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James, I didn't foresee sending someone to the FAQ in lieu of responding to them. I just mean that when the response is going to include something as fundamental and repeated as the concept of burden of proof, which has been laid out so many times, yet continues to be misunderstood, a simple link to that description would be nice. It could also be more of a glossary of common concepts rather than an FAQ. Of course, you can always just link someone to a wikipedia article or some other page about a topic. But the descriptions could probably be more concise and be written in a way that people on the board find most useful.

I notice the reputation points where some posts get good or bad votes from people. But I can't find how to "upvote" or "downvote" a post. Is that feature only for certain levels of donors? Or should everyone see the buttons for that and, if so, where are they?

Topics like this, which have been dealt with infinite times, should really have FAQ's so people who start threads on them all over again can just be referred to the FAQ which covers every single common argument we know is going to come up. It would save a lot of time. Going over the basics of burden of proof again and again from scratch?

It may have. I came to a page on the site not logged in, logged in expecting it to just return to that same page but now logged in, and instead got that error page. I know that happened to me a few times before. Just now I was on this thread logged in. I logged out and then back in to test. This time I got no error page but was instead taken to the main forum page instead of back to this thread. So maybe just do a little testing with logging out and in and where it returns the user after they are initially logged in.

If I start at the New Content page, for example, when I'm not logged in and then I go to sign in, it should sign me in and return me to the page I was on now signed in. But instead, after I sign in, it takes me to http://board.freedomainradio.com/index.php?app=core&module=global&section=login&do=process and I see an Error page that says: "Sorry, you don't have permission for that! [#10193] We encountered a problem processing your login request. Please try again. Need Help? [*]Our help documentation [*]Contact the community administrator" The login does work and I am then logged in and can go to any page I want. But I first go to this error page.

Cherapple, Are you making sure you have the right parameters checked on the left column there as far as the time frame and whether to only show items you follow, etc.? At first I was having the same type of issue, until I played with those. And the options under Other can be checked on or off. So if any of them are checked, try clicking on that one to turn the check off. That might help.

I was on CNN.com yesterday and they had a little image linking to a video with the headline "Olivia Munn Talks About Being Slapped" So I click the link and it goes to a video of her on Conan O'Brien's show with the headline "Olivia Munn Talks About Being Spanked" and under it "Actress Olivia Munn talks about growing up with the wrath of her mom." So I watched the video and what a strange and telling thing it is. She is talking about her and her sister being hit all the time by their mother when they were growing up. Of course, being Conan's show this is supposed to be comedic and so people are laughing, but there's really nothing funny about it and the laughter is kind of stilted and awkward. It's as if they aren't even sure why they're laughing. It sort of embodies the mixed feelings and psychology people have when faced with this topic. You can see the video here. It's interesting CNN chose to feature this clip. I'm told there is no way at this point to embed videos from sites other than YouTube so I'll just put the link. http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/bestoftv/2013/07/19/conan-olivia-munn-spanked-by-mom.team-coco.html

Alright. Also the email notifications are working for me now, except one thing I notice. I used to get an email notification of my own posts to a thread I am subscribed to too (and since I auto-subscribe to any thread I post in, that would be every post I made). But now I get them for others, but not my own. I take it you set it up so people don't get the emails about their own posts? Personally I kind of liked getting them for a couple reasons. But it's obviously no big deal. Just curious if this was a conscious setting.

James, So there is no way to actually embed videos other than YouTube ones, even if they offer embed code? We can only put the link and people have to click through? Is that right?

Thanks MMD. I really hope you can set up #1 and 2. Those were really prime features for me. Every time I came I'd go right to those lists on the right column. One more question. How do we embed videos, especially non-YouTube videos which have embed code on them? I don't even see the add media button, only an add image button and a My Media button. But nothing that looks like it lets us embed video. Is that just not set up yet or am I overlooking how to do it?

Yes I see that. I know I can get the information by clicking around. But I used to have that right there on the right column when I signed in and that was always where I looked first every time I visited. Right now I have "Recent Topics" on the right column. It has an X in the corner so I can supposedly take that out of the column. So it seemed that the right column on the main screen is somewhat customizable. I'd really like to be able to see the most recent posts, not just recent topics, on that right column if it's possible. And I'd also like to be able to see the list of threads I've been active in in that right column if possible, just as I used to have it in the old system. For me the right column sections that showed my threads and the most recent posts (not just topics) were the most useful tools. I used them every time I visited and having them right there on the main screen when I logged in was extremely convenient. I know but the old system already was emailing all the notifications. I used to get an email immediately upon every post to a thread I was subscribed to. Am I correct that the subscriptions are still in the system - it still remembers which threads I was subscribed to - but the email notifications just got wiped? Or is it possible that this will get fixed again over the last stages of the upgrade and I should just sit tight? Update: OK I just updated my overall notification settings so hopefully that will solve it and I'll start getting notified like before. So hopefully that will clear up question #3 from above.

1) I really liked seeing on the right column when I used to log in not just the latest topics, but the threads with the most recent replies. Is there still a way to set it up so I see that there? 2) I also really liked seeing a list of the threads I've been involved in on the right column? Is there any way to set that up again? 3) I see in Content I Follow when I click on my username at the top left that the system does still have a record of the threads I was following (and I assume these are the ones I was subscribed to). But I haven't gotten an email update when a new post was made to one of those threads today. Is it correct that the subscriptions were maintained, but the email notifications were all disabled and have to be set back up by the user?

I agree, but the difference between Facebook and this forum is Facebook generally has people's real names, and complaining about your kids behavior on Facebook is a form of public humiliation. I don't see people on this forum complaining about their kids behavior very often, but rather expressing their frustration on dealing with specific instances that come up as a parent, which is quite different. One is aimed at solving the problem, the other is just aimed at reducing anxiety in the short-term. Well it really depends on the exact configuration in which this happens. If it's posted publicly to facebook for everyone to see that's one thing. If it's friends only and someone only has their very closest friends on that list, that's another story. People on this forum tend to have a bias for assuming the parent has always done something wrong so they very rarely would even go as far as simply venting about a child's behavior being difficult for them to handle. They are more likely to blame themselves as the parent, even if they've done nothing wrong. But I think even in the healthiest setting, kids, just like anyone else, can do some things that can be irritating or frustrating and venting in a healthy way is a perfectly good outlet and having an outlet like that can be good for the kid too as the parent can then be more relaxed around them. As you seem to agree, it's just about doing it in the appropriate setting.

There's nothing wrong with what you did in that Facebook exchange. I think it's helpful to realize that when a parent complains about their kids on Facebook they're simply looking for validation from people on their friends' list who are also shitty parents - it's not in an attempt to meet the child's needs, because obviously that would require engaging with the child and they would rather stroke their ego using Facebook than expose the shortcomings they and their own parents had around childraising. Or, on the contrary, maybe they very carefully and gently helped the child and then saved venting their frustration for adult friends who can handle that instead of venting it at the child, which is a very good thing to do. Not saying I know which is the case here. But just because someone is venting frustration about parenting doesn't mean they are a bad parent. In fact, many people come to this very board to discuss their difficulties and frustrations parenting not because they are bad parents, but precisely because they are trying to be the best parents they can be. I guess we can get some insight based on how they express their feelings and where (ie: viciously insulting the kid on a completely public forum would obviously be more than just healthy venting).

I am a little confused, so I will expand upon my use of the word bypass. In talking to others, debating with a manager or protector part is not going to be productive unles the person is rather rational or has a decent amount self-knowledge. To provide an example, imagine there is a part that causes a person to get angry and yell when triggered. If you were a friend of this person, and wanted to go about helping resolve this, you would not want to trigger the part to resolve the issue, as this would result in getting yelled at and the actions the part takes in the moment are opposed to reasoning. Instead, you would approach the person when they are calm, and do your best to not trigger this person's anger, but to keep them in a cool and reasonable state of mind.The IFS therapy approach would not to be trigger the part, rather it would find a way of activating the part while remaining in self. So perhaps what I mean is more bypassing the trigger which would cause a person to go into an anti-rational state. I see what you mean. But I do think the word "bypass" is misleading and sounds like the type of thing you wouldn't want to do. I'm sure there is a better word that is more accurate to what you're saying and also sounds healthier.

I haven't studied this much. But from what I've seen, it seems like many homeschoolers are not doing it to demonstrate autonomy. They're doing it so that they can indoctrinate their kids as they wish rather than the state indoctrinate them. It's not as if they're doing it to give the children the freedom to seek truth as they see fit. I am not saying nobody does that. I'm sure there are some very thoughtful parents that homeschool for this latter reason. But my understanding, which might be wrong, is that most homeschoolers do so for religious reasons because they want to control the flow of information to their kids in an even more narrow way, not broaden it. If I'm correct, many homeschoolers are opposing the dominant ideas of the government, but trading them for the dominant ideas of the church. And those messages are often in opposition, as this demonstrates. That's why there are religious families who believe government schools are so bad for their kids, from a religious standpoint, that they should remove them. This is why I said in my earlier post that it's oversimplifying to just claim everyone is brainwashed by the government. In fact, they are getting mesages - often mixed messages that contradict each other - from many corners. Should I interpret all this as an argument against the idea of homeschoolers being engaged in resistance, or as a change of subject?/emoticons/emotion-5.gif I guess that depends on what you mean by resistance and resistance against whom/what? You implied that homeschoolers were resisting in such a way as to make a bold statement about autonomy. That may be true for some of the parents, who are asserting their autonomy by doing this. But it doesn't seem that they're doing it as a statement of autonomy as a consistent principle, since the child is often just having his/her autonomy taken over by the religious doctrine on which they're being homeschooled instead of by the public school. So it may be a statement of "You can't run my child's life. I will decide which entity runs their life and I choose the church instead." But it's hardly a statement of "I think autonomy as a rule is crucial and therefore I am going to allow my child a great deal of autonomy in his/her education."

Yes, they are rivals precisely because they often give different messages. And the church itself often gives yet other different messages. And corporations trying to sell products often give yet other different messages. Which is my point. People do not just have one stream of brainwashing propaganda from the government. They have many streams of propaganda from various entities with various interests, some of which clash. And the government does not always win that battle for the mind. In fact, they only wish they had the level of unfettered message acceptance that you act like they have in this stew of messages coming at people. This is one area I claim you are oversimplifying. I simply said people have a great amount of freedom in their everyday ability to say, do and wear what they want and go where they want and that, as far as the freedoms that are limited, I don't think they bother most people much because they limit them in ways they didn't really care about and don't lose much sleep over. If you disagree and think they are very bothered by this, go ahead and say so. Show me the things that everyday people in the West can't do that make them feel very unfree. If you can't do that, then you agree with me. And there is no need to keep posting "the government is really bad" because it's not relevant. The point is that whatever bad they do in the way of limiting freedom apparently isn't done in ways that make people feel unfree. So telling them how unfree they are won't hit home. But most people don't care about this very much, as long as they can get their money when they want it, drive where they want to, call who they want to and so on. I'm not saying they don't have any concern at all. But until they try to get their money and are told no (like in It's a Wonderful Life) or try to drive to see their friend and are stopped at checkpoints or things like that, where the limits become very concrete, I think they don't find it too bothersome. If you disagree and think they do find it bothersome, then feel free to show that. If you think "they only don't find it bothersome because they're brainwashed" that is both irrelevant (because I'm simply explaining why the freedom message doesn't resonate and, even if that was the reason, it would still be true) and, I think, not accurate because I think it has just as much to do with values (most people simply don't value things the same way you and most anarchists do and are much more focused on concrete day-to-day living at the most basic levels). I said the "freedom" argument is not very strong. The privacy argument is something else. I think the privacy argument is at least a little bit more accurate and potentially effective. I would definitely encourage more focus on privacy as opposed to focus on "freedom" at the moment. I think the "we are unfree" message doesn't resonate with people's experience. The privacy argument does resonate. I'm not sure enough people care about it enough at this point to bother their still-pretty-free everyday lives about it. But at least it's got some weight to it. If you want to frame the privacy issue as a subset of the freedom issue, that's fine. In that framing, I would say it is one subset where people feel it speaks to the reality they experience, whereas most other subsets don't. Taxes is another side that you can consider a subset of freedom where the complaints at least make sense to many people, even if most are resigned at this point and are unlikely to get too worked up unless taxes went much higher. But when you talk about freedom as a general issue, I think people have a hard time relating while driving their cars wherever they want wearing whatever they want while telling jokes about how bad politicians are openly in public. No I'm not. I simply said, over and over, that people can do almost everything they really want to do and the things they can't do are things they don't seem to care about much and therefore trying to work up any kind of fervor over being "unfree" is not likely to work well. The privacy issue is either a separate issue or a specific subset that deserves more attention though I guess I wasted my time writing a whole response to that exact point earlier (and a couple times since). But at this point, seeing how many times you continue to almost intentionally misunderstand my points so as to somehow find a way to post another "government is very bad" post, which has nothing to do with the point I'm making about perception and day-to-day freedoms of expression, travel and so on, I'm not sure if there is much point to any of this. If government has brainwashed people so badly that they now accept huge levels of lack of freedom then my point is still correct that the freedom message is unlikely to work. And if I'm right that it's just as much about people simply being more concerned with the day-to-day basics of seeing their friends and family, taking care of their families and so on - and that, as long as they can do these things relatively unfettered, they will feel generally free enough - then my point stands that way too.

I haven't studied this much. But from what I've seen, it seems like many homeschoolers are not doing it to demonstrate autonomy. They're doing it so that they can indoctrinate their kids as they wish rather than the state indoctrinate them. It's not as if they're doing it to give the children the freedom to seek truth as they see fit. I am not saying nobody does that. I'm sure there are some very thoughtful parents that homeschool for this latter reason. But my understanding, which might be wrong, is that most homeschoolers do so for religious reasons because they want to control the flow of information to their kids in an even more narrow way, not broaden it. If I'm correct, many homeschoolers are opposing the dominant ideas of the government, but trading them for the dominant ideas of the church. And those messages are often in opposition, as this demonstrates. That's why there are religious families who believe government schools are so bad for their kids, from a religious standpoint, that they should remove them. This is why I said in my earlier post that it's oversimplifying to just claim everyone is brainwashed by the government. In fact, they are getting mesages - often mixed messages that contradict each other - from many corners.

I'm not saying they are reachable. They may well not be. But if they are, I don't think the freedom argument is the most likely to work in Western countries. That's all. That is the purpose you see in them. I don't think that's a universal thing. Some of them certainly want to do more than just discuss. Also, we disagree on the truth. My point here isn't just that the freedom message isn't very effective, but that, in the West, it's really not very accurate. People in modern Western countries, in practice, have a tremendous amount of freedom. In fact, more freedom than most of them even care to use. The restrictions that anarchists lament so much are mostly ones that don't impact people on a day to day basis in terms of their dress, speech, travel and so on. There are some that do impact them, but in ways that aren't important enough to cause them to lose any sleep. You attribute this to brainwashing. I attribute it, at least in good part, to just being everyday people who are focused on basic day to day activities and content to raise their families rather than worried about major political concerns. It is a values difference. They simply value these day to day activities more than they value larger picture concerns. This could well tie into a personality type difference, as this is exactly what you'd expect from certain types as opposed to others. You say anarchist thinkers and writers want to discuss the unvarnished truth. Well the unvarnished truth is not that "the State is all bad." I've listed examples where the State does things that are pretty universally understood as good things to do. The response I get, and the actual unvarnished truth as some see it is "the State is too inefficient and costly at doing the good things that it does." Or you can say "In doing the good that it does, the State ignores certain crucial moral principles so in spite of that good, it is still unjustified." But if you want unvarnished truth, you need to be more precise, not less. I think you are not looking at the big picture because you are so narrowly focused on the big bad government. There is psychological persuasion going on all around us. It doesn't just come from government. It comes from our families, corporations trying to sell us things, everyday people with something to gain from convincing us, and, yes, also from the government. I think it's an incomplete picture to just paint the government as having this hypnotic mind control over people. In fact, it's considered common knowledge, almost cliche, that politicians are all liars and thieves. Everyday people joke about it at the dinner table all day long. There is a big difference between that and what you see in North Korea. But your version of unvarnished truth whitewashes right over that difference. Things are not as black and white as you make them. It's a complex circumstance. And many of the messages bombarding people contradict each other. I just think you're oversimplifying.

I don't think the only way is to undercut belief in something through rational arguments against it. Another way is to show corruption. I would think the scandals of the church have done as much to make people question them as any rational arguments againt faith. Yes it's a very complex question. Seems nobody is able to quite predict these things. Well how is it disobedience at all to do something that is perfectly allowed? Perhaps some people use homeschooling as a means of subversion. But it seems like more people who homeschool are conservatives who are patriotic and nationalistic than anti-statist subversives

Really? I see John Stossel on all the time The Tea Party is reported on plenty. I've seen tons of media stories questioning the extent of surveillance lately. I could go on and on. More examples fly to mind but I don't even want to keep listing them all. There are lots and lots of mainstream reports on shrinking the size and scope of the state. I don't even think it's the tiniest bit rare anymore. Your knee-jerk reaction will no doubt be to rant about how these are all meaningless and give me a lecture on things I already know about how big and bad the state is and how corrupt the media is. But none of that changes the fact that what I said above is true. I just wish anti-statists could paint the situation accurately, showing the balances on both sides and then take their arguments from there. When you go too far to an extreme in your argument, it just brings about backlash. I think you do better when you openly acknowledge the facts on both sides as your starting point. The "limited government" argument is hardly censored these days. You do raise a good point here that, while limiting government is hardly a censored idea, people tend to categorize into groups that want to limit it in one area, but not in another. I think actually most people are very open to downsizing government - as long as they get to pick which parts get downsized.

Yeah, I did that but was still dissapointed by the results. Hmm. Well what were you looking for? I saw a ton of articles making a very clear link between bedwetting and abuse. What more were you hoping to find?

You might well be right. There are many cases where I often doubt there is any chance of getting through to people. But if there is a chance of resonating with people, I think a focus on inefficiency and waste and offering better alternatives is a lot more likely to do so than the "freedom" argument (in addition to being more accurate). I rarely hear anyone in my life ever complain about feeling unfree because of the state. That kind of talk I mostly only hear on FDR. I do hear people all the time complaining about government waste and inefficiency, however, both personally and even on the mainstream news.

It actually is to be glossed over when it comes to this particular topic because the case I'm making is not that the government is always protective and always perfectly efficient at protecting. It is that they are sometimes protective and sometimes not protective. They are not purely one or the other. That is why people see them as both protective at times and evil at times. Underneath all your attempts to avoid admitting it, you do not really disagree with this. Your point is that the costs outweigh the benefits and that there are more efficient ways to get protection. That is a separate argument and one that I think is stronger. And I encourage people to try to show that one to people instead of trying to tell them they are so unfree and need a lot more freedom or that the government is pure evil without any protective intent or benefit. So focus on the "inefficiency" argument, not the freedom argument or the "pure evil" argument. That is my very point. Again, good so focus on the "there are better alternatives" argument, rather than the freedom argument or the "pure evil" argument. This is a very illustrative example. Your personal disgust for the state as a concept leaks into your discussion and you are unable, kind of like Magnus, to just stick to the point. It's almost like when you hate someone so much you refuse to just give them credit when it is due as if this somehow strengthens your case. But it doesn't. It just makes you lose credibility. The state does protect people sometimes. It really does. People aren't just delusional for thinking that they sometimes do. They do. That's a fact. Admitting that and then building your case from there - that it comes at too high a cost, that it's inefficient, that there are better alternatives - will make it a lot stronger than trying to deny that there is any protective side to it at all.

That's what I was implying, except I think that really means the correct extrapolation doesn't matter. Ultimately, everyone acts as if they own themselves and acts to preserve that which they believe to be their property through self-ownership. Are you trying to say that, basically, what really matters is how people reflect their beliefs in action, not what they say in debate? So it isn't so important to get everyone to agree verbally. What's important is to get people expressing their agreement in action (even if they contradict that with the words sometimes).