dsayers

Did anybody else know that Zeitgeist was the name of a comic hero? Ironically, his powers are summed up as: Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeitgeist_(comics) Enhanced durability and acidic vomit. Priceless.

With the exception of aggression, everything existed without a State before the State took it over. I'm more interested in the statist position that because they want a road, they imagine the power to give permission to armed thugs to steal from everybody. Not just because it disposes with any moral consideration, but also because it's internally consistent. They want a road, but they believe they have to be stolen from to have it. If they want it, they will pay for it, like everything else, and it will cost them less than it costs now because we don't have the added expense of paying for mercenary collectors or the gear with which to enforce.

What principle? I haven't heard anything related to them that could be considered universal.

This was the insecurity I referenced. For a grown man's self-worth to be hinged on whether or not a child he has not earned the affection of will go through the motions of being affectionate is incredibly dysfunctional. It certainly doesn't create a positive obligation for the child or the parent. I feel this begs the question because if we were talking about Uncle Marvin wanting to put his hand down the child's pants because he hadn't been getting any and to be rejected would make him feel humiliated, we wouldn't say this puts the parent in a difficult situation because we know that would be inappropriate.

I don't see any substance in this sentence. If I considered chocolate to be a good source of whole grain, would that mean anything?

Unless my passenger was a pregnant woman, the delay would just be more quality time spent with somebody whose company I enjoy. Though it might make for an interesting conversation starter on the topic of traffic control.

Somebody with a healthy respiratory system or somebody whose body already smothers them? Somebody with healthy eyes or somebody who is allergic? I should've been forthcoming with my bias. I have a real problem with paramilitary police abusing the hell out of tazers out of a misguided belief that being LESS lethal means it's like candy.

Thanks for sharing. I know it's not easy to allow yourself to be so publicly vulnerable. I'm seeing mixed messages. It began with your title. Life-crisis sent up a red flag for me because it speaks as if it's something that "just happens." Much of your post speaks as if you blame/attribute yourself for your experiences. You did mention the "bad side" of your parents, but that's kind of vague. I think self-knowledge would be a great first step. It's hard and uncomfortable, but focus. What do you mean by bad side of your parents? How did this impact the way you developed, the decisions you've made, etc? Journaling, reading, therapy... in other words, seeking external sources of help will be very helpful. But you need to stop punishing yourself for the effects of things that were done TO you. This will lift a huge burden and help you to process everything. Hope that's of some use to you.

As with most things, there's a difference between a monopoly and a coercive monopoly. I will say that even suggesting such an arrangement kind of admits that you don't think you could compete in a free market. Anyways, it's an unenforceable arrangement. If people want pepper spray (PS) where the PS guy is selling, but don't want it so much that they'll pay the price he charges, there's a demand for cheaper PS. Another seller WILL step in and the distributor WILL sell to him if he can move more product faster. This is why freedom of association is powerful and necessary. I think people that make the arrangement you mention would be outcompeted and eventually outmoded. The practice itself I mean, not necessarily those who make use of it. Side note: There's no such thing as a non-lethal anything, let alone weapon.

If the daughter's life was her concern, how did it come to pass that the 3 year old could even cross the road? I'm assuming that being beyond child-bearing age, she is larger than her daughter. She has full control and full RESPONSIBILITY to create a safe environment for the child. She has no right to endanger her daughter by CREATING a scenario in which her daughter could lunge in front of a moving automobile. Therefore, she has no right to assault her daughter for something that was a failing on her own part. She also erred in saying she wasn't politically correct. To assault somebody for not obeying you is very POLITICALLY correct. It's just morally horrifying. Maybe if she had learned BEFORE having the first child that having a child is very demanding, she wouldn't have engaged in the child-damaging behavior of having more kids before the first even has a fully formed personality. Saying, "I learned that myself" means, "I wanted to smack and was too exhausted to care about them not wanting to be assaulted by the very person that is supposed to be caring for them." When we think we've found the answer, we stop looking for the real answer. If I may be so bold, when you call this person your friend, are you talking in the facebook context or an actual friend? If the latter, and she's had children for six years, I have to ask: How did it come to pass that you could call such a person a friend? If the former, why would you continue to call her a friend in any context?

I get what you're saying. I think it would be just as effective and easier to survive to acquire that certainty without opening yourself up to attack. As recently as a few years ago, my father was able to ruin my ENTIRE DAY with a single sentence. That's nuclear yield, brother.

What is a "negative" thought? I don't think thoughts can be negative. Acting on harmful thoughts is. I think having a harmful thought and not acting on it makes for good practice. It also aides in self-knowledge and self-control. Scratch that, I think it's absolutely essential for self-knowledge.

Borders are imaginary but the bigotry people engage in to honor them is very real. I can't think of a single job that could/would/should need to be done by people being stolen from by a specific violent psychopath, which is all foreign really means (stolen from by different violent psychopath). Such a plea, properly translated, looks something like this: "I can/will not compete, so I seek coercion to artificially cull the competition." It IS the initiation of the use of force. It's also arrogant. Unless you're the one doing the hiring, you have absolutely no say in who gets hired. If you don't want person X to be hired, start a competing company, don't hire person X, and advertise that the reason why customers should patronize you instead of your competitor is that you refused to hire person X. In a free market, this would be financial suicide and rightly so.

O2RS agent: "How do you explain this billing discrepancy?" me: "I held my breath for 5 months, I swear!" O2RS agent: "Wouldn't that have killed you?" me: "(pensive pause)... I got better."

Why are they seeking new arguments? They haven't addressed the existing ones. Cheap shot warning... Anybody notice the first three letters in the unique part of the URL spells "gag"? Two times!

On a privately owned road, the likelihood is that traffic control along it would be logical, reasonable, and necessary. Or if not, subject to feedback which would be tantamount to correction. I can't speak for others, but I do not have that option now. Where I'm at, there are a lot "smart lights" that will favor left turns over through traffic. This often leads to 1 person being able to go while 4-5 people are made to wait, which means they'll get caught at the next light a quarter mile down the road. Much better is to just let that road have the intersection and let the people sort out when it's safe to cross what would otherwise be oncoming traffic. It would lead to lower downtime for perpendicular traffic and serve more people quicker. But it risks more accidents, so they switch to lockdown mode. As if "put everybody into prison and there'd be no crime" is a rational approach. What these central planners don't realize is that they're making the roads unsafe in general because so many drivers aren't paying attention to their surroundings. They just check to see what a light or sign says they can do and obey, even if that means sitting somewhere for a couple minutes for no reason at all.

I also drive safely, but not exactly as xmas light would tell me to do. However, I wouldn't do this if I had a passenger since I do not have the right to risk their time.

Lack of definition of "better" aside, what this translates to is, "I'm okay with people stealing from everybody on my behalf so long as I agree with how it's spent." Make an effort to get this directly from them. If that doesn't shock them into revisiting their position, I would say it's time to move on. I don't want to talk to people who CONSCIOUSLY advocate the initiation of the use of force.

Peaceful parenting please. I probably won't be around to see a free society, but I want it anyways.

Yes. Yes. As a guide to this world for those not yet capable to function within it, a parent will sometimes have to make decisions for their child in lieu of their child's input. All other times, a child's consent is still the only component that matters in terms of moral evaluation. Why would Uncle Marvin need the hug of a child? He can make that case to the child. If he's spent time with the child and actually earned the child's trust and affection, he'll likely get what he seeks peaceably. If not, he needs to recognize that the only difference between him and a stranger is that the parents chose to expose the child to that particular stranger. He would have to lack empathy to not understand this and/or choose to put his own insecurity over the child's sense of security. It's a recreation of their own unprocessed childhood trauma; You don't "love me," I'm bigger than you, I'll make you show affection towards me. I think it's much more important than many people would even consider, so thank you very much for starting this conversation.

"Authorities" claim to own the land you're standing on right now. That's why they pretend to be able to tell you what to do and collect property tax. In other words, you couldn't not use "the roads" since "the roads" is literally every square inch within the borders they claim. The roads themselves aren't like water where you'd die without them. Realistically though, they're pretty unavoidable. Traveling is part of our interdependence. Compare this to education. Nothing the GI Bill would cover constitutes education. You could get some schooling, which can be important if you want to do something that the State has set up barriers to by way of things like licensing and coercive regulations. But you can get proper education without stealing a dime from anybody and it's more beneficial that what you'd get from stealing. Obviously, stealing is immoral. However, one could make the case that you're just taking from a group that took from you first. More importantly, isn't the GI Bill money in exchange for military participation? As an aside, I've never really liked the phrase "tax payer." People don't pay taxes, they dodge prison. You don't gift your wallet to the mugger, you avoid getting stabbed.

I'm sure you're familiar with the concept of drawing a nation into an unwinable war for the purpose of draining their economy, eh? Spending time on utilitarian arguments ahead of the moral argument is exactly this. To elaborate on what Daniel said, profit isn't only good, it's inescapable. Each post in this thread was made for profit. Our every autonomic breath is profitable. Finally, I just wanted to echo what Shem said. There's a huge difference between regulation and coercive regulation.

I think he does this all the time as relevant. From being open about hardware/software he uses, to promoting other people's alternative media outlets, to inviting the philosophy-minded to make use of the FDR community, to flat out offering to pay for somebody's therapy.

Grief isn't an external process. Though people can grieve together by talking about the deceased. Of course they can only do this if they gather. I've never understood why some people suggest that because person X died, we must die also. I mean, what better way to commemorate their life than by living yours? Besides, most of the time, what people refer to as formal grief is just regret over not treating the person (or people in general) better. It's a self-knowledge opportunity that some people would rather make efforts towards avoiding than facing.

I honestly do not know how to answer the addiction question. I've drank Mountain Dew pretty regularly all of my adult life. I've allowed certain area of my life such as the opposite sex and recreational activities to occupy a greater amount of my life than I think most would consider healthy. Unless you count the aforementioned caffeine (which I don't think was started/perpetuated for that reason), I've never been chemically addicted. I had extended family that were drunks and smoked a lot, so I was turned off to those at a young age. In sixth grade, a narc cop spoke with our class. He said something like the reason he's never tried drugs even though he was preaching to us about how they're bad is because: What if he liked them? For some reason, that always resonated with me and I was never interested in trying. As for dreams, I've always loved my dream life. Even when I was younger and had some horrific dreams, I enjoyed the sensory stimulus if that makes sense. Like I used to say that I'd rather have a vivid nightmare than a mundane but serene dream. I tend not to have nightmares these days, unless there's a physiological explanation such as losing circulation in a limb or being incredibly hot/cold, or indigestion. I've had lots of dreams where I'm really important and/or have super powers. Then there's dreams where I'm coupled with a female and even though the dream is usually mundane, I'm overflowing with contentedness of being in a relationship. The feeling is so intense that it has a way of making my whole day seem that much brighter despite not being real. Though in my dreams, there does tend to be me being more of a giver and less of a receiver. Which kind of makes sense since I used to do the whole white knight thing. The odd thing is that in those dreams of being pair-bonded, the female is very symbolic. By that I mean that oftentimes in the dream, she will look like one person, but I can just tell it's somebody else. Both specific, be it somebody I've known or a celebrity, but never really the same people. It's kind of strange to me because when I was younger, I remember my dreams always taking place in specific places with specific people. The specific place thing persists. It's actually an amusing part of my dreams since places I'm at seem to be different elements of different places tacked together. I'm amused by them because it's mashups I don't think I'd have the imagination to piece together consciously.