dsayers

@cab21: You spoke as if rape's morality is subjective. When I pointed out that it is not, you just started talking about something else. I won't waste my time. @gray: You are also willing to move the goalposts, which is a waste of my time. I specifically said coercive squelching and you're trying to talk about companies that do not use coercion. Rape and love making are mechanically identical. The coercion makes all the difference in the world. As for all the heart string pulling, you're talking about the specifics of the voluntary exchange of value that you're not party to. Which you can have your opinion about. But you're speaking as if you're making truth claims, which isn't the case. If somebody wants to earn more, they can offer more value to others. If this is how you really feel, why aren't you bidding up their wages? Otherwise, you're only talking about telling others how to live their lives, which is more evil than people who do things voluntarily that you don't agree with.

I don't voluntarily do business with people that provide for me the opposite of what we agreed upon at the start of our business relationship. You could try and convince him of best practices in regards to exposure to abusers. However, this is fundamental to his chosen profession and not something a lay person should have to explain. I would not trust an optometrist to shoot a laser into my eyeball if all he could see was grey areas. Clarity is a requisite for competence.

Opt-out suggests a binding in advance, which I've clearly argued against. Also, what I want doesn't matter. This is an important distinction since what we're talking about is the difference between voluntary interaction and coercion. The immorality of rape isn't subjective. Corporations are fictitious legal shields created by the state. You're saying this occurs in government and government alike. Nothing you said here refutes my point that there is nothing evil about the voluntary exchange of value. You say agree to disagree to avoid addressing this point. You've instead just redressed it for the purpose of pulling on heart strings. Appeals to emotions are not the same as an argument. Nor have you defined what "adequate living conditions" or "livable wage" means, explained why somebody having a family they cannot afford to is a 3rd party's responsibility, or how "can afford" equates to "must pay."

Politics and anarcho- are contradictions in terms. You're watching a rape and proclaiming the evils of love-making.

I want my conclusions to be threatened. Because it would mean they're faulty and there is an opportunity to improve them. Or because they're right and they threaten something that needs to be threatened (propaganda). I am extremely grateful that Mike got Stef to hook up with Mr. Rogan. Stef has done a great job of networking and cross-sharing access between communities. This is the exchange of ideas that help us figure out which ones are right, which ones don't make it, and why. Viva la discussion! You mentioned a dictatorial home. Have you processed all of that yet? I've listened to a lot of Stef's call in shows and learned a LOT about the lies we've been told about familial connection, what constitutes abuse, how it shapes up in ways we really cannot escape until we are honest about that part of out lives. Self-knowledge, is that something you're into as well?

What does any of that have to do with anarcho-capitalism?

I didn't speak about the presence of competition. I spoke of the coercive squelching of competition as evil. Voluntary exchange of value. No evil here. What do you mean by loophole? Are you talking about state-protected contract violation? I don't follow. McDonald's doesn't assert itself as being the burger provider and ask people to register to ex post facto substantiate the claim. They offer burgers. I "register" if I buy their burgers in the moment. Next day, I might buy burgers elsewhere. Day after that, I might elect to not buy burgers at all. There doesn't need to be a pre-determined relationship, which means they have to maintain their level of quality and service or suffer the consequence of people choosing their competitors instead. You have not addressed the fact that when something is voluntary, it's not government, so I think we're done here. "Not all rape is evil. What about rape where both parties consented and either party could opt out at any time for any reason?" Then it's no longer rape.

I can't answer that, but I can say that even if a person is 100% innocent, an attorney, even a high-dollar "good" attorney, is going to recommend pleaing for the sake of a smaller bottom line (monetarily) for his client. My last brush cost me $6,000 BEFORE we started the step to go to trial. It would've cost me a whole lot more except state police had deleted a 911 call by me ahead of their own 30-day window and after my lawyer's written request for a copy, so it got thrown out. Anyways, despite my innocence, my attorney (who had served me very well in the past) had suggested I take a plea bargain in order to save money. It is no accident that the system works this way.

Do you have any script blocking options for IE11? If you're willing to sacrifice source name in the quote header, blocking scripts for this site will give you a sort of plain code quote that can be copy and pasted. [EDIT] I tried to make a demonstration, but it preserved the author header. So perhaps I'm referring to a drawback that has since been corrected. Anyways, if you block scripts, you'll get a plain code quote that you can copy and paste.

I like the premise, but it looks like it's going to be ruined by appeal to the common denominator.

jpahmad, your wife is fully formed and autonomous. There is no risk there of formative damage. If your wife likes a good massage and you have no issue with pleasing her, then I don't think such a thing should be used as currency. I think if you wanted to motivate her to run, running with her would be a great way to get her to run and give her the gift of a husband who is in greater health.

The only part of it that is difficult is the culture and social pressure. Ironically, the same society that pretend to be against peer-pressure. You do not have to go around telling people, "Hey, I have nothing to do with my family of origin anymore." If it comes up though, it's an excellent chance to explain your position and possibly help others to understand that adult relationships are voluntary and that things like "feeding you" was an obligation they chose when they had you. If we spread awareness, we will raise the overall quality of parenting in general. Just as the quality of marriages generally improved when people could voluntarily leave them.

Her loss, mate. You are in touch with yourself, able to communicate, expressive... there's no turnoffs here and if she approached you, then we know you you're not physically repulsive to her. Maybe she's looking to recreate unprocessed trauma, a horrible side effect of not pursuing self-knowledge. Though I will say this is a perfect example of why you have to be happy with yourself first and why erasing yourself for somebody else is a bad strategy. With win-win negotiation in mind, it's not too hard to meet the needs of others without sacrificing yourself. The more they are worthy of you, the more they'll want for that too.

You're now saying exactly what I was saying, so I must confess I was seriously taken aback by That's a tall accusation. Can you show me where? My post was in response to Which is completely opposite from Am I missing something?

First of all, you said semi-lawless. Anarchism is all the way "lawmakerlessness" with none of the way aversion to rules (what you mistakenly call laws). Secondly, you said people seek power as if that is an inherent trait of humanity when in fact it is an effect of the great big power in play right now. I'm not saying that people wouldn't still try to have as much influence as possible, but with competition, consequence, and a clear definition of morality, they would only be as successful as public desire and competition would allow. I've never heard of anybody not directly benefiting from such power who supported such power, so we know that public desire would not accommodate it.

And no longer talking about government. You're talking about an insurance company or a private club. Lack of competition and consequence is how you know government is evil.

Hearthstone is out now and is a fun, free to play, 2 player, digital collectible card game.

Tell me more. I was speaking of government in general. As I understand governments, they are inherently illegitimate as they at the very least dispense with consent. If it is consensual, it is not government. I'm certainly open to being convinced otherwise, but not with labels that don't tell me anything. Please start with your definition of "government" and then how the government you're referring to fits that definition AND secures consent of everybody it claims to govern before claiming to govern them.

I said in order for government to be legitimate, it would have to own everybody within its borders and you said it wouldn't own the people. I elaborated on how they claim ownership over everybody.

According to various psychopaths, I am owned by various people at the city, county, state, district, national, and global level. Each one of them has innumerable commands I must adhere to under threat of violence and I assure you that my consent was not secured for a one of them. Just as I do not secure the consent of a book I place on a shelf, open for my amusement, or toss into the trash on a whim. Because that book is my property. I wouldn't argue that anarchy "makes more sense." That would be a vague categorization. It is moral, universal, and sustainable.

Pffft, that's like saying you're obsessed with oxygen after being nearly strangled to death. I mean... Welcome! Tell us more please.

That's okay. You're human. The important thing is that 1) you're honest with yourself about it and 2) you're willing to share it with others. That last bit might be uncomfortable, but it shows you're serious about getting past it. Unfortunately, this is a self-defeating arrangement. If you're not a rock unto yourself, then you will simultaneously be relying on other people and only attracting those who cannot be counted on either. If they could be, they would not be attracted to somebody who could not be counted on by them. Does that make sense? There's a reason why it's challenging for you to be alone. It could be instructive to learn about that and see if you can't put some work in there. You'll be doing yourself a huge service and upping the quality of person you could attract. When we're born, we need our parents' unconditional giving of everything. It's what we need to fully form properly. If we don't receive this, it's something we can seek out until we find it. The problem there is that no other relationship can offer this. It's no different than substance abuse really; trying to use a surrogate to fill in a gap that can't be satiated. I'm not saying this was your experience, but I know this is common for people who are not comfortable being alone. I've destroyed relationships by requiring this same thing from others and didn't even realize it, so I can relate. I hope that was helpful. I know when it was first explained to me, it made so much of my life--past, present, and future--that much clearer.

might help to make the case. It's also good for helping statists see the correlation and arguing against the social contract. In order for government to be legitimate, it would have to own all of the land and every person and every thing on that land. It's analogous to slavery in every sense of the word.

For what it's worth, I think it shows. I've noticed over the past week how you've gone from mostly posting in threads you've created to posting elsewhere. I too have the itch to make more of a in-personal connection with more people. The problem as I see it, and I acknowledge this could be the perfectionism in me, is that places where people tend to go to socialize tends to not attract the most virtuous individuals.

Do you think you will be able to have another relationship in the future? Do you think you can be happy if you're not in a romantic relationship? Maybe when you get the urge to think about her or you click on her, you can focus on how you could've known it would be bad. You can learn from that past. Or focus on the bad parts. Train yourself to not want to focus on her. Otherwise, indulging in it will likely just keep you away from the present and the future.