I am quite interested to see what you have to contribute in the conversation from your seemingly unique perspective. I hope to see you around.

Were starting to get some FDR people together to talk about self therapy and things along those lines. I am not quite sure how it'll all go, but here is the post/thread if you are interested. http://board.freedomainradio.com/forums/p/38970/303962.aspx#303962

So I saw my therapist today and I was talking about an interaction I had with my mother where she made me feel guilty in order to manipulate me into something. She seemed to not like this and stated that I am letting her have this emotional control over me and that my mom can't make me feel something that I don't give that power to her. I was only wondering to what extent that someone tries to manipulate or create and emotion in me that I have control over it verses I do not have control over it. I seemed to think that I had control over what I did in response to an emotion, but I didn't have as much control as to what emotion I felt. I feel like there is some nuanced answer where both views are right, but I'm just wondering if someone could step me through the logic or has their own experiences to share in this area. Thanks

Agreed. However, realizing this usually involves going through the process of trying to play and trying to win several times as the computer in War Games did. The end most likely will be not playing anymore. My post was for if you still think there is hope to reach her and her to listen to your wants, needs, desires, and reason in general. It probably is good to ask whether winning is possible before continuing to play. Try again and again until you no longer want to. At least that was how I approached it.

What happened when you did something wrong as a child? Did she chant forgiveness over and over? Or did she punish you without even trying to empathize with you? I think you will find that this forgiveness standard is a one-way street. I forget the philosoper who told this, but it has been mentioned several times. In the Bible, there are two conflicting moralities for someone who does something wrong. "An eye for an eye" and "turn the other cheek". The philosopher decided that when the ruler harms the subject, then the subject should turn the other cheek. When the subject does something the ruler doesn't like, then it is an eye for an eye. This to me is not the epitome of a healthy relationship. This is a ruler and ruled Christian morality.

Like telling children that disobeying them or mythical beings will lead to eternal death and torture for such evil sins. You know- threats. As long as religious people don't do an action like that, then they can believe whatever crazy garbage they want.

I do not agree from the perspective of the many people I have talked to and even voluntaryists who still vote. They know the system sucks and that nothing really will change. The goal is that you are forced to be a slave. Now every 4 years you get to choose who is going to whip you. Many will try to pick the guy who they think will whip the a little bit less often or less hard. This, however, is starkly different from being able to choose to not be a slave. I no longer vote, but I do not see those who vote as consenting to some sort of social contract only for holding onto a small dellusion of less pain in the coming years.

This is always dependant on what someone wants to do and a determination that the parent's action's were evil, and finally, that restitution becomes impossible (usually because of parent continuing abuse, minimization of feelings, avoidance of problems, too much abuse in childhood, etc, etc, etc.) He has always advised that you go to therapy and have help with the process and have whatever emotional support you can get. Then you talk to your parents and see what happens. The hope would be that such a simple test as to expressing problems, wants, desires, and experiences and allow the option for the relationship to be chosen rather than obligated that the test would be simple and parents would pass with flying colors. I think the existence of anecdotes on here and the state of the world as a whole show that many parents do not stand up to the task of applying choice and voluntaryism into family relationships. There are good parents out there who have stood up to the task, not harmed their children, or tried to make restitution by asking for the feelings, going to therapy, etc. I have seen many amazing parents on these forums working as hard as they can to listen to the thoughts feelings and prefernces of their children. It is so unfortunate that these relationships do not pass more often. It also means that people's hostility to the idea means that they fear that their relationship would not pass the test thus, instead of analyzing to arguments for truth value they are often dismissed.

I will now defer to those with practical experience, which I do not have in parenting children. I think the question would be to ask her why is she biting? Which you may not know or she might not know yet. What need does it satisfy? Does she gain attention? Is it retaliation for something the brother is doing? Obviously you can't let biting happen, and we both seem wary about these techniques as exerting power and possibly harmful. However, I do not have good solutions except to try to find out why. Try to empathize with her position and find out why biting is the "best option" in some scenario.

There is to the point that they are in fully dependent, involuntary relationships by which yelling is abusive. Yelling at a waiter on the other hand is at least mch less abusive because they can throw me out of the restaurant and never see me again. A child has no opportunity to leave, thus any act of aggression is worse as it is unavoidable.

By 2 you can negotiate and explain to a kid. At 1, the kid isn't really doing anything wrong. He is just being a child. Either, the child is capable of understanding right and wrong in which case you can talk to the child and explain what they should do or shouldn't do and why. Else, the child is not capable of knowing right or wrong by which the kid is simply trying to fill their needs and explore the world around them, by which spanking the child is more despicable than hitting a mentally disabled person who doesn't understand what they are doing wrong.

He often has referenced people before him and analyzed good parts and bad parts of different philosophies. He doesn't every time, for this would at best be absurd. Stef often tries to remind people in conversations of the fact that he is an amateur when applicable (to a bit of an annoying extent, though I believe I understand why). When it comes to arguments of truth, his personal qualities are irrelevant to whether things are true or not. These things have been addressed on a number of occasions, not to mention that Stef is available for conversation any Sunday show or other conversation.

1) Please provide more information as to the example of the story and what happened, what age, why he felt you were bad and why he couldn't talk to you. 2) Verbal abuse is still abuse.

1. This is silly. It is a problem if I can prove that my property or my person is harmed. No individual car pollutes my property to an extent that I care and no business does either. If a business was bad enough to cause a problem, then yes they would need to stop or buy pollution rights from me. 2. Ethics of emergenices. They never happen in real life. Also, if you ask me to scratch me to save peoples lives, I would volunteer. Same for taxing me like 10 bucks. Asking permission is perfectly fine to accomplish these ends. 3. Threats are violations of the NAP. You can't point a gun at me- even if it is unloaded as I think that it may be loaded and you are threatening my life. Besides this, I can establish rules of behavior or speed limits on my own property and society will tend toward some basic rules of behavior that become generally accepted. 4. Fraud is immoral (unless under durress as has been explained before). Many sum up the NAP to be against all initiatory force, fraud, and coercion. 5. This is ridiculous. People who own property where others may potentially walk mark the property as owned in some way so that you are aware you should not tresspass. When it is property in the middle of nowhere, then no one walks there. If they do, you likely wouldn't even know. If you see them, you always measure the response by what the aggression is. Shooting someone for tresspassing is stupid. You start by asking them to leave nicely, then maybe a little more forcefully, but everyone apologizes and leaves at this point. 6. Murray Rothbard is very wrong. The child is dependant on the parents and the paarents have the obligation to care for the child by having the child, unless they find someone else who is competent and willing to care for the child. The child, as a dependant person, can use another person as a proxy for their defense if they are being abused in any way. This is my brief counters to these. Let me know if any are unclear or unsatisfactory explanations.

This reads to me something like: "I'm going to dismiss your arguments with no proof by belittling you and saying it is just obviously not true so I do not need to provide proof. Then, I am going to appeal to the fact that you are trying to be a good person and call you an evil and sadistic person for provoking my anxieties about this topic. I then have resolved my own anxieties and will reinforce my position that abusers are not a problem, but normal so I can continue my comfortable life." I may be projecting from some interactions I have had before, but that is what I thought as I read that. I either wouldn't interact with them or simply ask for proof of the theory that this doesn't work, though my guess is this directness will be side-stepped and ignored. Stef has referred to and interviewed Robin Grille about this topic. He talks about it in his book (Or so I understand): http://www.amazon.com/dp/1921004142

1- The people wanted local representation as they felt it would listen more to their needs and not tax them too much. They still believed in government and taxation, but that smaller government would give each individual more say and more of a share of the representation. The people resented large and far-off taxing bodies. 2- A small group of people tried to get together and centrally plan a state. Some people who wanted a big state were there to plan it, as some who wanted a smaller state. Comprimises were made. A state was established and a few states who were more represented in the meeting quickly ratified it. This minority of people then imposed their will on to everyone else through state politics, propoganda, and killing people who rebelled. Other states joined in with the others over time because of these threats, bribes, propoganda, or the fear of being left out as the only seperate state that couldn't defend themselves at the new giant being created near them.

(1) Some did and others did not. There was a debate by which some wanted a smaller localized confederation, and others who wanted a big federal state. You cannot characterize the intentions of the founders as a group. This meeting was because problems percieved by some with the confederation and the stated intent was to reform it and make it a little better. (2) Some did, oothers were fine with the confederation. In fact, these tended to be revolutionaries and influentials who then didn't go to the meeting because they didn't desire to reform the current system. Of course, some tried to argue for the liberty side of things, but they were obviously outnumbered and the dial moved a little bit back toward the other way. (3) This was the appeasement or compromise. Yes, the federal government will get the powers of taxation and to kill dissenters, but we promise that we won't go into these couple areas so you can still be free. Those who wanted more freedom just tried to get all the protection they felt they could in the system. In general, there were lots of different ideas and in my brief comments I made it seem polar, but that is only for illustration and not completely accurate. However, there ceratinly were individuals who edged one way or the other.

I disagree. Stef has gone into this area with relationships, so I will analogize to that. If we are dating and I make a comment and you get angry, it is not relevant whether you intended to make me angry or not. There are two facts. I did something and you feel angry. My intention is irrelevant. What we need to do is explore what happened, why I was angry. It may be that I do not like it in a justified and rational matter, it might be a trigger from my childhood, it might be I am a passive aggressive person who likes making people angry and then rejecting their anger because I cannot experience anger myself. The point is we need to try to figure out what the problem is and not do it again if possible by learning what the true cause and result was. Back to this, it doesn't matter what they wanted or their intent or what they felt like. It is fact that they went from no coercive government to establishing a coercive government. Whether they were power hungry, or tried to restrain things, or thought they could limit government this is not reality. Many communist revolutionaries thought they could create utopias, but instead their ideas created millions and millions of dead. I do not give them credit for their intentions, but rather attempt to go from the facts and find the cause of the problem. I do admit it went deeper than this instance and people were raised in this paradigm or else it wouldn't have been able to happen, but it was a fundamental establishment of power when a previous state did not have that power. I am referring to the Articles of Confederation, namely to the fact that "the confederation" could not tax the states but it had to ask for money and that states could leave and the feds could not kill people for dissent. The fundamental powers that were given the the new federal government were the powers of forcible taxation and the power to kill those deemed treasonous. These increases in power lead to the empire and carnage we see today. Intent matters little. States had much less power, could not wage war except by the collective of states agreeing to it, and were more beholden to the individual in the state. It is not ideal by any means, but much better than a federal government with the power of the army from all of the states.