Wesley

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.

I never claimed that. However, there was a fundamental shift from a strong centralized state to a smaller localized state which at least would have lessened power and control in a very real sense. The absence of a federal ceorcive state would have been a large step forward, and this the "founders" rejected. I disagree with the native treatment as well and think that is immaterial to the point at hand. I understand that the verbiage is disconcerting to you and you do not like it, but is there anything false about what I said? That is different than you feeling like the tone is misleading which I cannot really evaluate.

You are changing the order of events: 1. Overthrow Monarchy 2. Establish No Coercive Federal State 3. Handful of people decide there isn't enough centralized control or power or whatever other sematics you would like 4. Establish a Federal Coercive State that by definition increases the centralized power or control etc. 5. Put down dissenters who did not agree with the new federal powers and propogandize states to join at the expense of their people This is the order of events. It is not people nicely sitting around and debating policies and picking on a state and slightly missing the boat on freedom. It was political subjugation where they established a federal state to gain control of a country politically that had no formal federal state and that many of the people were opposed to after shirking off such power already so recently. No taxation without local reprsrntation was the mantra and much of the people viewed the federal state as just as bad or worse than the monarchy. Then there was the propoganda to get various states to join (which of course they had not evolved to allow people to choose yet) and the violent putting down of individuals who rebelled against the power. This is true history. We would not have violent federal crap we do today and at least have had the competition between states for government policies had a group of rich men not seized control of the country and used the military to assert their power.

I don't mean to quibble with the details (ok maybe a little) but the Constitution was actually a statist revolution that took the much freer Articles of Confederation that established a voluntary (to the states) federal government. The Constitution then was a major step up as far as centralized power by establishing a true federal state with the power to tax. These same people soon after put down the Whiskey Rebellion to reinforce their new powers of taxation and violence in the opposition of dissent. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whiskey_Rebellion So the Constitution was certainly established to centralize power for those who considered confederation of states to be too "unorderly".

... the black market. Agorism FTW!

Just wanted to let you know that my favorite FDR moment so far was the first few minutes or so of FDR 1637, which starts out with Izzy rapping, and then rolls into some great philisophical questions like: "What amount of food is too small to take home from a resturaunt?" "Are 3 Cheerios worth eating that were found in the car?" [ROFL] It was quite enjoyable to listen to and I was really laughing out loud at work.

Right Click => View Image. Idk how to correct that.

I agree, but it very much depended on the author. Here is a comical, but decent idea of the"personalities of Batman" and the standard view of comic book caracters as Chaotic, Neutral, Lawful or Evil, Neutral, Good (obviously these characteristics don't mean much here, but you get the idea).

Yea, you can let me know what happens or we can exchange some info. I might as well try things, and if it doesn't work out then no harm is done.

I am interested, but tenative. I am not sure what it would be like, what would be involved or how it would go. I haven't been in a group situation before.

While seemingly obvious, I very much appreciate your post and has at least given me a place to start, so I thank you for that.

Here is what I know. First is that I have my situation by which I will have to stop seeing a therapist. I am looking to continue to improve and work on things, though obviously at a slower pace. I fully expect that once I am financially stable again, I will find a new therapist and hopefully be further along with things. This will also at least help me to know what things I need to work on and have a lot of material to build from. I thought for a while, that when I went through this that I just wouldnt be able to see a therapist. However, I did some volunteer work in tagging some old Sunday shows and ended up finding these podcasts: FDR1562 Interview with Therapist Daniel Mackler - Freedomain Radio FDR1572 Sunday Show 31 January 2010 - Guest Psychotherapist Daniel Mackler - Freedomain Radio In these, Daniel has spent tons and tons of time and energy working on himself and even seems to dismiss therapists. I think he has an advantage because he was a therapist himself and so it was easier for him to not have a therapist. I am looking for some more information as to how I can accomplish this, what kinds of routines people may have done, resources for asking questions, problems that arose and how they were solved. Things like that so I can make the most of my self therapy period.

Pope Francis Performed an Accidental Exorcism http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/05/pope-francis-exorcism-video.html It really would be funny if people didn't believe this.

Apparently 160,000 isn't enough. Looks like we need to hire some more exorcists.

LOL, Thats not my quote

This discussion is not productive anymore. The language changes and cherry-picking make debate impossible.

I may be wrong, but the comments are made based on studies that prove it is worse for the child. Obviously, there is a bell curve and some single women are far better parents than some couples will ever be. However, it seems scientifically proven that the mean of the single mother bell curve is lower than th mean for the couple bell curve. It is at least difficult for one parent to try to do what two parents normally would do, which makes sense why the mean would likely be worse for the child. Anecdotes of great single parents, however, do not make science.

It is not theft. You are copying information which does not take the original copy from anyone. I download tons of things and see no problem with it. Information is free. The original copier also did not steal anything. However, when I find some information that I like or enjoy and want to support it, I will often but a copy after I have already watched it (I usually do not watch it again once I have bought this copy). This feeling of reciprocity also lead me to become a subscriber to Freedomain Radio even though th ideas are free. I want to show my support in a more direct manner. My personal approah is that ideas are free and infinitely reproducible data. However, if you want those ideas to continue, you need to show appreciation to the producer. It is rare with movies and music that I feel this need to support it.

If it makes no difference, they why the bother? Well, because if you do not own you or your property, then it is not wrong for me to take your property or kill you. After all, it is just a part of me. Why can't I go take anything I want and do anything I want? I do not create or destroy matter and everything is a part of me. No one else has a just claim above me. After all, there is no seperate person to challenge me anyway.

I think that cash registers, cell phones, and computers will be able to accept any forn of currency as they can instantly connect to the internet. The internet will have any exchange rates, adn even a reputation metric for the currency itself as to how reliable or how volatile the currency is. Those currencies can be instantly checked or scanned (whether physical or digital) with certain checksums or physical features. I think in an environment of open currency, there will tend to be certain currencies that will become more popular and convenient that will emerge and will be generally accepted in time. Eventually, if one of them gets shaky or a new technology is invented, people can switch easily to a new system rather than being stuck with toilet paper. Banks will protect themmselves in a basket of the most reliable currencies so that if one falters or becomes obsolete, then you still retain the bulk of the value in your savings acocunt. I'm sure there are other pieces to this vision, but this is what I am able to come up with now.

I do not need to be one with all of the environment to survive. If I have an artificial feeding tube, a oxygen mask, and a regulated temperature I could survive for the rest of my life. This is not an ideal life, but it proves a point. If I do not need the pencil that is next to me to survive, then I am not one with it. If I do not need this molecule of air because I can replace it with any other air molecule or an oxygen mask, then I am not one with it. I can cut off my fingernail, however before I do I still consider it part of me. I do not need my arms to survive, but I do consider them part of me. If cyanide is introduced into my body then I die. I hope to be the opposite of "one" with a poison. I do not believe that logically, ability to separate and survive can be used as the definition as "being one". I also do not understand how all of the environment gets lumped into one category when some things are infinitely more important to my survival and other things are even detrimental to my survival.

I was only trying to share what I know and can prove vs. my understanding. I am selling because for the past 8 months or so I have been in a "free energy" situation where I have no costs to mine as far as energy consumption. I willbe moving and I will have to pay the electric bill, so this will change. For the moving process I also would prefer to have the cash and a quick 60% ish profit works for me. Once all of the ASICs come out, the difficulty should go up until it hits the equilibrium where it takes around 2 years of mining to maybe make up initial costs when you factor in the energy consumed. If it is lower, more will buy ASIC miners. If it is higher, some will stop mining as they are losing money. In a free energy situation, I did not have these risks. When I move I risk a rapidly increasing difficulty, paying costs of energy, and the possibility of better ASICs coming out and making my rig almost useless to sell. I would rather take the easy profits. Obviously, others may be willing to take these risks or have a free energy situation at a job or a college or a parent's house they can take advantage of. What is frustrating is that I could have made my 60% profit because I have free energy over the past several months and then sold the miner and made some of the inital costs back. I lost a lot as far as my calculated profits because BFL sucked and delayed so long. Now, I am looking to get what I can and get out of it- for the near term.

A few of the smaller ones have shipped. The jalepenos and such. Josh took some from the first batch (because he pre-ordered before he started working for BFL) and was using them for his private company that offers shares and dividends to investors denominated in bitcoin. I can no longer find the posts about this, so I am sorry that I do not have proof. Thus, you may take this as a cautionary tale rather than damning evidence. The problem is that this is obviously a conflict of interest. The guy who is working on getting them out has some ASICs himself and is starting to mine. Whether these are ASICs or FGPAs or w/e it doesn't really matter. He has a specific interest in not letting the difficulty go up as it will make his current venture much less profitable. What do you know? He has taken months beyond what he said to roll out ASICs. It is obvious conflict of interest even if I got some of the details wrong.