J. D. Stembal

You get this argument with any libertarian or minarchist who works for the military. It is grounded in the theory that humans are inherently violent and warlike, which they aren't. The flawed thinking states that soon as we turn our heads away from foreign policy or politics in other regions, another country will jab the butt of a gun into our collective backs and make us their slaves. Well, guess what, we are already slave to a government - the United States of America! The contention that anarchism or voluntarism will never work are motivated by the fear of the advocates of Statism losing their own "merit" and "resources" through the adoption of a stateless society.

Five minutes in right after he mentions Tesla. Personally, I started rolling my eyes at the point where he claims that Gaia provides us with an unlimited source of "free energy".

To add clarification, the attack on my prying came one or two days after I first asked her son if he was being spanked. She was visibly troubled and began crying when she finally believed that her son was being spanked against her wishes. If it were not for me inquiring, she would not have found out. It is clear to me that she would rather have continued to remain ignorant, because when I followed up with her to find out if she was going to talk to her son about it, she snapped at me and said that she didn't want to discuss it, but it was not in front of her son. She planned to confront her husband about the spanking without her son there to share his input, and I was of the mind that she needed to include her son, or at least ask his feelings about it. All he had said when asked was that dad hit him only when he was bad (implying that he deserved it). It was perfectly clear that her son had already normalized the abuse. When I took his toy he fought me tooth and nail to get it back, and then asked me if I wanted him to go hard on me. I told him that he was already fighting hard enough and did not need to go any further. That's when he sucker hit me in the dick. He felt that my actions were unjust, even though I told him I would give his toy back later, and he was looking to punish me for acting unjustly (perhaps I was). Instead of negotiating with me with words, he was bullying me with physical aggression. His dad was teaching him to deal with problems in this way, since his mother never hit him. I thought about it for a couple weeks before asking him if his dad spanked him in front of his mother. It was a calculated gambit on my part to get her to see that her child needed help, but she just used it as ammunition against her husband, and did not really care about her son's well-being. I never received any appreciation for uncovering the spanking, and instead, was treated with hostility by the mother when I tried to help. Single moms are one of the greatest threats to the future of the human race. I'm a long way from building a solid case, but we'll get there.

I have contempt for university research studies. What is the real purpose of analyzing gender in this simplistic manner? Why is it that the research regarding men is so clear, but the mystique behind the behavior of woman is somehow still in tact? This is exactly the kind of fruitless research that receives government funding.

I find it hilarious that she doesn't waste one word mentioning the father or fathers of her four children, and what his role might have been. We're led to believe that women can spontaneously reproduce, and raise families while simultaneously working out of the home. I did it all on my own, ladies!

Thanks for the post and the video, jacbot. I recall when my ex and I were reading Rothbard's For a New Liberty, she started to lose interest at about the point he starts exploring the role of the intellectual as an agent and advocate of big government. Being a PhD, she also has a vested interest in the continuation of the close relationship between the academic and politician, analogous to the former relationship between the priesthood and the monarchy. Not coincidentally, she also had a habit of emailing me links to Psychology Today. Returning to the PT article, I am extremely weary of people conflating social Darwinism and free market theory. It's the same faulty mode of thinking that says anarchism must be bad because without a government, the world would devolve into sectarian or tribal warfare, which is an argument that completely disregards that this is exactly what we have today with the blessing of the state.

Indeed, the violation of consistency is palpable to me. The argument against urban homesteading usually contends that it decreases property values, so if there is a new development that goes up and buyers move in to find out that there are dozens of chickens next door, they are going to feel like that have been cheated and protest to the city council to force you to give up your chickens. Or they could just complain about the noise. The tragedy is that self-sufficiency is a desirable trait to promote among the constituents of your local community, so more people would voluntarily practice urban homesteading if the entitled squeaky wheels of the neighborhood didn't have a city authority to which they can appeal.

This does not mean that Swedish children do not suffer abuse. Look at all the violations of property rights tied up with a socialist state. It's bound to trickle down to the family.

Just because you can find an example of a culture that once practiced collectivism, it doesn't follow that the current manifestation of the state is not a violation of voluntarism and property rights, and by extension, freedom. Capitalism is the philosophy of property rights, manifesting in free trade, and incorporates the psychology of individual economic interactions. If you want what I have more than what you have, and I want what you have more than what I have, and we come to an agreement on an exchange, we are exercising free and voluntary trade. If we come to some other agreement, such as sharing our goods cooperatively, it is still a voluntary interaction. Cooperation and collectivism can always coexist with Capitalism as long as they do not invalidate voluntarism. Therefore, collectivism does not necessarily exist to the detriment of free trade. I haven't yet watched the linked video, but I intend to do so and thank you for sharing it.

I was going to post this the other night but I couldn't get past the second or third paragraph, and mentally discarded it. I shouldn't have proceeded past the writer's bio.

Don't pretend that feminists care one bit about what men feel or care about, and by extension, what their kids care about. A feminist woman wants three things: a successful career, a family, and a man to facilitate this dream for them financially. If you aren't constantly assisting them in the pursuit of this goal, then you are going to get thrown out with the morning paper. I once lived with a single mother (just as room mates, mind you), who was separated for one year from her husband but not yet divorced, with shared custody of an eight year old boy. This kid was a moody, chronic liar, kleptomaniac, and worse - sometimes physically violent. It never occurred to her to ask her child why he behaves like this. After he elbowed me in the groin once for taking a toy away temporarily, I asked him if his dad ever spanked him as a punishment, using my new knowledge derived from Stefan's anti-spanking videos. It turns out that this woman's estranged husband had been spanking him since they separated without sharing this information with her, but she never cared enough to actually ask her son. The mother was overwrought finding this out from me and her son that it took her ten minutes to actually believe the story. Apparently, her and her husband had agreed when their child was a baby that they could never use corporal punishment. She then attacked me for prying into her family life. It's clear to me that she didn't want to know what was going on in her child's life. She was too focused on other concerns, such as finding a new boy toy, on top of her already demanding career. To put the boy's abandonment behavior into sharp relief, this single mother often worked 70-75 hours a week, spending roughly 30 hours with her son on the weeks she was responsible for custody. The bulk of her son's supervision was provided by the taxpayer, the lowly public teacher, and daycare workers. Her on and off boyfriend provoked severe jealously in her son. This poor kid was so starved for mom's attention, dating and keeping a man was not a reality for her. I also found him to be a very cold and detached human being with sarcastic tendencies and self-deprecating humor, not the kind of male role model most people would choose for their kids, and definitely not a man who had much in the way of self-knowledge. But, hey, the sex was good, or so I heard. The last straw for me was a comment she made about desiring another child. I asked her, "With whom would you raise another child?" Having no steady boyfriend, I thought it a necessary and critical question. She brushed it off saying, "Oh, I don't know. It doesn't matter. I'll find someone." This is the very essence of the glaring problem with women today. They don't know what they want in a man, they don't know what they want in a career, and they have absolutely no concern for the psychological welfare of their own children. Somehow, a male of substance needs to enter their lives and manage all the craziness for them because it's all too overwhelming alone. If I was a potential suitor for this woman, I would say "No thanks, I'm not crazy enough for you." We have to start holding women accountable, and stop letting them get away with this "I deserve the best of all worlds" mindset to raising families. My heart aches for her son, and now that I've moved out, I can do nothing for him. My only wish is that he doesn't end up slaughtering innocents like Elliot Rodger did.

I take issue with Laci's transgender adventure video. Why must the accusation of ignorance be leveled at people not able to understand the reasons behind a complicated life decision? If a friend makes a decision to marry or date someone radically different than before, don't I have the right to be curious and ask questions about the cause of the new situation? What if a friend decides one day that he wants to begin the process of identifying and becoming transgender? Should I have the right to be genuinely curious and ask questions about the reasoning behind it? If I don't know you well and I'm not certain with which gender you identify, can I openly ask you without causing shame or embarrassment? Why exactly does this have to be a delicate and touchy subject? Here's an interesting article about a 22-year old male model that recently came out as trans. https://www.yahoo.com/health/model-andreja-pejic-comes-out-as-transgender-92841649992.html An article about the same model undergoing SRS: http://www.refinery29.com/2014/07/71780/andrej-pejic-sex-reassignment-surgery-andreja I found this quote troubling: Personally, I don't take the issue of surgically removing genitalia very lightly being an infant when I was circumcised against my will, which has often negatively affected my enjoyment of sex. I also understand that not all male to female transgenders will elect to hormone therapy and sex reassignment surgery (NATALT!), but for the few that choose to go that route, I would want to ask them why they decided such a radical solution. If I knew a man who was considering becoming a female, I would be curious enough to ask some difficult self-knowledge questions first. Is that acceptable or considered politically incorrect? Why should I be concerned about offending sensibilities when he is at the point of enduring difficult and expensive elective surgery to become a woman? Will being a woman make him happier? Are women, in general, happier than men? Why would that be so? I would turn the conversation towards feminism and the war that has been long waged against children, especially young boys. Knowing what we know about the role women play in child abuse in the home, isn't it a little concerning that more then 1300 men each year elect to undergo sex reassignment surgery in North America alone? How many women claim to be discontented with their gender or treatment of their assigned gender? How many of women who feel that they are discriminated against for their gender will subsequently seek SRS to become men? This is not a rhetorical question; I was unable to find any data as yet on female-to-male SRS. For added perspective, here's a web site I stumbled upon about the tragedy of transgender regret. http://www.sexchangeregret.com/

I got into a disagreement with a service employee once when I emphatically stated that I do not factor the sales tax into the tip amount. She called my behavior stingy, which is hardly the case as I've tipped $50 on a $100 bill before. The service always has to warrant the tip, though. I feel that most people have largely been brainwashed by the industry (and the single mother/waitress stereotype) to tip 20% for mediocre service, which creeps up higher if you are tipping based on the total bill, including sales tax.

This topic has long been my personal ax to grind. I could go on and on about it for hours but most people start tuning out after five minutes.

I am kicking myself a little bit for not buying in mid-May when I was on the fence about it. I keep tossing USD$100 at it every time it dips, I never really understood the bubble psychology explanation to bubbles. I'm not saying it doesn't exist, but I don't think it is the sole determining factor to formation of investment bubbles. Much of it has to do with the nature of fiat currencies. People are so keenly aware that if they sit in cash for too long, their money will lose purchasing power, so they're willing to throw it at just about any investment opportunity that comes along, including alternative and speculative currencies. For certain, there is an effect of psychological behavior on investment, expressed as a mean, but the bubbles of the last century are ripples caused by the Federal Reserve's central banking system first and foremost. Never forget that he who pays the piper, names the tune. What will happen to BTC prices when interest rates start bounding up, I wonder? I'm not claiming to have a crystal ball, but I am genuinely curious about the topic. How much purchasing power will the Bit Coin have in 5, 10, 15 years? How will it compare to the five precious metals, and other durable commodities? I also have never been keen to put a lot of stock into technical analyses. Here we are, almost August, and BTC in under $600 again. Not that I'm complaining, but what predictions or news hype is behind your confidence in seeing $1150 again - soon?

You've stumbled onto an aspect of male sexuality that it often misunderstood by women The typical anxiety and rigmarole associated with courting women - The Game, as it is often called - leads some men to reject it and explore other avenues to sexual gratification and spiritual satisfaction, thus leading to the massive profits involved at all levels of the sex industry. It's much simpler to have a porn subscription than to study "the Game" so that you don't repeatedly get taken to the cleaners and then stiffed on the sex out in the dating pool. Personally, I blame the feminist movement for the state of male affairs, especially in the dating sphere. When was the last time you went out on a date with a woman who insisted on covering or splitting the check? The mere existence of the PUA community should be an obvious indicator - the literal canary in the coal mine - that the power balance between the genders had been pushed totally off-kilter.

Jake, cows eat grass, not corn. Ethanol as a biofuel is not sustainable. It takes more energy to produce ethanol than it yields as a fuel additive. I'd link you Chris Martenson's Peak Prosperity seminar that deals with fossil/bio fuels but I can't directly link to the video now (I don't think it's behind a paywall, if you want to Google it to check it out.). Corn is one of the most resource hungry crops known to man (4000 gallons of irrigated water per bushel). Do you understand the amount of ecological damage this thirsty plant wreaks on the biosphere? I'm not opposed to anyone planting it in their backyard, please understand, but when almost 100 million acres of corn were planted in the United States alone last year (http://www.nass.usda.gov/Newsroom/2013/06_28_2013.asp), you can't help but take a step back and examine how industrialized agriculture is practiced at the expense of the biosphere, the taxpayer, and our health.

If you rely on feelings to convey a message, it is bound to be misunderstood. I couldn't make much of it until I stripped the -ism words out. It still doesn't express any significant amount of sense, but I am a FDR listener so I've got that going for me. I wouldn't characterize the writer as a communist, though. I can at least have a conversation with a communist as long as they understand that I only accept their ideology on a voluntary, small-scale basis. This writer is just spouting pretentious nonsense.

I would characterize any environment where you don't have direct contact with your children younger than age six to be a negative situation. Constantly paying other people to watch your kids for you is how your children's morals get corrupted, When the parent-child bond is completely eroded by abuse, you no longer have any of their respect and they don't value your input. Do some research about the effects of child abandonment on children when they become teenagers and young adults.. Children suffering from abandonment issues are more likely to be drug abusers, rapists, drop outs, and murderers by large margins. Look at this case study of Robert Hawkins, https://www.itsallaboutabandonment.com/.

This reminds me of a Japanese proverb: 出る杭は打たれる ("The stake that sticks out gets hammered.") The tax slaves get nervous when those around them start displaying unusual modes of behavior. We really do police ourselves. Look what happens if you are careless enough to run around naked in public where fragile sensibilities could be offended - http://thehumanist.com/january-february-2010/naked-pumpkins-sex-offenders-and-terrorists/ (I am torn on the example of the spanking mother arrested for terrorism.)

I am sorry, Phuein, but maybe I am misunderstanding your position and not realizing it. I don't see any fundamental difference in the voluntary nature between fixing a toilet for money and agreeing to clerk a store for money. What if you agree to fix my toilet, and then before I pay you, I also ask you to sell a bunch of stuff I want to get rid of on Craigslist for me? Surely, you would say no, because the agreement involved a toilet and nothing else. Similarly, if you are hired as a store clerk, and one day the store owner asks you to unclog and clean the toilet, you could refuse. If it was a small business, and you are cleaning the toilet every day in the normal course of your job, you would have been told beforehand that it was expected of you. In either of the previous circumstances you can reasonably refuse to do the work, but you can't continue to not do a job that is expected of you and still get paid without making a pretty airtight case to the customer or boss. Yes, you may get canned or that customer may decide to never call you again as a handyman, but that's the price of having self-respect. Many will look for a way to trick you into doing a task you didn't agree to do or don't want to do free of charge. Just don't do it. That is voluntarism. I made fun of the coffee example on purpose. When was the last time you saw the head manager in an office building commanding his underlings to fetch him his coffee? As I understand it, this happens on military bases all the time, but anyone of sane mind (military personnel are excluded) would laugh at him. You might be asked to make a coffee, as a favor, but why can't you politely decline to do so?

I was put into daycare from five months to nine years old. I was a latch-key public school student from age ten. From five months to eight years old, I was mostly alone with a housewife whose kids were college bound or older. Her husband, when he was home, might as well been Homer Simpson, sitting in front of the TV with a can of beer in his hand. The only aspects about this babysitter I recall are her name, that she was a smoker or hung out with smokers, that she would take me with her shopping to many stores, and that I was required to sleep in the middle of the afternoon for an hour, possibly every day. I'm not sure if the nap time was a punishment of incentive to sleep. It felt like a punishment and I never slept but laid there watching the clock. Considering that this is not your typical daycare, and allowed for a lot of one-on-one interaction, I mostly spent my time playing with toys, running around outside, or watching TV - all largely unsupervised. From eight to nine, I had a teenager who sat for me in my parents' home. To this day, I have many lingering abandonment issues. I am an alcoholic and drug abuser, but thankfully, I don't use any more, I deal with my stress and anxiety in healthier ways. I am extremely promiscuous, and currently not in a relationship at 35. This is the wonderful reality your child will endure if you send him off to daycare for his entire childhood. Please don't do this to your kids! Stefan is right on the money when he urges parents to stay home with them until they are at least four, and practice peaceful parenting. I like the oft quoted by Stefan four-to-one adult to children ratio that many hunter-gather societies are shown to have in their communities. If you aren't at least giving your child a ratio of one-to-one for most of the day when younger than five years old, how can you count on them growing up to be psychologically sound?

I am very much interested in the topic of industrialized "monoculture" and the environmental, social, and health implications derived from it. We are out here, and we are getting nervous. The reason why we have an industrial farming economy mostly driven by the Big Three (corn, wheat, and soy) goes back to the Agriculture Adjustment Act passed in 1933, part of Roosevelt's New Deal program, which set the stage for a central authority determining how farmers behaved. They would pay subsidies to get farmers to let fields lie fallow to drive prices up. In the 1970s, there was this pervasive idea in scientific circles - which persists today - that the world's population growth would far outstrip it's ability to feed itself (the Malthusian Catastrophe). This faulty concept was used as a pretext for Secretary of State, Earl Butz (appointed to the position by Nixon) to revamp the AAA, removing the subsidy to non-producing farmers, and urging farmers to grow as much corn as possible to feed the world. The scientific projections were inaccurate, much like the doom and gloom global warming projections of the 1980-90s, so as a result we have corn in everything. It's in your beef and the rest of your food (hello, high fructose corn syrup). It's in your gas tank. It's everywhere, because of farming subsidies and a manipulated market overreaction to the fear of overpopulation. When you say alcohol based society, are you referring to ethanol being used as a fuel additive? It is very frightening how hard it is to find ethanol free fuel if you live anywhere near the Corn Belt. The last time I filled up with ethanol free gas, it cost US$4.30 for a gallon, so there is a secret hidden taxpayer subsidy for gasoline through ethanol use. No one talks about this for some reason. Ethanol production is a net energy negative process, which means, unlike petroleum fuels, more energy goes into making ethanol than you get out of using it. This is after considering how damaging corn production is to the biosphere. Every bushel of corn requires 4000 gallons of irrigated water. From where is all this fresh water coming? How can it be argued that using ethanol is environmentally ethical? I haven't touched on the health implications of all this yet, but I'll let that rest for now. Instead, I would like to ask you for some book recommendations. I love to read. I will list some of the relevant ones I've obtained and read so far. Wheat Belly by William Davis - He includes a brief history of the origins of wheat in the human diet and explores the negative impacts of wheat consumption on the human body. Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan - A good source of information on corn, corn-fed beef, and CAFOs. The Vegetarian Myth by Lierre Keith - You can derive some environmental insights if you can wade through her constant blaming of the patriarchy. I've been meaning to read Weston A. Price's Nutritional and Physical Degeneration, which explores the diets of people around the world, and the health repercussions of a "modern diet". I haven't landed a copy yet, but I know it's a lengthy read. I do not know a thing about Transhumanism, so I can't comment on that, but if you are interested in exploring more sustainable options for agriculture, ceasing to feed cows corn (cows are supposed to eat grass), and putting corn byproducts in every food and fuel at the corner store. One of the alternatives that is frequently discussed is the cassava - http://r4dreview.org/2010/03/cassava-improving-sustainability-of-farming-systems/

I've cracked a couple of the ranty feminist books and whoa boy - I had to put them right back down. Are there any diamonds in the rough in the genre? One book that's worth reading cover to cover? I am genuinely curious.

I hope he is the first against the wall. What a big, fat joke!