dsayers

I know nothing of UPB. When I came to FDR, many people were reacting to it with confusion and Stef mentioned it could use some cleaning up or something like that. Meanwhile, objective morality seems pretty easy, so I've never taken a crack at UPB. I hope my input will be helpful all the same... In order to be immoral, a behavior has to be binding upon another without their consent. To vote is not binding upon anybody else, so it is an amoral act. It condones immorality, but it doesn't cause it.

An accurate description. Thank you again for sharing your thoughts and for demonstrating humility in your thoughtful posts. If you wanted to talk more about it in private, reach out to me on facebook please. The only feeling you expressed was amusement, and at something as arbitrary as length. You poison the well when you say retort. What I did was push back on the falsehoods you were putting forward, while identifying a thinking error you engaged in. Your post here deflects from all of that, to accuse me of not being curious. Here's the thing about curiosity and engagement: They are not virtues! They're like any other item of my property; Mine to dispense with as I please. If I'm meeting somebody for the first time, I am curious about them. If they demonstrate first a lack of curiosity and then that the lack of curiosity is typical, I'm not so curious then. This is rational, contributes to my own health, and I stand by that policy. For as long as you're going to make false claims and deflect, I am not going to show you any curiosity. I only brought it up because others are putting it forth as a standard while exempting themselves, which demonstrates that they only bring it up to control, manipulate, or shame others. It's an artificial way of elevating one's self and is reminiscent of 1st grade playground behavior of traumatized children.

Or at all. I haven't made the claim that voting is immoral since jpahmad convinced me it wasn't on 13 Mar 2016. My overarching position is that voting is not compatible with the acceptance of property rights, cannot achieve one's stated goals, and detracts from one's resources and freedom, even inside their own head. I've just published a list of null hypotheses for my position here. You are welcome to address any one of them, or put forth one of your own.

Thank you, Rachelle, for demonstrating that there are people who will think for themselves and not fall for sophisticated manipulation. I think you poison the well when you say lash out. I also think you're projecting. Identifying a lack of curiosity is not the same as saying people will believe anything. It's pointing out that what is believed is likely the result of faulty methodology. A useful criticism. So much poisoning of the well here! When people poison the well, they are confessing that they understand their position unable to stand by way of its own merit. If you were able to look beyond length, you would see that what ACTUALLY happened is that Rose had put forth a claim that is not only untrue of me, but is in fact true of himself. HE was the one who exhibited a lack of curiosity. HE was the one who demonstrated a lack of interest in engaging. You know, the items that you are saying are off-putting to you? For that matter, where is YOUR curiosity and engagement? Projection. List too long for you to coherently understand? I will shorten it for you. Rose consistently took WEEKS to respond to me. Rose made an effort to knock me down HOURS after I share how good I'm feeling and how much I appreciate the people who have helped me. Rose accuses ME of showing no interest in talking to HIM (again, to knock me down as I'm trying to build myself up). Projection. Thank you for being more honest this time by admitting that you were annoyed and prejudiced. Something that later occurred to me about your first post was that if something was truly a useful warning, it wouldn't have to be pointed out and overtly labeled as such. The irony here is that you've again tried to poison the well with your phrase "it's only when someone is challenged that you discover their real character." Without bias, the character that is revealed is a willingness to stand up to lies with the truth even when people such as yourself would try to cast such a thing in a negative light and isolate me further for it. I greatly respect somebody who is so committed to the truth that they do not allow social comfort to edit them. I continue to stand up to such things so that others who agree can find me. By negative interactions on several issues, you mean negative votes on one issue. When the topic is voting, I use logic, reason, and evidence while those who disagree do not. For example, your use of "after this therefore because of this" you've employed here. I've been actively seeking to expand my support network for years now. Notice how the conclusion you've put forth lacks curiosity and engagement?

https://steemit.com/anarchism/@dsayers/null-hypotheses-and-political-voting How do you know? It is the most important question we can ask, even of ourselves. Our senses are equipped to deliver more information to the brain than we are able to consciously process. From birth, our brains learn how to filter certain things out, to avoid wasting resources where doing so would be redundant or unnecessary. Also, being able to accurately identify something is paramount to our survival. As a result, being mindful of how we know something is even more important than the item we claim to know. Since flawed methodology will likely result in a flawed conclusion. At the very least, it will provide for us the opportunity to hone our ability to arrive at conclusions in the future. We live in a world full of competing claims and interests. Unfortunately, this world has also been plagued by human subjugation for millenia. Resulting in those who would try to subjugate others having access to sophisticated methods by which to usurp one's own rationality. Often at a time in our lives when we lack the intellectual fortitude to properly defend ourselves from those who have easy access to us exploiting that vulnerability for their own gain. Combined with the ways in which information can travel so much more quickly, it is imperative that he have the right tools to sift through it all to arrive at the truth. Enter the concept of the null hypothesis. Perhaps just a fancy way of saying the way in which to disprove something. For example, assume somebody put forth the claim that all squirrels are green. Here, the null hypothesis would simply be finding a squirrel that was not green. Why is this important? Anybody who puts forth an objective claim is at the same time claiming that truth is preferred to falsehood. Were their claim to be disproven, they would revise their claim to more accurately describe the real world. That is unless their conclusion were dogmatic, derived from bias, or part of some irrational need for the claim to be true. This can be observed in two ways; When a person will provide no null hypothesis to their theory or when a person will make no effort to address the null hypothesis of your counter-theory. Humans enter this world clamoring for an understanding of their environment. Constantly striving to be more self-reliant in every aspect of their being as this is tantamount to survival itself. We are not born seeking people to make our decisions for us or take away our agency; Our ability to provide for our own survival. Through this, we can observe that in the debate as to whether or not political voting is valid, that not voting is the origin and voting is the deviation. In a rational world, this would mean that the burden of proof lies upon those who are pro-voting. As extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Tragically, we live in a world where voting has been the norm for so long. In recent times, some of the more vocal, otherwise rational thinkers have put vast amounts of resources into trying to convince people that political voting is valid; That the State and the violation of property rights it is born from is acceptable under certain circumstances or as long as it is used in a way that they like. Clearly this is not a principled conclusion. As established in the beginning, this flawed methodology reveals that we should discard the conclusion. Yet many will not. In my last article, I even pointed out the ways in which the sheer amount of propaganda that is put into the pro-voting movement among those who otherwise accept property rights should give anyone pause. One thing I've noticed recently though--which is the motivation for writing now a third article on the topic--is the ways in which people who are pro-voting will not address the null hypotheses offered by people who understand that participating in the process is antithetical to self-ownership and property rights. To wit, they will not even offer null hypotheses of their own! While not a proof, this is strong evidence that chances are their position lacks merit. Therefore, I wanted to put forth a number of null hypotheses as a challenge to anybody that thinks that political voting under any circumstances is productive in any way. While this list is offered in the context of the United State presidential election, many of these ideas can be applied in other contexts. 1) You don't own me. In order to prove voting is valid, one must prove that person A could ever have a greater claim to person B than person B does. If they cannot, they reveal that they couldn't vote even if they wanted to, since voting indicates an attempt to transfer ownership of the populace to a particular ruler. 2) Your vote contributes to the outcome. This is actually a three part null hypothesis. A) Politicians have time and again tried to change the rules as to who is allowed to vote, how, and why. B) With technology at an all time high, voting fraud and the ability to identify it is more prevalent than ever before. C) The electoral college choose presidents of the United States (POTUS). These bodies are not beholden to the people are are not representative of the popular vote. 3) Any given politician will do what they say, everything they say, and only what they say. There is no apparatus in place to make this so and no consequences for not making it so. 100% of POTUS have deviated from both their campaign promises and the US Constitution. 4) What any given politician does is exactly what everybody they purport to rule over wants. Otherwise, voters are condoning mob rule; Pretending to suspend the property rights of their neighbors for no reason other than they were outnumbered. An unprincipled conclusion. 5) POTUS has the power to do anything they say they will. In the US, the government was established in a three prong check and balance system. It is true that there came a point where both parties and all three branches learned that they all benefited from the entire process being perpetuated and as a result, the lines between these entities have been blurred. Still, it is foolish to think any one person could have the power to do anything a presidential candidate claims they will. Please share these challenges and report back if you can even find one person willing to address any of them or offer a null hypothesis to voting. I have yet to find a single one. My experience has been people deflecting, personalizing, talking about the ways in which a particular candidate or time in history permits us to jettison logic, reason, or evidence. Again, an unprincipled conclusion. If ever there were proof that statism is just another religion... In the future, advanced civilization will look back on political voting the way we look back on human sacrifice. The difference being that we have both the reason and the technology to understand that political voting accomplishes nothing. Worse, it is anti-accomplishment as it squanders untold resources that could instead be used to make real steps towards human freedom, simply by making the case that humans cannot exist in different, opposing moral categories. Instead of voting, which only signals that the sham makes sense and is righteous.

Trump is a human being the same as the rest of us. He does not exist in a different, opposing moral category. Any universal put forth in The Truth About Voting applies to him also.

Do you know the two things that everybody I have met on a personal level from here had in common? First of all, they all thought they weren't fully living their values. Secondly, they weren't perfect despite being rational individuals. Everybody has room to grow. One of my most recent breakthroughs has to do with the way in which I would knee-jerk judge others in order to isolate myself for the benefit of my abusers. Unless the flaw I identified in another was a willingness to initiate the use of force to achieve their goals, I don't see any flaw as a deal breaker in somebody who strives to improve themselves. Since it appears that you would rather avoid a quality person than help them to be even higher quality, I supposed I could say that's a useful warning to others about you. I'd rather take the time as I have here to help somebody by challenging their conclusion. I imagine it's easier to discard somebody as a foregone conclusion rather than interact with them and take the chance on the possibility that your perception was in error. I don't think responding to a lie by providing the truth can be accurately described as not taking a deep breath and processing one's triggers. I don't think that even if an unwillingness to abide lies was a trigger, that it would be a character flaw. I'm guessing you understood this already as you were willing to bring up post count as if that's relevant. Finally, it is curious that somebody was caught lying because they couldn't abide somebody they refused to connect with seeking connections elsewhere and tried to tear down the process by lying, and rather than addressing this destructive behavior, you would instead cast an unsavory light on the victim for defending himself.

A mirror is neither gentle nor harsh, nor could ever be these things. I don't know what your journey of self-improvement looks like and am by no means an expert myself. I hope that difficulties such as those that you are facing makes it clear how important self-knowledge is BEFORE entering into a romantic relationship, let alone one that yields children. I know that in a year's time, I made enormous strides in my own self-knowledge. However, I didn't do so while having children to provide for and/or an ex/divorce to contend with. Still, I would not have considered myself ready for a romantic relationship as "who I was" was yet to be discovered/formed. Does that make sense? So my first question would be: Why do you have a boyfriend right now? How much time have you spent talking with your children about the mistakes you have made that led to them not living with their mother and father and/or their parents not modeling affection with each other for them? I cannot imagine adding a boyfriend into the equation before all of the above would be a good idea. It sounds as if getting into a relationship before you were ready has led you down the path you find behind you, now with children who will be lost in this regard. It seems to me like repeating the same mistake, only now with the added detriment of estranging your children further. I want to share my bias on this subject a bit more in depth if I may. I recently re-evaluated my stance on starting a romantic relationship with a woman who already has kids. I had decided that if the woman was a bad parent, I wouldn't want her. That if she was a good parent, I wouldn't be able to form a relationship that would be satisfying to me because her children would rightly always come first. In your relationship with your boyfriend, do your children ALWAYS come first? If your children come first and you have talked and are available to continue to talk with your children about your situation and how it deviates from what's best for them, I can't see a reason to create a rule that everything has to be separate or together. I think your boyfriend is stating his preferences as factual, which is manipulative. Take the ultimatum he gave you; "Not being good enough to be married to" is an observation of your relationship with him. Doing special days together is about your children's relationship with the two of you. I don't think they're directly comparable. As far as the boyfriend goes, I question his level of self-knowledge. If he had self-knowledge, then he would be sensitive about the fact that you've just begun your journey and amid very challenging circumstances. If he doesn't, then I don't think he's going to be able to fulfill the role of secondary father to your children. Either way, they seem to lose out on the deal. And if I'm right about his assertion being manipulative, he's actively working against them to satisfy his own preferences. When you say self-sufficient mother, do you mean not on the dole? Do you mean your boyfriend doesn't help out? Also, mother's aren't supposed to be self-sufficient; they're supposed to be in it with the father. I think you know that and only mention this for the sake of encouraging precision in your language AND the danger of pre-supposing others based on things like FDR affiliation.

Your understanding of free will needs work. Provocative language, I know, but you established this as a standard for discourse Humans being created by God would not preclude free will. Growing up with Christianity inflicted upon me, I was often fed the narrative that God gave humans free will. Not that this serves as proof, though it does indicate that such a thing is in fact a point of pride among Christians. Also, giving humans free will would not preclude an omnipotent deity from overriding it. Were God to override it, the will would not be free in that moment, but would still be described as free will on the meta level.

According to Hotmail... -The first email I sent to you was on 18 Feb. I didn't receive any reply until 27 Feb. -I replied to that email and then after hearing nothing for another couple weeks, wrote again on 15 Mar. -After having met for lunch, I sent a follow up email on 21 Mar. After hearing nothing back for another couple of weeks, I poked you by way of text, which led to another lunch meeting on 11 Apr. -After having met for lunch, I sent a follow up email on 12 Apr. After not hearing from you for another couple weeks, I poked you by way of text as I was about to leave Seattle, which led to one final lunch/dinner meeting on 25 Apr. The morning of my departure, you told me that you wanted to stay in touch. -I emailed you on 6 May, 13 May, and 21 Jun. As a reaction to something else entirely, you wrote me on 1 Jul. I think claiming that it was *I* who didn't seem interested in talking to YOU is dishonest. As further push back to you claim of being the neglected party, let us look at what happened on 1 Jul. I posted the following on facebook: "I feel so loved right now. Many thanks to everybody in my life who has acknowledged my value and reciprocated that value. It is a wonderful feeling when people around you help pick you up and brush you off. As I continue to suffer the greatest loss that a person could, it means the world to me that others have banded together to help keep me down the path of self-love and self-care, while providing value that helps me continue to see more clearly, feel more love, and be more vulnerable. I am truly blessed and I am thrilled to know that this is the product of my own work and gains. May truth, honor, integrity, and virtuous love reign supreme forevermore in my life and yours. Thank you all from the bottom of my heart." Within three HOURS, you emailed me. You expressed no curiosity, very little empathy, described your email as "blunt and even hostile," and accused me of talking as if I am an authority, which I have never done. It was hypocritical because after months of no contact, your lack of curiosity meant that it was YOU who were talking as if you were an authority. You had no frame of reference, were making no effort to establish one, but spoke on it as if you knew everything. When in fact all you knew for sure was that I felt strong, supported, and the love of others. Meaning your uncharacteristic expedience in contact made it seem to me as if you were in a rush to knock me down after broadcasting how well I was doing. Normally, I would respond to such a thing by telling the person how their behaviors were received and how I felt. However, after the above track record of YOU showing no interest in communicating, I had every reason to believe your lack of curiosity was typical and that such vulnerability would not be received and/or would be exploited. And this was back on 1 Jul. The amount of growth I've achieved since then... Also something you've made no effort to familiarize yourself with. It did include connecting with the ways in which my abusive childhood has me judging people for the sake of isolating myself. Meaning that if such a thing were to occur today, I might be more patient and take more care in doing my part to bridge the gap. However, your dishonesty in this quote is consistent with the intentions you've exhibited throughout. Which is a damn shame. Because we've met. I've hugged you, several, sincere times. You're an intelligent and empathetic man. In our first meeting, you recognized that I am too. AND that I am reasonable as evidenced by the way I was receptive to your criticisms, including when you shared your apprehension in starting a relationship amid my circumstances. Before I left Seattle, you witnessed first hand the ways in which I had snapped out of my Stockholm Syndrome and flourished at the very suggestion that I would be able to leave what I have very seriously referred to as the human contact deprivation tank. You've had every indication that given the care and room to grow, I will make use of those to do just that. Yet you've made no consideration for the passing of time and the healing effects it has even on somebody who is NOT committed to using that time to improve upon themselves. YOU are missing out, brother. Half a year after I was destroyed, I had managed to build myself up to be twice the man that you first met. Why then would you want to continue to interact with that guy? Even if I were to return the favor, the you I first met is above all of this. If you ever wanted to correct for these things instead of using your access to me to harm me, you know where to find me. I won't go into how much it hurt watching you approach me just to knock me down. I consulted with several people, trying to figure out how to handle that situation. I didn't want to accept that you were not the person I met, but I also didn't want to accept erasing myself to hold onto my first impression of you. Isn't that the lesson you wanted me to learn most of all? :O

And by predictable, you mean consistent. You flatter me. Putting forth multiple null hypotheses isn't even personalizing a discussion, let alone insults or obfuscation. Refusing to address them is obfuscation and not a conversation, let alone an honest one.

Pretty much. People who are interested in deep, personal conversations. I wonder by what line of thinking turning to a philosophy forum that focuses on peaceful parenting for rational interpersonal relationship leads to downvotes. Some of the best relationships I have and have had in my life have come from people right here.

And by can't have a conversation with, you mean will not be swayed to agree with you without logic, reason, and evidence. Thank you for recognizing this about me. After my acceptance of my own capacity for error, it is my greatest strength. 8)

The acceptance of one's own capacity for error, a willingness to improve one's self, and ability and willingness to challenge others to improve themselves seems like a rare formula in human beings. I crave the sum of these things and don't feel I have enough people in my life who meet these criteria. I fear the ways in which such things limit my own potential for growth. Especially as somebody who believes that self-knowledge isn't the end, but rather the means to an end of establishing a virtuous love. So I wanted to invite anybody who fits this criteria and is looking for more quality people in their lives to make themselves known. Here or over on facebook are fine places to get started if you're interested. Look forward to meeting more of the "good ones."

It seems like a contradiction to me saying that the mother is dead set in her ways, but you entertain the possibility of influencing her moving forward. Thank you for sharing more of the specifics. In retrospect, do you think knowing that the mother was determined to assault her child, that perhaps distancing yourself from them might've been a good thing? Not just because of the mixing business with pleasure, but also now getting entangled in a scenario that will only draw on you? I think that I would talk to them both about what happened. Then talk about how you are aware that it is wrong and what the effects are. And how them assaulting their child basically means your job will become increasingly difficult. Not just due to your empathy for the child, but that the child will become more unstable while in your care. Then I would begin to distance myself from them. Let them know that their willingness to violate/exploit their child comes with the price of having you in their lives. It might just be what the little one needs. It might be the wake up call that they need. Or at the very least, you will simplify your own life. You have to come first. You won't be able to have the impact you want if you're just coming in afterwards to clean up their mess. The child is dependent upon them and they outnumber you. While the child will benefit from having a counter-example, I don't think you'll be able to overpower their influence. And if you should manage, they will be the ones to dump you, telling themselves that you were sabotaging their parenting. If you just be your honest self with them, the worst thing that could happen is that they'll reveal themselves to be beneath you. Sad, but better knowing sooner rather than later. I wish you luck with your struggle.

First of all, thank you for your sensitivities in this matter. Bilderberg offered some great feedback and I'd like to add to it. I'm not ever sure what "this is my job and these people are my friends" means. Neither is permanent or the only ones available. Meanwhile, I think "this is me, this is my life, these are the things I'm handing over to future me" should be far more reasonable motivation than identifying temporary, voluntary, external standards. What do you think of this? In addition to that, citing that it is your job is a reason TO stand up for the child. You're paid to protect and care for the child, right? And for the record, the struggle is not lost on me. I've worked private security. When I'm at a property after hours and somebody is there, I was conflicted with not wanting to roll up on somebody who should be there as if they shouldn't, but also didn't want to demonstrate to my employers that I couldn't handle a potential trespasser either. If your description of the father telling you is accurate, then it sounds like he didn't feel right for what he had done, but didn't feel it was socially unacceptable so much that saying it out loud was impolite. It sounds like he was effectively asking for permission. Which you inadvertently gave by not expressing your disgust. If a child is not capable of being reasoned with, they're not going to understand the reason they were harmed. It doesn't sound like the sword strike was deliberate or understood. I think the question of why the child was armed is valid (while recognizing that ANYTHING can be used as a weapon). So by hitting the child, the father is modeling that hitting is okay, which he supposedly was trying to communicate the opposite. There's no reason why he couldn't have explained that the sword strike hurt. The child already understands what pain is no doubt and would not want to inflict that upon others for their own comfort's sake.

I have already refuted this assertion. Continuing as if it has not been challenged reveals that you are engaging in bias confirmation. What adult is "surprised" by the fact that VISITING denotes an impending end? Numerous people have explained to you the ways in which preparation is the answer, is key, and is something that anybody should be engaging in since every day is a series of problems that we choose to solve in order to move forward in our lives. Can you illustrate where/how this is a faulty premise? Because I've already covered the ways in which a parent failing their child is not a license to assault their child.

This does nothing to address my challenges. Nor are the validity of my challenges dependent on me satisfying some arbitrary standard. Also, the arbitrary standard is intellectual sloth in that you are not applying that standard to your own position. "Abolish the government" is vague. It is also begging the question in that it supposes that in order to defeat Santa Claus, you must act upon it. When in fact accepting the fact that he doesn't exist is an internal decision. Did you for a moment think that was actually a refutation? When you vote on the scale of US president, you are pretending to transfer the ownership of 300 million people to somebody. In order to be able to do such a thing, you would have to first own those 300 million people to begin with. Since you don't own me, I know that you do not satisfy the requisite for voting. If you accept self-ownership and property rights (which I can see that you do), you cannot also vote if you wish to remain consistent within your own mind/life/values. I've offered numerous null hypotheses, which nobody has even tried to approach (see your attempt at a refutation above). The simplest has been the FACT that you don't own me. So that is my go to until such a time as somebody manages to prove that they do own me and therefore can transfer that ownership of me. At that time, I will acknowledge that that person alone can legitimately vote while espousing to accept self-ownership and property rights.

I can't tell if you're being obtuse or if context is actually lost on you. You seem to dispense with it both when making analogies that don't fit and taking analogies that do fit and focusing on ways that they don't. If the gun is always being pointed at you, can you just go and rape somebody and say you were forced to do it? No, because the gun pointed at you wasn't being held by somebody saying go rape or I'll hurt you. The gun IS being pointed at you by somebody saying pay your protection money or I'll hurt you. The gun is NOT being pointed at you by somebody telling you to vote or they will hurt you. I make this point for the benefit of others that get tripped up by this. I have no interest spending more time engaging in somebody who consistently demonstrates that they are output only and only feign curiosity.

The fact that a gun is NOT being pointed at you changes the fact of whether it is forced or not. You cannot claim that a gun is being pointed at somebody if it is legal to not vote. Voting isn't self-nourishment. NO! Getting involved makes you culpable in your analogy. You cannot control the destruction, therefore you are deliberately harming innocents. Except your ties to reality, your own personal freedom inside your own head, clean hands in not trying to control other people... Except that your coupon/voucher has no bearing on anybody but you. There is not a chance you're going to leave with any gain other than the BELIEF that you've done SOMETHING. It's akin to praying except that praying doesn't implicate other people. This was some very far-reaching sophistry that only references ideas that sound good on paper, but have been soundly refuted already. There is a reason you're reaching for analogies that don't fit instead of addressing real arguments. You don't own me. It's being repeated because you claim to accept that while continuing to speak and behave as if you don't.

Can't tell if you're trolling or what. Lots of weighted language here. 1) Defined by the peaceful parent community? It's pretty easy to identify that dragging somebody is using your body to deprive somebody else the use of their body. 2) "tell your child it is time to go" is inflicting a conclusion. 3) "No amount of persuasion will work" is begging the question. Preparation is worth more than cure. The answer would be to not find yourself in that situation by negotiating before the visit. If the parent fails to do that, taking it out on the child in any form would be punishing them for the failing of the parent, which is very damaging.

If this claim is true, then you're talking well over my head. I wouldn't mind learning more about what you mean by this. However, "2+2=4" was meant to be an example rather than exhaustively representative. So to the side of this challenge and whatever interesting tangent it produces, I'd like to rephrase my claim: A person's belief has no impact on the truth value of an objective claim. Meaning it's not okay I'm assuming that by "in nature," you're referring to non-humans. In other words, species who lack the capacity for reason, so we can discard that. Saying "most human societies" has no impact on logic, reason, and evidence. Most human societies didn't have iPhone 7s. Does this disprove that the iPhone 7 is said to be water-resistant? Saying responsibility is a Western concept is not important. Where an idea originated has no bearing on its validity. All of this seems like obfuscation. Let's peel away the obfuscation and look at what we can arrive at right now, using our own brains, even if we had never read anything ever before. I'll use stealing since that is the example you put forth. The very act of trying to take an object tells us that the person doing the taking accepts property rights. They're using their labor to deny somebody else the use of their labor. They are telling you with their very actions that might is wrong. So even if the requisite you claimed of being accepted by others was a valid way of determining what is true (which it isn't), you would have to reject that property rights are only valid where they are accepted as such. Because they are universally accepted as such. Maybe the ability to put that into words and appreciate that the effects of accepting this consciously leads to a more peaceful world came from the West. But that would do nothing to substantiate your claim. I look forward to your reply. Thank you for the engaging conversation.

No he doesn't, would not have the power to make such changes, voting for him does nothing to put him there, and you still don't own me. This is false. There is a lack of cognitive dissonance in simultaneously claiming there's nothing we can do to stop it AND doing nothing is irresponsible. This is dishonest in that it categorizes addressing the PROBLEM as nothing. And you still don't own me. So PRETENDING that you do is literally doing nothing. Assuming doing nothing is bad, as appears to be the standard you are putting forth for others. Which in itself is dishonest because it inflicts an unchosen obligation.

I didn't read beyond this poisoning of the well. I have answered your question twice. The irony here is that both you and Gavitor are expressing the exact curiosity the article is meant to invoke. Why not point that scrutiny at all the people the world over who won't shutup about how useful and necessary voting is? Why pretend to ask one voice providing a counterpoint? Bias confirmation?

1) This does not address the topic of propaganda. 2) Why are my efforts to encourage my brothers and sisters to think and/or live consistently in accordance with their stated goals important to you? (tu quoque) 3) You poison the well when you say anarchist and libertarian. Political voting is incompatible with both of these ideas, so it matters not if people who would engage in political voting would/could otherwise be described with these labels. 4) Voting is a decision, not voting is the origin. Therefore, the burden of proof lies with those who would deliberately deviate from the origin. They would need to make the case. I've even been so kind as to offer, in several places, multiple null hypotheses. Such as demonstrating that somebody else can own me, that a vote makes a difference, that who sits on the throne impacts our lives relative to other throne-sitters, that validating the throne encroaches freedom, and that pretending something that is imaginary is real does not suggest that it is real. I have yet to see anybody tackle any of these. I have yet to see them even try ...since you put forth doubling down as acceptable discourse. Only my contributing shows how your question is 1) deflection, 2) manipulation, 3) disingenuous, 4) begging the question. AND I answered your question within that already, making your doubling down also reveal that you're not listening to that which you don't agree with (bias confirmation).