J. D. Stembal

Statutory rape charges have been filed against two high school teachers in Louisiana. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/03/teachers-group-sex-louisiana-destrehan-high-school_n_5928942.html?cps=gravity According to the statue, one year is the minimum sentence. If found guilty, I wonder if these rapists will get more than the minimum. (One of the teachers was twice the age of the student.) Hopefully, the judge sends a message that the double standard of the sexes no longer applies in the courtroom. I also found it instructive how many men are coming out of the woodwork to commend the victim for banging hot teachers in the Facebook comments. It's more than just a little sickening to contemplate why this is so.

Pseudo-science persists in a great many areas, including medicine, pharmacology, and nutrition, but any current controlled substance is a valid compound for research. Supposedly, LSD is now being trialed as a therapy for alcoholism. http://www.bbc.com/news/health-17297714 Back when I was not sober, I had a freak out experience on 1mg of 2C-I NBOMe (a borderline crazy dosage) where I thought the world was ending and many of my repressed emotional issues began to surface, but the ultimate value of such an experience is entirely subjective. Self-knowledge is less harmful than self-medication, at least for me.

Whatever pays the bills for the legislator. Specifically, the purpose of this bill is to define drunk and unconscious as states where a person, presumably the woman, cannot legally give consent. What this law means is every girl (and boy) who imbibes alcohol at a frat party is unable to grant consent for sex. It is literally the state manifestation of the feminist belief that sex under the influence is rape.

You were physically inert for one full year? That doesn't sound like a minor back injury! I've yanked my back a couple times picking heavy things up (last time was a deadlift). I don't bother weighing myself, getting blood work done, or determining my body fat percentage. Your numbers look fine to me. What does the doc say? Welcome to the low carb club! I love not counting calories, either, but I will start tracking my diet week to week so I can publish it for others to peruse on my blog. I know you don't keep careful track of what you eat but can you give a small sample of the kinds of foods you do eat? I am curious. Ultimately, I'd like to put an animal face on nutrition for all the veg-heads here at FDR, so they can see clearly the other side of the debate and not continue to stick to the scientifically unfounded lipid hypothesis. For example, my lunch today (I don't eat breakfast because I never wake up hungry) was a pound of pork sausage (with spices), a handful of coconut flakes, and two cups of tea. Stress does not require you to burn carbohydrate. Unless you have a candy bar handy at the precise moment you are stressed and you have time to eat it, this strategy will not work. Adrenaline releases fatty acids from your adipose tissues when you encounter stress. There is no need to eat carbohydrate to have it in reserve because by the time you need it, it will be out of your blood stream and likely already stored in adipose tissue assuming the glycogen stores in your liver and muscles are already full.

Liberals need to stand up for liberal principles. -Bill Maher What are liberal principles? Is he talking about classical liberalism? Maher cites: Free speech Separation of church and state Equality for women Equality for minorities Equality for homosexuals I love how he conveniently left men out of the liberal equation. Free market is also notably lacking as a liberal principle. I wonder why? This is horrible "debate". They talk over one another the whole time while the crowd applauds and cheers.

Your assertion may have relevance in ancient Chinese history, but I don't think it applies to recent history. Of the Chinese people I've had the pleasure of meeting, they typically have embraced family traditions of honoring mother and father, past relatives, and the familial hierarchy. This is the foundation for the general acceptance of a totalitarian government in China. The Chinese living in Hong Kong have a lingering memory of non-Communism under the 99 year lease as a British colony, which reverted back to the PRC in 1997. There has been a strong movement for democracy in Hong Kong ever since the Tiananmen Student Protests of 1989. In the spirit of the season, I am parting with my People's Liberation Army coat, which will make a great Halloween costume, especially considering the current Hong Kong protests. I lost the matching cap, unfortunately, but there are a lot of knock offs for sale online. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Genuine-People-039-s-Liberation-Army-Winter-Coat-People-039-s-Republic-of-China-1990s-/261614334812?

BUMP! Burnett's thesis on rape culture struck a chord with me. Here are my thoughts inspired by two of his blogs. http://www.endtheusu...n.com/home/?p=9

Here's a link to my rebuttal to Zaron Burnett III's A Gentleman's Guide to Rape Culture. I desire any and all feedback. http://www.endtheusurpation.com/home/?p=9

I will give you a hint. It's included in my last post which you quoted.

A two step anarchic process should alleviate your concerns. First, get rid of all the federally managed land (650 million acres in the United States, 30% of the territory), and the actual cost of raising animals in a pasture would go down. A greater supply of pasture leads to massive decreases in the cost of land, and then you get sustainable, affordable beef, bison, pork, deer, elk, lamb, goat, chickens, eggs, milk, etc. Second, abolish the farm subsidies, and then anything to do with corn, wheat, soy, rice, or sugar goes up in price. The ecology that was devastated by industrial agriculture begins to return to normal, making more usable land available, further lowering the cost of animal husbandry. Finally, we will see the real cost of food at the supermarket checkout. People generally vote with their wallet. If we stop foisting most of the cost of industrial agriculture on the taxpayer, customers will be better served making the informed choice to buy pasture raised meat. It will be cheaper on their wallet, not expensive like it is now. Buying "organic" makes foods even more expensive due to the governmental regulatory overhead involved. Actually, there is an inverse relationship between cholesterol levels and incidence of cancer, meaning the lower your cholesterol, the more likely you are to be diagnosed with cancer. You might want to start eating more saturated fat, which raises cholesterol. I like coconuts, and cashews. It's not meat, so you should be able to stomach it. There is a positive correlation with carbohydrate consumption and the incidence of cancer as well. There is absolutely no positive correlation with dietary fat and obesity, heart disease, or diabetes. These are all conditions (including cancer) prevalent in metabolic syndrome, which is the effect of damaging your endocrine system by eating too many carbs over the course of your life. The longer you've been a vegan, the more at risk you are for metabolic syndrome. Nutritionally, there is very little you can do to avoid meat and get enough dietary fat to keep your body going. This is why vegetarians, like Stefan Molyneux, aren't true vegetarians. He claims to still eat meat on occasion. It's because his body needs it to fight off disease. Subconsciously, we all know this to be correct. Fat is good! Have you perhaps considered that it is you that is showering us with nutritional mythology? Stay tuned in this thread for my blog post where I will provide more of my thoughts regarding this debate.

You do know that cows are ruminants, right? They are perfectly happy eating grasses. In fact, feeding them a steady diet of corn turns their stomachs septic and eventually kills them. Deer, antelope, and sheep are also ruminants. How does feeding animals grass devastate the environment? It's the perversion of state subsidized agriculture that makes meat eating bad for the environment. If you buy from local, sustainable sources (grass-fed and pasture-raised), you aren't feeding the state machine of industrialized food practices. Grass-fed, pasture-raised beef is far more expensive than corn-fed beef, so there are no hidden costs paid for by taxes in this instance. It is the industrial ag that is subsidized. Every time you drink soy milk, someone else is paying for it. What percentage of the corn grown goes into gas tanks? Do you have a choice to buy ethanol free gas? Did you mention methane specifically because of climate change? You are too focused on the meat-eating as the cause of an environmental problem, and not the state. This is a multi-tiered environmental problem and it all begins with faulty science and governmental authority. Since this is FDR, I am quite surprised that some members do not treat their facts with as much care as a rational empiricist would.

Yagumi, Richard_V responded a few posts ago: He was attempting to straw man my question posed to Jolle de Jong, which was: Richard also invoked the environmental reasoning behind veganism, which boils down to forcing (or strongly suggesting, as in this thread) everyone to eat plants because eating animals is bad for the environment. This is not a well reasoned argument. In fact, it is false. Corn, soy, and wheat crops, in the form of state-subsidized industrial agriculture, are killing off endangered species, washing away topsoil, draining aquifers for irrigation, polluting the water system with fertilizers, and destroying whole ecosystems. Animal husbandry, without the perversion of modern agriculture and the state, doesn't have any of these environmentally damaging effects.

If Stefan wasn't a sometimes vegetarian, we wouldn't be having such a heated debate over applying the principle universally. The definition of aggression is not the problem. The difficulty arises when we the attempt to apply the principle to all animals when all animals do not have the ability to practice moral philosophy.

Eating animals can't be considered a violation of the non-aggression principle because the principle cannot be applied to animals. How do you convince a whale to not eat krill, or a lion from eating a gazelle? Can you negotiate with animals? Are you also suggesting that we must apply the principle to non-living machines? You can have all the objections you desire about eating animals, but the fact remains that it is not aggression, at least not morally. This means that I have have the right to kill animals and eat them, despite your objections.

How is this father paying child support when he shares custody 50/50? How father friendly is Utah? I would assume the mother's request to move the child to North Dakota would be summarily rejected by a judge, considering how financially unstable the mother is, and the fact that the parents have previously negotiated shared custody.

I just wanted to add an element to the free trade theory that I didn't already see included in the thread. It's not that voluntary trade is always beneficial, but that both parties involved in the trade will perceive the exchange to be beneficial or else it won't occur. If you've ever listed something for sale on Craigslist, you know exactly how this works. You ask $50 for your old hockey jersey and people contact you with offers below what you are asking. You are free to reject them if you expect to get the full $50 in a reasonable amount of time. If you need the money immediately, you will often have to take an offer lower than your asking price. Price is entirely subjective for everyone participating in the free market, and changes over time. The RBE guys often have a problem with the free market theory, but that's been pointed out already.

Let me see if I understand your position correctly. 1) The non-aggression principle can be applied to animals even though they cannot understand or be expected to follow it. Animals cannot commit murder due to having no moral faculties, but humans are not allowed to murder animals. Infant humans also have no moral faculties, but we extend the NAP to apply to them. 2) Pain is a sufficient criterion for the application of the non-aggression principle. Allow me to rebut. 1) Unlike infant humans, animals generally cannot adhere to the non-aggression principle, nor can they learn it when they reach adulthood. You could probably cite some exceptions from the primate family, but I don't know anyone who eats apes. Therefore, the non-aggression principle cannot apply to most animals. Stefan logically explained this reasoning in a caller question from earlier this year. (I am also a little confused by your language. Can you define dominion and enslavement as it applies to human treatment of animals? I'm not sure how animal husbandry or meat eating can be defined as such.) 2) Pain is a environmental stimulus meant to protect an organism from harm, but it does not confer an understanding that harming another animal is unethical. Carnivorous mammals such as wolves can feel pain, but they generally do not uphold the non-aggression principle. Therefore, the ability to feel pain has no influence on the application of the principle within the animal kingdom.

Why are you going to start another thread? Did we not adequately kick around your questions? The idea that we signed a social contract at birth to pay taxes and behave in a socially accepted manner is patently false. If place of birth actually defined rights and responsibilities, we wouldn't have politicians on the left eagerly extending heath care and welfare to illegal immigrants. The money we use to pay for all the government goodies is actually drawn from national debt to be paid off by your children's children at present. Can unborn children effectively lobby against this injustice? In the United States, for example, we are likely still paying off the remainder of the principle on Eisenhower's interstate highway system largely inspired by the Third Reich.

Three words come to mind, anthropogenic global warming.

Arguing against the state is even easier than than you are making it out to be. Ask the statist three questions. 1) Do you like slavery? If they say no, then tell them the truth about slavery. (It is a state run institution.) 2) Do you like war? If they say no, then tell them the truth about war. (It is a state run institution.) 3) Do you like injustice? If they say no, then tell them the truth about feminism, environmentalism, socialism, fascism, racism and almost every other ism. (They are all endorsed by state run institutions.) If they happen to say yes to any of these, you can stop having a conversation with them because they probably want you thrown in jail or killed. Don't forget the Against Me principle.

Do you realize that without stating the arguments, the conclusions mean nothing? What are the specific nuances of UPB that are challenging you? Murder, theft, assault or rape?

Yeah, it's like that, but I've actually had people close to me say, "Are you still not drinking?. Can I offer you a drink?" It's like they don't get it. I've stopped using the word alcoholic to label myself because it's not completely accurate. I abused way more than just alcohol. I prefer the term substance abuser or addict. Also, people who may be problem drinkers often joke about alcoholism like it's not a real. If you start presenting alcoholism to them as a real world problem that they should acknowledge, they get agitated. The first time I engaged people in a conversation like this, I was very straight-forward, and they seemed genuinely curious. I told them that I had given up alcohol, narcotics, and tobacco. The couple I was addressing were casual drinkers and dedicated pot smokers (stoners, for lack of a better term). They asked me if I felt better mentally and physically after giving up substances, so they showed a modicum of empathy. Other people at the camp out must have overheard me or learned that I recently gave up drinking because two women harassed me later on in the night when they were under the influence. I ended up telling one of them off, and the mood was chilly towards me for the rest of the night and the next morning. I feel that I was duped into joining this camping trip, but I should have known better. I thought it was going to be a simple weekend in the mountains, cooking out around a campfire, but it ended up being a thirty person strong party instead. The only other sober person there besides me was a teenager, the son of the guy who asked me if I was still not drinking recently. He's the one that invited me on the trip. I'm learning that non-addicts or people that refuse to admit an addiction are very unsupportive of me going clean.

Do you honestly believe that we have never seen the NAFALT argument used to white knight feminism? It is sexism at every level, radical and mainstream. Why don't you ever hear mainstream or casual feminists speaking out against this kind of radical nonsense? It's because all forms of feminism rely on the same fundamental argument of female victimization, which is patently false. To argue against one faction of feminism is to reject them all.

Big ups to everyone in the thread for being honest about their feelings and alcohol use. I want to second the notion that you have to understand why you are drinking. Four to five beers a night while staying at home is certainly a possible indication of trouble and alcohol misuse. In college, they called anything more than twelve drinks a week "binge" drinking. I had to take an alcohol education class due to substance abuse, but they didn't give me access to therapy. Looking back, I wish I would have asked for therapy. I was only required to take an online survey for the infraction of underage drinking. Perhaps most people don't really want to know why they drink. Alcoholics even avoid this issue at meetings. I went to a meeting and the topic of discussion was surrounding getting out of your comfort zone in social situations. This is precisely what triggers self abusive behavior and everyone knows it. Instead of talking about social triggers, I started talking about estrangement from my father, and my thoughts on child abandonment and I reflected on why I thought there was a connection. Everyone listened but I didn't see any acknowledgement in their faces. Many of these people had children of their own, but were too enmeshed in dealing with their own thoughts and addictions that they didn't see family to be a contributing factor. At the end of the meeting they gave a salute to a higher power, "God give me the strength to change..." I never went back for a second meeting. They also seemed unwilling to acknowledge that perhaps getting outside your comfort zone means you are hanging out with assholes. My friends from whom I feel increasingly distant, ask me about why I gave up alcohol. It doesn't sound like genuine concern to me. When I tell them I have a substance abuse problem, they act incredulous, as if I telling them they have a problem. They still invite me to hang out with them at bars. It's really fucking scary how when one animal escapes from the zoo, all the other creatures are subtly trying to coax it back into the cage. Just be aware that if you decide that you have a drinking problem, a bunch of people in your life are going to continue to encourage you to drink, either explicitly or more subtly. Maybe your willpower can handle this social pressure, but maybe you aren't that strong. You have to be firm and keep letting them know that you have a problem, otherwise they might get you back in the cage.

Can you state your case as to why you feel the killing and eating of particular animals violates universally preferable behavior? Where do you draw the line using your own logic? Are all non-mammals fair game for food? Why don't plants also benefit from your universal empathy? How much of your ethical perspective is based on objective definitions and how much of it is based on subjective opinion?