Existing Alternatives

I think you are onto something. For that matter, I think most people attend religious services, holidays, etc. in a similar way they go to movies, theatre or other performances. You can even go further by suggesting that "belief" under these conditions is similar to "belief" in the reality of movies. You can never really get away from group-think. A religious group is just one of many possible groups that are as succeptible to it.

Have you heard of practices of “converting” left-handed children into right-handed? Apparently, they are fairly common in some parts of the world and are performed for the “benefit” of the child. Left- vs. right-handedness seems to affiliate with certain character traits. I am looking for any research or indications of psychological impacts of these conversions on children.

One more clarification: is this a thought exercise for you or a genuine statement of intent? If you are just trying to understand how people feel prior to joining the military, it’s definitely a worthy exploration. On the other hand, your post sounds like you are five minutes away from signing away your life. I think that unnecessarily scares a lot of people in their replies.

Just to clarify, how is murder part of life? Also, from what perspective is war righteous?

I dont think this service is for you. They specialize in holding gold. They deliver only for large orders. You should be able to find a physical dealer nearby or even a bank that sells coins.

You mean church in a money-lending business? WWJD?

Religion and Atheism despite being mutually exclusive cannot be measured / proven by the same criteria. Religion relies on faith, Atheism relies on logic. If you provide proof of, let’s say, heaven, it will no longer require faith and will seize being religion. If all you have is faith in non-existence of god, it is no longer Atheism, but rather some kind of godless Religion. You can’t have faith in Atheism or logically prove Religion.

Interesting point. Russians and Russian-speakers aren’t exactly the most rational bunch. That’s what decades of studying and mixing together Lenin and Dostoyevsky will do to you. Throw on top wars and genocide and you’d be happy to be able to stand on your own two feet in the morning. I find it particularly interesting that you find it difficult to connect (in terms of reason and logic) within Russian-speaking immigrant circles. Think about it, Rand was a Russian-speaking immigrant herself, so, go figure. I’m in Toronto (Canada) myself, and I would not even attempt looking for any of that amongst immigrants here. But I am happy to talk anytime… Any luck tracking down any FDR fans in Russia (or the satellites)?

He often has referenced people before him and analyzed good parts and bad parts of different philosophies. He doesn't every time, for this would at best be absurd. Agreed. He does it all the time. Explicitly. I mean, he did an entire podcast dedicated to Harry Browne back in 2006. Funny. I consider myself a fairly well-informed libertarian, but I have not heard of Stef right until October 2012 (his appearance at Liberty Now). This movement is pretty much grass-roots and it is simply impossible to keep track of everyone and everything. While we all work towards the same goal, people have different ideas of how those goals achieved. As we are dedicated to freedom, we are bound to respect and be open to everyone’s ideas. But we don’t have to agree to all or any of them. Stef does promote defoo’ing as one of the tools in one’s journey. I don’t think it is a requirement of any sorts. Do you HAVE to end any communication with your family? Probably not. Should you limit the influence evil people have in your life? I’d say so.

The worldview can only be true if it is validated by our senses, right? But what about all the cases where our senses “betray” us and present a picture that is different from reality? Here is an article that appeared on Cracked.com that deals with some of those “betrayals.” Please keep in mind that it is a humour site and should be taken lightly. Although, a lot of the examples look legit. What are your thoughts? http://www.cracked.com/article_20391_5-mind-blowing-ways-your-senses-lie-to-you-every-day.html

There is also a difference between claiming to be exempt and being exempt. It is up to the government to grant you the exemption. Oh, and it is also a red flag as far as audit targeting is concerned. Just so you know…

You are funny… I mean, I hope, of course, but… One thing that struck me particularly is the anger in the comments. There were two or three commenters that tried arguing the libertarian side of things, but they were shred to pieces, and not in the intellectual debate kind of way. Ok, so you think libertarians are wrong – go grab your cake! Why the anger? At the end of the day, this was supposed to be an exchange of ideas.

The creator's intent is also to persuade the consumer to buy, and the consumer's intent is to own the product, so the creator cannot be – and often isn't – so strict about this wish. Owning the product means that you can copy it, as a result of which copies may disseminate – and indirectly be also a good thing for the creator. Property is cool. Downloading is cool. /emoticons/pom_poms.gif Maybe. Although it does sound like a special case of “ownership.” This ownership has certain clauses attached to it, which the original buyer has agreed to (one of them being “no copy”). If you think of slave ownership (yeah, let’s put all ethics aside), throughout history there were always restrictions as to what could and could not be done with slaves. For that matter, I can’t think of any example of absolute, do-which-you-please, type of ownership. All of them come with restrictions.

While the act of homesteading may not be purely UPB, I don’t see a problem with the result of it. If you look at the system of ownership we have now, voluntary transfers of land happen all the time. Just because someone got to it before you does not mean you’ll forever be excluded from it.

This is very interesting, I never thought of water as “land”. I’m not being sarcastic, it just occurred to me that water should just as “ownable” as land. Why can’t your fisherman homestead the entire lake? How would you define “massiveness” of the grab?

It looks like I’m late to the party and most aspects of this already had been taken apart. One thing that seems to be missing from the discussion is the creator’s intent. When a DVD is produced it is explicit that the intent of the creators was to sell it. Moreover, they explicitly request that you do not copy their work, even threaten violence if you do. The expectation on their part is that the user will respect their wishes. Knowingly going against those wishes is a violation of some sorts for sure. The creator made a conscious decision to create something in order to get compensation. Without that compensation there would not be a creation process or that product regardless how ethereal the product is. Focusing on the intent removes the burden of having to compare with physical goods or channels of distribution or even ease of copying

Interesting point.... except that "7 deadly sins" are not Biblical per se, but rather Classical Greek adopted by Catholic church.

Well, you know, there are only 10 commandments, and they are not that long...

Welcome to the board! This is an interesting way to discover this neck of the woods -my journey was exact reverse. It sucks to find out that your ideas are opposite to the ones of people around you, especially when they are looking up to you. If I my offer you an advice, you need to find new friends ASAP. Converting your old friends will be a long and complicated process. Isolationism is not a healthy route, especially with post-military baggage that you may be carrying.

I too am fascinated by free cities. If we are talking about the same thing, some of them may have developed without government’s consent or even against it. One of my favourite ones is in Kowloon in Hong Kong. There is also hope for Belle Isle in Detroit. To a further extreme, I guess, places like Monaco, Vatican and San Marino may qualify as free cities as well. Which ones have you been reading on? Can you share the list or links?

You are absolutely correct, using one sentence or a couple will always be out of context. Two questions immediately popped into my head: what is Bible’s context? and what’s your objective in these discussions? It has been established that Bible is full of (most likely intentional) contradictions. You can spend years swapping quotes contradicting each other. Heck, Catholic church has been doing it for centuries. But, what’s the point?

I think the problem is with the concept of attendance. How do you know any given property to be unattended? Estate solve this by creating “attendance.” True. But that would bring us back to compatibility of these “arbitrary” laws. It would be hard to imagine two individuals signing a contract, if their concepts of property are not compatible.

Stef once answered a similar question, specifically pertaining to immigrants. His response, not so eloquently summarized, came down to “where could you go? And why don’t they go instead.” I don’t buy “land ownership” argument, because the concept of “ownership” is open for interpretation. At the same time, owning land in any given jurisdiction does not automatically give you the right to “do as you please,” or even vote in most countries. Furthermore, you can always rent/lease property and obtain significant rights as the result (even with the exclusion of the owner). As far as a showstoppers go, I almost got into a physical conflict with a very good friend of mine over something similar (“if you don’t like paying for our healthcare system, just leave”). Finally, if you are still talking about your Luigi’s example, does your friend basically acknowledge that violence is virtuous, regardless of whether Luigi stays or goes?

Sometimes we could be unfair to our loved ones: it could be very hard to catch up with our fast-evolving sense of good and bad. Today you are for small government, tomorrow you are for none, what gives? “What!? You never read Ayn Rand!? How dare you step into my parlor!” But the more important point here is prevalence of violence in your child’s upbringing. I would suggest to progress with baby steps: can you agree that physical violence against a child is bad? Next step could be: should physical violence be completely banned in the family? And, so forth. At the end of the day, our ideas are not counter-intuitive, but rather counter-cultural and could take some time and logic to convey. Another important question you should consider is whether or not the relationship between you two (husband-wife) is worth saving. If all you disagree on is how to raise your child, that’s not the end of the world. At the same time, divorce is always an option. While it could be negative experience for a kid, you can always make an argument that two happy families are better than an unhappy one. Yet another, perhaps the most extreme option you have is “disownership.” Now, I don’t particularly like or advocate it, but Harry Browne would tell us that clearly defining which parent is in charge of the child (may or may not be you) could remove some of the problems you are having. All the best!

Perhaps the issue is in the “transfer-upon-death.” As far as most common laws go, the estate of the deceased continues ownership and claims could be made against it. The debts and claims have to be paid first before the transfer of the remainder takes place to the descendants. So, no, if somebody stole something from you and died, you can claim restitution against his estate. That would be a solution if the laws were fair. But many of the situations we're talking about took place in environments so corrupt that it was the laws themselves that helped the theft take place. Native Americans couldn't usually successfully sue those who took their land for restitution. It was often the government itself that broke treaties. Many of these people have been fighting to get that land back for generations. So yes if you have fair and honest restitution laws then you are right that this problem might not arise. The question is what is justifiable when restitution also fails to right the situation? And this is not even to mention the fact that many of the supporters of the NAP see lack of a government as one of the consequences of it. So in that case there would be no court in which to sue them for restitution the way you seem to be thinking of it. I guess you'd have to have some dispute resolution entities for cases like this. If those entities were fair and proper then it could be a potential solution. My response was to your specific question regarding “transfer-upon-death” issue, which I think does have an existing solution. I totally agree with you, the bigger issue of multi-generational transfers is too complex for any restitution laws to handle. And very likely unsolvable. Hence my example…