GeetarJake

There is quite a bit of hip-hop out there that speaks to liberty-minded themes in one way or another(Dead Prez, Immortal Technique, Public Enemy, and Mr Lif all come to mind). Shooter Jennings put out an album called 'Black Ribbons' that has some very interesting and insightful tunes, and I'd highly recommend that you give it a listen. Here's one of my favorites from that album: "Our only weapon’s total defianceLet our love for our neighbors guide usSpeak loud when they try to silenceWithhold when they try to fight us" The album is pretty dark as a whole, but there is a blinding light in there, as well.

The real problem for me has been getting my wife to change her perspective and parenting style. We've managed to remove spanking from our parenting as of this year, but getting her to remove emotional and verbal abuse is not easy, and ultimately is not something I'll be able to do. Watching her and her mother deal with issues, and having known her father, I can see why she has this approach to parenting... My boys(7 and 4) are doing pretty well with more peaceful methods of parenting so far, the younger of the two especially. He's really coming around, but his brother will take much more time and a lot of work with mom. Younger brother has always been very empathetic, and considerate of other people's emotional needs. That's not always the case with property, but we're working on that =). He reacts much better to peaceful and rational parenting, and I'm sure that's especially the case being that we started it at a much younger age with him, compared to his brother. Also, I get more one on one time with him while his older brother is in statist slave training during the day time, which of course helps us bond and create better channels for communication. Older brother has taken on much of mom's behaviors towards conflict resolution, which means that most of his conflicts involve lots of shouting, aggression, and passing around of blame. Working through this, with both him and mom, is incredibly difficult and usually ends up with stern looks and harsh words from mom, but I feel I must do the best that I can to help them communicate more effectively when conflict arises. He's very curious and loving, and I can tell that he's willing to learn and has no real desire to be evil or immoral, so I'm hopeful that with lots of work, we'll all be able to live much happier lives in the long run, by putting forth the effort necessary now.

To any who actually read this, I send a hearty and warm greeting! I'm a 28 y/o man who only within the last year or two took an active interest in philosophy, particularly the work going on here at FDR. I have always been skeptical, to a degree, of many aspects of life, but lacked the vocabulary, and historical and philosophical context to put any active thought into it and draw any critical conclusions. In the last 1-2 years, I feel as if I have only started to really embark on the beautifully epic journey of life, and that I spent the first two and a half decades hiding from it. I'm sure that's enough for now, and I hope to have the pleasure of bringing some value to the conversations here.

Howdy! I actually just moved to northern Michigan last winter. I'm up by Higgins Lake, so not terribly close to Grand Rapids, but I do get down that way from time to time.