Befree

Good points. I agree. Paleo really improved my life. For all those unfortunate/fortunate people out there, like me, who are allergic to just about everything that isn’t meat based. The exercise and sleep got a lot easier and funner after I fixed the diet. It was kind of a positive snowballing effect after that.

I’m sure everyone on here knows the good libertarian books. Here’s two I like that you may not know. Survival of the sickest - Sharon Moalem (Kind of my intro book into epigenetics- It was a good listen) The painted bird – Kosinski (My favorite book in collage, one of the best anti-war books of all time)

I would say prepare your mind first and foremost. Know how you’ll respond to your fears in oh shit scenarios. If for example, your fears are isolations, hunger, rejection, death, etc than “accept” them before the SHTF scenario. That way your ready before hand. I think building relationships is good, but people you think you know tend to change in oh shit scenarios. Don’t count on them being the same people when the fear hits. Prepare yourself first and count on others second. After that, I personally focus on the essentials: Temperature, water, food, and a good assault rifle (to fend off bad guys). In that order you will probably die if your not prepared. I say temperature instead of shelter because a good jacket might be more appropriate in certain scenarios than shelter and it comes with less baggage. Great question. How are you personally preparing?

Specifics about what? The bridge and the apoloGy part? In principle, nothing is malicious with teaching in sequence. The problem is, in practice, the teaching usually ends up not happening at all. Think about how many deserving lost boys never find the word because the “enlightened” hide it, pretending to be its protectors. Sad. Is it really worth trusting priests who, instead of enlighten, create mock ceremonies, when in actuality, they were probably too afraid to go out into the real world and do the steps alone. NO! SORRY! You can do it alone. Fuck Priests! And fuck the masons! Teachers shouldn’t withhold. A right is something you are entitled to at birth. Like the truth. People who hide the sun, you should be wary of. They are selling you their angle on God. They’re probably trying to cheat their way into heaven.

Maybe you should just join. And then get back to us and let us know how it went. I doubt they’ll force you to swear to secrecy or anything like. Sorry I couldn't be more helpful.

I don't need to give you anything. Go to the temple or do the research for yourself? My guess is you already did, or you wouldn't be so adamant to defend masons. I’m not speaking negatively against all Masons, mainly just the overly ambitious ones at the top. But, since you seem to be an expert, how about you give "me" specifics on how they aren't like all the other religions of the world. And for the record, let me better describe my “nefarious suggestions”. Priests of the masons only give you enough truth/knowledge to keep you somewhat satisfied. And then they sell it as the whole truth. And they do that in order to keep you from climbing too high up the pyramid. And then they use Police any time you try to climb up the pole of knowledge on your own. Typical priests behavior. They say they are protecting the knowledge but they are really just hiding it in order to control you. What Police force do you work for Patrick?

Good point. Rite is probably the right Correct word. Because, it could also be interpreted as the "lefts of passage". Sorry, always had a hard time telling my rites from lefts. Most religions can claim the same. I’m not saying there isn’t good masonry. What I am saying is, like most religions, it has been hijacked. The gatekeepers give a spoonful of sugar (truth) so you don’t taste their poison. Its best to do the rites alone. Lessons are best learned the painful way. They stick better.

Priests run to the temple. Warriors run to the mountain. Keep in mind this is just my opinion so take it or leave it. I’d personally recommend hitting rock bottom before you make the decision to join that house. You may find that the person you are, after you do, isn’t the person you were when you had the urge to join. If you’re looking to build your manhood, avoid the empty words of priests. Any word or action not built on courage is a lie. You should, instead, take the rights of passage. Think of them like the 12 Pillars of Hercules. A grand adventure! Do you remember that scene at the end of India Jones where Indiana has to take the leap of faith across the invisible bridge? The steps are kind of like that. Remember, only courage and penitence will get you passed the 12. Good luck to you. I hope you find what you’re looking for.

Any thoughts or theories on Jade Helm? I'd be curious to know what you think on the matter. If you don't know what it is, here is an interesting video i just came accross on the subject. https://youtu.be/GdwCztOZBk0

Fucking awesome. I’m in love.

I think this is a question of, do I want to die slow or fast (economically speaking). I’m not sure I want to choose either of those options, but faster seems better. I could be wrong here, but if we starve the beast (by paying the principle on our loans and slowly deflating), it will still lead to a collapse, eventually. Am I right? Because banks/governments are still going to “print” and inflate until we get there eventually. And worse, if we drag it out, the infrastructure we have, will have degraded to the point of being worthless (and more war/state like), when we “do” reset the markets. And that infrastructure includes all the atrophied young workers who are currently clawing desperately to hold on the lowest rung of the economic ladder. The longer we wait, the more zombies we’ll have on our hands later. And that zombie hunger will work it’s way up from the bottom. First the hunger will devour the poor, and then the lower middle class, and then the upper middle class, and so on until eventfully the upper, upper, upper class will be left with all the power in the world. Currency wont matter at that point, we’ll all be willing to hand over our lives to the first dictator who offers us a meal. Or am I wrong? Do you think we can correct the market by paying our loans and just not creating new ones? And if you do, do you think that will stop them from printing and stealing? And if not, aren’t we still going to end up at the inevitable conclusion of hyperinflation, leading to that inevitable deflationary zero? Sorry, if my statement wasn’t clear. When I said “deflation”, I meant the eventual deflationary zero (or collapse to be more clear).

I agree 100%. But to answer your question, we “should” poke the beast, and here’s why. If we don’t, “they” will continue to use the federal reserve to control the narrative, by choosing when to pop the dollar bubble. And, as the deflationary swings occur, like the small one we are seeing now. They will use that to buy up the real assets at the cheap, while giving the illusion to everybody else that there is a small recovery. Meanwhile, in Russia, they will force Putin to play his hand and drop the dollar. Making all those dollars come home to the US of A, and that will cause a hyperinflation/inflation type scenario, causing everybody to sell stock and loose their minds. Meanwhile, at the stock exchange, they buy everything on the cheap and before anybody realizes the slide of hand, the banks and the people in the know, will own nearly everything. And to make things worse, they will blame it on their enemy, so they can kill two birds with one stone. That’s why we need to control the narrative and cause deflation on our terms. And we cause deflation by not paying our stolen loans. And of course, this is my opinion. I’m sure there are a hundred variables I’m not seeing and it could go many ways. I’m curious to hear how you think it will play out?

Than enlighten me by speaking the truth. Answer the question I asked, for the third time now, and I shall lift your status as “fortune cookie” by conceding to empirical evidence. Did the bank have rightful claim to the money it lent out?

If only you could see yourself, little house cat, and truly see that you are a lion. Sorry, you should educate yourself on history. “Violence, war, and violent revolutions” have achieved freedom many times. Like Scottish independence and sovereignty from the brutal occupation of England, which I alluded to in the video, which you called “insane”. Or how about the American revolutionary war, which was very violent. That violence created, arguably, the greatest human experiment of freedom the human race has ever known. History is full of violent revolutions, some leading to tyranny and others to freedom. Like any tool humans have within themselves, it is the intent behind that tool that is virtuous or non-virtuous. Sorry, those people who call you a pacifist are misinformed. The next time they call you that, tell them that you are the opposite. And if you don’t know what to say to clear up their confusion, tell them this: Imagine a world not like the one we live in, but one that is violent. And imagine that in this violent world, in every handbag, there was a 357 magnum and the will to use it. Imagine that tucked under every shirt was a Beretta and a constitution to back it up. And strapped on every ankle a Smith and Wesson Governor and a declaration to the world that this pacifist is willing, at any moment, to have a funeral. And in that violent world, you wouldn’t have to put “blind faith” in the illusion that people share your values of pacifism. The reciprocity of staring down the barrel of a gun would be enough. And ironically, the unintended consequences of this more violent world, is that the world would be far less violent. Funny how that works out. The problem with the world isn’t that it is too violent. The problem with the world is that it’s not violent enough. Ask the Swiss. They love a good fight. The problem is nobody likes to fight them.

I think this sums up my feeling on the subject.

Good point Powder. And I really like your avatar by the way. Cat’s rule! But, it doesn’t matter if you’re afraid of grizzly bears. You can’t out run them. But you can grab a spear and stand your ground. If you run your dead, if you fight, at least you have a chance. I agree, the fed isn’t the source of the abuse. The source is the man on the other side of the mirror.

Your right, I did pat him on the back, but I didn’t describe his theft as noble. I described his theft as theft. The same way I described the bank’s theft as theft. However, I did refer to his decision to punish the bank and not incentivize future theft (for both his and the banks crimes of theft) “as noble”. Is that what you meant to say when you shoveled that word salad onto my lap, accusing me and my sovereign belief system (that theft is immoral, even if it’s perpetrated by a bank), as a “prejudice”. Because you didn’t actually answer the question I asked. You just said words like “onus,” “prejudice,” and “deflect” without actually stating why that is true. Maybe you’d like try again, by actually answering my question, instead of doing what you accused me of. “deflecting”. Here is the question I Asked in case you forgot? (If you’d like to “provide any evidence that” the bank “did” have “legitimate claim to that which they loaned him” I would be glad to hear it?) And “yes”, ellisante35 “did” allude to the possibility that the “bank” and “government” where the originators of the loan, in his initial statement, when he called them criminals. However, your right, it’s possible that when he referred to “banks” and “government” as criminal, he could have been referring to a loan from “kickstarter”, but I doubt that. And your right, I shouldn’t have called you a “wannabe fortune cookie”. That wasn’t very thoughtful of me. I should have called you what you really are. A troll dressed up in a pink bunny outfit. 2103 post but nothing to actually say. Sad. “Prove” me wrong.

If you’d like to “provide any evidence that” the bank “did” have “legitimate claim to that which they loaned him” I would be glad to hear it. Beyond that, I’m getting a little tired of the one-liners you constantly dish out dsayers. It’s like your trying to be a fortune cookie or something.

You can’t write up a contract for a stolen item, and then say it is a legitimate contract.

Sorry, I disagree. There is nothing free about a market that is this regulated. Did you really just say that our market is “far from restrictive”? Are you saying that the US dollar, which currently has around 3% of its original value, is far from being restricted? As far as I’m concerned, we only have 3% free market left. And the illusion of free market, you speak of, is probably just the technology that is propping up the 97% statism. With exception of that 3%, the only free market is the black market. Because all the other markets have perverse incentives behind them. Taxes, subsidies and decadent mob minded building projects of statist proportions, etc, etc. And those perverse incentives are designed to corner the market and enslave us with false choices. You can’t escape statism and achieve free market by paying your taxes/loans. But you can end it by not paying with your labor. That’s what I’m arguing here. Letting the system fail and reset is the only moral thing to do. People shouldn’t strive to be free marketers in a statist system, by playing by the rules of that system. They will just end up as slaves. For the same reason you don’t show empathy toward evil people. They will just use it against you. That’s why the banks set up the regulation the way they are to begin with. To entrap poor “virtuous” fools into thinking that if they work hard they will be rewarded after a lifetime of hard work. But in actuality, all choices the banks set up are false choices (not to say no good can come of them). I argue It’s only the illusion of choice. Choice is only a choice when people have an actual “free” alternative to that choice. And yes, I agree that kickstarter is a better choice then Wells Fargo. But, I’ll be honest; I didn’t know kickstarter gave out student loans. And if they do, I would say that as long as there’s not stolen money involved, it would be an ethical and consensual transaction. Assuming that the money that is being loaned out doesn’t have a perverse incentive behind it. Maybe he should have gone to payday loans for his education loan. EndTheUsurpation YouSaid: “You are misinformed about banks, in general. Banks don't want debtors to pay off loans.” Are you arguing that the interest banks charge on unpaid loans, but not actually collected from the debtor, is loaned out as future money and not the opposite? Because what I’m arguing is that the money you “do” pay in student loans is what is loaned out to future debtors (creating more inflation and theft). Because without the cash down, brought in as payment on loans, they can’t use that 10% down to print 90% fake currency into existence for the next uniformed debtor. Now, if you’re arguing that they don’t need that money down to loan out more currency and expand the money supply, I would be curious to hear more. But that aside, the real question I’ve been arguing, is that the current financial system is theft. Loaning out stolen money is theft and shouldn’t be rewarded by paying back a stolen loan with real labor. And yes, I’m aware that if everybody did that, it would create a deflationary scenario that would destroy the current monetary system. That’s the point. End the theft. End the fed and regulation and the abuse will end. Fun topic. Thanks for your response and the linked resources. I agree, the creature from Jekyll Island is a good book. However, I recommend this link: it is a much easier resource to understanding fractional reserve banking and money in general. It’s got a lot of visuals. Disclaimer: it is a little corny, but still good.

Good point, EndTheUsurpation. You’re right, in a free market these problems would sort themselves out. The problem is that we do not and have never lived under a free market. So to argue from the point of free market isn’t helpful. And neither is voluntarism, if you’re dealing with someone who is holding a gun to your ribs. And the gun that the bank is the holding is the government, in the form of thousands of banking regulations, which makes it illegal to use anything but that banks contract. And seeing how it’s illegal to use a competing currency or bank to obtain an education who isn’t under that evil umbrella of those regulations, he didn’t actually have a choice when he signed the loan, because he didn’t have an alternative choice to make. You either use the king’s currency or get thrown in jail for pouching deer in the king’s forest. Hunger is not a choice. So, the “set of assumptions”, I would argue, that paying off the debt is immoral is that if he does pay off his loan, it will incentivize the bank to loan out more stolen money in the future, and continue the criminal enterprise of counterfeiting and inflation via fractional reserve, hurting everyone “BUT” the bank. If he chooses to not pay back the loan, it will hurt the bank, and disincentivize future bad behavior from both the bank and loaned individual, who were the guilty parties to begin with. Accepting responsibility for our crimes is the first step to self-knowledge and enlightenment. And the crime here, isn’t choosing to not repay the loan to the bank, it’s that he took out the loan to begin with. (He accepted stolen money, which can’t be repaid in restitution because it was stolen through inflation. He could burn the money, in restitution, but that would also be illegal) Either way, he’s still paying for that loan even if he chooses not to pay it back. And that’s all written into the contract that he signed. But what isn’t written into the contract is indentured servitude. And indentured servitude is still illegal under the 13th amendment of the United States and makes the contract void, to the extent that they can’t force him to work. They can’t kick down his door in the middle of the night and steal what isn’t being offered freely without voiding the contract. The contract is only a contract if he is operating freely and not under duress of guns, poverty, or hunger. The bank knew that risk when they issued the loan and the only leverage/penalty the bank has on him is reduced credit and garnished wages. And even that can be fought. Good job Ellisante35, keep up the virtuous fight.

I responded to this in more depth earlier, but my post got moderated. So, you’re going to have to wait for them to review it and immoderate it. However, to answer your question as simply as I can, I would say: It isn't a "voluntary chosen obligation" if a gun is being pointed at you.

Absurd because it’s not what I said. I do not print money to spend at the supermarket. I don’t loan out counterfeit money. I don’t use the government to protect my money from competition. These are the guilty parities we are talking about here, not “everybody”. I’ll use the car analogy, once again, to explain this. If X steals a car and sells it to Y, who buys it, both X and Y are liable for damages because both committed theft of the car. However, no rational person would say that Y is more liable for damages than X, seeing how X stole the car in the first place and then packaged it up as legit. And it would be insane to reward X and punish Y, and that is what you are saying. Reward the banks, reward future abuse. Punish Y, who got sold a stolen car, with indentured servitude. SLAVERY! YOU SAID: “The fact that the government controlling that fiat currency stole from everybody to make it and likely devalued it in the interim is irrelevant.” Tell me again how theft in a debate about ethics is “irrelevant”? And, when you say “government”, I’m assuming that you mean bank. The bank controls the currency in a monopoly and the government is the gun that the bank uses to scare off competition, in this case in the form of competing currencies. If someone wants to take out a loan in gold, but can’t because using competing currencies is illegal. It’s not a voluntary choice to use that particular banks currency. It is the bank pointing a gun at that person and saying: “use our currency or we’ll have you thrown in jail or worse”. And as pretty as people package up words like force/theft in “voluntary loan” word wrapping paper, unknowing people won’t know the difference. YOU SAID: “This is not a hypothetical. You transact with others using fiat currency. You do not take things that belong to other people pretending that you're liberating items they've stolen since they acquired it with fiat currency. You demonstrate in your daily life that you do not accept the very claims you continue to pour copious amounts of effort into asserting. What isn't clear to me is why?" This statement doesn’t make sense. Sorry, I don’t understand the point your trying to get across.

Accepting counterfeit US treasury notes, when its illegal to use anything but US treasury notes, is theft. The same way accepting a stolen car is theft. Because there’s no choice to use anything but the US treasury note. And I’m assuming the bank that issued the loan didn’t use existing currency and loaned out printed currency (via fractional reserve, as most banks do). Ellisante35 committed theft by accepting stolen currency and should suffer the consequences of a reduced credit score, garnished wages, etc, bla bla. (which isn’t saying much, seeing how near every college student in this day in age is in a similar circumstance). And in a perfect system, where there where competing currencies, fractional reserve currency wouldn’t be a problem, because that market would put that particular bank out of business. However, in a system where it’s illegal to use anything but US treasury notes as money (accept in Utah, to a certain extent) theft of currency is still theft. Theft is theft no matter how you phrase it. Even if it’s packaged in an idealized free-market word like “Loan”. Because that loan is theft of other people’s goods/services through inflation. And seeing how that loan can’t be repaid (as the current money, to do so, doesn’t exist), all the best intentions in the world won’t repay it. Repaying the loan isn’t a choice; it’s fear of slavery. It’s an impulse. Not choosing to pay the loan is a principle. A principle is a choice. So, the only real choice ellisante35 has “is” to not repay the loan. He is choosing to be virtuous, as difficult and backward as that may sound to people who support the current banking system out of fear. And that is a very brave thing to do, especially when the government has been known to break down doors with swat teams, for unpaid student loans. (Ironically spending as much money in swat team salaries/expenses than they could collected). Ellisante35 I commend you for you bravery. Choosing not to pay back your loan “is” taking responsibility for your crime, assuming you understand the consequences of not repaying the loan. Yes, you should be proud of your decision. I agree with you.

Chosen obligation to who? The bank? He initiated theft by signing the loan to begin with. Repaying it would just be doubling down.