DaProle

Nice podcast. One problem though: Odessa has nothing to do with Crimea...

A sane article about this issue: http://opinion.financialpost.com/2013/11/19/why-rob-ford-is-better-than-most-low-life-politicians/

Sure it is. But it's a crime to pass up an opportunity to spread the message during the only time people are listening.

I believe any step towards sanity is a progress.

I believe many of the repliers lack historical knowledge of the issue. Toronto is the most leftist city in leftist Canada (especially the city core). Before Rob Ford it was ruled by David Miller – an NDP(Communist) member – for 7 years. The next “Toronto elite’s” guy was George Smitherman – the Billion Dollar guy - an admitted heavy drug user and the former Minister of Health of Ontario. Rob Ford ran on the fiscal frugality platform and won by an landslide. Many people in his riding knew him personally because if you needed anything, he would’ve come to your home and sign whatever paper needed to be signed; also he was coaching school football team as a charity. Despite smear campaign by the establishment media, he was being supported by the minorities in the suburbs - a shock commies couldn’t recover from since the very first shtick they pulled is to try to pain Ford as a racist. After he was elected, since day one basically, the smear campaign only got turbo charged even though he basically start delivering on his election promises. Many Torontonians actually got sick of all the nonsense that was brought up against Ford. Therefore is the reaction (increase in support) now – he’s considered and underdog because of constant attempts to get rid of him by the left. I’m more than sure that the crack smoking was a setup after all other attempts failed. I’m not saying Ford is a saint. However, his is a step towards some fiscal sanity in Toronto. Also, I’m yet to see someone’s criticism of Rob Ford in the areas where Stefan criticizes others (Obama etc.) – his professional performance.

Ruben, Re-read what I wrote. I wrote that Stef's critique was of a style of Now! magazine. "Fat","scumbag","ha-ha" type of criticism. That's the way our liberal "friends" are attacking Ford. Not a good thing to follow. CrazyCanuck, Again, any specifics about his actual decisions/performance as a Mayor? All that you said is taken from a liberal media brainwashing machine.

Specifically, in regards to Rob Ford's issue: I've seen a couple of podcasts where Stefan, like our liberal friends, is going nuts about Rob Ford's personal life. I'm yet to hear anything specific from Stefan about actual Ford's work as Mayor of Toronto. All the critisicm has this flavour of Toronto's Now! magazine(a heavily progressively communist one). So, why not to compare apples to apples? In the first podcast Ford's personal issues were listed together with Bill Clinton's Lewinsky scandal(personal in nature too) and with Obamacare. Why, why would you take apples(personal life) and compare it with oranges(work of Obama). I mean Bill Clinton's personality is paling comparing to his actions as President. It could be the case of Stefan, who admitted that he likes to watch television, is actually being influenced by heavily left propaganda. As anarchist, Stefan should by paying more attention to the professional realm of politicians and not their personal lives. I'm not saying Rob Ford is perfect as a mayor; however, he is a blessing, so to speak, for Toronto where any other candidate is openly communist. He's, at least, keeping tabs on uncontrollable spending (read: stealing) by the city full of commies. Just try to remember who he was running against Ford: George Smitherman, an addmitted heroin addict, who “mismanaged” $1 Billion(yes, with B) of funds while being a Health Minister of Ontario. Just something to think about.

With all due respect Stef, 99% of libertarians I know or heard about, got into libertarianism thru Ron Paul's campaign. In fact, I think majority of your listeners got to you via the same route. I love your work and I'm totally into ancap stuff, but let's be real: you are a second step on a ladder where Ron Paul's POLICITAL campaings were the first step. You are harvesting his seeds. Non-participation in political action is just ingoring our chance to wake people up. Your philosophy is an advanced level of libertarianism. To get to the average citizen, the most effective way is to get a jolt of truth via political campaing because this is the only time people pay attention to these things. Get them to google things, discover more. Ultimately, they'll come to you, but political action is a necessary -- albeit politically futile -- step. We don't have to choose one or the other. We can have both.

First, as I already mentioned, there will be no way for insurers to "push preventative measures". The very nature of voluntary business dictates that. Second, no, I don't "overestimate violence as a means of control and protecting children and underestimate peer pressure and education". I simply suggest that in a free society there will be always a possibility for abuse. The answer I would agree with would be along the lines: the abuse will always be, it's just as long as it's not institutionalized and centralized. I do believe that instances of abuse will be much more rare in a free society but there is no way to avoid that.

Moncaloono, other than bashing Christians, you post says absolutely nothing. This thread wasn't about any particular religion at all. From what I can tell, both theists and atheists are believers. It's a matter of faith for both groups. That's what makes them similar and this is what makes them both unscientific even though they have opposite beliefs. IMHO.

Yes, I can see how providing certain exam results to health insurance company voluntarily could reduce the premium for kids. However, again, insurance company cannot force parents to provide that. There will be insurers that will not pay attention to that at all. I didn't get the point about "maintaining their job". Do you mean employer would inerfere? That sounds kinda intrusive as well. What's in it for the employer?

Stephan mentioned a few times that in a free society there will be ways to determine which kids are abused by running brain scans. What is a practical implementation of that? Free society is not Soviet Union and kids don't get checks in schools every 6 months. Moreover, an abusive - or any - parent would simply have the right not to subject kids to any medical examination. That's part of living in a free society. Isn't it?

Such problems become a non-issue when nearly all the people are raised the same way. If nearly an entire population of people are raised in the same manner (peaceful parenting, unconditional parenting, whatever you want to call it), then the issue of dealing with violent, aggressive conflicts will be a thing of the past. The question is how to get there. We are years if not centuries away from that environment. Also, are you implying that there will not be any conficts when everybody is raised the same way? And what it means "the same way"? In a free society it is impossibility in itself. Humans will be humans and conlicts will always exist imo. I wasn't talking about validity of abuse in any shape or form. A clearer definition though is a good thing. Stef sort of gave a definition of spanking in one of his last podcasts and, frankly, I would define that as an abuse. This is not what I think when the topic of spanking comes up. To me spanking is like when a parent tells a kid not to do something repeatedly and s/he does it anyway and then the kid as a result gets spanked once or twice as a punishment. Now, I do realize that the notion of "do something" is very variable here and abuse is possible if kid simply gets picked on by the parents for anything and everything. This is not what I mean. P.S. Thanks for the book, I'll research that.

Are you trying to say that atheists are those who think there is 51% probability that God doesn't exist? That would actually be scientific in my opinion. But that's not what the "official" definition of atheist is, I think.

It's not really a 'gotcha'. According to science, the universe is unlimited therefore there is probability that enything exists.

So, you're strictly agnostic with respect to unicorns? I wasn't talking about agnosticism. I was talking about atheism being unscientific.

Stefan, quantum physicists are making claims about entities (particles) that are now yet known. Then they try to test that. That might take some time and considerable resources. The point is that the science acquires new knowledge in order to prove/disprove something. As long as we don't have that knowledge (yet?), to me it looks unscientific to be atheist.

In order to state that God doesn't exist we have to have absolute knowlege which we don't have. The most scientific statement I could think of would be that science can neither confirm nor deny the existance of God. Isn't this un-scientific simply deny the existense of God?

According to Stephan, people will be immunized against violence if they are treated in a peaceful way in their childhood. I don't think that word immunization should be used in this case. The whole point about immunization is that a little bit of antigen is introduced into an organism and this organism develops immunity against the antigen. So if we take the analogy literally, immunization against violence would be something like... martial arts which, according to Stefan, is a violent and inappropriate venture in itself. Also I do not think it's reasonable to expect from people that never seen or dealt with a conflict to be able to resolve it in adult life. People learn from things including things like conflicts and violence. There is a way to check Stefan's theory about peaceful parenting. Simply run a quiz among heavy left leaning people like Marxists and socialists as well as the libertarian types asking them the question about their upbringing. Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if the percentage of people that never been spanked etc. would be higher among leftists.

The problem is that the state will not just sit there idly. I already mentioned propaganda. They also have all the guns; they can simply enforce anything and for that they don't have to have half of population in the police or army. Do you realize that Toronto, for example, has only 2,500 police officers? That's roughly only 0.1% of population. Does it mean that we already won and they became irrelevant and cannot enforce anything? Of course not. It seems to me that the state will always be able to sustain the minimum level of compliance - it is a matter of survival for it. Our withdrawal from politics will help with that since they'll vote into laws mandatory public schooling, total gun ban, high taxation, mandatory CBC programming etc. while we... will be singing kumbaya? I guess my basic argument is that at the end of the day there has to be somebody who should go into the state legislatures and vote the statist shit down until the state's total dissolution. I understand the corruptubility argument but let's not forget that the voting base (us) would be different therefore the control over representatives could be more effective. Please note that I'm not advocating for "either or" solution, I'm advocating for more of an "and" solution e.i. Stafan's route on personal level AND political action which does have educational component as well. Majority of libertarians/ancaps I know got into libertarianism because of Ron Paul and his presidential campaigns and not because of Stef (sorry, Stefan!) even though I think Stef's message and ideas delivery is way more powerful.

Election turnout matters only if there is threshold written in the law for election to be considered legitimate. Even if it is on the books, the participating violent majority would easily change it. As far as I know, there is no such threshold neither in the US or Canada at this point. So how the election turnout would solve the problem I described in the original post? It seems to me that as long as the violent voting majority (aka the actual minority in the society) controls levers of the state, we'll be screwed.

If we are successful in raising kids peacefully as well as in drawing people away from political process, the rest of the crowd will still be controlling the machinery of the state including propaganda. Isn’t this a catch 22: we take people away from politics and therefore losing the voting battle to the violent and increasingly influential state control freaks? Wouldn’t this only solidify the state?