AnarchoBenchwarmer

How about it, Stefan? I haven't seen you rip apart an article like this in... Hmm. Well, at least a week. http://www.salon.com/2014/02/02/why_youre_wrong_about_communism_7_huge_misconceptions_about_it_and_capitalism/

I started a blog before I started reading these forums, but I had stopped when it seemed like I had nothing to write about - writing anything invariably felt like I was plagiarizing somebody around here since the active members seemed better-acquainted with philosophy, voluntaryism, atheism, etc. But I decided to start up again. If you'd like to read the blog and tell me how you think I might be able to improve, I would welcome and greatly appreciate your opinions. http://anarchobenchwarmer.tumblr.com/post/73590034869/liberal-hypocrisy-or-why-i-can-no-longer-stand

Dawkins is excellent. I'm partial to Christopher Hitchens myself, though he did unfortunately come down with a case of the dead. It's really too bad that nobody prayed for him...

Ah, yes, that part was poorly-worded. To clear things up, I have reason to believe that my wife's parents have ceased discipline-related physical abuse (I have no idea about emotional abuse). As long as they don't give me reason to believe otherwise, I can tolerate them. Other than that, as far as how it turned out, three of my wife's four siblings who were involved in the conversation did end up apologizing to her. The last seemed to only get ruder and I never even received a reply from her. Now she's on an LDS mission for 18 months, so I have little hope of their relationship being improved anytime soon. Fortunately, I am confident that she will eventually come around - she was subjected to many of the same abuses that my wife was. The other children were not abused to nearly the same degree and in fact, none of them knew that their parents had belted my wife when they were not around except the one that defends them the most. Y'know, this all started when she posted that ridiculous "I was spanked as a child and as a result I have a condition called 'Respect for Others'" thing on Facebook. My wife was prompted to correct that view and it exploded into a huge public debate. Anyway, thank you for your query - the good fight is being fought by those of us who support peaceful parenting and my wife is recovering well from this debacle. Thank you for your analysis, that's pretty much exactly what I had been thinking when I wrote the letter. Tell me if this doesn't shock you though: when my wife actually was raped years ago, she went back to live at home and told her parents about her experience. Her father's first words after hearing about it were, "Were you afraid for your life?" Talk about victimizing the victim... Anyway, none of her siblings have children yet, but it is my hope that they at least take into consideration the evidence in favor of peaceful parenting. I showed them Stefan's "The Truth about Spanking" video, as well as an excellent TED presentation on the subject, but they were not yet convinced last time I checked.

I think you said it best earlier: Tragic.

I think that one of the many, many problems with this is that he actually believes what he is writing. I think that might be more dangerous than if he were actively manipulating his audience.

You guys are good. I came up with similar points. Oh how I wish I could post the debate, this poor guy refuses to be shut down.

http://dinnertimedebates.blogspot.com/2013/12/the-worship-of-reason.html I'm having a debate with my cousin-in-law on the merits of reason and he directed me to his blog. I have a lot of opinions about it, but I'm curious as to what you all might think. Be gentle - he's nice, but misguided, like most Mormons.

What a great idea. Good for Iron Maiden, I always did like them.

I know from experience that that is/was unfortunately likely. Don't lose hope though - we must be vigilant in creating the conversations that lead people to thinking.

Can I just take a minute to express my shock that anybody thinks An-Caps would exclude commies, environmentalists, hedonists, etc.? This is ridiculous. They exclude themselves. If a statist wanted to live in my anarcho-communist society, he would be free to. If he wanted to create an army to defend himself, he would be free to. If he wanted to enforce statist laws and regulations with said army, he would be forcibly ejected in self-defense according to the just principles of the NAP. So as long as he does not try to initiate force (without explicit contract - I could get into this further if you want), he can believe whatever he wants and indeed, anybody that he convinces to agree with him would be free to do so. He would not be expelled just because he believes something different. The more likely case is that the statist would leave voluntarily, off to start his own country somewhere or live under the regime of an existing one. There's nothing wrong with that, as long as he does so voluntarily. I have extreme doubts that capital-minded business owners would refuse to trade with him if he has not done anything to harm somebody. Whoever wrote Democracy: the God that Failed clearly did not think it through. Or, even worse, the author does not believe that adherents to the NAP would actually practice what they preach, which I think is an expression of an extraordinarily depressing amount of pessimism. Edit: Also, you're not a hypocrite for refusing to engage him further in debate. That's pretty narrow thinking on his part - in actuality, your refusal to continue is a showcase of your beliefs, not a denial of them. Edit #2 (Because I want to address your questions): You should have asked him to define "sane principles" and how exactly he plans to organize the economy according to his definition. Really, anarcho-capitalist philosophy has nothing to do with business and everything to do with ethics. A strong economy is icing on the peaceful, mass-appealing cake.

My wife recently converted to a peaceful parenting philosophy (we don't have children yet) after watching "The Truth About Spanking." She was raised by physically and emotionally abusive parents and suffers from most symptoms of PTSD, but she had previously defended spanking, thinking that it worked. After her attempt to convince her three adult sisters and one adult brother (none of whom yet have children, and she has one other teenage sister who is not involved) that spanking is not the answer to bad behavior and doesn't instill respect for others, their communication devolved into all four of them to some degree lashing out at her and belittling her for taking her childhood so hard. It got really messy over Facebook for pretty much all to see. I drafted this message to all four of them after the dust had settled: (Names of her family have been replaced) Okay everybody. I understand that *wife* has cut Facebook ties with all of you. It's not what I would have done, but given her condition last night, I'm not really inclined to blame her. I don't know if she's reestablished them or not (I hope she will), but I have some things that needs to be said - hopefully we can all avoid situations like this in the future and become closer as a family. The first thing we all need to understand is that *wife* has had very a very different experience with your parents than the rest of you. Even if you all received similar abuse, *wife* appears so far to be unique in the way that she coped with it, leading to what is almost certainly a mild-moderate to moderate-severe case of PTSD. (Before I continue, I want to agree on the definition of "abuse." Because I consider even light spanking with an open hand to be physical abuse, we'll NOT use my definition. Rather, Nevada State Law is probably safe: http://www.leg.state.nv.us/nrs/nrs-200.html#NRS200Sec508 http://www.leg.state.nv.us/nrs/NRS-432B.html#NRS432BSec070 Both links should take you directly to the relevant section. Please read as far down as you want to until you are satisfied with the definition) With the understanding that we all hopefully now have, I think it is important to next understand that *wife* is, whether alone or not, a sure victim of your parents' abuse, as confirmed to me by they themselves, her therapist, and a few others. I hope you all know that I am not simply relying on *wife*'s word. My entire philosophy revolves around integrity; I mean it and know from several sources when I say she's been abused. Another fact that I want to point out is that abuse can be subjective. It is normal for all six of *parents*'s children to have six different collections of experiences, memories, and opinions on their treatment as children. As an example, I'll relate an experience from my own family of five kids: my own mother beat the absolute hell out of my oldest sister and damaged her to a severe degree emotionally, and that's probably understating it. I had no clue until I was in my late teens. As I've mentioned to *third sister*, I probably still don't know the extent of my mother's wrath. One last thing before I get to the point: I want to dispel this notion that some seem to have that *wife* only goes around spreading the negative aspects of her childhood. This is false. She recounts good memories of your parents, especially of your father, far more often than she does the bad experiences. Unfortunately, having been made aware of the bad experiences and having an extremely negative opinion on child abuse (having worked in a children's shelter and seeing the effects literally on a daily basis, an experience which I'd be happy to share), I have not in the past been inclined to a high opinion of *parents*. HOWEVER, as time goes on, and as I see your parents try to repair their relationship with their second daughter, I become more willing to forgive them, so long as I continue to never hear about similar treatment of *fourth sister* or *third sister* (while she still lives there). So with all of that out of the way, here is the point that I wish to make: It is NOT okay to minimize the suffering of a victim e.g., to regard the abuse as fair, to write her off because your experience was different, or to accuse her of exaggeration on a public forum without first knowing the lengths of her side of the story. All four of you are guilty of doing at least one of the above-mentioned things, though I was relieved, at least, to see that *brother* made his concerns private (Sorry *brother*, *wife* left herself logged in with your message to her up before she left for work and my curiosity got the better of me - I hope that you and she can forgive me). To do what the four of you have done has left her feeling alone, depressed, and scared. Had I not arrived home from work quickly to comfort her, I am certain that she would have done something rash, or, y'know, MORE rash than the screaming matches I overheard. Pretend for a moment that the exaggeration accusations were all correct. Even if she had been exaggerating or lying outright, it's an issue that I wish all four of you had taken directly to her in a private manner where you could listen to her side and discuss things before making accusations. I am aware that some apologies have been made, but I wanted to make clear the impact of your decisions: Not only have the four of you made some accusations, but several others have messaged, texted, or called her in order to make accusations (all of which were based on assumptions) of their own. I'm not blaming anybody for the privacy thing - I certainly did not make things better by my public comments, and *wife* didn't have to post those two things directly to *third sister*'s wall. But while the privacy issue is a somewhat less-important lesson, "two wrongs don't make a right" is still important lesson for the future, yeah? The really terrible part though, the worst thing that has been said (if I know my PTSD symptoms, and I can confidently say that I do) is when all four of you individually said something like, "Well we all got spanked and we aren't damaged!" This is a highly illogical statement. Not only have none of you (to my knowledge) seen a professional therapist who could assess potential mental damage, I think it's also safe to say that not every Soldier in war gets PTSD when they kill a man or when they see a Humvee get blown up with their best friend on the inside, and not every victim of sexual abuse gets PTSD after they are finally separated from their attacker. Not every child gets PTSD or any other obvious sign of mental damage after being abused. But *wife* did. And at least one of my siblings did, if it wasn't all five of us. So I hope I never have to hear anything relating to the above claim ever again from any of you. More than that, I hope that none of you ever raise a hand to your children in anger or to instill fear or discipline. If only one in a thousand children developed emotional trauma from such a tactic, the risk would still be too high. Nobody deserves to go through what your sister, my wife, goes through. Okay, that's all. Please feel free to respond, but know before you do that my #1 goal as far as my soon-to-be new family is concerned is to become closer, perhaps someday as close as I am with my own siblings. My intent was to chastise the four of you, but I'm hoping that it will help mend your relationships with my wife by way of understanding her. I already love all of you guys and I know that *wife* still loves all of you and I know that you all love her, and you all will continue to love each other for as long as you are still siblings. You guys believe that that will be for eternity, so I hope you take that belief into consideration in the future. How did I do? I'm willing to provide more context, if necessary.

You made a few very good points here that I will certainly research and attempt to verify. I especially like your refutation of the necessity of the B12 vitamin in our society, even if I'm a little confused as to how the ingestion of insects doesn't count as meat consumption. I'm sure similar refutations, if accurate, exist for other supplements that vegans find themselves forced to ingest. But I have to reject your assertion that the burden of proof is on me. The only definitions (I should point out that the term "omnivore" is apparently not yet a scientific classification) that I can find regarding omnivores seem to support the idea that humans fall into that category; that seems to suggest that the current consensus is that humans are naturally omnivores. If there is a better scientific definition, one that excludes humans, then would it not be the duty of a scientific study to now prove that the current consensus is incorrect? And if such proof has arrived already and not been rejected, then why is it not more wide-spread? I also consider it unfair of you to assert that I would not be willing to examine evidence objectively. Have I said anything to make you think that? I admit that I can often come off as rude (I don't do this on purpose) over the internet, but I don't think I've displayed behavior that would make anybody regard me as closed-minded. I'm simply trying to present a case that appears to be logical according to the evidence that I have. Additionally, I find your accusation of cherry-picking to be unfounded. At least I have found sources that support my conclusion. I've yet to see the same from you; indeed, when you do link to a website or video, I have generally found them to support my conclusion as well. Tool-use is no doubt an applied effect of our genetic disposition toward creativity and our intelligence, which is no doubt an evolutionary advantage that we used to become more effective predators/gatherers/what-have-you, which humans, at the very least, seem to have a genetic predisposition towards being (human omnivore tendencies predate our use of tools, from what I understand). I'm stunned and somewhat disappointed that you would interpret my meaning to be something like "we have genes to manufacture TVs." FreedomPhilosophy, I have so far enjoyed our discourse. I know you can do better than simply twisting my meaning, refusing to support your arguments, and implying that I do not respect the scientific method without reasonable support for your accusation.

I'm sorry it feels that way, but, while I appreciate your input, I don't feel very confident that you made an attempt to understand my argument. I try very hard to address each concern that you have as thoroughly as possible and I end up disappointed by what looks like blatant disrespect for my efforts every time you post. I don't mind being wrong if I'm wrong, but I like to have my points addressed concisely and logically. Philosophy is a science - if one can refute my argument using rational points OR by pointing out where my logic fails, then I think that's a great thing and no less than my argument deserves. So like I said, please feel free to read through my argument and try again, and I'll be happy to continue the debate. That's great, I can't wait to see your supporting research and the inevitable scientific consensus! ...Even though there still appears to be plenty of evidence that we wouldn't even be the species we are without generous amounts of meat consumption such as here, here, and this excerpt. Until and unless I see your irrefutable research, it seems that I'm forced to believe that homo sapiens are evolutionary omnivores. It seems that "all of the known facts" better support the omnivore argument. Ooh, I would not so lightly compare this kind of science to creation "science." There is a pretty clear difference in the evidence provided, and there is no consensus as there is against creationism. In fact, nothing that you've cited has given any positive support for a strictly herbivore diet. As I'm sure you know, a strictly vegetarian/vegan diet does not provide all necessary nutrients that humans need to live as long as we do currently. Vegans today have access to B12 vitamins (among others) that would not be found in third-world or pre-industrial societies. Just because you claim that many (the majority, most likely, though that wouldn't necessarily make them right) scientists are not subjecting themselves to scientific rigor, doesn't make it so. Additionally, I submit your claim that I don't know any humans who can or would catch and eat raw animals to be absolutely, beyond any doubt, ridiculous. The only reason that I don't eat raw crab that I catch from the coast is because I have access to easier options. The only reason that I don't collect and eat grubs raw is because it is not necessary to my current survival (et cetera for any animals). But I would bet my life that, put in that kind of situation, I would do it without hesitation. And your claim that the use of tools is not an evolutionary adaptation on it's own doesn't stand up when you account for our evolutionary history. We absolutely developed the ability to use tools to more easily eat meat, and we certainly ate what we could catch before such adaptations. As for unfortunate consequences for meat-eaters? That article makes clear the average life-span of humans to be 25, well after the age of maturity and subsequent passing along of genes. I also wonder just how long the life-span would be if humans in those areas stuck strictly to local vegetation. Cows and sheep don't need to for survival, since their bodies are far more adapted to eating vegetation than those of humans. So I'd still say that my observation is far from worthless. Also... Did I say that human omnivores live equally long and healthy lives? No, I don't believe I did. But conscious and rational choices regarding how much and what kinds of meat surely can and have led to acceptable longevity among whatever modern society I can point to. Even if you're right, it still doesn't solve the issue of morality which Pepin (and, I'd like to believe, I) has effectively put forward, but I don't think that that's an issue that most vegan/vegetarians will fully consider, as morality has little to do with historical or current health benefits.

Look, as much as I love these debates, I would prefer to debate/discuss these issues with somebody who will actually read, comprehend, formulate logical conclusions, and then engage when necessary. You can try again if you like, but I'm not going to bother responding to anything you've written here. You've added nothing to the conversation, you've only reiterated your previous points, which I think I did a good job debunking.