richtrix

Atlanta area.

Hi. Quite a while back I called into the show and the video became "Help I'm a recovering political activist". I was a big time activist for Ron Paul in 2008 and 2012 . I even became one of 3 (out of 76 total) delegates to the Republican National Convention who voted for Ron Paul on the floor in Tampa FL from my state. Around that same time I started listening to Stefan and well... the rest is history. I finally came out of the closet to my friends in politics last week with this video. Let me know what you think of it. http://youtu.be/ICff0E9sDuI Sincerely, Rich Clarke

Hello. Anyone going to see stef in Austin this March 6th? I am flying out from Atlanta for the day and looking to maybe meet up with any fellow FDR folks. Also... I haven't booked a hotel yet if anyone is looking to split some costs. I'm flying in the night of the 5th and the morning of the 7th.

John Stewart came up on Hulu... why not I said. his first 5 mins fly in the face of basically everything Stef posted in his latest vid appending his show with Joe Rogan. It's hard to watch!!! http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-january-9-2014/slumdogs-vs--millionaires Be interesting to get stefs short rebuttal... Also... taking on John Stewart might get some publicity!

I have grown up in the military tradition. My father was a Lieutenant Colonel in the Airforce, My Grandfather on My mother's side a Colonel in the Airforce. My Mom's Great Grandfather a General in the Army. My uncle my cousin, Army. My Father's Grandfather was in the Candadian army as a tank driver in the battle of the bulge in WWII. You get the picture. This particular post isn't necessarily about my family though. I'm writing about an interesting experience with my wife's family. Her grandfather was a Lieutenant Colonel in Vietnam. He joined the Army in 1945 during WWII. He volunteered to go to Vietnam in August 1967. By December 1967 he was dead having been killed in a non combat helicopter crash. I've just learned that he survived another crash due to hostile fire in November 1967. The ripple effect of this loss persist today. My wife's father became an alcoholic and about 7 years ago he fell down some stairs while intoxicated and that landed him into a vegetative coma. He was recently divorced from my wife's mother. My wife is the oldest child and it was her call to pull the life support on her dad and watch him die. He is survived by one brother, Doug, who was in the Navy for 5 years when he was younger, apparently is having his own struggle with alcoholism. Last week his mother, my wife's grandmother, died of cancer. It was fairly sudden. She found out she had cancer this summer. My wife and her never really got along. She was a manipulative woman by all accounts, always providing guilt trips to those she spoke with. She was particularly fond of my wife's father. My wife's grandmother was bitter toward my wife especially since she gave the order to end her father's life. The week before she died we went to visit her in Florida so she could me our son, her great grandson, before she died. It was one of the last times she smiled before she died. So that was nice. About a year ago while cleaning out some old stuff I found a tub of things my wife had gotten from her father. In it was a notebook and some pictures. It was a compendium of correspondence between my wife's uncle Doug and many individuals who served with or under Doug's father. It was some serious stuff. Since his father had died they didn't know how or what happened. There was even question if he may have been a POW. Doug had found people who were there when he died who surveyed the crash and served with "Sabre", Doug's father. While we were visiting my wife's dying grandmother Doug and his wife were there. They had moved in with her for about a month to see her off as it were. So there was a lot of time for conversation etc.. I mentioned to Doug that I'd read through the correspondence and told him that it was a real great piece of investigative work and family history. My wife said that Doug never tells the rest of the family anything. Things that others might like to know. This was one of those times. He mentioned that there had been a recent development in that The Military Channel had contacted him for details about his father. They are putting together a special on the battle of Dak To, one of Vietnam's largest battles. In speaking with individual's involved in that battle in early to mid November 1967 so many had referenced "Saber" that they reached out to Doug for further information on him. Saber was in command of the 4th battalion of the 8th infantry. They saw some of the heaviest fighting in Dak To. Doug began to tear up as he was telling us about the special. He also informed us that he'd had digitized an audio letter that Saber had sent home to his wife, the woman dying in the next room, about a month before he died. In the letter he details the fight of Dak To. I had Doug email them to me. He asked that I not share the audio as it is a personal family memento which should be treated with dignity and respect. It sat in my inbox and it wasn't until veterans day that I listened to them at about 2am on nov 11th 2013. They total about 20 minutes. Saber is very matter of fact in the tape. In the first minute or so he states that the last 3 weeks have been the most traumatic experience in his life. He goes through the death of two of his company commanders and his utter sorrow. Hearing these power words of my son's Great grandfather were very moving. I began to research the men he was referencing and seeing their photos and family posts it etc. it really makes it all quite real and the tragedy sets in ways never before felt. I've studied war my whole life with my father and was boyishly fascinated with the glory of it all etc. I corresponded with Doug a little asking some questions. It turns out that there is full audio of the battle of hill 724 where one of the company commanders Saber referred to perished. It was taken by a signal core officer who was with the company. The audio was for notes for his video he was taking. As the battle began he left his audio recording. Seems so strange a thing that the military was so interested in filming the war. The video was thought to be lost. The Military Channel special was supposed to air on Veterans day. Doug told me it was delayed due to the fact that some video had been discovered which goes with that audio of hill 724. I was listening to this audio and it's really disturbing to listen to knowing that one of those shots or explosions is one that killed Saber's friend. That the same energy that imprinted on that tape and was now pulsating my eardrums has also killed such a man. I emailed Doug and said that I had narrowed down where, based on accounts, the area in the recording where I presume the Captain was murdered. I did pause as I wrote the word... murder. I wondered if I should change it... but left it. He responded with this... I suppose it was predictable. I began writing a response that ended up being quite long. I know I've heard Stef call soldiers murderers before and I thought about it. I have not sent the response yet. My conclusion is that he's fairly correct. Here is part of my argument in the unsent email. I'd like some input on this argument and also some advice from anyone on how to deal with this sensitive issue. The deaths of these men have ruined lives. Of course Doug was upset because if the Captain was murdered by the NVA that would mean in turn NVA killed by Americans would also be murdered, making those soldiers murderers. Of course there is also the fact that during Vietnam many soldiers were called murderers when they came home. So for Vietnam vets it is a touchstone word. For people who have lost loved ones in wars the idea that they died for their country protecting freedom etc. is what keeps them from losing it. I'll probably never send that email. Even though I agree with Doug in the end, digging into the question feels insensitive for a man who at 14 lost his dad and still struggles with it 45 years later. In delving into the history of these events I've found myself so drawn into the tragedy and feel so awefully that behind every name on that wall there are generations of damaged lives. I feel a desire to share their stories as they lived up to their deaths and the bravery they showed in disregarding their lives at times to save others. Is doing so am I just perpetuating the Glory of War further?

Greetings, In this post I am in search of somebody... anybody to just give a damn. So if you have any damns to give please, I beg you, read on. [this ended up being a longer post than I'd thought. If you're short on time please at least download the album at the bottom] For over a decade I have been in a rock band. We are called "The Industry". The current lineup of members has been together for 10 years. I'm now 32 years old. It's probably the longest single endeavor of my life to this point. Longer than my relationship with my wife. Longer than any career etc. Everything in my life, by all standards, is going quite well. Awesome wife, absolutely adorable 8 month old son I get to spend all day with every day while at the same time watching my personal income increase fairly steadily. I find my businesses fairly gratifying even though they are far from what this young Bachelor of Physics ever imagined himself doing. But... there is this band. After college we dispersed for about 3 years and reformed when our bass player moved from Miami to live with me in Atlanta. Our drummer lives about 2 hours away and guitarist about 1 hour. Despite all odds we managed to plug through and keep practicing and playing shows. Our drummer had a child... still kept going. We found ourselves a bit in a rut and decided that it was time to seriously make the album we'd always wanted to to take us to the next level. On December 27th and 28th 2009 we tracked the drums at a nice studio in town and all through 2010 and 2011 we continued work on it. At times it would get back burnered, at times it would be worked on incessantly sometimes just steadily. In Fall 2011 we were at a low point. My best friend and bassist was despondent. Work on the album had begun to languish. It just seem so insurmountable a task at that point. Just at that time we got a big break and were able to open for the band Incubus. It was just us and them on the bill for a crowd of 8000. It was amazing. Here's a video of it http://youtu.be/2DL8vpCKEng Rejuvenated we really dug into the album. Shortly after I started a new job which gave me flexible hours and a big increase (to me) in income. In January 2012 our producer had a good friend open a fantastic studio with a historic console freshly purchased from a legendary studio which had just closed its doors, Southern Tracks, at its heart. I also was friends with the owner and he gave us a deal that would make affordable the once absolutely out of reach. We took our completed tracks there and over the course of 8 months mixed the album on the SSL G Series until it was perfect. Then off to LA for mastering which went back and forth until February of this year. In an unexpected turn my son came into the world two months ahead of schedule. A scary and joyful time consisting of about 1.5 months in the hospital for 5 hours a day or more insued. Somewhere in those years our drummer had a second child and took a full time job that takes 60-80 hours a week. Our guitarist move an hour further away and over this past summer my bass player had a relationship go sour which triggered many unaddressed issues to bubble up and he plunged into a deep depression. At my prodding he now sees a therapist (two actually) and is on a slow but steady course of increased self knowledge. We spend a lot of time together he and I. FDR has really helped me, I feel, to give some reasonable advice to him or point him at a podcast or two. We hardly play music together any more. He is a musical prodigy. He is has a masters degree in percussion from UM and plays bass and guitar equally well. Perfect pitch, the whole nine yards. He doesn't even like music right now. Music is just what he's always been good at. He is now realizing through therapy etc. that he's always played music for attention. Rarely for his own gratification. He teaches high school marching band as an outside percussion assistant at a couple of good schools in the area. He hates it now. He gigs around town in cover bands etc. for extra cash. He feels dead inside when he does. It's hard for us to get the creativity going right now. When we get close it eventually hits a wall and we just go home to bed. Our band has always had its drama. Our drummer is AMAZING. Top notch, absolute pro. He's hilarious to as well. He's also completely insane and a royal pain in the ass. He is always bitching about money. Particularly gas money for his 2 hour drive. He is terrible with money. His wife still gives him envelopes of cash each week for his various expenses. He was blacklisted from attaining a credit card for 6 years at one point. I think he has one now though. For the past 3 years or so we've only been able to get him to come up for shows. Maybe one practice beforehand, only to make sure we didn't suck for the gig. Can't really blame him all things considered. However, this means no time for new material, just hashing over the same old tunes some of which we've been playing for 10 years or more. Oft since we don't play as often as most bands the rehearsals don't go well. Sometimes the shows don't too. This is demoralizing since we've been at this so long. On hand it's like riding a bike and we have it down, on the other hand the bike has gotten rusty and the tire is flat. We mostly practice without the drummer, sometimes we'll play along with tracks of his part put through our PA but it's always empty playing in a rock band without a drummer. Recently my bass player and I finally have realized that if are to carry on at all we need a new drummer and probably a new guitarist. We've known this for years but these guys are old friends. It's really hard. We can't bring ourselves to have the conversation with them. With our drummer it will ruin the friendship. We're pretty sure of this. Not much of a friendship then perhaps but I think we weight if the pain of doing the only course to drive the project forward is worth it. I mean what if we burned those bridges and then never even did anything. That's a little defeatist but these are thoughts we have. We've played with some others but it's not the same. We'll find someone though if we persevere. We just feel as if we are operating in a total vacuum of interest at this point. We are the only ones that care about this project and that is waning each day. Any fans we have have long since forgotten us due to our lack of staying engaged and making new content. The extravagant album that we worked on for 3+ years is absolutely fantastic from a production standpoint. I like the music but that's subjective of course. It's ready to release but we've held off. We're in total limbo. Bass player has a studio in his basement about 17 minutes away from me. He spent a year or more and thousands of dollars remodeling it after a flood. We've not recorded a damn thing in there in over a year. We've decided to just start setting the recording gear back up and a couple nights a week and he and I will start recording the new ideas we've been having and see what happens. It's literally a baby step to find again what we both feel we've lost somewhere along the way. I'm tearing up writing this part as the hole left by this project is just growing by the day. There is so much guilt, so many missed opportunities and so much sunk costs. Hundreds of man hours on the album maybe even thousands. Probably about $20,000 spent spread out over the course of it. Not to mention a happy helping of our souls embedded in these 16bit 44100Hz files hidden in a folder on my computer. We have so much going for us. We've had opportunities that any band would DIE for. We have accomplished in our album what maybe 3% of musicians ever will do. Yet we founder. It is almost as if I have a mental block that prevents me from being able to release the album. Prevents me from spending the 5 or 6 hours it will take to get it on iTunes. I literally just can't. So anyone here on FDR who wants it can have the album via download. You can share it if you like I really don't care if I make any money at this point with it. I don't know what I expect as responses here. I just want someone to hear it and maybe even like it. I had to let someone know how just terrible I feel about all of this. We did a kickstarter for this album in 2011 and still haven't fully delivered the promised items (only digital copies of the album not physical) every day the weight becomes more and more and it makes it daily harder to move forward in any way. It's hard to explain and I feel a little like I'm whining here but at least I know that, well hope that, this community won't see it that way. Anyhow... here's the link to our album: http://theindustry.us/TheIndustry-Distances1.zip Thanks for reading and hopefully listening. Sincerely, Rich

c dsas jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjxcvc junm .... above is my 7 month old son's first philosophical contribution to the internet and thus the world. In the process he also removed the 'z' key from my thinkpad which I thought was a good closing argument considering the topic. (Don't worry, I was able to snap it back in). He watched just about the whole thing from his bouncy chair (although he napped for the last 30 minutes or so) So I was happy to collect his thoughts and share them. I think that next time, given what PJ said he wanted to talk about, Stef can go a little bit more on the offensive questioning his proposed system as I do agree with Pat that next time Stef should be prepared to counter the "Structural Violence" concept as it is now known to be central. I've heard Stef describe Sophists many times and I have to say that no one I have experienced quite fits the description better than Peter. @Pat: Wesley has brought up some great points you should look into them. Welcome to the forum, thanks for dipping your toes in.

Can't wait... will hit refresh on podcast page every 22 minutes!

For those interested here is my final reply... I haven't heard back: Sorry for the delay getting back to you. It’s been an eventful weekend. In the middle of the PMM (which went VERY well, we picked up 7 of the 15 district chairmen slots) I got a text from my 7 months pregnant wife saying she was going to the hospital because she thought her water might have broken. Turns out she did rupture the amniotic sack but it was a very small one. Things are going fine BUT she has been hospitalized until she has the child which hopefully will be in 2 months or so. This is due to the risk of infection with the sack ruptured which means she has to be monitored closely and at the slightest sign of infection they will induce her. I have, so far, not been able to think of any other scenario where you’d ever tell someone “I sure hope you are in the hospital for months”. The longer she is there and pregnant the better our little guy will fare. So now back to the matter at hand. Of course I intentionally led the argument there and yes it is a morality trap. I respect your position that paying for education for betterment of society in a good thing and thus I respect your decision to give your money in the form of taxes for that end. So then what if I believe that the same system is, as I stated, immoral and counterproductive to society and let’s say that I have alternate plans for my kids which cost money. So why don’t I have a ‘right’ to not pay into that system? Why must I pay into that system and the other system simultaneously? If, as you argue, people should do it to assist the downtrodden I’ll argue that property taxes are not tolerated by most people in order to educate the children of others. MOST people are fine with paying into it in order to send THEIR OWN children to school for very little cost. I only pay about $700 a year in property taxes. If I have 3 kids, let’s say, that is only $233 per kid per year. WOW… what a deal!!! That great deal exists because there are a lot people without kids in the system that pay those taxes. Most of those people have had or will have kids in the system at point and I’d be willing to bet that well over 51% of the people in a community are in that category. So the question is. Is it moral for 51% of people to demand money from the 49%? If not 51% then what is the proper percentage to make it legal to rob your neighbor? Let me set up a hypothetical situation for you. Hopefully you won’t find it ridiculous (btw is whether or not my neighbor should be allowed to own or purchase a nuke not ridiculously hypothetical/extreme?). Say that I send my only child into the Cobb County public education system and say that I find that some abuse occurs to my child while there. Say it is at the hand of a staff member. After investigations etc. let’s say that that staff member only got a slap on the wrist and transferred to another school (possible in our judicial system) and my child is made out to be a liar and problem. Naturally I’ll trust my child and I’ll pull him out of this environment. So here I am now. Having to pay for expensive private schooling or cut down on my hours at work so I can home educate my child with my wife’s help. That $700 is not only necessary for our well being it is an outrage that we’re paying into this system with has done these terrible things. So we stop paying the taxes. We write a letter to the DA and state attorney general and tell them why we are not etc. etc. What will happen? Well in probably about a year after a bout of hate mail the sheriff will arrive and he and his deputies will place all of our belongings in the front yard, a locksmith will change the locks and the windows will be boarded up until the new owner of our property, who purchases our bond in back taxes on the courthouse steps, will take possession of the property. This is all regardless of whether our mortgage is current or the property is owned outright. It happens every day. In fact I met a man it happened to last month. I went to his house, which was really a glorified shack. This guy was poor and given the place to stay by the owner who had inherited the property and not been aware or neglected to pay the taxes) So a property management company came out with the sheriff and dumped all this man’s worldly possessions (not much I’ll add) in the yard and boarded the place up without notice of any kind to the occupant. He came by my house and took me over there trying to sell me some of his items to give him some cash to get back on his feet. I looked around seeing everything this 50+ year old man had to his name and it was all just junk. He wanted $30 for this whole lot of lumber he’d salvaged. I had no use for it and it was mostly just scrap. I told him I didn’t want any of it but I truly appreciated his situation and the fact that he was only interested in a value for value transaction. He was saddened when I told him I wasn’t interested in buying but I gave him $40 anyway. When I did so he looked so confused that one would have thought that nobody had ever done a kind thing for this man in his entire life. You cannot characterize this as anything but violence. One could say “well that was dumb Rich, why’d you sacrifice a $60,000 house for $2000 in back taxes” and person would be correct. That would be dumb. Also though, saying “I think Stalin is idiot” too loudly in 1937 USSR would probably have been dumb too. You said that “… if you're going to get this persecution complex when I suggest that paying taxes to make life better for everyone isn't always evil.” Paying taxes is not evil just as saying “Stalin in an idiot” is not evil. Theft is evil, murder is evil. When someone gets mugged you never hear people say “oh God, shame on you… why did you give him your money?” When you say that being forced to pay taxes “makes life better for everyone” I’d say that is categorically untrue. It makes life better for some and worse for other. For example, I use next to no government services. I drive on roads (paid for when I purchase gasoline) and that’s about it in my day to day life. I don’t have any kids and when mine arrives, hopefully safely, I certainly will not subject him to public education. Thus, taxes are just a drain on my livelihood for the most part. Compare that to the life of a person who works for the government who make, on average, twice as much as I do with a defined benefit retirement plan and 3 weeks a year paid vacation all for perhaps auditing for the IRS or issuing driver’s licenses or any number of bureaucratic positions which deliver no value to society. Maybe that’s not a good example though since almost 100% of gov’t proceeds from income taxes go to paying the interest on the national debt (with current interest rates less than 1%). I am probably just paying interest on the debt used to pay for the salary of an EPA employee in 1992. She’s now retired in St. Petersburg FL and takes a few cruises every year with her kids and grandkids and probably donated a shit load of money to Mitt Romney to add insult to injury. You are probably aware that nationwide the housing markets are still hurting and collapsing in value. This is true with the exception of pockets here and there. The largest exception is one place in particular where there is actually a BOOM in real estate values. Washington DC. Housing prices are up 1/3 in DC since 2008. The place where are all the stolen money collects (either through taxation or inflation). The argument you are making is not unfamiliar to me. Basically, that it is ok to steal from people if it is for a good cause. When that belief is put into practice you’d be surprised just how many good causes can be imagined into existence. There is a great pamphlet written by Frederick Bastiat in 1850 that basically deals with this issue and others quite fairly. It’s very short and could be read in a matter of an hour or so if you want a good challenge to this ideology. It is called “The Law”. This ideology you are espousing is called “collectivism” and you can basically break it down into this statement made famous by Mr. Spock “The good of the many outweigh the good of the few” or “The greater good of the greater number”. This philosophy has been ruinous in the societies which it was wholly adopted and will prove/is proving so in ours. For once the 51% can legally plunder the 49% the majority will begin to devour an ever shrinking pie until, as it is today, the 99% consuming the 1% (and I’m not talking about the 1% that made all of their money off of gov’t contracts etc.). Our republic was installed to protect the individual from the whims of the mob. Every protection is there to insure that the individual is protected. It is the difference between a lynch mob, where there is only 1 dissenting vote (they guy at the end of the rope), and the sheriff riding in and saying “STOP this man has a right to a trial.” Of course our republic has all but failed now and mob rule is basically upon us. The Constitution was designed to protect the minority, not abuse it. So why is it that behind all of these noble causes must there must always be a gun? Granted, at first it might not look like a gun. It might look like mean letters in the mail, then summons to court, then seizure of all your assets in bank account and cutting off all banking transactions, then… guns and all those precursors are backed by guns. There is in fact not even a law requiring one to pay the income tax. It does not exist. It is just straight up violence. To say otherwise is to truly be in denial. That is why I made that argument and that is why you felt trapped. Not because it was absurd but because you were trapped between the truth of the situation and denial of its existence. The truth is that theft is evil, taxation is theft by the state enforced by the state’s legal monopoly on the use of violence. In the alleged words of Washington “Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force.” Please do check out “The Law” by Bastiat. [For FDR readers: I know that Bastiat is objectionable as he still supports "The Law" but for a leftist it is a decent stairstep I think.]

Dunno, I've have a crazy couple of days. The aforementioned mass precinct meeting were Saturday and I had to rise early for those. They went spectacularly though. Our County has 15 State house of Representative districts and eat one has a chairperson in the party. The district chairs are a big part of the county executive committee. We took over 7 of the 15 district chair slots. It was pretty nuts. In the middle of all that I got a text from my 7 months pregnant wife that she is on the way to the hospital because she thought her water broke. I hurried over to meet her and indeed it had. It is just a small tear in the amniotic sack though and the little guy is doing fine but they had to juice her with all kinds of antibiotics and whatnot due to the protective bag having a hole. She will be in the hospital until the baby comes (not due until April 25th). Pretty crazy. So to answer your question, I’ll probably respond today and maybe lighten up a little on the guy. See if I’ve provoked any thought at all or if he just thinks I’m an ass.

Again I'll point people to my original post 3rd from the top. This conspiracy is damned near impossible to prove with any reliance. Most of the 9/11 conspiracy data is far more convincing and conclusive (the good data). For those who say... "I don't remember ever seeing persistent contrails like this when they were younger" I submit stuff like this: http://www.livescience.com/14944-wwii-bombing-raids-contrails-weather-climate.html one of my favs: at about 45 seconds you can see what looks like one of the bombers just shutting off it's contrail. I have seen this many time with my own eyes in our skies, as have many others. Most point to as proof that it is spraying because they are turning off their "spraying apparatus" or what have you. This is not the case. Clearly allied WW2 bombers didn't have spraying apparati on their engines and you can clearly see this phenomenon in that video. All it means is that the aircraft encounted a pocket of warmer air. Since I have some pilot experience I can tell you that such things do exist. The atmosphere is not a nice homogenous fluid. Furthermore I have seen MANY MANY times an aircraft enter a high natural cirrus cloud and leave a nice thick persisting contrail in its wake until it exits the cloud I have heard a talk by a pratt and whitney executive where he openly talks about contrails and that they do have an impact on weather and that NOAH, The National Weather Sevice, and the FAA were working on plans to reroute aircraft around atmoshereic conditions conducive to forming persisting contrails. AGAIN I'd like to emphasize that I very much wanted to believe in the stuff because I became a proxy spokesman for it due to my activities and close associations with people who had tied their names to it. Namely G. Edward Griffin. However, I became very frustrated when I could not offer solid arguments which were not easily refuted and so I did my own research to a GREAT extent. Hundreds of hours online and casual upward observation. I have more... if it is needed.

I've really ... really been struggling with all of this new data from Steph. I once was the model of political activism. I was one of 3... yea 3... out of a total of 76 delegates to the RNC from my state who voted for Ron Paul on the convention floor and I campaigned and worked for the man tirelessly in 2008 and 2012. I have really taken ownership of the politics as a feather in my cap and part of who I was and a driving force toward change. I'm 31 years old. Baby boy on the way. In just about 9 hours my county's precinct mass meetings commence for the GOP. Due to my position in the movement and the great people I have more or less led in it I am going to support them and assist how I can. I have a scheme to use the party and some of its resources to help build our community. It is my little excuse for staying involved. The guilt I have due to my newly found lackluster feelings toward political action (only strengthened by my experience at the RNC) is intense. I feel I am letting my comrads down. They look up to me so and I have in many ways disappeared. My county is Cobb county in Georgia. Millions of people. The largest Republican county in the NATION, WORLD, UNIVERSE etc. I coordinated our actions in this key area. We really have built a great community of people here so my great challenge is migrating it out of party politics into...?? Hense the frustration and uncertainty. So someone who is a Ron Paul buddy of mine facebooked me saying he was thinking of coming in the morning. A really nice, young guy. Musician like me, a lot in common. He said he was redicent about coming because he had become "more liberal." I told him to explain. He said: "I am pro choice I do NOT believe global warming is a lie from the liberal media and I don't think that me not being allowed to legally own jericho missiles is an infringement on my liberty" Nothing too bad there I thought. I started to challenge him a little on the Global Warming thing. Asking him to qualify if he meant "Man made" or just "warming" or what. We talked about that for a while and way led on to way and eventual we started talking about education and he said "I don't think leaving that up to the free market is something a society that cares about its weakest members would do" so I did the 51% Gambit "But this is a democracy... it would seem then since that is the policy that at least 51% think that we should support it right?" Which he agreed with. We then talked mechanics for a while and about the 19th century and no publc schools etc. Then we started really getting into the meat. I asked: "We can argue effectiveness all night long but here's the rub man. I've told you that I support your right to fund these systems correct?" He relpied: "Yes, but do you support a child's right to an education?" WARNING WARNING... [+o(] We talked about rights for a moment and and it lead to this statement by my 'friend' "I'm not making it personal; I just have no way of reconciling my worldview with yours at a VERY basic level. Which [is to] say that NO, initiation of force is not ALWAYS morally wrong" Of course then it came to this the All In Molyneau Gambit. My question: "I believe that not only is the current education system immoral... it has caused irreparable damage to this society. I do not want to support it. Do you support my right to not support it and not pay the taxes??" Answer: "No, of course not" Molyneau All In Gambit Endgame: "So you want men with guns [to] come take me away because I want no part in a system which I believe to be immoral? That's pretty personal man." Response "If you're saying this as a thought experiment or a way of proving a point, then I get it. But if you're ACTUALLY taking it personally that I think you as a human being have a responsibility to act in cooperation with your fellow man on a few basic things to help society not be a giant clusterfuck, then I'm not sure I even know what to say in response to that I had no intention of making you angry at all I like you Rich" My response: "I am not angry at all. Just sad that someone wants me dragged out of my home in the middle of the night when I've harmed nobody especially someone who likes me. I would never wish that on you" Him: "Point taken Rich. Good grief. I'm gonna take this as a big hint that I'll be sleeping in tomorrow [instead of going to the mass precinct meetings]." Me: "LOL.. now perhaps you see why I would like to join you in that affair [sleeping in]. The whole system is founded on this premise. The parties. The legal system. Education. It is all violence." Him: "If that's how you're choosing to interpret the world you live in, then I can't help you. Goodnight" I especially like the "i can't help you" line. I wrote a closing statement but this is already long enough. You get the idea. Feeling kind of weird over here. We may not speak again. Probably not. Can't say I wasn't warned. Comments, advice and critisms most welcomed. EDIT: this came in from him later: "I'm not defriending you, man. It's just difficult to have a political discussion with you if you're going to get this persecution complex when I suggest that paying taxes to make life better for everyone isn't always evil. That doesn't mean I want to have you locked away in a prison, and if that's the scenario you're going to resort to, then you'll have to forgive me for bowing out of the conversation because you've (i think somewhat purposefully) left me with nothing really to say. If you want to have a discussion about how to fix how screwed up the world is and make things better for everyone, I'm totally down for that. But if you want to resort to using ridiculous hypothetical situations just to win an argument, I have no interest in wasting time with that. That's not helping anything get better." Feeling really warm and fuzzy now.

I have looked into this issue deeply. This is because I was the host of the World Premiere of the film "What in the World are They Spraying" made by my friend G. Edward Griffin and some other young filmakers. I've since concluded that it is not a widespread phenomenon as is commonly depicted. I have a degree in physics and a very inquisitive mind. I very much WANT TO BELIEVE since Mr. Griffin, a mentor of mine, believed in it. I have even appeared on television about the issue though I only did so very relucantly for damage control purposes. I am not saying that it never happens or has happened. In fact a researcher just discovered and made public that the government did spray St. Louis and other cities as experiments on the population durning the cold war. What I am saying is this phenomenon is not as widespread nor common as people are making it out to be. As a person with a scientific background I had no hard data nor true proof to stand on when arguing the case. This lead me to question and my findings are that normal persisting contrails are very common and occur quite regularly.