J. D. Stembal

As a person who has killed animals in order to eat them, I'm not sure how beating a rabbit to death promotes animal welfare. How do you define what animal welfare is when we can't communicate with them? Perhaps some animals want to be eaten like the talking bovine in The Restaurant at the End of the Universe? How will we ever know one way or the other? I say continue eating the tastiest ones. It's APA and not UPB. By the way, the reason chicks get put into the shredder is because they were born male, and hence, cannot lay eggs. The lucky ones become hormone injected abominations that can hardly stand and are slaughtered for their breast meat, the "lean meat" that is touted as healthy. It usually finds its way into a McNugget or a Chipotle wrap. And no, clubbing an animal is not necessary to end its life. Breaking its neck would have been the most efficient way to kill it.

Carl did not offend you. You offended you. It is manipulative to suggest otherwise. He also didn't resort to any ad hominem. I'm sure you understand how I am forced to pay for your "necessary" profession through the armed might of the Leviathan. I do not think you are necessary, but I do not have a choice in the matter. I'm not going to thank you for your service, or your loyalty to a piece of paper and geographical area. One's first loyalty is to their own convictions. I do appreciate the Mother's Day anecdote you shared, but you need to back up this assertion I highlighted in red with something more concrete. Can you please share any empirical evidence that you have available? Last I checked, violent crime rates were at forty year lows, but multi-generational property crime - governments stealing our futures - is at an all time high. Thank you, gun owners! http://www.usdebtclock.org/ (This website gives me nightmares.) I did no such thing. I am merely suggesting that at some point, when the country falls apart, hard decisions will have to be made. Will you make a virtuous and just decision or not? As it stands right now, you aren't in a position to make moral choices, as I pointed out in my first reply.

Thank you for the response, Lens. I was taking the angle that the aliens represented god, but it makes more sense that I was following the whims of my parents by rounding up the lost. I grew up as an only child. My siblings are from my father's second family. Is it possible for me to right the misdeeds of my parents? I often attempted to help other people only to be manipulated and used. I should have been helping myself instead. I buried my wounded child with copious amounts of poison, quickly becoming an addict (a robot). You are correct. I was very close to dying inside, and becoming a human automaton in reality. I was hanging over the edge, waiting for the push into darkness, but it never came. Instead, I stopped drinking with the help of philosophy. Thanks, FDR! During the past few days, I have felt the best I have in a very long time. A fire sprang up inside of me, igniting my heart, and I fell in love with myself for the first time in my entire life. It feels really good.

These pretzels are making me thirsty. I made a video on water purification and preparedness. This is an important topic for all living beings! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9Uzxj6mruU&feature=youtu.be Any and all feedback is appreciated. Thank you!

Thank you for the clarifications, Better Future. I'm still confused, however. Through which means do you think support of this conservative political party will eliminate the state completely? That is your group's stated goal, as I understand it. Are you arguing that endorsing the guy who steals from you less is a better choice than endorsing the guy who steals more? Is less rape better than more rape, and less murder better than more murder? How much money is your party not stealing exactly, and does it really matter? How many fewer tax slaves will there be? Can we quantify the number of unborn slaves that will liberated from impossible tax burdens? No single vote will ever decide an election outcome, assuming that elections are not rigged from the outset. Refusing to vote is much more effective at sending the anarchist message. Eventually, we will be forced to vote. What happens if we still refuse? On a long enough timeline, every country with a government is going to be like Greece, or worse. Will we live to see it or does the generation after us get stuck with the hot potato?

Killing off your gut bacteria eventually kills you off, so it should not be taken so lightly. Your statement is like saying, "I can jump out of this tree because if I break my leg, I might be able to crawl to the emergency room." It is preferable to avoid the disease from the very beginning, not looking for a remedy once the symptoms manifest. Another health analogy: it is preferable achieve nutrition before you become overweight because you may never lose the weight. This was the real reason I returned to the thread. Dr. Seneff delivered a concise summary of the health problems caused by glyphosate. By the end of the video, it's also clear to me that she's read Hahn Niman's Defending Beef (http://www.amazon.com/Defending-Beef-Case-Sustainable-Production/dp/1603585362/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1432258898&sr=8-1&keywords=nicolette+hahn+niman) or listened to one of the lectures given by Allan Savory about Holistic Land Management, and the case for more cattle ranching.

Dear Dream Analyzers, I usually don't reflect on my dreams for very long. I would often have reoccurring nightmares as a child. I had a very disturbing dream two nights ago, and instead of forgetting it, I decided to examine it more closely. A significant portion of the audio content contains a book review (plot spoilers are minimal in case you are worried), which may have contributed to the dream as I had just finished the book before falling asleep. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNBs1i-sMdA Any and all of your comments, thoughts, feelings or suggestions are welcome. I am new to dream analysis and self-knowledge. Thanks!

You are always welcome! I will respond via private message regarding my dirty laundry. I don't want to derail this thread as it seems like you might be playing with fire. A woman's loyalty is not to her man, but to her eggs. Women also protect the eggs of other women. What happens to your marriage if you do or say something that leads the husband to stand up and say, "No, I don't want kids, baby." It is very obvious that this couple is deliberately avoiding self-knowledge. Why else would they get married when one of the two does not want children?

Props and plus reps for stepping out of uniform, and revealing so much. However, there are a couple parts of your statement that do not jive. You use the words "almost" and "might" to describe your duty to uphold all state, federal, and municipal statutes. Is that so, or is it not so? Do you not go on patrol duty? Or are you exclusively involved in cadet training? Is it not a fact that if you destroy evidence or let a criminal go that you will be prosecuted as a conspirator if you are discovered? You have no moral choice while you remain in this position. It is interesting that you use the divisive trope of the "clueless millennial" since many of Stefan's listeners belong in this generation. Why do you assume that a kid "incapable of thinking for himself" joins the force? You were one of those kids, weren't you? Can you think for yourself? Indeed, you can. Is the plan to stay on the inside and fight tyranny from within the system? Do you think this will work? Could you, in good conscience, persuade a teenager to consider the decision to be a police officer more carefully when you are not willing to walk away? I assume you aren't working toward the SWAT team, but what would you do if you were instructed to kill someone against the non-aggression principle? I wonder if the intellectualization above is a crutch that some people use to make themselves feel better instead of connecting directly with their emotions. You are dangerous with only a little bit of empathy for your fellow man. It is incredibly brave of you to be here, speaking your mind, but at some point in the future, you need to come down off the fence and choose good or choose evil.

It is important to consider that bodybuilders, power lifters, athletes, and their ilk do what they do for themselves first. Of course, most of them are going to also be interested in how it relates to their sexual marketplace value. The BroScienceLife spokesman says in this video, "You started off lifting to get chicks, but now you do it to be better than everyone else." According to Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, health comes before self-esteem, which is two levels higher on the pyramid, one level higher than sex. Here is the logic of it: 0. I am alive! 1. Being strong and healthy is beneficial for my vitality and constitution, so I will work toward this goal. 2. Being strong and healthy is appealing in a mate, so I will increase my chances of reproducing. 3. Once I am strong and healthy, I will raise children that will have a positive role model. 4. My children will likely be strong and healthy and reproduce. 5. All of these aspects of being strong and healthy are beneficial to my self-esteem. All of this takes priority over philosophy, which resides at the highest level of needs. Philosophy is not required for life or reproduction, hence why there are few female philosophers. Women are concerned with reproduction, first and foremost. When women praise and idealize the Dad Bod, they short-circuit this logical progression. If women are no longer selecting for strength and health in fathers, what will be the result after ten generations? What we have now is discouraging, and I don't expect that it will be improving. The assessment that women are now searching for the big dick of philosophy at the expense of shredded ab muscles is a little hard to swallow. What are the odds that they would choose to sacrifice crucial parts of the three middle layers of Maslow's Hierarchy in order to have more higher order needs? Remember, these are the people with the eggs. What are the odds?

I'm not sure that I follow the feminist logic either. Did Scarlett Johansson not join the project? The accusation, I think, is that there aren't enough women in action movies based on comic books. Of course, they have totally ignored the fact that many of these comics were first written a generation or two ago when young men were the sole customer demographic. Despite this, there were still female characters. Look at X-Men, which has quite a few. I attempted to look up salary information for Ms. Johansson, but could only find out that she was paid $400,000 for her role in Iron Man 2, which is tangentially related to the Avengers series. I anticipate that we're going to start hearing a lot more about actresses not getting paid enough in Hollywood. I noticed that there is another actress working on the project named Elizabeth Olsen, the younger and almost completely unknown sister of "The Olsen Twins," so we know that there are at least two female characters in the film.

Well, he's now deceased, but he was campaigning for POTUS. He did not get elected, but I found out about his campaign via the internet so it is safe to say that his message was making it out onto alternative forms of media. No one mentioned him on television, of course. I don't see how any of the above actually removes regulations, laws, and erodes the power of the Leviathan. Do you have any credible evidence that this Libertarian will act against his own self-interest? Every politician has the incentive to retain his post once elected. If you have organized an anarchist interest group, what is the point of actually voting in a government election? What will it gain you except benefits extorted by force? Vote with your money and use your ingenuity to make your own lives better. You could start an anarchist collective, or whatever your dreams desire. Declare yourselves an anarchist sovereign nation and podcast about it. I'm spit-balling, but anything would be better than trying to convince people to vote.

I just got in a shipment of seventy pounds of dead animal parts. *drool* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meS4bBNx_aw

I voted for Harry Browne in 2000. How did this reduce government, regulations, taxes, national debt, etc...? How is your vote going to work out?

The logic is not much different than what Stefan offers in his recorded debate on Atheism vs. Agnosticism, but I put my own touches on it and made it as concise as I could for easy digestion. https://board.freedomainradio.com/topic/42309-what-would-convince-me-that-god-exists/#entry387688 Indeed, Bacon is real. I have some in my freezer! (Kneels before freezer.)

Regardless of what you may accept based on the evidence, "There is no God," is a factual statement. Saying "I believe there is no God," is framing a factual statement as an opinion because beliefs are, by definition, matters of personal opinion. "Chocolate is an ice cream flavor." (Fact.) "I believe chocolate ice cream tastes better than vanilla." (Opinion.) If the statement, "There is a god," is impossible to prove, it self-detonates as a statement of fact and is automatically disproved. Since the affirmative cannot ever be proven to be true, "There is no god," is true by default. You can actually disprove the existence of God. I've posted my argument in several threads. I can link you to it if you wish.

You can believe anything you would like, but the statement, "There is no God," is not an opinion; it's an empirical fact. As Stefan points out, it's like saying, "I believe 2+2=4." This statement makes no sense because math is not an opinion. Deep down inside, everyone knows from birth there is no such thing as a higher power, or a consciousness without matter. Children have to be traumatized by their parents from a very early age in order to believe that Jesus was the Messiah, and other nonsense such as "Voting is a civic duty."

Thank you for asking. I had to think about it for several days. I don't think I have overcome the trauma, and I often have frequent doubts about my ability to overcome it. Self-knowledge tells me that I was close (once or twice) to settling down with a decent woman and making babies, and I called off the relationship. It did not feel right to me. I also know that there were several women who had designs on snaring me with a fallopian tube. Those, in retrospect, did not feel right either and there were many good reasons to believe this. But suppose no woman will ever feel right to me because of this trauma? As of now, the only surefire method I have to not repeat the mistakes of my parents is to not have children. It's not an ideal resolution, I realize (the inevitable result is likely dying alone), but until I burrow deeper into myself, I cannot, in good conscience, knock a woman up. Since my father is working on his second family, I am off the hook, so to speak, for furthering the family DNA, not that this is a responsibility that I think I owe to my parents. They will never be allowed to meet my hypothetical children.

What Christian values do you mean? How is the Protestant work ethic superior to other philosophies, Chinese Confucianism or rational egoism, for instance? It appears that you are affirming that religion has inherent values or benefits, but you aren't offering any proof. This report seems to indicate that Catholics and Mainline Protestants are somewhat equally divided within the Left-Right political spectrum. http://www.people-press.org/2015/04/07/a-deep-dive-into-party-affiliation/ Evangelical Christians tend to be more conservative, while Jews tend to lean toward the Left. It doesn't indicate it, but I imagine most Black Protestants vote Democrat. Ah, here I found the goods: http://www.people-press.org/2015/04/07/2014-party-identification-detailed-tables/ R=Republican D=Democrat I=Independent O=Other or I Don't Know RELIGIOUS TRADITION R D I O Nothing in particular 12 31 52 6 Agnostic 8 39 49 4 Atheist 6 42 47 5 Total Unaffiliated 10 34 50 6 Jewish 16 47 33 4 Mormon 49 12 35 3 Hispanic Catholic 12 38 41 9 White Non-Hispanic Catholic 31 30 36 3 Total Catholic 24 33 37 6 Black Protestant 5 68 22 4 White Non-Hisp Mainline Protestant 30 26 38 6 White Non-Hisp Evangelical Protestant 46 14 34 5 I'm not arguing that both parties are the same or that all parties are the same. I'm arguing that every vote is the same; it is a ringing endorsement for more government. That's all a vote can ever be because it can't do anything else. A vote does not decide an election. A vote does not make you more free. It is a figment of the collective imagination. I would be interested to see what you think about voting when it is compulsory, like jury duty and taxes.

AJ has it. There is no way to vote morally in political elections. Every vote increases the power of the state, so there is no point in ever casting it. Americans will be free when everyone stops voting, and not one moment sooner. What makes you think that the outcome of an election isn't already decided before people go to the polls? Your thesis is that voting Republican is better for the family (or at least won't destroy the family, whatever that means). Whose family are you talking about? Will all families benefit from this outcome? Where is the evidence that Republicanism supports the family, removes legislation and abolishes the welfare state? You might want to take a closer look at your thesis and see if it holds up to the scrutiny of probing questions.

There's a documentary about this small cadre of intelligent particle physicists. (Actually, the project employed over 10,000 people.) I haven't yet watched it, but I believe it attempts to validate the expansive cost of the project to the European taxpayer. Indeed, that was the purpose of filming it. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1385956/?ref_=nv_sr_1 At what cost and for what benefit? Consider if the project would have ever existed if people voluntarily kickstarted it instead of using the force of guns to raise the money. The project is massively over budget ($9 billion Euros as of 2010), and is already undergoing an upgrade with more upgrades proposed. If you recall, the Swiss removed the peg on their currency to the Euro earlier this year. Who knows what this projecting is going to be costing the average European in the future? As it stands, every living member of the EU is on the hook for about 20E.

A man paying for a woman's time (eggs) is affecting your social life? I'm confused as to how that can be. Aren't you in control of your own social sphere? Why don't you hold the women accountable? It is the women who are the aggressors in the rinsing arrangement. They are taking the money of men and, by intention, not keeping their part of the bargain. It's akin to theft to not put out when a man buys you dinner. Every women knows this, or at least, most of them used to know this. Going out with a man, and letting him pay for everything with no intention of having sexual contact is called leading a man on. The reason men fall for the rinsing trick in this documentary is they believe that the risers are just playing at being conservative about sex, which is a massive turn-on. There's nothing hotter than mating with a virgin. Little do they realize that the vagina is a black hole where their money keeps going in, but not the penis.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3043071/

I don't think entitled is the word that describes you, and your familial relationship. Disenfranchised would be more accurate. What do you think? Ask yourself, do you want to move out and why? You and your parents must be deriving a net positive result in keeping the family together, and restraining you under their wing. Perhaps they really despise the other and would have undesirable conflicts in your absence. You may be the glue holding the whole boat together. It's difficult to guess what their motivations would be as yet. Obviously, furnishing endless money isn't helping you. It strikes me as a form of parental Quantitative Easing, and your parents are your Federal Reserve. If you come to the conclusion that you really want to leave, and your parents are trying to entice you to stay, you need to tell them your desire to leave. I think it is worth exploring this topic again if you already have. If they aren't supportive of that goal, it's time to sell your non-necessities to raise some capital, go find some roommates or couchsurf (there are tons of internet resources for this), doing the household chores for a spot on the futon. If you put yourself in an environment that isn't dominated by your parents, and you are around people who do not infantilize you, you can start to see yourself for who you really are. If you are in a critical financial situation, and will end up living on the street, please call into the radio show, or perhaps there is a FDR member in your local area that would be able to assist. I recommend steering clear of drugs and alcohol, even casually, so when you are looking for a place to live, ask your potential room mates about their party habits. I don't know if you like to drink or not, but I used alcohol for a long time to dull the pain of having little to no emotional support from my parents. It sounds like our parents are very similar in that respect. Were you ever accused of being an "ungrateful" child by your parents? I was called this numerous times by my father when our father-son relationship began to sour after puberty. If fact, we did not have a significant or trusting relationship my whole life. He was almost never home, and constantly traveling or taking night classes. My mother was home more, but that's only because she worked in the public sector, like your mother. I hid nearly everything that I could from my parents. They didn't know that I started drinking at 15. They did not know that I was arrested at 18 for petty larceny. They didn't know when I lost my virginity. They didn't even know the names of most of the girls that I dated. I'm really angry that I couldn't trust my parents. Why didn't I get angry sooner?

I wholly agree with this statement. While health and fitness are aesthetically preferable behaviors rather than ethical issues within the UPB framework, they are existentially more relevant and more important to human life than ethics or philosophy. Without health and a laundry list of other critical items, you will die prematurely. Ethics, good and evil cease to matter if you are dead. Exhibit A: Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs Health is clearly more foundational to the human experience meaning that it is a priority over morality, which is a higher order necessity. Likewise, health is nothing compared to air, food, sleep and water. If you don't have those first, you will never achieve health. However, under the coercive yoke of the current state apparatus, health becomes an afterthought. When people have their health care subsidized by others, they no longer feel the necessity to pursue health and fitness and it disappears from their hierarchy of needs. Health care becomes infected by moral hazard, which is a moral issue because it involves the theft and redistribution of property, a violation of the NAP. This offers a possible explanation as to why your first reaction was: Who wouldn't be pissed if he invested time, effort, and resources into attaining health, and then gets smacked down with ACA, which disproportionally steals money from young men and gives it the elderly and women? His complaints about women idolizing pudgy fathers are slightly off the mark. It would be more productive and accurate to discuss how the whims of women ultimately become state-organized crusades against men, of which fit-shaming is just the latest manifestation. Going back to the video, this is probably the most insightful and salient quote, the rest consisting of largly farce, flair and fluff: If this was a video about voluntarism within the family, instead of health and fitness, we would still have to point out the relevance of female nature, hypergamy, Briffault's Law, and how it relates to the expansion of state power, alimony, child support, and division of the family unit.