jason_

This is silly. I've done my best to find flaw with the by-law proposal (as I thought was the part of point of this thread) and defend it when challenged. So you don't like what I've posted? So we chat about it. There's no reason to take it personal, get snarky, and down-vote. I don't think I've been rude or insulting, and I don't think I've violated any other rule of this community. While it's a nice thought that all children are flawless reflections of good parenting, it's not the truth. They are people too, and to think a scenario would not arise where they would take advantage of a rule that restricts the parent -- and who's enforcement could jeopardize the living arrangement -- seems naive.

That's what we're discussing, a law. I'm not getting at anything. I'm providing my feedback as the poster requested. To ignore the potentiality I've raised, and many times witnessed in both single-family households as well as households of mixed individuals and family. Remember, we're talking about 80 adults with 20 children. That presents ample opportunity for this situation to come about. Take those numbers a couple of generations forward and there's a lot more; also I'm assuming people will be allowed to join the community. How were things at your house when you were a teenager? What about your friend's houses? Some kids can be very rebellious and defiant. Remember this is a rule for how to behave in residence together. Others were asking how they thought these rules would be enforced. A good question. Suppose there is a problem child. Believe it or not they do exist. Should we not take that child and the members of their household into consideration as well? Perhaps you're assuming a child will always yield, or never break a prior agreement? I think the root of the issue is, should this community have laws that govern what goes on inside of the household? Do you want people within the community to worry about or disallow taking in children who were not brought up within the community? Suppose a relative who is a parent dies and their children come to live in the community. It could happen a child is traumatized and acts out by bringing home items not allowed. There are lots of potential instances were negotiating with a child or any person fails. Do we want to confound the parent/guardian-child relationship with what one guy wrote down one time?

I believe the way the law is written, it could be argued that the child be free to keep anything they desire in the household -- households with inevitably varied compositions, unless they're laws I don't know about against that. Therefore, I believe it's prudent to consider the situation where even a reasonable, yet not fully mature, child brings some unexpected thing into the household that conflicts with one of the others. --edit-- What's the down vote for?

And if negotiations fail? While I do think that negotiations can succeed, I've seen where with children, or anybody, it does not.

Hi Jpahman, So as to use the broken instrument to fix the broken instrument? Hi Guys, Is voting a futile act? Will indeed the outcome be basically the same? I believe these to be two fair questions. In my experience the answer to both is yes. For Pete's sake! the current president's campaign slogan was hope and change. I didn't vote for him and I'm happy for it. Now I can honestly say I didn't believe his bullshit -- even though I was tempted; which is different from when I didn't vote for Bush -- at 18 years old -- but voted for the lesser of two evils candidate. Would Al Core have prevented us form invading the Middle East? Maybe the narrative would have been different, but what about the outcome? It doesn't matter which bullshitter one votes for, things will be more or less the same as long as the power structure is in place. It's corrupt from top to bottom. By withholding the vote, we can see who actually wants this system to keep functioning.

Then the parent shall allow any and all items the child brings into the household?

When it comes to "confiscation of property," what about materials such as pornography? Could parents forbid certain items and if a child independently obtains items and brings them into the house, could they then be confiscated?

My post on Donald Trump's position on eminent domain and the Kelo v The City of New London case started a dialog on voting for the lesser of two evils. I thought I'd start a thread here to continue that discussion. On one hand, the act of casting a vote for the politician you believe will do the least harm helps insure that the least harm will be done. On the other hand, low voter turnout demonstrates a lack of faith in the system and could be used in arguments for reform -- hopefully towards a more libertarian system -- or as a welcoming signal for new ideas. As far as presidential elections go, I've usually chosen the second option, except when Ron Paul or Gary Johnson were candidates. But in current events, I'm leaning more towards the first because the United States is drifting closer towards socialism. Do either of these positions have merit? What are their flaws? What's your position on voting and why?

Cast as citizens, we have the option to vote. Would you say choosing not to vote has no consequences? A useful exercise is sometimes to think at the extremes. What if everyone voted? What if no one did? What about 50%? Wouldn't you agree each one of these scenarios yields different consequences? Assigning responsibility to inaction is called negligence. If one does not have the capacity to act, then I would agree it would not be fair to hold them responsible; this is not the the case with eligible voters. Do you have an argument for choosing not to vote?

I'd disagree. Inaction at one's job could produce a pink slip or other disciplinary action. To the extent we can make choices, we choose between different outcomes, even when the choice is not to act.

I'm not sure Trump's the best candidate, and I doubt Sanders would be impeached -- although Congress may give him a seriously hard time implementing his retarded ideas. If Hillary Clinton isn't going to prison, I'd offer that up for consideration of why Sanders wouldn't be impeached. That chain of presidents you brought up also shows how corrupt the system is and that it's about to collapse under the weight of it's own bullshit. I'm looking in the mirror. I've never bought the lesser of two evils argument, but consider this: You can vote for candidate A who promises to hurt 1,000 people, or for candidate B who promises to do worse to 10,000 people. Of course, you can choose not to vote, but that may produce a more negative outcome.

Unfortunately Rand Paul dropped out, but there is and has not been a Libertarian candidate and we're in the situation of slaves voting for a slave master. I wanted to share some of what I found in my research -- which included watching the first season of The Apprentice . I think this election will be important because we're headed for economic trouble and I fear that if one of the polarized candidates (Sanders <-> Trump) is elected they will view it as a mandate to push their agenda hard. I very much hope it's not Sanders as I don't want the US to move any closer towards socialism, yet a candidate with little focus on the Constitution is also something to fear. Trump's opinion on the Kelo v City of New London case demonstrates a lack of that focus or understanding, or respect of the Constitution. In my own opinion, I think that a personality like Trump's is exactly the sort we want to have market discipline and not the legitimized power of coercion. I know there's checks and balances, but there is still lots of power in the office of the presidency.

Something to consider if you are thinking of voting for Donald Trump: http://reason.com/blog/2015/10/06/donald-trump-thinks-kelo-style-eminent-d And if you're not familiar with the Kelo v The City of New London, it's a landmark property rights case that I think all Americans should be outraged about. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelo_v._City_of_New_London

Here's an idea: A smartphone application that allows users to stream audio and video to a server in the cloud. This could be used to protect citizen against unlawful police (or any other) force. Currently smartphones have the ability to record data, but these devices can be easily destroyed or confiscated. Applications such as Periscope and Meerkat enable users to broadcast live video streams, but, as far as I know, don't enable them to store the video for later reference. The idea application would allow for this storage and later reference. A use-case would be: A user is stopped by the police; the user starts the application and the phone's video camera begins observing the interaction; the data from the device is streamed over the Internet to an online server; when the stream is disconnected it is stored securely and indexed to the user's account for later retrieval. I'd be happy for any feedback on the idea, and if anyone is interested in working to bring it to fruition please let me know. I have the skills to work on creating such an application, but not the manpower to do it in any sort of realistic time frame.

I too am liking the fact that he's upsetting the clowns in politics and big media, but when I think of actually voting for him, it's out of fear of what life would be like under criminal Clinton or socialist Sanders, and it's sort of a policy of mine not to make decisions based on fear.

I second that! I think is was Cicero who said "those who know no history, are forever like children," and I've definitely observed a tendency in people around me not to mature. I don't think the kidults the author is reporting on are hurting anyone, except maybe themselves, and this sort of fuckery should be easy to ovoid. The worry is this type of thing showing up in schools and universities and "taught" and accepted by unwitting students of all ages.

According to Wikipedia, the decision in Aldred's Case -- seen by some as the birth of environmental law -- where Mr. William Aldred's neighbor, Thomas Benton, setup a pig sty close to his house and made home unlivable was as follows, If this you can consider this the "point of aggression," I think the question becomes how to enforce this environmental standard.

I'm a black coffee drinker; now that McDonald's has introduces McCafé, they have decent coffee and the price is agreeable. Starbucks coffee isn't as good, but the atmosphere is usually better. I look at the purchase of Starbucks coffee as rent on the table I'm sitting and usually working at.

Hi. I just want to point out that the "Inadmissible aliens" law comes from the US Code, which is federal law, and not directly from the constitution. Congress still cannot make a law that contradicts the Constitution. Thanks for posting the sources!

Hi JD, Yeah, I watched this. I'm watching Maloney's series too.

This is quite the idea. Thanks for sharing.

Hi J.D. I don't think moderate masturbation is necessarily unhealthy. Pornography is another, albeit closely related, issue. Personally, I don't find enough positive aspects to justify spending my time consuming it. Moreover, I find that if I don't watch, I put myself in the position of engaging with my sexuality differently. Part of that is the replacement of strange women (as in completely unknown to me) with women I know, or have known, or women I have the possibility of knowing better in sexual thoughts. Personally, I think this is a more positive psychology. I also have begun to wonder about how the sexual energy that is utilized when watching porn is otherwise put to use. Maybe that energy should be put into the service of making myself a more fit partner for the 'real' women that are in my life or that come into it? I think you're using an apt analogy, but when one considers the complete supply chain of both industries, I think it's pretty clear that on the whole the wise choice is to consume neither.

I've been on the path of cecesation myself. It hasn't been successful as I would have liked, but knowing others are attempting the same enhances my resolve. I think in the final analysis porn is a net negitive behavior (watching and performing). It's not necessairily evil, but it's corrupting and I don't see that it has so many redeeming qualities. Thanks all for sharing your thoughts on a paradoxicly common yet little disscussed issue.

I'd be happy if we could just get people to accept the NAP. Probably the rest would fall into place. I keep trying to talk to people about NAP and the value of freedom even though the effort hasn't been fruitful yet. It's more interesting. I hope you fare well in your circumstances there.

I think property value is related to the quality of the community the property is located in, but I wonder if people took the time (or had the time) to examine their communities how they would find them? Would most people agree that the land is used best? I've lived in different parts of America, and except for the old cities, the country's town and cites are characterless. There's endless repetition of fast food chains, big box retailers, car lots and gas stations, and strip malls (with most of the same stores and a check cashing place in each one). In my opinion, it's a sorry expression of human endeavor. What's the value of living in a place you really want to live in? Are homes in the median price range the kind of homes and communities people really want to live in? The house I live in is in a neighborhood with homes the cost over $1 mil, but there's nothing special here. In my opinion people are paying so much just for the weather, big homes, low crime, and good access to the major metropolitan area. There's not much one can do about the weather, but are people really wealthier just because they have a big home? If we had strong communities, could we not have low rates of crime almost everywhere? What if people could work and enjoy recreational activities in their communities? What's the point in being close to crime ridden metropolitan areas, if that was the case? I believe free market capitalism can bring about better lives for individuals, and communities with strong free individuals could be great communities indeed. But Kas, as you detailed in your post, people are locked into the way things are. The good thing is, it looks like central banks around the world are going to fail, and I think the question is upon us to ask: is our society's popular valuation of things in line with what would truly make us happy? The point I would draw out of your example and tie back to the video is, that value of a vineyard is subjective. To the vigneron who make it his livelihood to tend the vine it maybe worth more that anything else in the world to him. But otherwise I agree with your point about currency. It facilitates transactions. But where does that money get it's value is a key question that ought to be answered. I agree that bubbles can form in markets in general. I think it's more likely and more likely to be bigger when markets are not free to correct on their own and molested by political intervention. I wish everyone afraid of big corporations realized that in a free market, business that doesn't provide a value to clients, would go away. I know that software out there has contributed massively to productivity. Moving forward, I think those kinds of jumps will be further between. I think there's a lot of money on in the tech market because of "accommodative monetary policy," but many of the 'tech' companies are solutions looking for problems. Something a little bit more useful like WhatsApp comes along and it gets adopted by lots of users. So what? The things runs on phones and networks but that has nothing to do with them (as far as company value is concerned). And it took one good programmer to come up with it. How hard is that? I could probably start a kickstarter and do it. The situation with your friends and others doing the same (monetizing apps in a brick-a-brack ways and turning around and selling them) can only last so long. Think about what you said earlier, what value are they providing to society? Is it enough to reap sustainable returns on billions of investment dollars?