We are peculiarly at the mercy of police. Which goes a long way toward explaining why police are increasingly merciless. After all, they can get away with it. Physically. Financially. Legally.
Consider:
You are walking down the street, minding your business. A citizen accosts you. He physically assaults you. You have every legal right to defend yourself. To attempt to ward off his assault, at the very least. And if, in the process, you happen to knock the bastard’s teeth out – that’s his problem, not yours. As the saying goes, he started it.
Legally, you are protected as there is no requirement in law – yet – that one must supinely accept being assaulted and sort it out after you’ve been assaulted through the courts. Not only may you defend yourself, you also have the option of filing charges and pursuing a civil case (or both) against the person who attacked you and if the assailant loses, he will be held personally liable – criminally as well as financially.
All the foregoing surely serves the healthy purpose of discouraging most people from wantonly assaulting other people. They may have the desire to throw a punch at you, but they are well-ware of the consequences of doing so. Including the possibility that their prospective victim might get the upper hand in a physical confrontation. Minimally, there is awareness that an ordinary person may not lash out violently at others with impunity.
Now consider the same scenarios – but instead of citizen v. citizen it is citizen v. cop. Citizen v. dirty cop. Like, for instance, the rapists-in-blue in Oklahoma. Or the trigger-itchy South Carolina enforcer of seatbelt laws – who shot a man (and could easily have killed him) for this “offense.”
In the case of the former, the women assaulted had no viable legal option to resist. Indeed, the rape-cops could have charged them with exactly that – resisting. And the courts would accept this at face value. Any time a citizen refuses to comply – regardless of the circumstances – it is presumed to be resisting, and a criminal offense all by itself.
In the case of itching-to-kill SC cop, had the seatbelt scofflaw seen the psycho cop draw his weapon in time to perhaps wrestle it away from him, he would almost certainly have found himself facing multiple felony charges. But the cop in this case has not even been charged with recklessly discharging a firearm.
It is unlawful to so much as hesitate when a cop barks an “order” at you. And heaven help you if you dare to physically resist a cop’s barked orders in any way – including stepping back or walking away from the cop. They have acquired carte blanche license to assault us at will – to almost any degree – over the pettiest infractions. See, for example, the video making the rounds of the Illinois cops dragging a man through the shattered window of his vehicle, then Tazering him into submission… over his girlfriend’s failure to buckle up for (cue irony meter) “safety.”
Now, there are two ways this extremely serious problem of running-amok cops could be dealt with short of the complete de-legitimization of “law enforcement” and all that portends (none of which is good – either for us, or for them).
* One, re-establish the right of self-defense –
Cops ought to have no more right to commit assault than ordinary citizens; indeed, when a cop does commit an assault under color of law, it ought to be treated with even greater severity. And no citizen should be required to submit to an assault, nor punished for having defended himself against an assault. We are lectured constantly about “equality.” Surely, equality before the law ought to apply to those who enforce the law? If we may not assault them – and if they may defend themselves when assaulted – then why mayn’t we? Are cops now a protected class endowed with special – superior – rights? If so, America is no longer a country governed by laws that apply to all but one of laws that apply to some – enforced by others.
* Two, personal accountability in cases of negligence or criminality –
If an ordinary citizen recklessly discharges a firearm (or drives recklessly and wrecks) and an innocent victim is harmed, he faces being held personally liable for the harm caused. This sensible policy ought to apply just as equally to cops as to anyone else. It is outrageous – and incredibly dangerous – to hand a man a weapon, a vehicle (and so on) and let him know that he will not be held personally responsible in the event he handles either negligently or criminally, causing harm or even loss of life. But this is the way it is.
Under the current regime, when a cop causes harm – including as the result of negligent or criminal conduct – the taxpayers are held up to pay for the damages. In effect, the victims are made to pay twice. Thrice, actually. First, they are forced to fund the “work” of those who abuse them. Then, they are abused. And finally, they are made to pay to compensate the victims of the abuse.
The abuser himself walks away.
Imagine if the insurance policy you’re forced to buy “covered” your neighbor’s idiot teenage son. And that said idiot teen knew the very worst that would befall him if he drove his car recklessly and killed someone would be the loss of his car and perhaps his privilege to drive it – but that you’d be the one footing the bill for the mayhem he caused.
Yet this is the system currently in place for the costumed elite – who, not surprisingly, act out like idiot/entitled teenagers.
This has got to stop – or it will be stopped.
The sooner those in “law enforcement” are forced to abide by the same laws enforced on us, the sooner we’ll all pull back from a very scary precipice.
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If you believe in a creator, why seek to negate or prohibit the free operation of creation?
Should the creator at some later time, speak to man regarding his creation. It makes no logical sense for him to ask man to override the previous rules of his creation.
If this voice is truly the creator. Then the possessor of this voice has become evil and debilitated. Why wouldn’t the creator just alter his creation to his liking.
Any voice in your head asking you to go against what is already created, is not a being with the ability to create. This voice is clearly an enemy of creation, a force of evil and not a force of creation, regardless of the identity of the voice.
do you FULLY accept the market as your personal lord and savior. Do you TRULY pledge not to NEVER interfere and impose your beliefs on others using force of any kind?
Or are there exceptions in your mind. What if the market in question are roads dominated by inconsiderate fucks with no courtesy or regard for their fellow drivers whatsoever. What if the ditches are filled with people hawking their wares to those traveling by, with no regard to the adjoining property owners preferences.
What if the market includes loud partying neighbors, who won’t listen to your pleas for quiet. What if you can’t afford the price the market demands in order to solve your noise problem. And you’re forced to endure something and you find yourself powerless. Will you really acquiesce to the market, and seek intelligent solutions without resorting to force. Or will you reach a breaking point and chimp out sooner or later against the market?
What if the market in question is the internet, filled with diabolical spammers who inconvience millions for every dollar they make? Is there a point where a market becomes so dysfunctional that you do advocate intrusion by forces of order?
What about billboards everywhere ruining your enjoyment of nature. What about broadcasts that wash over your property without your permission. What about nonstop assaults on your time by salemen. What if your real life becomes a living version of spam. Where nearly everyone you meet is trying to sell you something. What if social order as you know it goes away, and everyone is a relentless huckster with no off switch?
What about retail districts where crimes occur, and the merchants there decide it isn’t worth their effort to stop them. What about industrial neighborhoods where rapes and murders occur in the adjacent lands. And the industrialists figure it isn’t their problem. What about door to door salesman that come by your place while your at work. And try to lure your children into bad things. Who proposition your wife. Men who say they’re better than you, and that your family should leave you.
Do you really accept the market, regardless of how bad it sometimes get. Do you commit to only improving the market, or accepting things the way their are. Will you truly adhere to the NAP in all cases. Or will you find yourself tempted to intervene, just this one time. Just in this one egregrious case where the market has become evil and unfair. Where the market is harming some to the benefit of others. Do you really even understand what a market is?
It’s easy to see the evil of theonomists. They advocate destruction of spontaneous order on the imagined orders of their Sky Savior. But do you see your own evil. Do you see the error of your ways when you advocate the destruction of spontaneous order for your imaginings of what is moral and what is fair. Are you so blind, and cognitively dissonant. That you think you can have the prosperity that comes from a market. And also have the comfort and tranquility that comes from some class of people having a mechanism to negate the market for whatever reasons they find sufficient.
Repent from your failings. Commit only to the mechanism of the market and to no other. Accept no authorities or systems of coercions. Accept only the spontaneous order of the market. And expect only your own opportunity to right the market, whenever you find it inadequate or lacking in some way. Refrain from destruction of the market in all cases. Not just in the cases that you find the market tolerable and acceptable. But rather refrain from each and every destruction of the market, in any and all cases.
Morning, Tor –
I’ll take the pledge.
Hell, I already try – and so far as I can tell – have succeeded – in orienting my actions in life in accordance with the NAP.
I am also beginning to seriously contemplate Option B: Radical Throwing in The Woods. Selling off most of my stuff. (I already have one bike listed.) Gathering up whatever resources I can to buy a small cabin as far away from Clovers as I possibly can get. And enjoy my books – and the time I’ll have to enjoy them (which I have not had in several years now).
My personal tipping point is so close I can sometimes feel its presence nudging me in the ribs. Only so many sunny days remain, you know?
The day the Terrorists who hate our Empire of Freedom attacked our Death Star.
How much do I love the Market and The Agora? I wouldn’t oppose an individual opening his own Soylent Green Factory right next door. That’s my “insane” level of commitment.
Every day there’d be trucks full of dead pets, departed family members, batches of aborted babies from clinics, murdered prisoners from local prisons and jails, murdered undocumented aliens rounded up by the Federales. Capitalism and industrialism at its most brutal and basic.
I wouldn’t opposed cans of Soylent Green being sold right there in my supermarket. $0.79 a can. An all white label with large green block letters. Soylent Green – A proud product of the Zappos Food Corporation. 70% human, 10% dog, 10% cat, 10% assorted other rendered animal flesh.
If someone wants to buy it and eat it. Good for them. If my neighbor accepts $50 cash for signing a contract with Soylent Green to make the final arrangements for his grandmother when she passes away, good for him. It’s none of my business. I’m for allowing a real market, with all peaceful possibilities. Includes some that seem good, and others that seem bad. Sometimes very very bad.
Not to worry though. That kind of Laissez faire and market thought is dead here. People just acquire and hold. They are utterly clueless about making profit from their property. They have only assets and the liability of keeping everyone else at bay.
Everything is either or. Almost every American is either a helot, with no significant property. Or a vassal, who owns significant wealth, but only in the way a vassal holds an assigned limited ownership.
Not in the way a freeman with a functioning mind might own property, and see how he could use it to his advantage and profit, given some forethought.
Any American who tries to use his property beyond this vassal role, to build his own factory, or means of production, even to use his own dependents to his own advantage, will quickly find the helots and vassals ganging up against him. And self-righteously robbing him and giving his improperly used property back to the state, for reassignment. The nerve of some men, thinking they aren’t mere vassals of the Lord of the Sky or the Lord of the Common Morality.
And this is why vassals are so absolute about no one being allowed on their lands for any reason. Being vassals, and not freemen, they are incapable of conceiving of using other men for their advantage in a cooperative sense. Give me $50 and you got 4 hours of all you can hunt. Give me $100, and you can sleep and work in my woods for a month.
Vassals are only able to officially hire people through the state system of homage and fealty. Only able to buy things through the state system of buyers and sellers. Otherwise, they jealously patrol their holdings and make sure no one steps foot on them without their express authorization. Their free market IQ is about 50, at best.
It is only the American criminal class, and the marginalized classes that still practice some free trade and participate in true exchange and agora. Vassals and men of respect and status are all either lone wolves, or they band with their neighbors in a kind of feeble fiefdom.
You might see a vassal’s produce stand out in the country that is one of these kinds of fiefdoms. Because the vassals can only agree on their rights to sell limited, low margin commodities that no one could be offended by. These roadside stands are tolerated because they are only cosmetic and will not result in anyone become truly wealthy and rising above his vassal status.
If only the vassals were true freemen, then everything under the sun would be held for sale at these roadside stand. Some of the vassals kids would be there. Slaves for a week, would read the sign. Do with them whatever you non-violently will. $1000 for the ugly ones. $5000 for the cute ones. Even cans of Soylent Green, were they to exist. Vassals would never stand for this of course.
Vassals are all either Christian monotheists. Or atheist monotheists. Atheist monotheists don’t belief in any intangible beings. But they do still believe in a one size fits all monotheistic form of self-governing. They are no less oppressive than the Christians. In their cynical form of live and let live, it is only allowed that you live in a way that doesn’t offend any of your fellow vassals. Which is to say, very little to no freedom at all.
It’s easy to proclaim oneself a free spirit. Because you know all the other vassals in your fiefdom have your back. They won’t let anything new or different come about. Vassals love the status quo. And love harkening back to how great things used to be. Ignorant that it is their very own prohibitionist, anti-capitalist mindset that has made things so very bleak. The helots have always been opportunistic louts. They haven’t changed. Its the vassals who’ve lost all intellectual ability to buy and sell things. To offer whatever services they can provide to any and all market buyers at whatever it will bear.
Vassals never want to start at the beginning. They want to sell things from the beginning at a profit, unwilling to do the work and sacrifice that it takes to define and then defend a market of your very own creation.
– – – – –
Of course the Bible was plagiarized by the Jews and then culturally stolen wholesale by Paul and the Christians, and then again by Mohammed and the Muslims.
Buddha‘s mother was told by an angel that she’d give birth to a holy child destined to be a savior. As a child he teaches the priests in his temple about religion while his parents look for him. He starts his religious career at roughly 30 years of age and is said to have spoken to 12 disciples on his deathbed. One of the disciples is his favorite, and another is a traitor.
He and his disciples abstain from wealth and travel around speaking in parables and metaphors. He called himself “the son of man” and was referred to as, “prophet”, “master”, and “Lord”. He healed the sick, cured the blind and deaf, and he walked on water. One of his disciples tried to walk on water as well but sunk because his faith wasn’t strong enough.
– – – – –
Transitions; Morals; Alliances and Dissolutions – A Conversation with Paul Craig Roberts
“This old anvil laughs at many broken hammers. There are men who can’t be bought.
The fireborn are at home in the fire.” – Carl Sandburg
So Eric, you want to know what the difference is between a sin and a crime?
Anything God, in His recorded word, says is wrong is a sin. As creator, and thereby owner, of the universe, He gets to make the rules. And He is quite capable of protecting His word.
For example, in Exodus chapter 20 He sets out 10 principles. The next 3 chapters are examples of how those principles are to be applied, what is known as case law. (there are many other examples in the Torah, but this is the largest single compilation)
Some of these sins have punishments attached to them, execution, restitution, stripes, etc. These designate crimes, as the civil government is expected to deal with them. If it is not a sin, it is not a crime. However, not every sin is a crime. If there is no punishment linked to the sin, then God has reserved punishment for Himself. E.g., failure to lend to your poor brother.
Another way to say this would be, if it is not immoral, it should not be illegal, but not everything that is immoral should be illegal.
Now as for the question of ‘victimless crimes,’ if God has said it is wrong, then He is the victim of violating that standard . But again, remember the difference between a sin and a crime.
You may say that if I believe that, I am not a libertarian. Well, I never claimed to be. As I understand it, the basis of libertarian claims to individual rights is self-ownership. Well I do not own myself. God, the Creator, owns me. I do, however, find much in common with libertarians such as you and many of the others on this blog, and I enjoy interacting with you. (Some of you even enjoy some of my humor.)
Can I prove that I am right? No, but neither can you prove that I am wrong. At the end of time we will find that out. I am not here to try to convince you, just offer my point of view.
@Philip- I would take the position that most if not all “victimless crimes” were made no longer crimes by 1 Corinthians 5. Paul says that excommunication from the church “purges the evil from among them.” That is the same phrase used to describe execution in the Old Testament. My theory is that the reason for those penalties in the OT was that Israel WAS the church at the time, and thus death was used as a form of excommunication. Thus, I don’t think homosexuality, idolatry, or adultery should be actual crimes under modern laws.
That said, I do have some philosophical issues with the strictest applications of the NAP. I certainly agree that non-aggressive actions should be legal. But I can think of situations where “aggressive action” could be justified at an individual level. For instance, suicide shouldn’t be a “crime” but does that mean you should just watch as your friend is about to jump off a bridge to his death? I don’t know, call me a criminal self-ownership violater, but I’m going to save his life and worry about what happens later. Or consider the case of children. Parents can spank their children without being charged with a crime, even in most libertarian legal systems, but some would argue that spanking is “aggression.” My answer would probably be some combination of “not really” and “so what?” At the very least, I think strict NAP can only be applied to adults. Which I know is the standard libertarian POV, but its something that’s worth clarifying, one way or another.
David, I agree that excommunication is considered ‘covenantal execution.’ But both Israel and the Church in Paul’s time were under Roman oppression. They did not have the authority for physical execution. That’s why the Sanhedrin took Yeshua to Pilate, the Roman governor – by their (twisted) standards he deserved to die, but if they did it themselves, then Rome would execute them.
So, what argument are you making Philip? That ideally homosexality and idolatry would be crimes, or that they should continue to not be crimes?
Hi Phillip,
You’re quite right that I can’t disprove the existence of god – but that is not my burden because I am not claiming this being exists. It is the burden of the person making a claim to prove his claim.
Mind, I am not claiming god doesn’t exist. I am stating what seems to me to be inarguable: None of us really knows. Because none of us can prove it.
We believe (some of us, anyhow). We feel. We may be convinced absolutely that we “know.” But such “knowledge” is of a very different sort than, say, “I exist” (because, hey, here I am… my existence cannot be denied; or rather, to deny it would be ridiculous on the face of it).
I understand that Christians honestly and earnestly believe in their god. Just as the Shia and Sunni believe honestly and earnestly in their god. As the Romans believed in their pantheon and so on through the ages.
I’m not questioning anyone’s sincerity. I am simply noting the fact that millions of people believe sincerely in things that are beyond proof, that are personal beliefs – and (on my soapbox now) I would really like for everyone to chill out about their personal beliefs and not demand others abide by them or even acknowledge them as being more than opinions that others are free to agree with or not.
The exception being – of course – anything that causes harm to others. Beyond that, laissez-faire – leave other people alone. Leave them in peace – to live their lives as they see fit – and keep your opinions (if unsolicited) to yourself.
As far as “sin”: For this to be coherent, one would have to produce a victim. That is, bring god into the courtroom. It is not enough to say, “it is written” or “god ordains.” No, he doesn’t. Men did. Or at least, that’s all that can be proved. One may assert that the various holy books were “inspired by god,” their contents literally the product of divine agency. But this is not something that can be proved, only asserted. I mean no offense. I understand that people deeply and sincerely believe that their holy books are the literal word of god. But this is faith, not fact. If I were to claim my own books were divinely inspired, it would be taken as ludicrous on the face of it. But, why? What is the difference?
And, once more – to be very clear: I am not out to discredit anyone’s religious belief; I am merely responding to assertions made by religious people. In particular, assertions that strike me as indefensible and certainly at odds with the Libertarian idea of live – and let live.
Thanks for your thoughtful reply, Eric. And note, I was not promoting Theocracy as such, even though that does not meant what people often think it means. But you asked what was the difference between a sin and a crime, and I gave you my explanation. Even if you don’t agree with my definitions, I think I made a valid point about crime. It the action is not immoral, (by whatever standard you choose to apply) then it should not be illegal.
People are constantly saying “You can’t legislate morality.” I beg to differ. It’s true that you cannot enforce moral attitudes, but you CAN legislate moral behavior. In fact, that’s the only thing you can legislate. It’s just a question of whose morality is legislated. In India they worship cows, so it’s illegal to eat a steak.
8SM, I’d be interested in seeing your evidence that the Bible was plagiarized. I find it more likely to be the opposite.
You bet, Phillip!
I always enjoy a good back-and-forth…
On the plagiarism thing:
It’s more in the way of recycling.
For example, the ancient Babylonian story of Utnapishtim, which is a dead ringer for the Noah story but predates it by centuries.
Mithra-Jesus.
The resurrection myths of the Egyptians.
The fact these and other myths (stories, if you like) seem to be both very old and also curiously pervasive among many of the world’s religions, both current and past, suggests there may be some deeper (if not literal) truth to them.
Who knows? I’m certainly open to considering possibilities.
Re: Noah/Utnapishtim – my belief (and I admit that it is just that) is that the Noah “story” is true and the source of the Utnapishtim ‘legend.’ Just because Moses did not get it written down until the Israelites were wandering through the wilderness, does not mean it originated then.
Pagan timelines are often vague and contradictory – see “Ages in Chaos” by Immanuel Velikovsky (an agnostic Russian Jew).
It may well be!
I strongly suspect there is a great deal we do not know about humanity’s history… and origins.
I think, for example, that there is strong evidence that “technological” civilizations existed in great antiquity.
I also think it is possible that humans are not natural products of evolutionary process.
Indeed, the “men of renown” and “giants” (and great longevity) spoken of in the Bible may be clues about a hidden reality that would startle any of us into stunned silence.
If the Noah story of a worldwide flood IS true, then many scientific theories based on the ideas of ‘constants’ or gradualism, like for example, an Earth millions or billions of years old, are suspect. ” “Geologists” look at the Grand Canyon and say it MUST have taken millions of years of erosion. But look at the canyons developing on Mt. St. Helens in less than 30 years. Yes it took a LOT of water, but not necessarily a lot of time.
According to the genealogies in Genesis, life spans approaching 1000 years were common before the flood, but began rapidly diminishing afterward. Likely something in the atmosphere changed at that time. I’ll cite Velikovsky again, this time “Worlds in Collision” as an example of a possible explanation of the flood.
I have a friend who believes that ‘mythological’ creatures like centaurs, minotaurs, etc. actually existed before the flood as a result of gene splicing, but were not taken onto the ark since they were not of God’s creation.
If man was created in God’s image, then cavemen were the result of “devolution.”
It’s fun sometimes to speculate.
Pay attention to ‘kook’ science. This is where learned people go off the rails of conventional dogma. They are professionally shunned, but they support their arguments far better than the mainstream. The mainstream arguments are usually very very flimsy if looked at with the same rigor as applied to kooks. Kook arguments hold up a lot better to the facts.
As I pay attention to various aspects of it, it’s pretty clear to me that a high civilization with cities around the world existed roughly 12K years ago. Then the ice age ended catastrophically. The survivors were scattered. They settled in among stone age peoples which were also scattered around the planet. From there civilization began a long climb back from start.
The stories are the same around the globe. The details a little different, the names a bit different, but the same basic story.
Current conjecture is that a comet struck the north american ice sheet sending the cataclysm off.
Anyways… gobekli tepe has amused me of late. Watching the mainstream guardians of dogma trying to deal with it is hilarious. They can’t deny it’s at least 12K years old so they have to try to incorporate it into their narrative that says it shouldn’t exist. The kooks will win out eventually as the mainstream narrative fails under its own complexity and absurdity to explain all the anomalies that can’t be hidden any longer.
BRENT, I am just starting to delve more deeply into lost civilizations study. The few books I have read so far are fascinating. Do you or anyone else recommend any good reads on the subject? I am especially interested in the Americas, Southwest US in particular.
The american southwest I haven’t read much on and it’s usually just passing notes in some other work. And well it’s been a few years since I bought any books on these subjects.
Fingerprints of the Gods is probably the best book I’ve read on the topic. But then I read one of the cited works, ‘maps of the ancient sea kings’. It was a little map geeky. Then there is stuff on the Sphinx and the pyramids and such… other books by Hancock. I’m too lazy to go to the shelf in the bedroom right now. An alternative source is the ‘ancient aliens’ stuff. They do decent work finding examples of anomalies but their interpretations are conclusion jumpy. Usually where they see aliens, I usually see the remnants of technology.
There’s a geologist named Shock (IIRC) who noted patterns of erosion at Giza – at the Sphinx complex. Patterns of erosion made by flowing water/heavy rain. This is of interest because it does not rain much at Giza. Not since about 12,000 years ago…
Another interesting tidbit: The orientation of Egyptian pyramids along the course of the Nile. Not the Nile in its current position. Its position a long time ago.
Hi Skunk,
Graham Hancock’s books are pretty good; also check into Hapgood (sp?) and pole shift. There are several excellent works available about puma punku, where strange interlocking blocks of great antiquity have been found that beg some hard questions. See also the work of the geologist Shoch about water erosion at Giza…
I’ve read one or two of the geologist’s books… just couldn’t remember his name last night.
I appreciate all the feedback. Do not mean to take the discussion OT but I like that there are others who enjoy “kook science”.
I have read a couple of Graham Hancock’s books and am a fan of Ancient Aliens (although the History Channel is the last place to turn to for any real history).
To be brief, my theory is that there are more dimensions of space and time than we humans can comprehend. But it sure is fun trying to.
Skunk, interesting that you mention more dimensions than we can comprehend. Modern physics is moving along those lines. It seems that relativity and quantum mechanics are valid only in their own respective areas. Application of relativity to the subatomic world or quantum mechanics to large bodies leads to absurd results that are clearly not correct.
Enter string theory, which attempts to reconcile the conflict by positing that elementary particles are not waves or particles, though they have characteristics of both. Rather, they are viewed as strings that essentially can give off different “tones.” For string theory to work, there have to be 9 spatial dimensions. A refinement, M-theory, requires 10 spatial dimensions.
I don’t claim to understand this stuff, but it’s laid out pretty well in Brian Greene’s “The Fabric of the Universe.” I don’t feel too bad, though, since Greene says that physicists don’t really understand it either; they’re still working on it.
MIKE, thanks for the info. Just added Brian Greene’s “The Fabric of the Cosmos” to my reading list.
I too do not understand all of this stuff in detail but I am certain the world is not as I was taught.
BrentP, why couldn’t it all happen again? There are probably ancient “civilizations” for lack of a better term that were lost long enough ago MN has covered them very deep, maybe to the point we’ll never know of them.
How long ago was it the heiroglyphics showed an ancient man who had witnessed what was almost assuredly space travelers? Dating images and carvings in caves and the like aren’t really accurate when it’s merely scratched out. Maybe dies and such used to make color can be accurately analyzed time wise but there are plenty things not easily accurately analyzed for time. Just some random thoughts since random is my middle name.
what happens again? This civilization goes away? Well I don’t think a natural cause is needed for that… our dear leaders and the ruling class seem to have things on that course all by themselves.
As far as aliens… well I don’t see why they would expose themselves to ancient man so much and then be so secretive today. Most of what was depicted outside of caveman type stuff could very well be a memory of what man once did. The technology depicted usually isn’t particularly advanced.
Something will be found sooner or later. Probably has already been found on the moon.
I don’t claim to know the answers, just have my educated speculation.
There’s an interesting series, Life After People. It’s sobering how rapidly evidence of our civilization would disappear if people did not maintain it. It would only take about 10,000 years for all but minor artifacts to disintegrate back into their constituent components, unless protected from the elements and natural decay. Imagine what would remain after 50,000 or 100,000 or 1,000,000 years… and the Earth is billions of years old.
Dear Eric,
Life After People.
I watched many episodes of that show on cable.
As an architect, it was a real eye opener for me. Amazing how quickly our steel and glass skyscrapers disintegrate into nothing.
So much for the pride we architects in having the bronze plaque on the cornerstone of the building!
Manmade things might last a thousand years, rock withstanding. Rock will last a few thousand or maybe a couple tens of thousand years longer before it’s degraded.
I do know a respected(if anyone can be called that by their peers)physicist. He became an aerospace engineer since the physics field was never funded for crap.
He says the brightest minds of physics think that something akin to the time gate of that show, Stargate, is the most likely way to have something close to warp speed or simply faster than light speed since it involves more than just speed. The most likely by their imaginations or calculations involve spatial dimensions.
Just passing this along since I don’t have a clue. I’m just smart enough to duck when somebody yells “duck”….. and may be a tad slow doing that.
Dear 8sm,
Stargate. Funny you should mention that. It incorporated Egyptian history and Ancient Aliens theory into SF, in an “All Myths are Real” fashion. Quite clever.
The Egyptians were dead on when they chose the pyramid shape, made of stone, as their attempt to create long lasting human artifacts.
If you think about it, the pyramid shape is the most durable shape one could possible make that would remain recognizable as a human artifact.
Any other shape is likely to lose its form when it collapses (tall skyscrapers) or look like a natural earth formation with erosion.
Bevin, so it has been explained to me, a pyramid truly does have power of its own. People who know more than I have used a pyramid shape to store grain because of its power or ability to keep it viable. Milk containers are pyramids(at least used to be and to some extent, the plastic bottle still is)to keep milk fresh for a longer time.
Maybe the only thing Hot Rod and I could agree on was the power of a pyramid. Even Tesla used a pyramid design for power accumulation and storage.
I’ve seen some mighty dumb theories as to why Egyptians and others such as Myans used pyramids. Many of those theories denigrated those people as I see it. There is more to a pyramid than four sides culminating into a point. I can’t prove it but those who seek to reduce it to its basic level can’t repudiate it either. So, how come grains, milk and other things last longer inside a pyramidal structure? Why is “power” of various sorts said to be concentrated and drawn to pyramidal shapes? I don’t have a clue but I don’t even know why I had a flat in the pasture today. And why is it called a “flat” when it’s only a tire that won’t hold more than atmospheric pressure? And it won’t hold less either.
Dear 8sm,
I would definitely not rule out some sort of energy effect at work.
Many ancient cultures have identified the same phenomenon. They merely gave it different names.
Chinese mysticism and Chinese medicine speak of “qi,” a form of life energy or life force that courses through the universe, especially through living organisms.
This is NOT “supernatural.” It is merely a natural phenomenon that has yet to be fully understood by modern science.
That does not mean that it does not exist, that it is not real. Unlike blind faith in Sky Stalins, which is based on psychological projection and wishful thinking, “qi” is based on actual, perceptible phenomenon.
One merely needs to sensitize oneself to its presence. Sort of like listening carefully and hearing faint sounds that one failed to hear before because of the background noise.
All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.
I think most here understand the wisdom of driving at a speed we have the skill to drive at. And of using safety devices we freely choose to is what’s best for all.
And most of us find it ludicrous when Clover says some special State Priests must decree what is the holy speed. And what is the holy safety device. And all who transgress against these state Priests will face the full wrath and vengeance of the State. So it is written in the National Scripture. So it is done.
I am far less sure that most here understand the wisdom of voluntarily choosing a mate who conducts herself in a manner I as an individual man have the skill to deal with. And of her and I choosing together to attend an Evangelical Lutheran church as a kind philosophical touchstone institution. A place with behavior recommendations we are both free to follow or ignore, whatever we each feel is best for among ourselves. No one else need be involved.
And most of us find it ludicrous when some God-Clover says only special State Priests can decree that woman be joined to us in the holy sacrament of marriage. And that this ordained union means we are stuck with the person till death do us part.
That carefully choosing our mates is good. And using birth control and planning for children is good. Just because some Man says it is. And some other conduct is bad. That getting drunk and having sex with all manner of people, many of whom you might not even remember being with afterwards is bad. Again just because some Man says it is.
It is Cloveritic, unless you can point to convincing evidence, to pretend that a woman who doesn’t know who the father of her child is bad. And that the woman who controls herself and her man. And knows who the father of her child is. And where her man is at all times. Is good.
It is obvious to you, the vast spectrum of what is right on the road. Yet it is obscurred to you, the vast spectrum of what is right in the bedroom and in the public agora. Some men sleep around and don’t cause any problems. Just as some speed and don’t wear seatbelts and cause problems. Don’t be so easily convinced to be a “Sex Clover” by those who argue from intimidation and historical custom.
God-Clovers say we must go to the Robed State Priest and get his special permission and authorization for altering our relationship. That having sex with more than one woman is violating the clearly posted sexual partner limit. That not wearing a condom, is like not wearing a seatbelt. And that all who transgress against the Family Court Priests will face the full wrath and vengeance of the State. So it is written in the National Scripture. Which is put in place by God. And so it is done.
It is not proven that a man who gets 20 different women pregnant and then has nothing more to do with them is of lesser value than the man who is celibate. Or is in a relation with a female according to New Testament Protocol.
Nor that the fat man who eats 5000 calories a day and sits on a couch, is of lesser value than the man who has 10% body fat and works out and jogs 5 miles every other day.
There are tendencies, and likelihoods. But underlying your disapproval of the promiscuous and the gluttonous, it is likely far less solid objective footing than what underlies your understanding of gravity or acceleration of force in a straight line.
Leaving the realm of the Clover is far more than merely recognizing the most obvious flaws of Cloveric reasoning. It’s also of looking deep into everything you think you know, and coming to valid conclusions and self-knowledge. How much of what I know is real. And how much of it is mystical superstitions that I really can’t logically support, if required to do so?
Your belief that holding a job and earning an income is a good, is not to be assumed without challenge. What about the taxes you end up paying. What about the good supporting the evil. what if people on welfare are less damaging than the productive people who submit to the commands of the state and provide the Ruling Class the tax resources they need to oppress us all?
What if the real freedom heroes are the ones that non-violently break the laws to thrive as rebels and not give material support to these bloodthirsty authoritarians? What if legally owning substantial real estate, homes, vehicles, and domestic goods is in fact a grave evil.
Because the only way you get those things is to simultaneously support the Vampire State. To be the true Welfare Queens. The minority with significant wealth who need the Armed Goons to keep all their shit out of the vast hordes of babbling grinning predatory morons.
I’m not an anarchist who condones harming those with wealth. Even if they knowingly support the state. I am an anarchist who asks the wealthy and productive class to not impose their preferred order on those less productive and disciplined. Less able and less skilled. Less moral and less rational.
I don’t want any forced redistribution from the well off to the poor. But I also don’t want any forced participation in a productive society, one that relies on forcefully civilizing and controlling our natural impulses for reason of profit and wealth creation.
– – – – – – –
Teachings of John Calvin on Marriage and Family [Teachings is Cloverese for Shit John Calvin demands goes down, or else heads will roll and violators will suffer]
Calvin made marriage and divorce, children’s welfare, and sexual sin matters of both church and state, and many of the reforms that he and others initiated – new rights and duties for wives in the bedroom, fault-based divorce on grounds of adultery and desertion, protection for impoverished widows, and more have made their way into civil and common law traditions on both sides of the Atlantic.
Like Luther, Calvin held a high view of marriage, seeing it as “a good and holy ordinance from God.” It was not, however, a sacrament any more than farming, building, or barbering, which were also ordinances, “for it is required that a sacrament be not only a work of God but an outward ceremony appointed by God to confirm a promise. Even children can discern that there is no such thing in marriage.” He scorned the Roman Catholic basis for sacramentalizing marriage by translating “mystery” as “sacrament,” concluding that Catholics were either deceived by the meaning of the Latin word or else ignorant of the Greek language.
At the same time, he insisted that marriage was instituted by God as a perpetual law in force until the end of the world. Any rupture of that law has its origin in the depravity of humanity.
For believers, marriage is an indissoluble bond, and spouses connected by marriage no longer have the freedom to change their mind and go off elsewhere. If they find it impossible to live with each other, they are bound nonetheless and may not take a new spouse. On the other hand, if an unbeliever wishes to divorce a spouse on account of religion, the believer is no longer under marital obligation. In such a case, “the unbelieving party makes a divorce with God rather than with her partner.”
Like Luther, Calvin saw adultery as the one cause for divorce in Jesus’ teachings. As far as he was concerned, the Old Testament penalty for adultery should be enforced, making divorce unnecessary, but “the wicked forbearance of magistrates makes it necessary for husbands to put away unchaste wives, because adulterers are not punished.” Divorce under such circumstances gives the innocent party freedom to remarry, for Jesus’ condemnation of remarriage as adultery applied undoubtedly only to “unlawful and frivolous divorces.”
Although Calvin was very conservative in his theological view of divorce, like Luther his practice was more liberal. His “Ecclesiastical Ordinances,” adopted by the Little and Large Councils of 1561, allowed three grounds for divorce and remarriage other than adultery: impotence, extreme religious incompatibility, and abandonment.
http://www.theologicalstudies.org.uk/article_divorce_snuth.html
John Calvin Marriage and Family Life
John Calvin sought marriage to affirm his approval of marriage over celibacy. Like Luther he disapproved both of celibate priests and of the institution of monasticism. He asked friends to help him find a woman who was “modest, obliging, not haughty, not extravagant, patient, and solicitous for my health.”
His marriage. In 1539, he married Idelette de Bure, a widow of a converted Anabaptist in Strasbourg. Idelette had a son and daughter from the previous marriage. Calvin had a family life. Only the daughter moved with her to Geneva. In 1542, the Calvins had a son who died after only two weeks. Idelette Calvin died in 1549. Calvin wrote that she was a helper in ministry, never stood in his way, never troubled him about her children, and had a greatness of spirit. They appear to have enjoyed a warm relationship and a happy marriage. He grieved her death, revealing a depth of emotion that many depictions of him fail to notice.
He wrote to Farel that he was all but overwhelmed with grief. He chided Catholic priests for pretending to be celibate while providing “for themselves while they can” and he described Rome as “a fetid and abominable brothel”. However, such sexual misdemeanors were actually excusable, since celibacy was contrary to nature in the first place.
John Calvin and the Institutes of the Christian Religion
Published first in 1536, the Institutes of the Christian Religion is John Calvin’s magnum opus. Extremely important for the Protestant Reformation, the Institutes has remained important for Protestant theology for almost five centuries. Written to “aid those who desire to be instructed in the doctrine of salvation,” the Institutes, which follows the ordering of the Apostle’s Creed, has four parts. The first part examines God the Father; the second part, the Son; the third part, the Holy Spirit; and the fourth part, the Church. Through these four parts, it explores both “knowledge of God” and “knowledge of ourselves” with profound theological insight, challenging and informing all the while. Thus, for either the recent convert or the long-time believer, for the inquisitive beginner or the serious scholar, John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion is a rewarding book worthy of study.
Saaaaaaaaaafety. Sinnnnnnnnnnnnnners.
RE: divorce, with all due respect to Luther and Calvin. Any sin punishable by death in the Torah should result in excommunication. The guilty person is declared “covenantally dead.” And thereby the spouse (unless they are also excommunicated) if free to marry again.
I would disagree with you on that point, Philip. Where does the Bible teach this? The Bible teaches that you are to remain married to your spouse until they die. Excommunication declares that you are being treated as an unbeliever, but there’s nothing Biblically impossible about being married to an unbeliever.
I find it ironic that Christians should be so concerned with homosexuals. The worst part about homosexuals, from a straight guys point of view, is they often work in common cause with many other authoritarians to disrupt and impede healthy male culture.
An ideal male friendly culture recognizes that women are seen as intellectuals and beings with important viewpoints and abilities to contribute. And at the same time, also seen as beings that might be objectified and seen as physical vehicles to have sex with and produce children with.
If everyone could be cool about this. Could let laissez faire reign supreme, life could be grand for all concerned. Including the homosexuals and Christians. Leave men alone to act as men, and they can’t help but carry along all the sundry low productive and unproductive subgroups that want to merely squeal and prance around. Or want to ready fairy stories and chant and holler about magic sky people.
Many homosexuals have recently behaved like squeaky fifth wheels and participated in the thwarting of what should be straightforward and simple protocols for dealing with the duality of women in an intelligent and beneficial to all way.
The problems homosexuals cause, however pale in comparison to the wanton destructiveness of most Christians.
The covenant of Christians is to violently remove the foreskin of their infants. It is to redirect a good deal of the healthy male sexual drive into serving some kind of otherworldly being. To be blunt, Christians are seventy times seven more queer than homosexuals when it comes to their bottomless desire to thwart what could be straightforward and simple protocols for dealing with the duality of women in an intelligent and beneficial to all way.
And Christians are such nasty sneaks about it too. I see David over at RonPaulForums getting all doe eyed and being surprised that libertarians are so concerned with sexual freedom over other freedoms.
Well no shit, we’re concerned. It’s been scientifically proven that males value sex over food even. That means it is often THE HIGHEST NEED OF ALL.
Just like the clovers pretend they are the innocent reasonable ones, all the while supporting cagings and murderings for seatbelt and speeding violations. Christians also pretend they are the innocent reasonable ones, while supporting an intolerable hell on earth culture for every red blood sexually healthy male.
The Babylonians wisely used churches to find mates, and for men to select from a large pool of faithful women who came to the commons for the natural purpose of being chosen and of choosing their mates.
Homosexuals were around then too, and their small minority did their business in a similar way, while not impeding the majority males who built all the temples and provided all the food, transportation, and everything else everyone counted on.
Highly attractive single females held the highest of high stations in ancient times. Before the scourge of Christians settled upon free men like streams of anti-sexual locusts and ate out everybodies sustenance and made normal sexual behavior nearly impossible.
The Muslims are following in the Christians footsteps, and are making quite a misery in their own right. But they still have a long way to go before they cause as much damage and destruction as have the Christians.
Sure the Jews were annoying, but they tended to keep to themselves. They weren’t clovers who wanted to convert everyone in the world. They considered themselves above the rank and file of the world, and they didn’t want a lot of outsiders around that didn’t understand their ways. Exactly in the same way that Eastern Asians conduct their societies today.
Clovers are easy to dismiss they are pathetic low intelligent worshippers of the state. Christians are more difficult to dismiss, though most of them are as bad or worse than the clovers. They are often highly intelligent and the things they worship are complex and seem to have real substance if you don’t analyze their beliefs thoroughly.
When you look at what Christians really accomplish. Writing things. Building places to worship. Redistributing wealth. You start to realize they are far less productive than regular men who use their sex drives to live normal lives, rather than to serve some incoherent fuzzy common good with little to no rhyme and reason to it.
Worse than Christians low accomplishments. Is their unparalleled ability to screw up everything for normal, non-circumsized, non-herd minded sexually frustrated. Jizz for Jesus useless fuckery.
If you Christians want to get your queer boners on stoning people. Burning animals for sacrifice. Mindfucking women to deny their sexuality. That is your right. But don’t expect us to have any sympathy or love for any of the craptastic folderol you come on here to peddle.
Clover is a second hander, and can’t do a blessed thing without the state. Most of you Christians are first hand Stalins and Nurse Ratcheds of the worst sort. You are clear and present dangers to healthy heterosexual males of all kinds. Leaving aside the threat you pose to homosexuals, idolators, and non-believers for the moment.
The Jews wisely hide their books, and are well aware, that if any regular person read what was in the Talmud, they might reasonably seek to evict them from their society ASAP. The Christians want everyone to see their psycopathy. Like Jeffrey Dahmer proudly showing you what’s in the fridge.
Or like Wild Bill proudly showing everyone the scriptural passage that empowers him to demand that “Ye Puts The Lotion On Ye Skin, Or Else Thou Gets Thee Hose Again.” [Book 3 of Malaki. 2nd Letter to the Children of the Corn]
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/peter-degroot-shot-by-police-in-slocan-investigation-confirms-1.2798446
This is/was Peter DeGroot, a man in his forties, who according to neighbors was a decent fellow who had fallen on hard times financially and mentally. They claim he wasn’t dangerous and there was no need to kill him.
When police responded to a domestic call that for a yet unexplained reason included DeGroot, DeGroot shot at the officers with a rifle, and then ran into the woods.
The shot fired by DeGroot and the returning fire from the police caused no injuries, and a manhunt was on.
For the next 5 days police searched the town of Slocan, B.C., in Canada, and finally found him in an abandoned shack at a rock quarry, where DeGroot was killed. No details about how/why he was killed have been issued by the RCMP.
What’s more immoral you guys?
Supporting a death penalty for homosexual contact on the testimony of two or three witnesses (without the mass surveilance state.)
Or
Supporting the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagisaki for the “greater good”?
I’d say that both are immoral, but the former is far, far, far, far, FAR less immoral than the latter. Its not even close, in my mind. But, I think some here would say the latter is less immoral because its based on “secular” premises rather than Christian ones.
Hi David,
The answer is – both are immoral.
A murdered innocent is no less murdered (or innocent) because it was “just him” who was murdered, as opposed to him plus many others.
The puzzler here is: Why would you countenance (or soft-pedal) the murder of anyone?
eric, an old college buddy is on a rant with a particularly gruesome email of Islams beheading people they don’t like. While there are quite a few, it’s no more than the one’s I’ve recently seen from S. America and for all my life, the ones from Africa.
But what’s the diff between cutting off heads and killing anybody within a certain area with a drone weapon? Sure, your hands remain physically clean operating joy sticks but is there a difference? I say no….but that’s just me.
A gunshot wound, shrapnel wound, hell, any mortal wound(eventually, since many take anywhere from seconds to minutes to hours to days to weeks…etc. for the desired effect)is a death. One worse than the other? Why? If a Muslim posts a video of a beheading, is it worse than simply slicing another or shooting said person or even hitting and kicking them to death?(the #1 cause of death by FBI stats in the states….nearly a rhyme).
Don’t make squat difference to me. Very few people will die “instantaneous” deaths…..so what’s the big D?
While my death may be preceded by the quick words, God almighty, it doesn’t mean I just got religion, it’s just an expression from being raised in the wild……wild west. As like Monday when I nearly lost a huge overload in the dark of night on a sharp curve, I was reminded how fleeting life is. I don’t expect that to be painless by any means. So what, really, is the difference of one way or the other?
Recall the old “tarred and feathered”? That was a very long, excruciating death given a humorous term from that time. Surely someone doesn’t think they’ll survive hot tar and chicken feathers to make sure the immune system can’t ward off the infection. And the pain, Jaysus, as David would say if we could hear him.
It’s nearly deer season but the deer don’t know it in that they’re moving around like crazy and getting smashed left and right. I see many deer every day who made the wrong move and got a 70 mph 18 wheeler broadside. Now that’s the way I want to go. Almost time to say “oh” but not quite. Bambi gets the easy way out for the most part. Muslims get beheaded by their own and blown to shit by the US. Everyone in the world gets it some way. I’m not the guy who doesn’t expect to leave this world alive.
Grow up David, Phillip, it’s just a book……and plagiarized at that.
Why not really be libertarians and leave well enough alone? I may have insulted someone but I have (hopefully) harmed no one. I expect you both to take criticism and disagreement like a man and just go with the flow.
Indeed, Eight.
I do not approve of the beheadings, but I understand – to some degree – the exasperation/desperation motivating the “enemies of freedom.” Try to imagine. You’re a bedouin somewhere in Afghanistan, dirt poor, trying to scratch out a living. You are traditional – and you like it that way. Some strange guy in a distant land with a funny accent and values you vehemently disagree with demands you bend knee to his culture, accept his mercenaries on your soil. Then a random bomb blows your family to bits. You know their lives meant nothing to the strange guy and the people he “represents.” All you know is your family’s dead and these people are shitting all over your country. What is your reaction likely to be?
I know, of course, that such heretical thoughts will put me in the same category as the bedouin – an “enemy of freedom.”
Fuck ’em and feed ’em fish heads.
eric, wasn’t it Goebbels who said something about the average guy only could expect to live, at best, unwounded in war? So he returns to the farm(those were the good old days)and tries to go about living again. It’s the same for everyone G says, no matter what country. In that same sentence he summarizes the media and politicians gaining support for a war by telling the people they’re the target of some unseen(but don’t worry, they’ll put a face to it)enemy and then denigrating those who would deny it as unpatriotic. Shrubco did a great job of this and nearly every person I know just gobbled it up. When I tried to point out the obvious, I was shouted down.
The sheeple of this country would do well to learn a bit of history. Sure, it repeats itself. How otherwise when nobody learns anything? Rah(Raj?) rah rah, sis boom bah, all for the USA, stand up a caw.
It was Reichsmarschall Herman Goring, at Nuremburg. He said – quite rightly:
Why, of course, the people don’t want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally, the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship.
Gilbert: There is one difference. In a democracy, the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars.
Göring: Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country
So true, Eric. When will people ever learn?
I hope eventually… but you and I will probably not live to see it.
Probably never, unfortunately. The US is the new Roman Empire and it is probably doomed to go down the same path.
Eric, two posts ago you condemn me for nuancing the immorality of certain murders, and then you do the same thing.
I guess this is how I look at it. I see “you have done something so evil that you deserve to die”, whatever that thing is, as being a somewhat less awful statement than “just kill them all, well, because the national good” or something like that.
I guess part of it is that there is no false religion that bothers me quite as much as state-worship. Not Catholicism, not Islam, not agnosticism*, and not Satanism. Nothing. Theonomic reconstructionism, in my view, is an erroneous application of Chrsitian doctrine, but at least there’s an ATTEMPT at conformity with God there. Modern statism is just motivated by State-worship.
I don’t really know how to explain this to you, TBH. There are just so many religious presuppositions that go into this. If you were a Christian libertarian I think you’d understand why I am nuancing. All of the Christian libertarians who I am aware of respect reconstruction even though they don’t agree with it. I know Norman Horn does and I know C Jay Engel does. Lew Rockwell obviously respects North enough to let him write for his website, and Ron Paul respects him enough to let him contribute to his homeschooling curriculum. There are good reasons for this, but there isn’t really a secular way to frame it. I’ll think on it and see if I can come up with something that works.
Re: beheading. While I may not agree with ISIS or whatever you want to call them executing these people, beheading itself, as a quick means to that end I find to be preferable to torture or many other means of killing. The firing squad might not be too bad if it didn’t consist of gunvermin trained shooters. I would hope they had better aim than the many cops we read about in the news.
Well, yeah… if it’s a guillotine or similar. But cutting a guy’s head off manually using a pocketknife? I’d say that qualifies as torturing the victim.
I did not see the video(s). They may have been faked or staged anyway. I was under the impression, strictly from my imagination I guess, that the deed was done with a single swipe of a sword, much like a guillotine but without the mechanism. If I was wrong, then I do not stand by my statement.
Maybe I’ve watched to many pirate movies.
I too am personally proud that I have extinguished any desires I once had to impose my idea of “the good life” on others. I harbor no animosity toward people who’ve not harmed me, nor threatened to. I embrace live – and let live.
I consider this a critical addendum to any ethical system. The NAP is both external and internal. One seeks to avoid causing harm to others – but not merely that. One does not wish harm upon anyone who has not caused harm themselves first. One is appalled by the thought of it.
I am by no means settled on what harm is. But anything violent or life-threatening to others seems harm by most definitions.
Copying things from the internet without payment. Bringing my own food and drinks to the movie. This I don’t consider elevating to the level of harm in nearly all cases.
In the aggregate, this laissez faire attitude towards non-violent non-life-threatening crimes may weaken and damage the free market itself.
I consider that far better than our current evils. Potentially cheating the market, producers, and property owners out of things, as long as no one’s life is threatened. This may sometimes not qualify as being excellent to one another. But it is better than violating the NAP to achieve absolute order and justice.
I advocate doing these things, if at all, in secret, and not spreading this secret to knowledge to the general population, which is filled with people who advocate initiating violence and force against one another.
Trying to be supermen sounds good, but rarely works. It’s far more to succeed in the margins, because we’ve set up far lesser, but more absolute and devoutly followed law of criminal conduct and general protocol of honor, among enemies of state and authoritarians.
I propose a modified version of what Ted said to Bill –
Be excellent to each other.
Failing that, don’t kill or gravely injure one another. Especially one who has not initiated force or violence against you. Refrain from this both personally, and in your use of third parties.
That is the sum total of my religion.
don’t be a clover
don’t be a clover
bill & ted’s excellent adventure script
More topics of the ‘wasp variety.’ [topics that will f you up and sting yo ass, if ur not careful]
I’d say it might be okay to take pictures of your naked kids and sell them to “collectors” far away. As long as they’re untraceable. [This requires actual knowledge, not just wishful sentiment.]
No one is really harmed. However, if the collectors are able to figure out real world details of subjects of the pics. Or if the kids later become aware. Or if a collector becomes obsessed and threatens you to allow him an “in person” visit of the young art models, or else, well that is something entirely different.
A poor Nigerian mother sells one of her kids kidneys for $40,000 to a guy in Singapore where it’s legal. Possibly problematic, but seems peaceful, assuming the kid “consented.”
An Palestian family pays a Jewish surgeon to implant large breasts and surgically mature the look of their prepubescent daughter, and she then makes 6 figures as an adult actress.
If the girl consents, what is the harm. Isn’t it up to the family and individual to do the cost benefit in this case?
People do vary. Circumstances and beliefs vary. Our morality changes as we age. A murder, rapist, strong arm robber, will probably mellow after age 35. Time heals all wounds and blunts all malevolences. By the time he’s 50, he might be perfectly safe to be around.
NSFW Not Safe For Work
Milo Moiré is a Swiss artist and model known for her nude performances and the use of her body in her art. Moiré was born in Switzerland in 1983, is of Slovak and Spanish origin, and works from Düsseldorf, Germany.
Oh, performance art. You never cease to amaze us.
The latest instance of eye-opening art spectacle comes courtesy of Swiss artist Milo Moire. During 2014’s Art Cologne fair in Germany, she “gave birth” to an artwork by seemingly squeezing paint eggs out of her vagina onto an empty canvas.
She did so in a very public space outside the fair, providing unsuspecting passersby with a visual overload of a nude woman laboring — quite literally — for the sake of art.
“The ‘PlopEgg Painting’…releases a loose chain of thoughts — about the creation fear, the symbolic strength of the casual and the creative power of the femininity,” the video’s description reads.
“At the end of this almost meditative art birth performance the stained canvas is folded up, smoothed and unfolded to a symmetrically reflected picture, astonishingly coloured and full of strength.”
Moire is no stranger to boundary-pushing performance. For her “Script System” piece, the artist rode public transit in her birthday suit, surprising more than a few commuters with her unabashed nudity.
She follows in the footsteps of a long line of provocative artists — Marina Abramovic, Yoko Ono, Franco B — who have used forms of nudity as a means of artistic disruption.
Watch Moire’s video below (warning: graphic content):
Performance Artist Milo Moire Performs ‘Plop Egg’ at Art Cologne 2014. No brushes, just a vaj is needed to ‘paint’ the artwork.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRM_Wyj7elI
There are certainly actions one might fairly describe as unwise, disgusting – repellent. But such may not rise to the bar of criminality.
Harm – tangible injury – must be proved.
If, that is, we are to be intellectually consistent.
If not, we have undercut our own ethics – and gravely undermined any principled objection we might have to almost anything.
A “flasher,” for example, is a creep. But is he a criminal – Libertarian-wise? Arguable.
The Safety-Security Cult did not get to where it is now overnight. It took baby steps. Steps that – initially, at the time, seemed somewhat or even very reasonable. And now look where we are – and where we are headed…
Such a great amount of crime….to the criminal justice system is simply another way to collect revenue. In earlier times in this very country, mores’ dictated it was fine to marry a 12 year old girl, woman she was as menses had been going on for some time.
Now young men are thrown into jail and labelled with a horrible name of “sexual molester” for having sex with the opposite sex of the same age. In my day, while “underage rape” may have been on the books, I don’t recall it ever being used. Now, it’s used at the behest of a single parent, morals, mores’ be damned.
The cloverific mindset sees evil everywhere but it varies from one to the other so they are content to deem nearly anything illegal. Sometimes this bites clover in the ass. Not often enough though.
Eric,
I think sometimes like David, I too play the “drama queen.” Being hyperliberal, and also hypercritical (using emotional speech only) just feels right.
I’d like to further explore “Gay Pride/Free Love/Public Nudity” internationally. It does appear that the most advance techno-exporting powerhouse nations are also the most tolerant.
Of course ‘meriKa of late does it all wrong, makes everyone feel miserable and pressured about everything. That’s their Modus Operandi. Divide and isolate all competing powers. Increase and redistribute powerlessness and misery.
Toronto – 2012 Dyke March
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MFSIebIU6g
Japan’s First Lady joins 2014 Tokyo LGBT Pride Parade
http://www.lgbtqnation.com/2014/04/japans-first-lady-joins-thousands-marching-in-tokyo-lgbt-pride-parade/
Swiss Performance Artist Milo Moire Walks Naked on the Swiss Art Show ‘Art Basel’
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=1c9_1404700630
Austria: Thousands march for gay pride in Vienna *EXPLICIT*
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=b68_1402776539
USA: Activists strip off to protest ban on nudity – “my Bush doesn’t steal elections”
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=4f1_1400373600
Naked Bikeriders in Seattle – Pridefest 2014
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=cab_1404426372
Amazon and the PTB caught redhanded manipulating news site popularity.(might have happened to EPautos too)
http://www.wnd.com/2014/10/caught-red-handed-news-site-deception-uncovered/?cat_orig=us
Nobel Prize – Underhanded Way English Beat German as the language of science
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-29543708
Starting in 1917 when the US entered the war, there was a wave of anti-German hysteria that swept the country.
“In 1917 it’s often hard to keep in mind that large portions of the US still speak German,” Gordin says.
In Ohio, Wisconsin and Minnesota there were many, many German speakers. World War One changed all that.
German was criminalised in 23 states. You’re not allowed to speak it in public, you’re not allowed to use it in the radio, you’re not allowed to teach it to a child under the age of 10.
Until 1923, the anti-German laws were the law of the land. What that effectively did, was decimate all foreign language learning in the US.
In 1915 Americans were teaching foreign languages and learning foreign languages about the same level as Europeans were. After these laws go into effect, foreign language education drops massively. Isolationism kicks in in the 1920s, even after the laws are overturned, and that means people don’t think they need to pay attention to what happens in French or in German.”
This results in a generation of future scientists who come of age with limited exposure to foreign languages.
That was also the moment, when the American scientific establishment started to take over dominance in the world.
And you have a set of people who don’t speak foreign languages, They’re comfortable in English, they read English, they can get by in English because the most exciting stuff in their mind is happening in English. So you end up with a very American-centric, and therefore very English-centric, community of science after World War Two.
You can see evidence of this world history embedded into scientific terms themselves.
When the U.S. joined in World War I, an anti-German hysteria quickly spread in American society. German-Americans, especially immigrants, were blamed for military acts of the German Empire, and even speaking German was seen as unpatriotic.
Many German-American families anglicized their names (e.g. from Schmidt to Smith, Schneider to Taylor, Müller to Miller), and German nearly disappeared in public. Many states forbade the use of German in public and the teaching of German in schools.
An extensive campaign forbad all things German, such as performing the music of German composers at symphony concerts. Language was the focus of legislation at state and local levels. It took many forms, from requiring associations to have charters written in English to banning speaking German within city limits.
Some states banned the teaching of all foreign languages, though most only banned German. A bill was introduced in October 1918 to create a national Department of Education, intended to restrict federal funds to states that enforced English-only education. The Lutheran Church was divided by an internal battle over conducting services and religious instruction in German.
On April 9, 1919, Nebraska enacted a statute called “An act relating to the teaching of foreign languages in the state of Nebraska,” commonly known as the Siman Act. It provided that “No person, individually or as a teacher, shall, in any private, denominational, parochial or public school, teach any subject to any person in any language other than the English language.” It forbade foreign instruction to children who had not completed the eighth grade. A total ban on teaching German in both public and private schools was imposed for a time in Ohio, Iowa and Nebraska.
German never recovered its position as the second language in the United States.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_language_in_the_United_States#Persecution_during_World_War_I
During World War I, anti-German hysteria led to restrictions of the use of the German language, as well as civilian internment.
Anti-German fervor played out in the forced registration, internment, and oppression of German-Americans.
Many Americans were fearful of German-American citizens’ loyalties to the German Empire. Theodore Roosevelt, in particular, denounced “hyphenated Americanism” in wartime.
Many German-named food and streets were renamed. For example, Berlin, Michigan became Marne, Michigan, frankfurters became hot dogs, and sauerkraut became liberty cabbage.
The German language was restricted in the midst of anti-German fears. Nebraska and Iowa both passed laws limiting the speaking of German in schools and other public places.
In 1917, President Wilson passed two pieces of legislation that imposed restriction on German-born Americans. The U.S. government attempted to keep a list of all German-born aliens or citizens, and imprisoned more than 4,000 from 1917-1918 for allegedly assisting the German war effort.
NSFW time.
http://i.imgur.com/DTvL6XZ.gif A scientist pleasuring a pig for “research purposes.”
Scientists trying to bring a pig to orgasm.
submitted 5 months ago by spaghettiBlasphemy
[–]nevets12 162 points 5 months ago
Same technique I use. Niiccceee
[–]feelsoplain 50 points 5 months ago
Give em the ol octo-nip grip mmm
[–]Bacon_Crispies 11 points 5 months ago
What do you call it? The Piggy Back?
[–]khovel 6 points 5 months ago
it’s called the pork grind
[–]MissChievousJ 4 points 5 months ago
Bringing home the bacon
[–]StReeTkiNG069 2 points 5 months ago
They need the techniques of the guy in the earlier post about making animals feel good
[–]god_why -2 points 5 months ago
ahahahahaa i can see you now high fiving some scientists.
[–]MahaliAudran 92 points 5 months ago
Not trying to make the pig orgasm but sexually stimulate it to increase insemination.
http://www.pork.org/Resources/385/ArtificialInsemination.aspx#stimulatingfemale
[–]FiendishBeastie 9 points 5 months ago
The clip is also used in Mary Roach’s TED Talk “10 Things You Didn’t Know About Orgasm”.
[–]Rac1stp1gman 26 points 5 months ago
You’re going to have to commit. Now off with the lab coat.
[–]tecal2002 54 points 5 months ago
Remember kids. If you wear a lab coat and write stuff down, it’s not bestiality, it’s science!
[–]Javon66 38 points 5 months ago
Josh why are you playing with that pigs nipples.
For science!
[–]nation101 14 points 5 months ago
Get on this Mike Rowe!
[–]drweird 19 points 5 months ago
As someone with professional experience here, I find pressing down on their rump, and a knee pressing lightly into their side works best. You also don’t have to climb onto the pig all weird like that. :/
[–]joe_joejoejoe 16 points 5 months ago
You are now a moderator of /r/TheRedPill
[–]peppereth 8 points 5 months ago
I too am a professional pigfucker AmA
[–]drweird 1 point 1 month ago
I was precisely that. I worked doing AI (Artificial Insemination) on an industrial research pig farm. Basically computer generated boar/sow matches via genomic sequencing, breeding super-pigs. We sold semen around the world, some boars having over 500k offspring (world record?). Also sold sows and boars to farms to “raise” the farm’s breeding genetic pool by inducing some super-pig into their pool.
[–]batardedbaker 10 points 5 months ago
Funny story. I had some friends who had an indoor pig who would go into heat. A buddy was joking around and pretending to hump the pig doing a technique similar to what you just mentioned while verbally consoling her for the mood she was in. Lo and behold he unintentionally got her off. We all looked around stunned at what just transpired.
[–]kcwamparp 3 points 5 months ago
I used to think it was funny the way their ears shook, or trying to get a guilt the first time that was always fun
[–]german_gun_dog 16 points 5 months ago
o_o. My work here is done.
[–]friedlizardwings 8 points 5 months ago
whenever job prospects are looking low, i will remember this man.
[–]demon_ix 7 points 5 months ago
I hate my job, but I’m not wanking pigs, so I got that going for me, which is nice.
[–]wholesalefish 4 points 5 months ago
this guy is probably making a pretty penny playing with pigs. it’s probably still better (by better in this case i mean less stressful) than working in the food/beverage industry.
[–]beergoggles69 56 points 5 months ago
It’s not easy to get a pig to orgasm- just ask my wife
[–]Creeda 52 points 5 months ago
Which one is the pig, her or you?
[–]beergoggles69 12 points 5 months ago
Just practising my vaudeville act
[–]HorsePecker 18 points 5 months ago
Horses do not copulate with pigs.
[–]ISTRANGLEHOOKERSAMA 25 points 5 months ago
not with that attitude
[–]HorsePecker 13 points 5 months ago
Well, I never Ծ_Ծ
[–]CriticalThink 5 points 5 months ago
A scientist tries to bring a pig to orgasm and nobody bats an eye. A redneck tries to do the same and everyone loses their minds.
[–]Tom35 2 points 5 months ago
What is he doing with my wife.
[–]Wild_Hunter 4 points 5 months ago
Afterwards, the scientist can be heard saying ‘That’ll do, pig. That’ll do.’
[–]gokism 3 points 5 months ago
I wonder what on that guys resume made him the most qualified to attempt this?
Yes Mr. Porker I used to bring pigs to orgasm on my daddy’s farm as a hobby. I’ll need some Barry White music and some lotion.
[–]Joebranflakes 10 points 5 months ago
Because allowing the pigs to do it naturally can result in injury as they are way bigger then nature would allow. Simply put, we have turned pigs into living meat factories. And in case anyone is wondering, I have 3 racks of ribs and 4 lbs of bacon in my freezer.
[–]RimelSilver 3 points 5 months ago
Thanks I was not aware of this. Throw all those ribs on the flame I’ll bring the beer. 😉
[–]warmhandswarmheart 3 points 5 months ago
Can you imagine being this guy and trying to explain to your kids what you do at work?
[–]quanafay 3 points 5 months ago
This is actually not a scientist. He’s the inseminator. That’s right, it’s his job to go around and arouse pigs and fill them with sperm. Experience shows that the mother pig tends to have a greater chance of conception, and often times has more piglets, if she’s had an orgasm while being inseminated.
[–]maxpower2013 4 points 5 months ago
That’s not how you do it. I should know. First you have to bring flowers. Then turn on some Barry White.
[–]Soggyclam 2 points 5 months ago
Maybe some wine to loosen them up a bit
[–]fatalerror500 2 points 5 months ago
What’s a pigfucker make these days? Viable job
[–]fuckyofeelings -2 points 5 months ago
The fuck dude. One of the few posts that made me question our existence? Did he just strive to get a pig to orgasm for science when he was a kid?
– actually, it’s likely an artificial inseminator, not a scientist.
Can someone tell me which one they would kill first? And why? Who would they kill next? What corrective action is required for the killing to end?
Does Israel need “Christian Reconstruction?”
Or is okay for them to remain Jews?
What does Joel McDurmon have to say about Israel. Are his words binding on me, were I to join his group? Or can my partner and I fly out to Tel Aviv for the next festival in peace?(In UK, Israel, and Progressive Nations, your significant other often isn’t Gender Identified.)
Tel Aviv, Israel trumps New York – named Worlds Best Gay City
– Is anyone here anti-sodomy? [By which I mean, inserting an erect penis into another being’s anus.] I’ve never tried it, but feel neither positive nor negative about it myself.
Hi Tor,
“– Is anyone here anti-sodomy? [By which I mean, inserting an erect penis into another being’s anus.] I’ve never tried it, but feel neither positive nor negative about it myself.”
Why would any self-professed Libertarian take it as his business – much less the business of organized violence (the government) – to insert himself into the private, consensual, victimless activities of purportedly free adult individuals?
I don’t know, but they do.
I hope this comes out the way I mean it:
What is your stance on adult sex with children? If you think about it, isn’t enforcing a definition of what an adult is on non-consenting others, also an intrusion into what should be a private matter?
From Googul:
“The Prophet (blessings and peace of Allah be upon him) married ‘Aa’ishah (may Allah be pleased with her) when she was six years old and the marriage was consummated when she was nine years old. Narrated by al-Bukhaari (4840) and Muslim (1422).” – [This is doctrine for 1.7 Billion People.]
I don’t think it would make sense in today’s America for all young women to be fair sexual game after their second period. But this is probably okay in Hmong, Fundamentalist Mormon and Islamic Sects, where young marriages are often the norm.
I’m not at all alarmed by this being normalized in much of the Islamic world.(Though of course, I have nothing but scorn for the way many Muslims seek to tell all people how to live.)
Back to the topic of same sex relationships. I think this is a clear case, where your clear and consistent positions help guide me to a far better understanding and reconciliation of my own philosophies. I thank you for your enlightened discourse on this often difficult to navigate topic.
Hi Tor,
What is an “adult” (and what is a “child”)?
I mentioned once upon a time to David that when I turned 18, I was arbitrarily (legally) an adult. I could legally buy hard liquor, legally sign contracts – and so on. David – who is not yet 20 IIRC – is just as arbitrarily deemed a child by the law. He may not legally buy hard liquor.
It is silly.
People are individuals and they vary. Some 18-year-olds are very mature for their years; indeed, more so than some 30-year-olds. And the same applies to 16-year-olds. Etc.
Is it necessarily wrong (that is, an actionable crime) for a 14-year-old girl to run off with her 20-year-old boyfriend and get married and raise a family? I don’t see that it is. Now, it might be. But these things ought to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. Arbitrary government fatwas are not always or even often right.
The “sodomy” thing is preposterous on the face of it.
Remember: The legal definition is not exclusively homosexual anal sex. It includes oral sex between a man and a woman as well as anal sex between a man and a man.
Regardless, why would any Libertarian advocate for the censure – much less punishment – of any private, consensual activity between free adults?
I think it probably has to be case by case. The more locally that type of thing is handled, the better, IMO.
And yeah, its ridiculous that I can’t buy liquor, even though I really have no interest in doing so.
David, re-read what you just said. It probably(not sure eh?)has to be a case by case. No shit? Is that a case of beer of Wild Turkey? Or is it just a case of not thinking?
If you ever study mammalian(at least)sexual proclivities, you’d understand many, in fact, a huge amount of species are well over 50% homosexual. These are not animals known to be philosophers. They(as we can only surmise)just do what comes naturally. So why not with humans. Hey, I’m interested or at least intrigued or actually simply curious. I’m not wired that way but only because of circumstances I can’t and never could control. Maybe if my DNA were different or I had lived another type of life, homosexuality might be my thing. Sometimes I wish it were. Women are so damned crazy and hard to get along with and their moods and wants and desires depend, from my experience, on really weird crap. In my ideal world, women would simply be honest and if they wanted sex they’d be more open about it. Unfortunately we have to play that stupid game. An honest woman, a forthright proposition and an exchange of something both wanted resulting in good sex for me and for her too, would be wonderful. I’ve found few in my life with that outlook. Every female seems to want something for every changing rewards while I want sex for the most part but surely would be much more satisfied with sex and some closeness of a man and woman. I’ve always strived to give more than i get, no matter what the barter. A saloon hall girl who really gave a shit about me would be preferable to most other women, wives included.
I’ve recently been hurt in a truck wreck and have hell with my back, neck, eyes and headaches. I’d gladly pay for any woman(and maybe a man if he could make it better, but that would only be in a manipulative way or I guess)that could make any of it better and not rule out the relief of sex and……do I dare say it? caring? OMG, I must be a fag. Well, take me on a public case by case basis.
What in hell does anyone else have to say about another person’s sex life? Nothing, not legitimately. I’m solely concerned about consensual sex. The rest is for another discussion.
Morning, Eight!
Shades of Heinlein… you write well and on subjects that few write about at all.
Truly, gays appear to have one up on straight people in the way you’ve described. Being more “on the same page.” Any man who’s been married to a woman for a long time will grok this, be nodding his head in agreement right about now. I especially liked: ” A saloon hall girl who really gave a shit about me would be preferable to most other women, wives included.”
Eric. Sad to say but gays don’t have a lock on it either. Contrary to what the press and rainbow advocates are trying to tell us, their suicide rate and life expectancy is pretty bad. In my past life I talked to probably 100 or 200 of them at length. Believe me they are more confused and forlorn then any woman I ever met. And that is a pretty bad starting point to begin with.
Prolly so, Gary.
The human condition appears to be one of “quiet desperation” – regardless of sex (or whom one is sexually interested in).
I have recently been conducting an informal survey of my married (male) friends. These are guys who have been married for 10 years or longer. All of them tell me their wives’ interest in sex is not what it was when they were dating or during the first years of marriage. Many of them go weeks (or even months) without having sex – not because they don’t want it, but because the wives are not interested. This appears to be a very common problem.
Men are expected to “listen” and be attentive to the needs of their wives. But many of these wives expect men to just accept their wives’ loss of interest in sex and (often) seem unable to comprehend why this might lead a man to become frustrated, angry, etc. toward the wife.
“Many of them go weeks (or even months) without having sex – not because they don’t want it, but because the wives are not interested.”
That’s why I don’t understand the heated opposition to gay marriage by some people. Why shouldn’t gays be entitled to be as miserable as the rest of us? And if someone wants to put a stop to gay sex, what better way than letting them marry each other?
Ha!
Top drawer… post o’ the day!
Dear Jason,
“That’s why I don’t understand the heated opposition to gay marriage by some people. Why shouldn’t gays be entitled to be as miserable as the rest of us? ”
I nearly bust at gut at that one!
My cue for another Mencken quote:
“Bachelors know more about women than married men; if they didn’t they’d be married too.”
– H. L. Mencken
Just say “yes dear” and move on with what you were going to do anyway. Unless you want to start a fight. Then threaten to trade her in for two 21 year olds. That always worked for me.
Until I got smart and realized it is better to rent then own.
@ Garysco – when my wife turned 42 (a few years ago) someone asked me if I was going to trade her in on 2 21 year olds. I said, “What would I do with 2 21 year old. I might as well have 3 14 year olds.” Somehow that didn’t go over too well. Open mouth, change feet.
@Phillip the Bruce – I am still laughing at the silent looks that one must have got.
Ha, finally found it again!
Every man loves two women;the one is the creation of his imagination and the other is not yet born.
Kahlil Gibran
Lebanese artist & poet in US (1883 – 1931)
Yes, I remember that one!
A snug cabin in the woods, good books, a dog or some cats.
What else does a man need?
Dear Gary,
“Love is the delusion that one woman differs from another.”
H. L. Mencken
OK, here’s my take on ‘gay marriage.’
First, I object to the homosexual hijacking of the term ‘gay’ so I will refer from here on out to homosexuals or other, cruder, terms.
2nd, marriage is a religious institution, and as such, the gunvermin, especially, the Feds, should have nothing to do with it, or even say about it.
3rd, I object to the homosexual lobby’s attempt to redefine marriage. Marriage has ALWAYS been between a man a woman. There have been times when it was acceptable for a man to have more than one wife, but this was not a ‘group marriage’ thing.
Even in ancient Athens, where homosexual relations were not only condoned, but sometimes encouraged (especially between an older man and a teen aged boy) they did not call it marriage. They knew it was something else. They also considered the one on the ‘receiving end,’ the catemite, to be subservient to the sodomite.
In Christian marriage, while men and women have some defined roles, neither is subservient to the other. In fact, in Genesis 1 it says God created them, male and female, in His own image.
You may be surprised to learn I pretty much agree!
Marriage in any case is none of the government’s business.
I do support the concept of recognizing legal partnerships (i.e., civil unions or whatever you’d prefer to call it).
Because I support the right of any two people to “join” together, if that is their wish. Combine assets, etc.
“Women are so damned crazy and hard to get along with and their moods and wants and desires depend, from my experience, on really weird crap. ”
8, I hope your wife doesn’t read that. She would bust your ass for sure. She would mash you like a bug.
OK, that’s all from me for a few more months. I’ll just hush now.
“random floor sweepings?” – – – it doesn’t get any funnier than that! – – – – my sides.
Ed, I just hope this comment is way down the list by the time the harried one reads epa and looks for my moniker. I came in yesterday and here’s the tab open to an epa page I didn’t have up. Not hard to figure that one out since it’s really not her thing. She was trolling for me. I gave up on private email decades ago. Now she’s realized she can spy on epa. I’ll have to restart Firefox and only open something like weather so she won’t be able to click on “restore” the previous session. Then again, she’s hell on wheels with the history. That’s her main research tool, history. I may have to start deleting it. Good to see you again Ed. Drap me a line sometime, let me know what’s going on “up there”. Well, off for another few hundred miles today after I get a tire changed. Tally ho!
Ron Paul Forums Response To David –
phill4paul, author of 22,437 posts on the forum:
OMG! FF(FreedomFanatic=David) is incensed by something. Get the fuck over it and please gain ten years to join in these debates again so you can be less of a drama queen….
To quote EP: (phill4paul’s post)
EP
I certainly don’t demand that people relinquish their belief in anything. Whether Jesus is Lord – or The Flying Spaghetti Monster or shape-shifting reptiles.
I am not interested in such things myself. And there are many other things I don’t like and would not personally have anything to do with.
But so long as people aren’t violent and don’t cause harm to others – then go in peace.
That’s my message.
Next post not by David…
fr33 – author of 7,654 posts on RP Forums…
People like you are the type that I don’t turn my back on and always keep my eye on. If enough of you live near me (and that could be the case now), and the state as we know it didn’t exist, I could very well be burned at the stake. I’m willing to risk losing the state though. People like you tend to be kinda weak.
Popular religious author and former Roman Catholic nun Karen Armstrong sees a potential for fascism in Christian Reconstructionism, and sees theologians RJ Rushdoony and Gary North as: “totalitarian.
There is no room for any other view or policy, no democratic tolerance for rival parties, no individual freedom,” Berlet and Lyons have written that the movement is a “new form of clerical fascist politics.”
I found Joel MCDurmon on the internet. Watched his highest rated video. 10,500ish views. Which is with some other guy and there’s loud background music playing. Listened all the way to the end, and I have no idea what he is talking about.
Looked at his site and other sites where he’s mentioned. Again, I get nothing out of him.
Joel is always talking in a derivative second hander voice. And speaking in assumed inside baseball terms, that no one is going to be familiar with.
I can’t see what someone not steeped in years of this alternate belief system – Christian Reconstruction – could hope to get out of watching and listening to him.
If I can paraphrase Joel McDurmon: “We’re all going to take back society, and make sure it is in full compliance with the laws of Feng Shui.” Of course, instead of Feng Shui, he said more of his “inside baseball” Christian wonkery, which I am utterly unable to grasp a single word of.
Christian Reconstructionists advocate a theocratic government and libertarian economic principles. They maintain a distinction of sphere of authority between family, church, and state.
For example, enforcement of moral sanctions under theonomy is done by family and church government, and sanctions for moral offenses is outside the authority of civil government (which is limited to criminal matters, courts and national defense).
However, these distinctions become blurred, as the application of theonomy typically increases the authority of the civil government; prominent advocates of Christian Reconstructionism have written that according to their understanding, God’s law approves of the death penalty not only for murder, but also for propagators of all forms of idolatry, active homosexuals, adulterers, practitioners of witchcraft, and blasphemers, and perhaps even recalcitrant youths (see the List of capital crimes in the Bible).
American Vision’s Joel McDurmon responded to these criticisms by denying that Reconstructionists have promoted coercive means.
Conversely, Christian Reconstructionism’s founder, Rousas John Rushdoony, wrote in The Institutes of Biblical Law (the founding document of reconstructionsim) that Old Testament law should be applied to modern society and advocates the reinstatement of the Mosaic law’s penal sanctions.
Under such a system, the list of civil crimes which carried a death sentence would include homosexuality, adultery, incest, lying about one’s virginity, bestiality, witchcraft, idolatry or apostasy, public blasphemy, false prophesying, kidnapping, rape, and bearing false witness in a capital case
-If CR’s are going to be the ones to overthrow Fedzilla, then I will provisionally wish them well, because I think I would have an easier time escaping their brand of tyranny, which isn’t as widespread and all-encompassing as the current DC tyranny.
Hi Tor,
Yup.
I used to like Gary North. Until I found out he’s nuts.
Yeah, I find North to be an intolerable lout. I took him to task on the issue of Free Trade, presenting my arguments as normal. He instantly resorted to the name calling and telling me that I know nothing, etc, the “you’re an idiot” treatment. I may have disagreements with several of the posters here on that issue, but thankfully, most posters those that I have discussed this with have enough class not to resort to the name calling. Name calling is for children or people who can’t back their arguments and assertions with facts.
I liked Gary North until I read this crap:
The Greatest Movie Action Scene of All Time
By Gary North
November 29, 2000
http://www.lewrockwell.com/2000/11/gary-north/the-greatest-movie-action-scene-of-all-time/
Jones reaches into his pocket, pulls out a cheap revolver, and plugs him. He crumples, sword and all.
The audience roars.
In that scene, we see the confrontation between the West, which has adopted science, technology, price competition, and mass production, and the East, which has adopted mysticism, ancient technology, and personal self-mastery by an elite. The issue is resolved visually in that scene. One shot.
Only one problem with North’s “thesis.” Gunpowder and guns were invented in the Far East, in China, by Chinese alchemists who were mystics.
North’s borderline racist “thesis” is a simplistic and wrong-headed as Rand’s thesis about Romantic Realism and music.
As HL Mencken put it:
“For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.”
Bevin, I was exposed to some of Mencken’s work in college but only as it applied to scientific work principles. I wish it had been more involved with his other stuff since that was so dry a subject although telling in its accuracy.
Amazing, the great things to be learned in college, or anywhere else for that matter, and how much of that same thing you missed not being exposed to it.
North says things constantly I disagree with on a very basic level. He’s eaten up with Catholocism and can’t see the forest for the trees quite often.
I took his newsletter for a year or more and then got disgusted with his views of “whatever GN has recently discovered or worked out for himself and those just like him” is always the only way. Screw the old skinflint.
Morning, Eight!
I think – based on what I’ve read about the era – that I have a profoundly pagan attitude toward spirituality. Meaning, I do not expect others to accept my god(s) – if any – and I’d like the same courtesy in return.
The Abrahamic religions are defined by their absolutism (which is ironic given there are several major varieties, each with countless sects that differ and squabble endlessly over the “word”) and brook no divergence from the true path – as they define it.
I figure, if there’s anything to this god stuff, he can’t possibly by the petulant, vengeful, murderous, tribal, anthropomorphic asshat described in the “holy” books (and by “holy” men).
And if he is, well, I want no part of him.
Dear Eric,
Most people, even most sheeple, are probably dimly aware at some level that the Abrahamic God and Devil are nothing more than projections of the light and dark side of the human psyche.
Everything else, all the mythology, is just window dressing.
One example was comedian Flip Wilson.
Wilson’s characters included Reverend Leroy, materialistic pastor of the “Church of What’s Happening Now”, and his most popular character, Geraldine Jones, who always referred to her boyfriend, “Killer”, and whose line “The devil made me do it” became a national catchphrase.
The line was funny because everyone got it. The devil was merely his own dark side.
Dear 8sm,
I have the same take.
I’ve come to the point where I only cherry pick what is of value from each high profile personality.
I assume that everyone has some foible that I could never tolerate, and take from each only the wheat and not the chaff.
Theonomists usually support radical decentralization. The theonomists I know in person want to leave everything at the county level, and McDurmon seems to have a similar mindset to them. I don’t know what Gary North’s position is.
So, the whole question about Tel Aviv (I can’t find it, but I know Tor posted something about it), well… a theonomist would agree with a libertarian that it is no American’s business what laws Tel Aviv decides to have. In a theonomy, the worst case scenario would be you have to move to a different county in order to do whatever vice it happens to be that you want to do. No, that isn’t a perfect situation, but I don’t know of anyone who’s trying to impose theonomic law from the top down at the Federal level.
Again, someone’s going to read this nuance as agreement, and its not. I am not a theonomist. I just understand them better than the secular libertarians here do.
Hi David,
My problem with “theo” anything is basing enforceable laws on theology. That is, on the supposed edicts of a being whose existence and nature have been postulated by men – men who insist these arbitrary assertions must be accepted “on faith” because “god ordains” … according to what men wrote/said and “interpreted.”
This is what I object to. Not you believing what you want to believe. But your belief that your beliefs ought to apply to others.
I think that’s the core of our disagreement, Eric. The NAP is your axiom. The Bible is mine. I do believe (more or less) that the NAP is correct, but I don’t believe that it is axiomatic. This is also a difference secular libertarians have with Christian libertarians in general (and yes, I know there are more moderate Christians who would fall under the “secular” camp with regards to this particular bit.)
In other words, my objections to Gary North would be primarily based on the interpretations of certain Biblical texts, while your objections would be presuppositional in nature.
I don’t suspect this is something we can actually resolve. But I think it explains why you have a radically anti-theonomist view. I think it also explains why I have only a moderately anti-theonomist view.
Dear David,
Wow. It’s taken us months to finally get down to brass tacks, to the bottom line. But at least we made it.
“I think that’s the core of our disagreement, Eric. The NAP is your axiom. The Bible is mine. I do believe (more or less) that the NAP is correct, but I don’t believe that it is axiomatic.”
This is the explicit, black ink on white paper, public acknowledgement that I for one have been seeking during this knock down drag out debate over just what is the bedrock justification for natural rights and individual liberty.
Now we know that natural rights and individual liberty are not the bottom line for theistic libertarians. They are not the supreme value. They are merely incidental. They are merely the consequence of obedient conformity to commandments issued by Yahweh/God/Allah.
If Yahweh/God/Allah had commanded the faithful to grind natural rights, individual liberty, and the NAP into the dust with jackboots, then the faithful would do it. Because the bottom line is not HUMAN rights and HUMAN liberty, but obedience to Yahweh/God/Allah’s commandments to the faithful.
Under the circumstances, how can anyone possibly blame secular libertarians for doubting the commitment of religious libertarians to human rights and human liberty?
Bevin, I had nothing to hide with regards to this. I guess it just never explicitly came up.
I don’t expect to be receiving any new revelation from God any time soon, and at the scale we’re talking about (ie. entire societies) I think it is certainty not the case. When Jesus comes back perhaps he will impose a theonomist penal code. I don’t know, nor do I care, because he’s God and can do whatever he wants. Until then, however, I will fight for freedom of conscience, the NAP, and human rights because I believe that would be what Jesus would want believers to do politically in the current day and age.
This happens to give me a lot of common ground with you and Eric. Tons of it. We both want to abolish the State, because its the greatest NAP violator in American society. I also happen to think that it is the most idolatrous.
But, I understand that our foundations are not the same. And if that means you don’t trust me, so be it. To be quite honest, I can’t REALLY trust you guys either, at least not any more than you can trust me. You fear that I’d give up the NAP because of God. But having no afterlife to look forward to, perhaps you guys would because it is convenient. And I would not, because this world is not my home. And so I’ll continue fighting for libertarian ideals even once all the atheists have given up out of fear.
Before heading off, just one point.
“But having no afterlife to look forward to, perhaps you guys would because it is convenient. And I would not, because this world is not my home. ”
Now there you are assuming waaay too much. Have you not heard the secular libertarians lay out their bottom line again and again. They would die fighting for natural rights and individual liberty. They would do this because many of us believe this world is all there is, therefore it is too precious to live as a slave. Far from weakening our commitment to natural rights and individual liberty, is strengthens it.
Also, some secular libertarians might believe in non-theistic mysticism and reincarnation. Many possibilities there. Not either/or.
Your logic about our psychology is seriously flawed.
If Jesus is god, then who’s his father?
I’ve gone over this before, of course. It perplexes me that people can postulate, on the one hand, that their religion is monotheistic yet – on the other – not raise an eyebrow when their religious texts clearly have a son talking with his father. Oh, I know. I’ve heard/read all the tortured explanations. But – for me – there is simply no getting around the blatant back-and-forth between two distinct individuals, one (the “father”) superior to the other (the “son”) who openly states on several occasions that he is not omniscient and does not know… asks for help/guidance from his “father.” To argue that these individuals are the same person is bizarre. Why would Jesus talk to himself? Or address himself to “the father” and describe himself as “the son”?
I write the foregoing not to gratuitously insult people who “believe” but to provide an explanation (one of many) for my lack of belief. The story – the theology – doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t add up.
….
If this world is a fleeting, unimportant thing (as per your beliefs) why would you care much about it at all? After all, your real home is “in heaven.” And if you believed your god decreed that authoritarian collectivism was right and proper, would you not in the blink of an eye abandon the NAP?
I, on the other hand, am committed to this world and to this life because I do not believe in “heaven.” And I defend the NAP not because of the arbitrary orders of Sky Stalin (as related to me by men) demand I do so but because I – my mind – concludes it is right to do so.
In other words, Eric, you are your own God. God is my God. Most people in America (including many “Christians”) worship the State as their God. One reason I admire theonomists despite disagreeing with them is that, in the political realm, God is still God. For neocons and liberals, generally, the State is God. Or at the very least, a second god.
You’re welcome to worship yourself if you want Eric, but I see no good reason why you can question your mind’s decision to accept the NAP as such. After all, clover’s mind tells him he should support the State. And there’s simply no OBJECTIVE standard by which to prove clover wrong, unless there is some higher authority than I, you, or clover to decide.
The idea that no such authority exists is both depressing and absurd. Depressing because it really would mean a total absence of any real morality. Absurd in the same way that if you told me “you know, that painting over there has no painter” I would laugh at you.
Does that prove that MY God exists? No. I have other arguments for that. But it does prove that a God must exist.
Of course, as an autonomous self-worshipper, you quake in fear of that idea, that there is a being in the universe to which you are subject and which you must worship. You call him “sky Stalin” precisely because you do not understand.
And yes, it does sadden me that you think it fitting to compare God to one of the greatest mass murderers in human history.
Hi David,
Not “my own god” – that would be an insane assertion, since I am obviously mortal and neither omniscient nor all-powerful.
I am however, my own sovereign. No one else has rightful dominion over me. I am the rightful captain of my ship, the “decider” of my own life.
But I don’t “worship” myself. These are your odd characterizations. I am just a man. As you are just a man. But I am a man who does not venerate a Sky Stalin who demands absolute obedience to his “word” (as parsed by men). And I find the idea of worshipping authority kind of sad. Especially the genocidal ethnic/racial war god described in the OT (which you, as a Christian, must claim as your own).
PS: The NAP is not arbitrary. By definition. Unlike Clover’s ethics – which are subjective and endow each individual with the “right” to do whatever he likes to anyone, provided he possesses the might to impose his will – the NAP applies equally to everyone. No one has the right to commit aggressive violence. Everyone has the right to defend themselves against aggressive violence. Each individual is sovereign over his own life. The same standard, across the board. A logical, internally consistent standard.
It does not need the imprimatur of Sky Stalin to be logical, consistent and therefore equally applicable to everyone.
eric wrote, “My problem with “theo” anything is basing enforceable laws on theology”
Under Panarchy, that’s not really a problem.
Bevin wrote, “Now we know that natural rights and individual liberty are not the bottom line for theistic libertarians. They are not the supreme value.”
So? As Wendy wrote, Libertarianism isn’t an all-encompassing theory and you’re seemingly trying to make it out to be one.
Natural rights and liberty are hardly incidental and most certainly are Not the consequence of obedient conformity to commandments issued by Yahweh/God/Allah.
With most things, I really hate to play, “what if”:
Bevin wrote, “If Yahweh/God/Allah had commanded the faithful to grind natural rights, individual liberty, and the NAP into the dust with jackboots, then the faithful would do it. Because the bottom line is not HUMAN rights and HUMAN liberty, but obedience to Yahweh/God/Allah’s commandments to the faithful.”
Again, you’re seemingly trying to make Libertarianism an all-encompassing theory.
I’d say more but it’d be pages too long. Suffice to say, it seems you’re not separating the warmongering christians so numerous today from those who are not.
eric wrote, “If Jesus is god, then who’s his father? I’ve gone over this before, of course. It perplexes me…”
I saw a video once, a Buddhist monk was explaining how science and religion can blend and support one another, the result being a rational explanation of everything that suits both the religionist and the scientists, as such, it seems to me you’re dismissing something out of hand simply because you do not have The Answer at hand.
Anyway, under Panarchy, that’s not really a problem. Just a question which seems to temporarily be without An Answer.
Dear helot,
Have you noticed that you and David disagree about the relationship between natural rights and individual liberty on the one hand, and God’s commandments on the other?
David has clearly and unmistakably declared that God’s commandments trump any theory of rights and liberty derived through human logic. What God says, goes. Human justifications for rights and liberty count for s**t in the face of his, excuse me, His overwhelming majesty.
You either second that or you don’t. It would appear that you don’t. If I am mistaken, please explain.
As far as I can tell, you disagree with David on that.
You are Not mistaken, Bevin.
Yes, I have noticed.
God does not Trump himself.
It is true that What God says, goes. But, he does not Trump himself.
A.k.a. as far as I know, he’s Not an Indian Giver and the laws of his physics prevail.
He gave every living being the right to free will, natural rights and liberty.
That’s the makeup of the pin ball machine we are in.
God can Tilt the mother, but he isn’t changing the game until The End,… and maybe not even then.
Like eric, who asks for proof of God, I see that, until humans achieve immortality, “What God says, goes.”
Hi Helot,
I am more comfortable asking/debating about the existence of god without the assumption that this god – if such a being exists – is the Christian god. Or the Muslim’s god.
The idea of a numinous creative intelligence as such is much less cluttered and we can therefore entertain the idea with, I think, greater clarity and coherence. Festooning it with religious dogma – the “thou shallts” and “it is writtens” – presupposes the existence of the deity. And that this deity is made manifest by the dogmas asserted. It’s circular – and cannot be rationally debated.
I myself am very open to the idea that there is much more to existence – reality, if you like – than what meets the human eye. Or conceived by the human mind. We see through a window, darkly. Plato’s cave. I imagine “reality” appears rather different to an ant. Just as our reality is perhaps just as limited/distorted… from the perspective of something “higher.”
It is very interesting to wonder, what is going on? And, why?
I marvel at the sleepwalking certainty expressed by the devout. I look upon it with a mixture of envy and bewilderment. It must be comforting to “know” what they claim to know.
I just cannot fathom how they can claim to know it.
Hi Helot,
In re:
“I saw a video once, a Buddhist monk was explaining how science and religion can blend and support one another, the result being a rational explanation of everything that suits both the religionist and the scientists, as such, it seems to me you’re dismissing something out of hand simply because you do not have The Answer at hand.”
In order to communicate intelligibly, we must agree that words have specific meaning. Thus, a “son” is precisely that. The offspring of a “father” (and “mother”). Just as a “father” is a male who has sired offspring. Each are distinct individuals and cannot be the same person without rendering the concept of “father” and “son” incoherent.
This is not mere semantics. Moreover, we have this oddness of the “son” very clearly addressing his “father” as just that – a separate (and superior) being. Asking for the “father’s” guidance, his help. Well, it’s odd if we accept the monotheism posited by Christianity. How do you get around this? This business of god talking to himself? Is god insane? Or is Christian dogma merely contradictory?
Dear David,
True.
You were not, at least as far as I can tell, deliberately hiding your priorities.
I think it was merely a case of the bottom line not becoming clear because of all the other baggage.
More later. Have to get to work.
Bevin, after 13 hrs of bust ass, I’ve had enough of that today. There have been many times lately for some reason, I’ve had glimpses of the “afterlife”. It’s not something I can describe except every time I have these glimpses, I get the Bee Jaysus scared out of me.
If there were a god watching over us he’d do a better job saving us from the “god awful” traffic I encounter every day. He’d make that track hoe weigh just the right amount so the DOT couldn’t jack with you and every driver would be attentive. It must be that time of the month. The flycatchers have been out in full force. They drive just enough under the PSL as to be really dangerous. And it’s almost like I’ve encountered the very same ones(couples, ancient, catching flies)for 400 miles. And they all drive Toyotas. For years now when I see a Camry I want to pull over and let it pass but that doesn’t work as eventually, you’ll come up behind it again.
If clover really wanted to make things safer, she’d lobby to make every car have a MINIMUM speed. If you couldn’t take it, you’d stay your frickin butt at home and get some nice person, a competent driver, to go get your stuff and sell that damned Camry.
Hey Ma, let’s get Frutoso to hitch up the wagon and we’ll take the pasture over to the WalMart.
Morning, Bevin!
In re David: Exactly.
The curious thing is, he (I am supposing) cannot fathom our disquiet. Because – in his mind – “god” is this benevolent autocrat … sort of like the way I suppose a labrador retriever gazes adoringly at his master. How can we “reject” him?
I just don’t get it.
Never have.
What religious people call the ‘word of God’ is actually written by humans and reinterpreted several times over the centuries. Who is to say what the original version was?
Also, if God is indeed all-knowing and infallible, why does he periodically release new revisions of the faith?
“What religious people call the ‘word of God’ is actually written by humans and reinterpreted several times over the centuries. ”
So you say. That is YOUR article of faith. Everyone believes something. Our beliefs differ. I believe men RECORDED the word of God, and He has protected it, in principle if not in every nuance, through multiple interpretations into other languages.
And I don’t know what “new revisions” you mention. Jesus (Yeshua) is the Messiah that was promised to the Jews. Just because most of them rejected Him does not make the church something new. And just because Mohammed claimed to follow the same God, does not make that so either.
God Hates Lady Gaga – Westboro Baptist Church’s Parody of “Poker Face”
The God Hates Fags Church Makes Amazing Vines
Coming soon: Vegan Rights. Soon any restaurant or grocery store that provides food will be required to serve Vegan food as well. Vegan pride marches. Vegan only housing. Require pictures of animals being slaughtered on all meat packages. Limit to amount of meat you can consume.
Dear Tor,
Re: “vegan rights”
No joke! I’ve always believed that any intellectual error always gets carried to its logical extreme.
For example, “public safety” will eventually lead to calls that people be confined to capsules like the ones in “The Matrix” so that they can’t hurt themselves.
From seat belt and helmet laws, to compulsory encapsulation. If one understands the underlying premise, the logical extreme is 100% predictable.
For example, cigarette laws have already led to size limits on soft drinks.
Message to vegetarians and vegans – my food craps on your food.
From what I’ve heard, the Centauri System is always looking for candidate Centaurians.
You should be half man, half horsepowered.
A rocket man versed in propelling matter using motive force and kinetic mechanics.
Like the mythical Centaur. A real gear head vector, willing to abandon the known scalars of the Earthly Gravity Well for challenges and adventures of the uncharted and uncertain.
Their Mesoplanetary Hub is in an undisclosed region about the size of West Virginia in NorthWest Saudi Arabia along the eastern shore of the Red Sea. Annual rainfall 1.7 inches. Ave temp 78F. There are four human cities nearby that generate water using desalinization: Haql(pop 25k), Duba(pop 22k), Wajh(pop 27k), Umm Lajj(pop 34k)
Are you willing to relocate anywhere. Do you require a mesoplanet rocky terran earthlike environment, or are you willing to live on a cold psychroplanet, hot thermoplanet, or orbital microgravitational environment?
If you rotate this solar system map forward in time:
http://www.theplanetstoday.com/
You’ll understand when the necessary Centaurian missions will need to depart Earth in order to go into orbit/land at the optimal times when the target celesital object is closest
Ave Dist to Moon 0.24 million miles
Ave Dist to Venus 26 million miles
Ave Dist to Mars 49 million miles
Ave Dist to Mercury 57 million miles
Ave Dist to Ceres 164 million miles
Ave Dist to Jupiter 391 million miles
Ave Dist to Saturn 750 million miles
Next Mission Arrival Times (add travel time to determine departure time)
Jan 2015 Mercury & Jupiter
May 2015 Saturn
May 2015 Mars
Aug 2015 Venus
Ceres Constant Missions to speed colonization
Current missions include constantly scheduled convoys of humans inhabiting cyanobacteria greenhouses and other facilities. Astronauts live out the rest of their time in space. It’s all one way missions. Each resupply module includes new components and materials to build up the various solar system hubs.
WvB:
Rocketry will free man from the remaining chains, the chains of gravity which still tie him to this planet.
We can overcome gravity, but sometimes the paperwork is overwhelming.
For my confirmation, I didn’t get a watch and my first pair of long pants, like most Lutheran boys.
I got a telescope. My mother thought it would make the best gift.
Basic research is what I’m doing when I don’t know what I’m doing.
I have learned to use the word ‘impossible’ with the greatest caution.
One good test is worth a thousand expert opinions.
The best computer is a man, and it’s the only one that can be mass-produced by unskilled labor.
“Our sun is one of a 300 billion stars in our galaxy. Our galaxy is one of hundreds billions of galaxies populating the universe. It would be the height of presumption to think that we are the only living thing in that enormous immensity.
All you leave for posterity is what you place inside other’s heads. Education, in other words, and not earthly possessions, is the ultimate legacy, the only thing that cannot be taken away.”
I’m convinced that before the year 2000 is over, the first child will have been born on the moon.
― Wernher von Braun
Per Ardua Ad Astra
Galt’s Pylae Stellarum
onward and upward to the stars
Nearest Exoplanets
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nearest_exoplanets
Alpha Centaur Bb
Luhman 16 AB(a or b – not known which binary dwarf star the planet orbits)
Epsilon Erdani b,d, and c
Groombridge 34b
Tau Ceti b,c,d,e,f
There are 1400 stars within 50 light years distance.
Of the 133/1400 of those stars visible to the naked eye, 18 have planetary systems
There are 65 known exoplanets within 50 light years
Habitable planet criteria:
ESI Earth Similarity Index
SPH Standard Primary Habitat
HZD Habitable Zone Distance
HZC Habitable Zone Composition
HZA Habitable Zone Atmosphere
PC Planet Class
HC Habitable Class
Exoplanet Kepler 298d
ESI 0.68
SPH 0.0
HZD -0.86
HZC -0.11
HZA +2.11
PC Warm SuperTerran Mesoplanet
77.5 day year. SemiMajor Axis 0.31 Earth Orbit
2.5 times radius of Earth
Ocean planet thick gas dwarf/giant
http://www.topastronomer.com/StarCharts/Constellations/Centaurus.php
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_Centauri
Very well written article, and spot on! this 2 set of laws thing is ridiculous and you nailed the double standard precisely, cleanly, and unarguably. Good job!
More people need to realize this simple fact…you aren’t allowed to defend yourself against a cop. It’s so fundamentally stupid…you can legally defend yourself against literally anything else (natural disasters, other people, animals, dogs, germs, etc…) but if the other person is a cop, you are EXPECTED to be non-resistant under all circumstances legally. Absolute bullcrap!
If a cop attacks me, and if I’m going to be charged with assault anyway for merely defending, that fucker’s getting every bone broken so at least HE feels the pain for a while. FFS, you literally touch a cop and you’re “assaulting” him. what’s next…”He looked at me with a glare in his eyes, that’s MENTAL ASSAULT and you’re under arrest!”?
Once fighting a DUI (I was innocent) my lawyer told me with a straight face that even though I had no witnesses, the judge has to consider my story and the cop’s equally. EVERYONE in the room started laughing like mad, and even the lawyer eventually smiled and admitted that yeah, probably not going to happen. (BTW, found guilty with no evidence, no sobriety check, and literally cop saying “looked stoned to me” and the judge saying “I trust the cop”. It was 3:00 AM, so my eyes were red from being tired. Small town cops, turned out he and the judge were best friends from school, but anyway, enough ramble…)
Cops need to lose their special privileges right now, they’ve already lost the respect of the people, so that means they will lose the cooperation of the people…and then they will eventually lose the ability to relate to the people. eventually the people will amke it so they lose the ability to control them too.
That’s when the fun starts…
Thanks, Mamba –
And, you’ve touched on another interesting double standard:
In court, your statements or mine or those of any mere citizen are inadmissible. “Hearsay.”
But a cop’s statements are taken as absolute troof and considered evidentiary.
ERIC, do not forget too that cops are allowed to lie to us if it can help build a case against us.
But should any one of us mundanes make even the slightest of a not-completely-truthful statement we would be charged with false testimony, obstruction of “justice”, making a false claim, etc.
Right!
And, obviously, it’s another outrage.
They can lie to us – but we can be charged for lying to them.
They can videotape us – with our without our consent. But we can be arrested (or harassed) for filming them.
They can assault us – and we are not allowed to defend ourselves.
They can point lethal weapons at us with near-impunity. We are often denied the right to even posses weapons.
Etc.
Yeah, ask Martha Stewart about that. They couldn’t prove that she ‘cheated’ on the market using inside info, so they nailed her to the wall for ‘lying’ to the investigators.
That whole Martha Stewart thing. Incarcerating a millionaire bourgeios for no reason.
It’s North Korean level shark jumping. I can’t think of anywhere else that does such a thing. Or has ever done this. Not even Nazis, Soviets, or Cultural Revolution Chinese.
You know how we used to visit or think about Mexico and just shake our head at all the needlessly terrible things that go on there.
That’s what the rest of the world does when it thinks about America.
An unfathomable shithole where every city is infested with thousand or even millions of barely controlled violent predatory thugs.
But turns a blind eye to all of that, and instead throws Suzy Homemaker in the clink with no rhyme or reason whatsoever.
Dear sb,
Outrages such as this, and thousands more, make one wonder how “We the People” ever allowed such a state of affairs to come about.
How did we talk ourselves into become slaves of our supposed “public servants?”
It truly is mind-boggling how so many sheeple, even today, still believe they are the masters and government officials are our servants.
Thank the government public school system and education establishment — it’s the key to all that’s constantly moaned about here
Having ranted on this just this morning, look here for the same sort of story – including the solution. (The intent was to turn around the problem of the Ugly Amrican post-WW2.)
http://www.lifevalues.com/hunting.htm
mamba, I had a DWI charge once, mainly because I was slamming on the brakes on a dirt road intersecting with the highway because my 40 year old frickin wife and a buddies wife kept screaming very load and shrilly a the same time. How was I to know they were just being idiots? Well, I knew they were but still, that screaming like that at the same time always made me slam on the brakes. What the hell? What’s wrong? Oh, you’re bugging us. We want to stop and do something stupid(although they could never explain why). So I finally get to the highway after being asleep a couple hours before driving and everyone else was very toasted. State trooper pulls me over on a horrible highway that’s eaten up so bad from truck traffic you can only drive where everyone else has driven before due to big furrows and beds in said pavement. Of course he knew the road came from the notorious honky tonk where we celebrated the “man of the year”, the local veterinarian.
I knew what was going to happen by the lights I could easily identify as belonging to a Mustang, the go to state trooper car at the time. I’m sober but had a couple drinks before we left.
We get to court, after two lawyers(I could have avoided the entire thing I found out later just by contacting the “man of the year”)I was informed the trooper’s testimony would go against him since his wife was the bible thumping local MADD president and this was his forte’. So much for “just us”. I pled guilty to a PI and have avoided that county like it was the source of the black plague ever since.
Posted on October 10, 2014 by Martin Armstrong
Civil-Asset
In rem (Latin, “power about or against ‘the thing’”) is a legal term describing the power a court may exercise over property (either real or personal) or a “status” against a person over whom the court does not have in personam jurisdiction. This was all based upon ancient tradition known as Deodand, which was a thing forfeited or given to God. In reality, Deodand was the law concerning an object or instrument that became forfeit because it has caused a person’s death – such as a runaway horse and wagon. The term deodand is derived from the Latin phrase “deo dandum” which means “to be given to God.”
The English common law the king merely replaced God with himself. Deodand traces back to the 11th century in England and was applied by the king to confiscate assets until Parliament finally abolished it in 1846. Nevertheless, under this law, a chattel (i.e. personal property) was considered a deodand whenever a coroner’s jury decided that the property had caused the death of a human being. In theory, deodands were forfeit to the king who was supposed to sell the chattel and then apply the profits to some pious use. Of course, once any government gets its hands on money – just forget it – it is their’s.
Effectively, a jury decided that a particular animal or object was a deodand and then appraised its value and the owners were expected to pay a fine equal to the value of the deodand. If the owner could not pay the deodand, his township was held responsible.
Today, civil asset forfeiture has been so abused by the US government it amounts to outright theft. People cannot afford costly lawyers and the government exploits the poor all the time to just confiscate cash, cars, and houses. The police are using it just as the troops in Rome turned against the people to pay for their salaries. The police have been transformed into the enemies of the people for whatever they can confiscate they just get to keep.
Dear Eric,
Timely article. Here’s another one, right on the same page.
http://www.libertysetsquare.com/massive-open-carry/
Can we fight Police Brutality with “Massive Servility” ?
September 30, 2014 | By Jack | 7 Comments
Decision time: speak softly and carry big sticks…or protest loudly with empty hands and get beaten by big sticks?
On August 29th, 2014 Trevor Lyman posted this video essay on LibertyCrier.com: Is It Time to Open Carry at Protests?
Lyman is not the first person to suggest that peaceful protesters can deter abusive police tactics by carrying firearms openly. But his “Massive Open Carry” strategy was first proposed not a month before the Ferguson, Missouri protests, so the topic is controversial all over again.
That makes a lot of sense, actually. People who have the means to protect and defend themselves immediately at hand are going to be treated better.
Man sneezes on a plane and jokingly yells “Sorry, I came from Africa”. This is the ridiculous aftermath.
Dear Tor,
It’s simply undeniable. Libertarians of course subscribe to non-aggression. But too many non-libertarians don’t.
The only way to truly deter them is through a sort of scaled down version of the “MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) Doctrine.”
It could indeed be the spark that starts either the revolution or provides the pretext for a uniquely American brand of totalitarian dictatorship.
Frightening thought.
As I said, amazing that America of all places, has come to this.
We libertarians have been predicting such an eventuality for decades now, based on logical extrapolation.
Now that it has actually come to this however, sometimes I don’t even believe it. Not until I read the latest atrocity at Pro Libertate, Cop Block, or Police State USA.
It’s a not-bad idea, but could be the spark that sets the whole thing on fire.
Remember Adam Kokesh and his planned march on DC? It got kiboshed, of course. But had it actually taken place, I expect it would have resulted in a Budapest Scenario – and mass slaughter. Which – in this era – might have backfired on us rather than painted in bold colors the true colors of the government.
The cattle out there are ready for an overt authoritarian Decidership. To openly throw the Bill of Rights in the trash. Eight out of ten of them are fear-addled, thoroughly conditioned to venerate authority, revel in the exercise of power over others and have fractured minds incapable of thinking conceptually (e.g., Clover).
All it will take is a pretext – such as “an armed mob” challenging the government. These imbeciles will cheer their latter-day “leader.” Remember: The Chimp – an appalling and obvious cretin to any thinking person – enjoyed massive public support, playing on the neurosis and fears of the simple-minded public. This will happen again.
Then, we will face a fearsome choice. The same choice facing people who understood what Hitler and his followers were, that day he assumed the officer of chancellor.
It will be time to either flee – or fight.
Or, to die.
It’s happened already, the costumed thugs locked down the entire metro Boston area to catch ONE supposed “terrorist” after the marathon bombing, and the sheeple applauded them for it. Makes me want to puke every time I think of it. Too old to flee, but I will fight (and probably die) if it comes to that; will be worth it if I take at least one maggot out on the way, and maybe there’ll be enough non-clovers who take similar action.
Will it be enough to tip the scales back to freedom? I can only hope so, not at all liking the world my grandkids are growing up in.
just curious, I am registered so why did my comment go to moderation?
Mike, Always make it a retreating/delaying action, and leave boobytraps: landmines, deadfalls, pit traps, pungee sticks, anything you can to make pursuit painful and damaging.
If you find yourself in a fair fight (or unfair in their favor), your tactics SUCK… 😉
My favorite part of the Torah, is you can just take it and start using it and completely ignore the people you stole it from. Just pretend like God said it was okay. Guess you Jews forgot to make a commandment against stealing your commandments. Stupid Jews.
Jewish Year Historic Event
0001 Adam & Eve created – 1st Generation
0130 Seth born – 2nd Generation
0930 Adam dies
1056 Noah born – 10th Generation
1658 The Flood
1948 Abraham born – 20th Generation
1996 The Tower of Babel – Speech Is Confused
2006 Noah dies
2018 Covenant with Abraham
2048 Isaac born – 21st Generation – Sodom & Gomorrah destroyed
2216 Joseph – 23rd Generation – Sold into Egyptian slavery
2332 Egyptian enslavement begins
2448 Moses leads Exodus from Egypt – Torah revealed at Mt Sinai
to all 3 million Jews
2533 Othniel, first Judge leads Israel
2883 David anointed king over Israel
2924 King Solomon (Shlomo) begins his rule
2935 First Temple completed
2964 Two Jewish Kingdoms: Rechavam – Judah) and Yeravam – Israel begin their rule
3320 The King of Babylon conquers Judea, takes holy vessels and children of the royal family
3338 The First Temple is destroyed.
3392 Achashverosh becomes king of Persia
3399 Esther taken to Achashverosh
3404 Decrees dispatched by Haman, 3 day fast ordered by Esther, Haman executed
3405 Haman’s ten sons executed. Esther’s account added to Talmud.
3410 Second Temple Built
3597 Hanukkah – Recovered Temple from Greeks, Smashed Statue of Zeus
3830 Second Temple Destroyed by Roman Emperor Titus.
3979 Mishna compiled
4128 Jerusalem Talmud compiled
4260 Babylonian Talmud recorded
4398 Islamic conquest of Jerusalem
4800 Birth of Rashi
4891 Birth of Rambam/Maimonides
5002 Burning of the Talmud in Paris
5004 Tartars capture Jerusalem
5050 Expulsion of all Jews from England
5155 Expulsion of all Jews from France
5235 Rashi commentary printed in Reggio de Calabria -beginning of Hebrew printing on printing press
5240 Inquisition established in Spain
5252 Expulsion of all Jews from Spain
5414 First Jewish settlement established in North America -New Amsterdam
5551 French National Assembly grants full civil rights to Jews.
5680 England receives Mandate over Palestine
5698 Kristallnacht riot against Jews in Germany
5708 State of Israel is declared
Today is 1-15-5775 BTW, for any who don’t accept the great memory hole war on history that happened in 3761, or year 0 for you majoritarian newspeaking doublethinkers.
Who is Cuffy Meigs?
And confronting her (Dagney Taggert) daily there was the final product of it all, the heir and collector – Cuffy Meigs, the man impervious to thought. Cuffy Meigs strode through the offices of Taggart Transcontinental, wearing a semi-military tunic and slapping a shiny leather briefcase against his shiny leather leggings. He carried an automatic pistol in one pocket and a rabbit’s foot in the other. (3.5.3.15)
That’s the best character sum-up in the whole book. Cuffy truly is the logical, inevitable end result of the type of government that’s in power. As the looters began to pass increasingly restrictive laws and using increasing force, for a Cuffy Meigs to gain a position of power was the next logical step.
He is basically a thug, a would-be gangster. And in a government that operates on corruption, backstabbing, and illegal activity, it stands to reason that a criminal would move up the ranks swiftly. Cuffy is no ideologue, and he seems to find James ridiculous. He’s always yelling at him and calling him “Jimmy.” Cuffy is disrespectful and ready to knock heads together, and the other looters seem scared of him.
Seeming to tire of the ideological crowd, he stages his own coup of Project X, the pinnacle of the government’s ideas on force and control. Cuffy of course doesn’t know how to operate the machine, and in a fit of stubbornness he blows up the entire facility, killing himself and everyone else in a hundred-mile radius. This is a rather fitting legacy for a person who seemed to appreciate, and even long for, violence.
Kelly W. Patterson. NVCopBlock.org editor and longtime local activist, shortly after a hit and run “accident” that may have been an assassination attempt by the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.
Let The Fire Burn. A history of the conflict of the City of Philadelphia and the Black Liberation organization – MOVE – that led to a disastrously violent final confrontation in 1985.
That business I mentioned here a week or so ago about a cop tailing my wife for miles with his lights on may also have been some sort of intimidation tactic. I assume nothing – or rather, I assume anything is possible.
As for myself: So be it.
I will speak (and write) my mind. If doing so results in my death, it will have been in the furtherance of a worthy cause.
I am not religious. But I do believe in karma. And so, am at peace.
Those Vegas guys are pretty hardcore. Vegan anarchists. Sunset Activist Collective; Food Not Bombs; OccupyLV; and NVCopblock.
They imagine they’ll create a new state that can be held accountable. Make it give even more to those in need. And end nuclear power. All kinds of things. I don’t think you have much in common with any of them.
They’re enemies are bigger than the state. Their enemies are also the PTB that fund the state and controlled opposition. I don’t think you’re seen as the kind of threat they are.
I’m closer to them, than you probably. I’ve managed to be free for a long time thru various forbidden tactics. But now that’s mostly come to a close, and I’m just another scurrying cockroach like the rest.
The younger generations will be fine, because they won’t remember any of what we remember. Whatever happens will seem normal to them.
I’m thankful for all the freedom I once had and still remember. And I like to imagine what things might still be worth a shot. Even a longshot gamble is still possible. Things are dire, but I don’t believe they’re impossible.
And I am trying to understand where you’re coming from. From living in freedom thru some kind of law and order. I believe that might be successful too.
You have adopted a human-type thought pattern that seems fitting, and you are confident that you will spread this pattern among others who also see the benefit of your pattern.
I’m more about just understanding things, and not about actually implementing and restricting myself to the things that might be useful. I think it comes across as I’m rejecting something, but I’m not.
I think there’s enough room for all kinds of life philosophies, and the people who try to thwart this and create scarcity are the only relevant threat that need to be dealt with.
Other than that, anything goes. Including a moral and just living protocol that consenting libertarians might develop and live under.
I’ve noticed a familiar – depressing – archetype:
Blue collar thug type. Ex HS fuhhhhhhhhtttttttball player, or “troop.” IQ hovering around 100, often less. A bully who savors his power over others.
I pity them as much as I loathe them.
I pity the ones who just enforce the law and genuinely haven’t philosophized to the point where they would figure out that what they do is, you know “wrong.” The guy who really thinks he’s doing “us” a service by pulling over speeders and going on drug raids and so forth. He’s responsible for his actions, but I do still pity him, if for no other reason than because his mind is enslaved. And it makes me sad that people who SHOULD be decent are brainwashed into not being so.
The ones who actually go out of their way to intimidate? The ones that even non-libertarians call “bad cops”? I don’t really feel bad for them. I should but I don’t.
Try as I might, I cannot help but simply mourn for the church every time I read one of these threads. Many cops go to church. Why aren’t ones who are outright abusing their power getting excommunicated en masse?
Regarding “solutions” one solution that I liked (short of the ideal of abolishing police) would be that any cop who makes a kill loses his badge. Period. Justified or not. Of course, that would likely make “cops protect us” even more of a mockery than it actually is, but it might make cops hesitate in some cases where they might otherwise want to shoot (but shouldn’t) in order to keep their jobs.
Of course, the State will not restrain its own agents.
David, whatever you think, just remember this, it’s the politicians that have caused this, enable these pieces of human shit.
I give you an example that the MSM has never, not once, ever mentioned….and probably because they don’t care enough about the truth to find out and even if they did, wouldn’t dare reveal it.
In the Brady Bill, there is a clause, called the “Spray and Pray” clause because they want to make it seem like anyone who would possess any illegal substance, doesn’t have to be a drug or actually, on the books as illegal, just something the DEA or some other thing like the FDA deems as….well, not necessarily illegal but “controlled”. Any substance(and who would even know how many there are and what they are?…nice, eh?)that can be identified in quantities that are deemed saleable(and here’s where it really hits the fan, saleable is defined as any amount that can be identified in any way including gas chromatography. That means that an amount that you might very be totally unaware of, something that requires an electron microscope and gas chromatography to identify is bad ju ju, and as such, if it’s found on the same premises as a firearm, any firearm, workable or no, then you can be Martha Stewarted with this crime and hung out to dry for literally, hundreds of years of incarceration. So you think the Republicans didn’t know a cash cow when they saw one? This has been used hundreds of thousands of times to take property, and I mean really valuable property, away from all those hundreds of thousands of people. It’s been used to the nth degree in Tx. and many other states. It’s the largest cash cow going and not one in a million people know it exists. Go ask a good defense lawyer. He won’t deny it. He’s been making a great living from it(and the truth is, it’s federal so you can never beat it, just like Martha)since the Brady Bill was passed. If this isn’t Stalinism, I must be totally confused as to what Stalinism means.
A lawyer once told me “when the Republicans are in power, our case load goes way up”. No shit. And now BO’s bunch has taken the Shrub’s playbook and made the Republicans look like wannabe’s. It’s my opinion that the Rep’s simply took the old playbook and ramped it up greatly and left it on record so the next bunch, whether Dem or Rep could simply refer to it and ramp it up even more. Isn’t this what we’ve seen? But Hil(Are we ready for Hil?)will make BO look like a punk. And whoever after Hil will make her look like a saint. The Walking Dead……and the sheeple don’t even realize it.
Hero Brent Aguilar of Clovis NM slams an epileptic woman to the ground while on a noise disturbance call.
Brent Aguilar photo Clovis NM.
NM State Trooper opens fire on Mom and minivan filled with 5 kids, because she refused to take the traffic ticket he wrote for her.
Video Of Cops Executing Albuquerque NM Homeless Man Enrages Community. Discussion by Young Turks
Police investigate Brent Aguilar after traffic stop
Consensus on liveleak. Brent will be fired, but not be charged. City will pay the victims, not the guilty party.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=582_1411164145
“I became concerned if the struggle continued the possibility of both of us falling on the ice would increase and the potential for injury to Melanie or myself was greater because of the struggle so I took Melanie to the ground.” – squealed Brent the lying pig.
Attorney makes second excessive force accusation against Brent Aguilar
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxGdXhH4iV4
Officer Brent Aguilar of Clovis, NM Police Dept. breaks the cheekbone of a compliant passenger and lies about him resisting
Let the heroes know what you think of this.
[email protected] Mayor Lansford
[email protected] Police email.
I hope they accept bullets in the mail, or maybe a horse head express delivered in the middle of the night.. 😉
The key, as I see it, is not to return their violence but to de-legitimize it. To strip away the aura of their rightful authority – and privilege.
To cause decent people to regard these cretins as cretins. To loathe them, to ostracize them.
Then, the problem will take care of itself.
The cult of the “hero” cop must be toppled.
Public ignorance fosters tyranny — maybe that’s why politicians give so much support to the government public education establishment.
How many Catholic schools teach their students to question the authority of the Pope?
Do Christian schools allow students to challenge the authority and teachings of Jesus Christ?
Do military schools teach their cadets to challenge the authority of superior officers?
Then why should we expect government schools to permit students to ever consider or question the authority of government and its police/military enforcers?
You got that right, Parment.
The Gov’t schools teach blind obedience, which I agree is their point.
What if the gov’t schools ahd to teach morality, too? Or ackowledge a God, a higher power who would hold them accountable?
After all, it used to be that secular power was subject to divine authority. (Napolean was one known upstart, having crowned himself, instead of allowing a church official to crown him… Acknowledged no higher power than himself.)
So, if the secular authority were to be subject to some external authority, perhaps we could regain some control of our society… Just thinking.
Any way to disrupt the teaching of blind obedience….
The Constitution has established that there is no acknowledged higher power than ‘We, the People.’
The CONstitution was founded on the principles of “fool most of the people most of the time,” and “mob rule” [Demos Cracy].
It was also a coup, even if bloodless, on the principles of the United StateS, Plural, and MEANT, By Design, to get us to an oligarchic government (Plutocracy, IIRC.)
I have no power, you have no power, everyone here has no power – including together, as a unit.
But if one of us is secretly warren buffet? HE has power, both by oposition, and by wealth.
Whether he has skills or not could be debated (I would say yes), but that he has the contacts and the wealth (power) to enforce his wishes – THAT is what makes him important.
“We, The People,” were rendered irrelevant circa 1789 in this country. It has simply been reinforced, decade after decade, with corruption of the system, perversion of the system, and finally, chains on the mind (public education, at the lowest common denominator – ephasis on “common”; & WRONG teaching – such as Marxism in grade school, and an emphasis on expanding “the tribe” to include gays, lesbians, atheists, blacks, latinos, asians, indians, and anyone else not-white, not-Anglo-Saxon, Not Protestant, and adding in worship of Gaia and “mother earth” over any other higher power. How is the mentally enslaved to break free? Indoctrination for fun and profit! FROM BIRTH! Teletubbies to Barney to … I don’t even know any more, I work for a living so no idea of TV any more.
Intended point, that there is no “we, the people,” nor would they have any actual power, higher or otherwise.
The flock goes where the shepherd directs….
Funny how we go back to a religious analogy, and the sheeple actually apply a passage about Jesus Chrsit to the Gove’t that routinely shears them – at about the same time of year, in fact…
🙁
Parment, this is what’s so insidious about the Hispanic influx. These people have been told by the govt. and the pope what to do for so many centuries it’s like they have no free will….and they bring that subservience to this country. People I know of Hispanic descent, with roots that exist much longer than mine in Tx. don’t cotton to this bs either. It’s an immigrant problem. But when the govt. goes off the deep end to give legal papers to illegal immigrants that gives them the right to vote, it’s not terribly difficult to see where this will lead in just a few elections.
RE: “it’s not terribly difficult to see where this will lead in just a few elections.”
I’m reminded of this guys nic on thehousingbubbleblog, ‘FasterPussyCatSellSellSell’.
SO what you’re saying is, there’s a bunch of cats outside my backdoor every night fighting over the scraps my neighbor puts on my doorstep.
Word’s getting out, “Free Money!”.
The cats, and the raccoons that join them, are about to vote to increase the amount of food the neighbor sets out for them each night.
The neighbor is just about out of money.
…Further votes in favor of more free food (Free Money!) will bankrupt the neighbor sooner rather than later.
And then I’ll get a new neighbor. …Sooner.
…And the inevitable drawback is…?
I’m not so sure there is, in reality, a “hero cop” culture. Oh, sure they have great media coverage including everything from novels to blockbuster movies, but in the end none of us want them at our parties, and it’s mostly always been that way, I suspect.
Really interesting article, by the way, I just don’t see how, or perhaps I’m misunderstanding, but I don’t see how anyone could seriously suggest we be allowed to “defend” ourselves against the police as the court would simply accept their version of why force was applied?
I’ve seen it suggested elsewhere in these seeming never ending stories about police abuse that body cams be used and I frankly think that might be the ticket, no direct control by the officer, raw footage to be released in case of incident.
But this is happening in Canada as well with our once proud organization called the RCMP now seemingly filled with officers who went to the Harry Calahan school of policing?
Here’s a link to the most recent horror: http://www.theprovince.com/news/Brain+damaged+alleges+RCMP+officer+assaulted+steroids/10260143/story.html
I don’t know what the answer is, it doesn’t seem like any single thing will fix whatever’s broken, that’s for sure.
RE: “I’m not so sure there is, in reality, a “hero cop” culture.”
Wow. I want to maybe live where you live.
Cause, here, it’s plainly obvious there is one.
P-l-a-i-n-l-y.
The problem is that the ignorance is so widespread. Most people don’t even take me seriously in most of these debates. There are simply so many examples of abuse that are scattered around and the average person dismisses them as isolated incidents.
I’d love to see mass ostracization. Unfortunately, in reality, people are much quicker to ostracize libertarians and especially “anarchists” than police.
Actually, someone who can do engraving COULD mail these people bullets… Engraved with their names….
Making a point, right? 😉
Oh, I have been.
http://blog.kentforliberty.com/2014/09/officer-aguilar-of-clovis-nm-pd-newly.html
http://blog.kentforliberty.com/2014/09/the-crimes-of-clovis-officer-brent.html
This may go a bit off topic but the curious case of Eric F(r)ein comes to mind.
This guy allegedly shot and killed a PA state trooper and shot and wounded another PA state trooper in an “ambush” last month. He is now on the run and there is a continuing massive manhunt in PA for him.
Just about every electronic travel info billboard in PA now has his face and name on it stating that he is wanted for homicide. These signs show his name as Eric Fein.
Yet a google search brings up the same images of him but with either the name listing of Fein or Frein.
So which is it? Why the uncertainty of his last name if the authorities are so certain as to who he is?
Maybe I am reading too much into this but it just struck me as odd.
Anyway, bringing all of this back to Eric Peter’s article, does anyone think for a second that this accused Eric F(r)ein guy’s case will ever get to a courtroom?
I do not pretend to know the truth to all of this but I do know that once one is labeled a “cop killer” he very, very rarely survives the “attempts” to “bring him to justice”.
IOW, this F(r)ein guy will be killed by “law enforcement” first chance they get and US amerikans will say “good job” furthering their blind support of the police.
Agreed, Skunk.
There is this odd notion that a “cop killer” is especially odious. As opposed to cops who kill.
It is part of a societal shift that, I believe, began to gain momentum around the time of Ronald Reagan’s presidency, with the veneration of uniformed authority (cops and soldiers), which was turbo-boosted during the Decidership of The Chimp.
Dear Eric,
“There is this odd notion that a “cop killer” is especially odious. As opposed to cops who kill.”
Amen and Hallelujah to that! I’ve said the same thing myself ad nauseum.
Especially ironic is liberal TV scriptwriters who write cop shows with dialogue incorporating terms such as “cop killer” and “cop killer bullets” with an air of moral indignation.
Why is a “cop killer” more despicable than a “killer cop?”
It’s all part of the same underlying problem. The Myth of Authority. Until that changes, nothing changes.
BEVIN, “The Myth of Authority. Until that changes, nothing changes.”
Amen and Hallelujah to that as well!
I find it interesting that so many of the same conservatives who complain about the government being out of control are yet also the biggest worshipers of cops and the military.
“I hate big government but I love its enforcers” should be a disconnect.
Yes, and those who claim to favor small gunvermin, with no DOMESTIC interference, but forget there has never been a ‘small’ empire.
Yeah… Even sheep have their idiots….
This is something I tried to challenge on one of the recent yahoo threads. (I commented several times with my real first name here: http://news.yahoo.com/imprisoned-former-death-row-inmate-addresses-grads-222922853.html?bcmt=1412627810327-f7390e33-4ea0-4f51-97d4-4c75b0bd8692_00002b000000000000000000000000-da53fb10-6910-4612-b481-b1a8ee5a7997&bcmt_s=u#mediacommentsugc_container). People just called me a progressive.
Would you believe I get called a “liberal” fairly often?
Yeah, I believe it. Its really bad. But its even worse when people do it to me since my primary methods of defending libertarianism are religious in nature. It still happens to me all the time.
Regardless of any of that, I find it amazing that anyone could think that anarcho-capitalists are “liberal” in any meaningful sense.
Just criticize “lawful” authority!
Make an unfavorable comment about “our troops.”
Roll your eyes when a Republican conservative begins to fulminate vitriol about gays.
All good points, Eric. Although I will say, the ones who tend to be extremely anti-gay are also often, for better or worse, quite libertarian on most other issues. A person who thinks homosexuality is so evil that it should actually be punished by law (I do not believe this, for the record) is also likely to see American culture as obscene, which often neutralizes some of the cop and soldier worship. I think that’s a natural part of being outside the establishment, wherever one is outside the establishment.
But, yeah, start deviating from interventionist foreign policy, criticize “the troops”, criticize “law enforcement” and so forth and you start getting called a liberal. Its insane.
Hi David,
If you haven’t already, read Peikoff’s Ominous Parallels. It was written in the ’70s (IIRC) when America was a comparative oasis of liberty relative to today. Yet, the author (correctly) saw the same trends that preceded the rise of national socialism in Germany. The “partnering” of big business and big government; the cult of the soldier, etc.
I remember one watershed moment – the Ollie North Thing back in the ’80s. The way the public swooned over that teary-eyed psychopath. It gave me pause, even as a high-school kid.
The more I look back on it, the presidency of Reagan was a major turning point toward the American Police State. Pre-Reagan, uniform-humping was looked upon by most people (or lots of people, at any rate) as odd. He made this fascist fetish normal.
For fun, go and look at some of the WW II-era German propaganda about their “troops.” The way Germans worshipped uniforms, authority. Believed deeply – religiously – in German exceptionalism (the true meaning of Deutschland uber alles). The German sense of the superiority of all things German – to be imposed (benevolently) upon the world.
Remind you of anything?
Hi David,
“Although I will say, the ones who tend to be extremely anti-gay are also often, for better or worse, quite libertarian on most other issues.”
I doubt this very much.
Scratch the surface of such a person and – in my experience – you will very quickly find an authoritarian. Oh, he’ll be a “conservative” one rather than a “liberal” one.
But, authoritarian through and through.
He’ll defend all sorts of exceptions to liberty – for the sake of various “goods” (as he defines them).
Ask him, for instance, whether he opposes forcing people to pay real estate taxes to “help” pay for his kids’ (government) education? Does he support rent-seeking that benefits his business? How about Social Security? Is he ok with someone growing pot and selling it to whomever freely wishes to buy it?
Try it and see…
The hard-core theonomists who want to put homosexuals to death because of the Old Testament Law are also generally opposed to social security and public schools because those things aren’t supported by Biblical law.
I’m thinking of guys like Joel McDurmon or Gary North here, or even (this is an extreme example) the Westboro Baptist Church. I am not thinking of your average “establishment” pastor.
Eric, here’s an example of what I’m talking about, from theonomist Joel McDurmon:
http://americanvision.org/11297/thing-legitimate-taxation/
And if you look at some of his other articles, he is anti-interventionism, and condemns conservatives for supporting laws against drugs, pornography, and prostitution despite any judicial law against these things in the Old Testament.
Joel McDurmon is a perfect example of what I’m talking about, someone who holds to a few anti-libertarian positions (perhaps intolerably so for the secular libertarian) but is libertarian on a whole bunch of issues for every one that he isn’t.
I couldn’t get past the first graph.
All this flapdoodle about jeebus and the holy books justifying this, not warranting that. Not my bag, baby.
I don’t base my economics or politics on such things, as you know.
Taxation is wrong, not because the Bible says so – but because taking other people’s stuff is wrong.
Anyone who advocates putting people to death for being gay is an uber Clover; in the same category as a Hitler or Stalin. A monster. Insane. Despicable.
Their support of this or that “good” position on economics is immaterial because they do not believe in liberty. They believe in mindless obedience to the arbitrary dictates not even of a “Sky Stalin” (which would be vile enough) but to the interpretations and parsings of men and recondite books written by men that claim to reveal the wishes of the supposed Sky Stalin.
My invisible friend tells me gays must be slain! It is written…
Dear Eric,
My invisible friend tells me gays must be slain! It is written…
How different really is that from this:
David Richard Berkowitz (born Richard David Falco, June 1, 1953), also known as the Son of Sam and the .44 Caliber Killer, is an American serial killer convicted of a series of shooting attacks that began in the summer of 1976…
Berkowitz claimed a demon that possessed his neighbor’s dog had commanded him to kill.
To me the only difference is that the latter has a lot of people who are willing to endorse one’s delusion, giving it a semblance of “legitimacy.”
Morning, Bevin!
I have thought exactly the same thing for many years.
There is no meaningful difference.
A “cult” is merely a religion not yet socially acceptable.
Christianity was itself a cult, once upon a time. The socially acceptable religion of that time – i.e., the Roman pantheon – looked down on those “weird” Christians and their strange beliefs.
They’re all strange, to me!
But it’s not the strangeness that really bothers me. Hell, I’m strange!
What creeps me out is the seething violence burbling under the Holy Talk. The textbook example being the murderous violence directed toward gays.
Anyone who feels that way – who thinks that way – is no ally of mine.
The Old Testament is perhaps one of the most loathsome things ever shat out by human brains.
It’s worse than Mein Kampf, actually.
*former, not latter
Dear Eric,
Exactly.
A demon possessing a neighbor’s dog, issuing him a single commandment.
How different really is that from an invisible lord and master possessing a burning bush, issuing ten commandments?
It’s not about the strangeness. It’s about the lack of reasoning behind it.
One can be strange because one takes certain premises to their logical extreme. One example was Andrew Galambos, with his very strange concept of intellectual property rights. He as strange, but he was apparently genuinely attempting to be rational and consistent.
That is a very different matter from delusions about 72 virgins in Islam, or 9 circles of hell in Christianity. The latter involves no attempt to be rational and consistent.
This is not a trivial difference. The latter leads to Crusades and Jihads in which millions die pointless deaths over competing superstitions.
“Murray Rothbard observed, “The libertarian movement, and the Libertarian Party, will get nowhere in America – or throughout the world – so long as it is perceived, as it generally is, as a movement dedicated to atheism. […]
If libertarianism demands that people relinquish their God and deeply-held articles of faith in order to accept, then it becomes destructively self-limiting. Murray commented wryly, if “Stalin couldn’t stamp out religion, libertarians are not going to succeed with a few Randian syllogisms.”
The demand is also insulting. It equates all religion with faith-based statism – with what used to be called the Moral Majority. But faith qua faith has no more connection to statism than atheism has to freedom; atheistic communism should have dispelled that assumption. […]
setting an artificially high bar for admission and insulting people’s personal beliefs did not seem like good recruiting tactics. In fact, the poor opinion of religion seems to have nipped libertarian outreach to that massive sector in the bud. […]
More interestingly, Murray argued that whatever a peaceful person thinks about religion is totally irrelevant to libertarianism. Murray did not believe libertarianism required either the acceptance or rejection of religion. His argument raises two questions: what is religion; and, what is libertarianism?”…
http://thedailybell.com/editorials/35710/Wendy-McElroy-Libertarianism-Is-Not-Atheist-Is-Not-Religious/
Hi Helot,
I certainly don’t demand that people relinquish their belief in anything. Whether Jesus is Lord – or The Flying Spaghetti Monster or shape-shifting reptiles.
I am not interested in such things myself. And there are many other things I don’t like and would not personally have anything to do with.
But so long as people aren’t violent and don’t cause harm to others – then go in peace.
That’s my message.
Dear helot,
I think a clarification is required here. I for one, have never demanded “that people relinquish their God and deeply-held articles of faith in order to accept [libertarianism.]”
Murray was talking about “official” Orthodox Objectivists who stridently condemned “religionists.”
I merely believe (inside, in my heart of hearts) that theism is inimical to libertarianism. I am wary of the negative influence that theism may have on libertarians who embrace it.
But I do not automatically and categorically reject theists (as opposed to theism) in a broad brush manner.
Don’t many theists speak of “hating the sin, loving the sinner?” That is somewhat like my position.
As I have noted before, my own mother is a Christian. She became one when my younger brother died in the mid-70s in a mountain climbing accident on Mount Hood in Oregon. I certainly don’t reject and villify her.
Being skeptical about the compatibility of theism and libertarianism inside one’s heart, and sharing that only when the subject is breached by a theist, is not the same as what Rand and the Orthodox Objectivists did to “heretics” back in the days of “The Collective” that Murray was talking about.
As long as theists adhere to the NAP, I may be skeptical about their commitment to liberty, but I will take what I can get and be fine with it.
As I have noted also, Ron Paul is a Christian, and his 30 year record has proven his commitment to libertarian principles to my satisfaction at least.
He has never to my knowledge, attempted to make theism a qualifier for libertarianism. He has never said that “Unless one is a Christian, and believes in obey God, one cannot be a true champion of liberty.”
Hope that clears it up.
I think the focus of the link was about perceptions. When I read the discussions here, as of late, my perception is that it is Not one of, “then go in peace” and it does appear that People here, “automatically and categorically reject theists” the same as the Randians, especially when I read things like, “Sky Stalin” and, “The Old Testament is perhaps one of the most loathsome things ever shat out by human brains. It’s worse than Mein Kampf, actually.”
Lots of converts that will win.
Some People respond to Clover’s comments to enlighten the silent Dear Reader and to counter the take-away Dear Reader might get from the comments of Herr Clover. In the same vein, what about some of the things said about religion here? What’s the take-away Dear Reader might get from it? It seems to me the slant has been an implication – leaning towards an unspoken demand – that people Must relinquish their God and deeply-held articles of faith in order to be a Libertarian. Otherwise, they are simply not using reason.
Bevin wrote, “Being skeptical about the compatibility of theism and libertarianism inside one’s heart, and sharing that only when the subject is breached by a theist, is not the same as what Rand and the Orthodox Objectivists did to “heretics” back in the days of “The Collective” that Murray was talking about.”
Yeah, I’m not getting that.
Also, RE: “I will take what I can get and be fine with it.” I’m not seeing that either. …That’s the perception from this view on the porch, anyway. Maybe it’s just me, and i’m mistaken?
I wrote out a reply several times and deleted them. I’m not sure even this one comes close to conveying my thoughts accurately, and certainly not completely.
“A demon possessing a neighbor’s dog, issuing him a single commandment. How different really is that from an invisible lord and master possessing a burning bush, issuing ten commandments?”
“– so long as it is perceived, as it generally is, as a movement dedicated to atheism. […] insulting people’s personal beliefs did not seem like good recruiting tactics.”
I use the term, Sky Stalin precisely because of the rabid totalitarianism often expressed by David and others. His angry insistence that we ought to bend knee to our owner – his term – who is by right entitled to do literally anything he wishes to us (including torture us horribly) and we not only ought not to object to this, we ought to embrace it.
And at least Stalin was real. Incontrovertibly an actual man; the flesh-and-blood leader of a very real totalitarian state. In other words, one could not deny the actuality of Stalin.
Everything David, et al, posit is predicated on a belief in… words written by men. Something they intuit or feel or believe because they believe it. The very same things that followers of Ra took as probative for thousands of years; then the Greek and Roman Pantheons, then the Muslims. Each of them believing with equal fervor in their belief.
We can get nowhere when the debate is about belief. In assertions about the numinous.
And, again: Belief as such does not bother me. But belief in gratuitous violence worries me very much because it seems a short leap from believing it’s ok to harm people who have done no harm to anyone to actually harming them.
I suppose that makes me an idiot in David’s eyes.
I’m not sure if I should actually dig into just how ridiculous Eric’s mindless sentiments are here, or if I should just leave again.
Eric’s posts in this particular case are JUST as dumb as clover’s. There’s literally no mental interaction with the ideas at all. Just “I couldn’t get past the first paragraph” and talk about “murderous violence” without actually justifying the assertion that it is murderous.
And then he has the gall to compare someone like Gary North to a Hitler or a Stalin, who killed people because they were Jews or failed to absolutely worship the State respectively.
Eric, its sad because I like so much of what you say, but eventually stupidity comes out. I’ll put it this way. Anyone who actually believes that the OT is as bad as Mein Kamf is an idiot that isn’t worth any of my time.
I’ll do you one better and explain why:
1. If we take the Bible’s claims to infallibility at face value, God created humans out of dust. Thus, he owns them. He can do whatever he wants. If he wants to kill his own creations for engaging in sex with other men, so be it. He’s God, he makes the rules. Hitler does not even claim divine revelation, and he certainly does not have it.
2. “Killing gays” is a strawman. The OT Law (Which I don’t endorse applying today) applied to men who slept with other men. It wasn’t just about belonging to some group called “gay”, it was about actually having sex with other men. People who didn’t do this, or people who managed to do so without having 2-3 witnesses observing (which shouldn’t be that hard if you do it in private, TBH) would be fine.
3. Postmillennialists (I’m not a postmillennialist for the record) generally want to reform the culture first, with the hope that governmental reforms will follow. So, somebody like McDurmon isn’t advocating just rounding up and executing gays. While someone like him (note that I do not agree) would eventually like to see such a law in place, he wants to dramatically change the culture first, to the point where such behavior would be fairly rare anyway. It would be like executing anyone today who has sex with an animal and 2-3 witnesses confirm that it happens. No, I wouldn’t support such a law, but it wouldn’t really affect very many people if it was in place, because sex with animals is so socially unacceptable that hardly anyone does it, much less where people can see. I think someone like Mcdurmon is envisioning a culture where homosexuality is seen in a similar light. Now, I happen to think that that’s far fetched, and I also don’t support such laws for today anyway. But, its a far cry from what I think you are envisioning, which I’m guessing would be some mass rounding up of everyone who identifies as “gay” and having them all stoned. I don’t think anyone supports that (if there is anyone, its the Bob Enyart cultists…)
4. You still haven’t even proven that theft is wrong. The best argument you have is that its socially undesirable, but so what? WIthout an absolute moral standard, how do you even know “property” exists? How do you know what belongs to you?
Alright, there may be more that I could address, but 4 reasons is PLENTY for that absolutely awful set of posts by Eric, simply because they’re awful… for the same reasons Clover doesn’t deserve sophisticated responses.
I hope Eric believes strongly enough in the free engaging of ideas to let these posts through. I probably will not be posting again for awhile. I have better things to do than this…
David,
The OT advocates genocide, slavery, the death penalty for “unbelief”… please explain how this is any different from being murdered by an authoritarian tyrant for daring to express unbelief in him?
You write:
“1. If we take the Bible’s claims to infallibility at face value, God created humans out of dust. Thus, he owns them. He can do whatever he wants. If he wants to kill his own creations for engaging in sex with other men, so be it. He’s God, he makes the rules. Hitler does not even claim divine revelation, and he certainly does not have it.”
But I do not take the Bible’s claims at face value, David. I do not consider myself owned by anyone. And I do not accept the idea that my alleged owner has the right to torture or kill me. It is a loathsome notion.
You write:
“2. “Killing gays” is a strawman. The OT Law (Which I don’t endorse applying today) applied to men who slept with other men. It wasn’t just about belonging to some group called “gay”, it was about actually having sex with other men. People who didn’t do this, or people who managed to do so without having 2-3 witnesses observing (which shouldn’t be that hard if you do it in private, TBH) would be fine.”
So it’s ok to murder men (and women) who engage in consensual same-sex relations? As opposed to leaving them alone provided they never act on their attractions?
You ought to actually read your OT sometime, David.
Then you might understand my Mein Kampf reference.
(Written by me): http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?461407-Eric-Peters-is-an-idiot&p=5673414#post5673414
David,
How would you feel about a guy who told you, “I believe it is good to have sex with little children…”? Who admitted openly that he had no problem with such?
I find people who believe it’s ok to murder others despicable, too.
And you know perfectly well that anyone who so believes is eager for such belief to become practice.
It is sick, demented, to support the “death penalty” for actions that have caused no harm to another person.
What is it with the severity that seems to suffuse so many religious brains? The harshness – the vengefulness – toward people over their private, personal, consensual life choices? What is so objectionable about live – and let live? About minding your business – and leaving others free to mind theirs?
Why can’t you be content to reverence your “lord” – and leave others be? Why the urge to impose him and his system on others? I have no objection to your worshipping whatever you want to worship. Just leave me out of it. And – please – do not try to tell me that your worship is “right” while my thoughtfully considered decision not to worship is wrong.
Can you not see the Cloverism creeping?
David,
I am obviously not an idiot – and neither are you. It’s sad that you’ve resorted to name-calling in lieu of a reasoned (and reasonable) discussion.
Here’s what separates us:
I am cool with anyone’s personal choices that do not entail harm to others. I may not participate in a given activity myself, but I do not condemn it as immoral or cretinous provided no victim is involved. That is, no tangible harm done to another specific person or his property.
I do not object to belief in anything, even if I might consider it loopy … except when belief is implicitly violent – for the (to me) eminently sensible reason that people who are violent in their hearts and minds are apt to either become actually violent themselves, or cheer on those who are violent along lines they approve of.
You, on the other hand, appear to have a real problem with other people’s choices and beliefs, even when those beliefs direct no hatred or violence toward others and no tangible harm is caused to another person.
It angers you that I do not share your beliefs. It angers you that a man (or a woman) might have sex with another man (or woman) because it offends your god, whom you believe owns everyone and so has the right to decree whatever code he/she/it wishes and all of us are obliged to submit and obey.
Implicitly (and explicitly) you get really mad when someone rejects all that. You would be accepting – approving – of my murder for “unbelief,” even though you yourself might not actually murder me. I, on the other hand, do not wish to see you harmed, nor believe you deserve to be harmed for any reason (except in the event you first cause harm to someone else).
Your mindset is fundamentally authoritarian. .
Mine is genuinely Libertarian.
There is, indeed, a very wide gulf between us.
As an afterthought I should add, I’m not a “Gong-Ho Christian”. As if it maters?
This is Da Bomb:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/2014/10/laurence-m-vance/military-blasphemy/
Also, I’d like to know more about the viewpoints of Gary North in this discussion as it relates to Libertarianism but I’m not sure that this forum is the ideal place to do so. On the surface it does seem odd for a Libertarian or Rothbardian to compare someone like Gary North to a Hitler or a Stalin and to imply he knows nothing of Liberty.
There’s more to it, than that, I think.
Oops, that should be, ““Gung-Ho Christian”.
Dang Spellcheck. Can’t it catch anything?
Gong-Ho? Psft.
Dear helot,
I think we may be forgetting the sequence of events. The repeated debates over religion were responses to David’s insistence that
“Absent God’s commandments, no ethics, including the NAP, is possible. Mankind is left in a moral vacuum. God provides objectivity.”
I’m paraphrasing of course. Not verbatim. But the gist of it is there. If I misrepresented his views, I am willing to stand corrected.
Eric’s response was straightforward. Violations of the NAP are clearly wrong because no one would ever want them committed against oneself. People need to be left alone so they can exercise their own judgement to ensure their own survival. Hence, the Golden Rule, which predates Christianity by centuries.
Simple mutual respect for others’ natural rights is plenty. No need for imaginary, invisible lords and masters in the sky to provide certainty via imperial edict handed down which must be obeyed, or else one will be punished.
Just wanted to make clear that I TOTALLY agree with what Laurence wrote in that article. I even sent the article to my pastor immediately when it was posted.
Helot, if you want to know what the thing is with Gary North, email me at [email protected] and I’ll tell you. The short version is that Gary North is a theonomist, which means he ultimately supports OT law (more or less) being applied in modern day societies. There is enough nuance to this position (in my opinion) that people like North are FAR more libertarian than the status quo, and that I would consider them to be allies even though I don’t agree with them on everything. Joel McDurmon would be in the same general political category as North.
Hi David,
Anyone who would insist that the Old Testament have the force of law – that is, be enforceable using violence – is no better than the Islamist maniacs beheading “unbelievers.” Literally.
Do you really support a person who believes it’s ok to murder someone for expressing disbelief in “the lord”?
RE: “forgetting the sequence of events.”
That kind of sidesteps the matter of perceptions. A.k.a. how you guys are coming across, now. To others.
“Simple mutual respect for others’ natural rights is plenty. ”
Ok, …But just – Nevermind, – “Simple mutual respect” for others?
Via Wendy’s article:
“Libertarianism is not and does not pretend to be a complete moral, or aesthetic theory; it is only a political theory […]
Although expressing scorn toward religious people is also a peaceful act, it seems like a tremendous waste of time unless those people are somehow harming a third party. In the absence of harm, the scorn flies in the face of the spirit of libertarianism, if not the letter of its law.”
Anyway, does anybody else really dislike the way the comments get narrowed down all skinny-like?
Or, is it just my browser?
Mang does this ever Bite on a long winded thread such as this one. Kink in my neck.
Hi Helot,
It’s not scorn so much as rising to the challenge. I’ll respond when David or someone else begins to proselytize. I enjoy discussing almost anything, including stuff that’s speculative (such as the numinous). I think the source of friction (or offense taken) is the religious person’s bewilderment at the disbelief of others – and the non-religious person’s bewilderment at the certainty of belief of the religious.
Dear helot,
Although expressing scorn toward religious people is also a peaceful act, it seems like a tremendous waste of time unless those people are somehow harming a third party. In the absence of harm, the scorn flies in the face of the spirit of libertarianism, if not the letter of its law.”
Agree, totally.
Again, we must put things in actual context. David is very eager, one might say “zealous,” about hashing out these matters. He bites his tongue for a while, but a head of steam builds up in him and he tries to preach the dogma that “Only a belief in God is consistent with genuine morality.” Eric and others, including myself, do not shy away from such challenges. But the usual pattern is response, not initiation. If you look over the old posts, I believe you will see that is true.
Eric and I among others, were merely obliging him.
Let’s not forget that all we are talking about really, is debate, i.e., conversation. Absolutely no violations of the NAP, or even advocacy of violations of the NAP are involved. At least not on the party of atheistic anarchists.
Sometimes intellectual friction cannot be avoided in the pursuit of knowledge. Walking on eggshells is no way to live.
Also, if “not alienating other libertarians” is so high in priority, why must theistic libertarians alienate atheistic libertarians?
Isn’t this a two way street? Must atheists walk on eggshells and bite their tongues while theists lay down the Christian equivalent of Shariah Law?
Let’s be fair here.
DAVID, ” If we take the Bible’s claims to infallibility at face value…”
That is one big “if”. And if we do not take it at face value then everything else you wrote is made moot.
I vote moot.
Eric (to David) – ‘Do you really support a person who believes it’s ok to murder someone for expressing disbelief in “the lord”?’
Of course he does. He says as much.
God owns us and can do (or have done by those who know his wishes) as he likes with his property, unconcerned with morality, fairness and decency.
As I said (roughly) before “as soon as God is a reference, rational debate is impossible”.
And sure enough……….
‘Tis scary, isn’t it?
And, ironic.
David considers himself an advocate for liberty, yet fundamentally rejects liberty by insisting on absolute, unquestioned obedience to authority.
A child asks his parents, why?
Their answer: Because we say so.
Perhaps there is a god. I do not presume to know. But I do know this: If god exists – and this god is a vengeful son of a bitch who toys with “his” creations, subjects them to physical and existential pain merely for questioning “his word” or his absolute Decidership… as articulated and parsed to us not by him but men... then (speaking just for me) fuck him and feed him fish heads.
Eric – “If god exists – and this god is a vengeful son of a bitch who toys with……”
Indeed. I have often ended ridiculous debates with the I-Know-God types in this manner;
Me : “so your God, he is Omnipotent and Omnipresent?”
Them : “Oh, most certainly. God is all powerful and all knowing.”
Me : “So everything that happens is God’s will?”
Them : “Of course.”
Me : “Then you God is responsible for all evil purported anywhere? Right?”
Them : Massive back pedaling and accusations of misunderstanding what they meant……
Self deluded liars the lot of ’em.
Fuck ’em and FEED them to the fishes.
I’ve tried that, Me2….
Their response?
Evil was introduced into the world by the exercise of free will (i.e., the “fall” of Adam). Which might work, if, like the supposed first man (and woman) each human individual actually did get presented by this “god” with the fully-informed option of choosing Option A (the good, in accordance with “god’s plan”) or Option B (the bad, rejecting “god’s plan’) and if only those who freely, knowingly choose Option B were made to suffer as a result.
But suffering affects all living things, often without any discernible reason for it – other than the fact that living things are subject to physical and emotional pain for a variety of reasons, most of them having nothing whatsoever to do with volitional choice.
How do they square the routine – and often horrible – suffering of small children? They had no choice – and more, could not choose, having not attained the age of reason.
God’s will. His plan is unknowable.
It’s gibberish to me – often noxious, hate-filled and implicitly/explicitly violent gibberish.
I’m by no means a Model Citizen or perfect person. I have many flaws; I am as subject to unworthy thoughts and actions as any man. But I try to do the right thing, as reason gives me the light to see the right. One thing I am personally proud of is that I have extinguished any desire I ever had to impose my idea of “the good life” on anyone. I harbor no animosity toward people who’ve not harmed me, nor threatened to. I embrace live – and let live.
I consider this is critical to the advancement of Libertarianism as an ethical system. The NAP is both external and internal. One seeks to avoid causing harm to others – but not merely that. One does not wish harm upon anyone who has not caused harm themselves first. One is appalled by the thought of it.
What was it Ted said to Bill?
Be excellent to each other.
That is the sum total of my religion.
Eric, first of all, I’d like to apologize for the insult. I was too harsh too quickly and it wasn’t fair.
Second, it seems that you’ve misunderstood me, and what I’m actually advocating. I was clarifying the theonomic reconstructionist position regarding homosexuality, which is taken from the Old Testament. The position is much more nuanced than you implied originally. That doesn’t mean I agree with it. I believe that law was intended only for the Israelite theocracy, and that the New Testament application is in 1 Corinthians 5 (namely, excommunication from the church, which certainly every libertarian would agree is within a church’s rights.) So, you’re still not going to like my position, but I want to be clear. I do not think that there is any person who is alive today who could justifiably kill someone for engaging in homosexual sex. The same would be true for idolatry. Those laws were justified when God commanded them for Israel, but they are not intended for today. I apologize for the confusion on this point.
I guess its too much to ask for people to understand nuance on online forums. I think that theonomists like Gary North advocate a far more Biblical AND far more libertarian society than the repressive government we live under today, ESPECIALLY considering their postmillennialism and the cultural shift they think will occur before such laws can/should be implemented. That doesn’t mean my ideal society is the same as theirs. I am not. I remain an anarcho-capitalist and an NAP adherent, as I have been since mid-2013.
At the end of the day, you can make of this anything you want. My point was simply that some of the most radically anti-gay Christians are also some of the most libertarian on a lot of other issues. I wasn’t saying that I actually agreed with them on every point. For a number of reasons, I probably feel closer to some of those people than you do, but I still don’t agree with them on the legal issues you are talking about. Of course, my reasons why are Biblical rather than secular.
It doesn’t anger me that you don’t believe, Eric. It does bug me that you are making ridiculous over-the-top comparisons to Hitler and Stalin, but you’re entitled, I suppose.
I also do see a bit of nuance between killing someone for immoral behavior on the testimony of witnesses, and killing someone solely because they are a part of a certain race. Not saying the former is right (unless the immoral behavior is murder, in which case I would be perfectly fine with it) but I think the latter is a fair bit more blatantly egriegious. Although, I guess that comes down to moral code somewhat. I don’t really see a difference between killing people for their race and killing everyone who shaves their beard. So, I could see why we could disagree on that point. I still think its clear that Hitler and Stalin were FAR more authoritarian across the board than, say, Gary North. Its not even really close.
What do you make of the fact that Ron Paul allowed Gary North (along with Tom Woods) to contribute to his homeschooling curriculum? No, it doesn’t mean Ron agrees with Gary North’s views (he doesn’t, as we realize.) But, if he thought they were anywhere near the same ballpark of Hitler or Stalin, I don’t think he would ever have even considered it.
David,
I appreciate the apology, first of all.
You wrote:
“I do not think that there is any person who is alive today who could justifiably kill someone for engaging in homosexual sex. ”
Unfortunately, there are millions of people who believe exactly that. And “pastors” who egg them on. Including Pat Robertson among them. There are many others. You might read up.
“Those laws were justified when God commanded them for Israel..”
So it was ok for this god of yours to murder certain “chosen” people ….? But he’s a nicer god now…?
You write:
“I also do see a bit of nuance between killing someone for immoral behavior on the testimony of witnesses, and killing someone solely because they are a part of a certain race.”
Immoral behavior? Defined by whom?
Men who wrote stuff in books – and men who claim those books were “written by god” via human hands. Madness.
This god of yours doesn’t seem to say much himself. Oh, but his followers and priests have a lot to say.
And it’s these human followers – acting in the name of their god – who will round people like me up and murder them for “immoral behavior” (this being whatever they claim displeases their god as opposed to a crime involving harm caused to a victim).
Do you begin to see why this god stuff freaks people like me out?
Why I am very dubious about the commitment to liberty and the NAP of any person who buys into it?
With regards to Eric’s question regarding “supporting someone who wants to murder people for unbelief”…
I don’t know exactly what you mean by “support” so I’m not quite sure how to answer this question.
I don’t like it but most people support some murder. My own father wanted to bomb ISIS when the news came out that they were beheading children, and he argued that sometimes “unintentional” deaths are justified in order to stop monstrous regimes overseas. 80% of Americans agree with him. Even some of those who don’t, and most if not all of those who do, no doubt supported the Dresden and Hiroshima/Nagisaki atrocities. This is a well-accepted position in America. To me this is FAR more disgusting than supporting the execution of a man for an immoral activity on condition that two or three witnesses actually verify the event in question.
Objectively I think its way worse. For some reason people, even libertarians, emotionally react to the second one far more strongly than the first.
If you want to essentially shun everyone who isn’t a libertarian, fine. I wouldn’t blame you for doing that. Sometimes I feel like doing that. That would be a consistent stance, and one I wouldn’t really blame you for taking.
But assuming we aren’t going to do that, I want to work with the people who want to shrink the government the most. That means theonomists, constitutionalists, paleoconservatives, and of course libertarians.
For what its worth, I think the odds of actually ever implementing a death penalty on homosexuality or idolatry anywhere in the United States are SIGNIFICANTLY lower than instituting anarcho-capitalism in the United States. I don’t think its something you actually have to worry about it. Even one of my theonomist friends (yes, I have a couple, go ahead and anathemize me already, lol) has pretty much said that those types of things are his last priority. His immediate priorities are pretty much the same things libertarians want, ending interventionist foreign policy, prison reform (ideally abolition), rolling back the welfare state, ending the drug war, etc.
If we ever get to the point where we’re anywhere even remotely near instituting criminal penalties on homosexuality or idolatry, I’ll be at your side fighting tooth and nail against that. But right now, that’s not even really an issue. There is a very real chance that the United States gets into another war, the stopping of which is my top priority. My second priority is to make government as small as I can at home. While that does include repealing laws against sexual vices, this is not the primary, let alone the only form that this takes.
As for the whole “problem of evil”, its pretty much a non-issue from a Calvinist POV because we believe in predestination. We don’t have a problem with the idea that God, in some sense and for some good purpose, predestined that evil events would come to pass. It is the Arminianism that most of you guys have been taught that is illogical and contradictory.
David,
I mean: countenance; accept. Not object to it. Think it’s ok.
North – and perhaps you also – thinks it’s ok for “god” (and, I must assume, his duly anointed human executioners) to murder homosexuals and idolators. I suppose I fall into the latter category at least. Hence, North would be ok with robed goons o’ god murdering me.
This puts him and anyone else who agrees with him beyond the pale of reason and morality, as far as I am concerned.
You write:
“I don’t like it but most people support some murder.”
And that makes murder ok?
Most people also support “some” taxation.
Does that make it ok?
You write:
“For what its worth, I think the odds of actually ever implementing a death penalty on homosexuality or idolatry anywhere in the United States are SIGNIFICANTLY lower than instituting anarcho-capitalism in the United States.”
What has that to do with objecting to the idea of implementing a death penalty for homosexuality or idolatry? And do you not understand why a person who advocates human liberty and the NAP would object to such and be very dubious about the “human liberty” bona fides of someone such as North, if he actually believes it’s ok to murder people for such non-crimes?
@Eric- I agree that murder is “the intentional killing of an innocent person.” The question ultimately comes down to who is “innocent.” “innocent” in this context should mean “those who haven’t committed crimes worthy of death.” In the OT, homosexuality and idolatry were among those, so killing people who engaged in such wasn’t murder. In the NT these things are no longer capital crimes so it would be murder to kill someone who did those things.
I understand, David.
Our disagreement is about referencing the OT (or “god’s will”) as a legitimate call to commit murder!
@Eric- I didn’t say that there aren’t people who CLAIM to have the right to execute homosexuals now. I was saying that there isn’t anyone who actually DOES have that right.
Look at 1 Corinthians 5 and what Paul did when he had an adulterer in a church. He didn’t tell them to put him to death, he told them to excommunicate them from the church. That’s the NT way.
In the Old Testament, the nation of Israel WAS the church, which is why the way of purging the evil from among them was to put the person to death. Its not really about a character change on God’s part. He didn’t change his mind. From the very beginning he intended to have a theocratic society in OT Israel, and not for now,
That’s where the theonomists part ways with me. They think God wants a theocracy (or something close to it) even today. I disagree.
I’m glad you agree no one has that right, David!
PS: Did you get a chance to check out Riley Martin?
@Eric- No, I’m arguing that its literally, philosophically impossible for God to commit murder, because a killing which God commands is inherently justified.
There are no COMPLETELY innocent people, we’ve all sinned.
In an informal political debate like this, I’m usually OK with using the term “innocent” to describe people who haven’t committed a crime that’s worthy of death. And normally that would be good enough. Its good enough for the purposes of sinful human beings choosing to kill other sinful human beings. But when we’re talking about God killing “innocent” people, we have to clarify more. By the standards of a perfect, holy God, ALL of us are not “innocent.” Trying to morally condemn that is like morally condemning a person who steps on an ant. Or, to use the Biblical analogy, like morally condemning a potter for smashing one of his clay pots.
I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, but it is your pride that prevents you from seeing yourself in this light. Its not just you. There are billions upon billions of people who are like this. I’m not going to try to convince you of that, per your intentions for the website, but that’s how I see it.
And through that lens, there isn’t really anything intrinsically horiffic about God choosing to have people put to death for homosexuality or idolatry or whatever. No, I’m not comfortable with that idea, but ultimately, God makes the rules and not me. The reason I oppose those laws now is because of the New Testament, not my own emotions.
Oy vey, David!
Define “sin” – as opposed to crime.
The Christian religion posits numerous “sins” that are by any sane standard, vices at worst. I know… god help me, I know. Your view is that any action – or even thought – that this being you believe exists (god) finds objectionable is objectionable by dint of this being objecting to it.
And yet, everything you believe this god finds objectionable was (or is) described by men. Yes, yes… I know (again). You believe these men were merely conduits, transmitting (perfectly) the desires/meaning of said god.
But – again – how is your position any different from Riley Martin’s position? Riley claims the Biavians took him to the mother ship, then transmitted knowledge unto him. Why are his beliefs/assertions any less valid than yours?
If you’re honest – if you’re reasonable – you’ll see and concede the point. That your beliefs are your beliefs. They cannot be established as factual. You may believe your beliefs are equivalent to self-evident objective realities such as “I exist” and “there is a city called New York” – but unlike the former and the latter, your mere beliefs are just that. Mere beliefs. You claim they are based on more – on “divinely inspired” words… but, again – this is not probative.
When Jesus incarnates and I can hear it from the proverbial horse’s mouth – not some man who claims to hear voices in his head – then you’ll have my attention!
Qua omsa Lagee Won!
Which is exactly why god, if he existed, would be a being worthy of contempt, not worship. There’s no difference in excusing god for murder than for excusing cops for doing the same thing. And yes, killing anyone who isn’t currently initiating force or violating property right is universally wrong- even if you are god.
http://www.godisimaginary.com/
Dear David,
It’s been truly bizzarre watching you argue for “theistic libertarianism.”
Every time you make a point that sounds halfway reasonable, you follow it up by making your central point:
“But when we’re talking about God killing “innocent” people, we have to clarify more. By the standards of a perfect, holy God, ALL of us are not “innocent.” Trying to morally condemn that is like morally condemning a person who steps on an ant. Or, to use the Biblical analogy, like morally condemning a potter for smashing one of his clay pots.”
This central point totally undermines any gains you might have made up to then. It reminds the atheist libertarian why he was an atheist libertarian in the first place.
The internal contradiction in this central point is so glaringly evident, it is mind-boggling.
I mean really, think about what you are arguing. You, like Muslims, argue that “God is the greatest!”
Allahu Akbar (Arabic: الله أكبر) is an Islamic phrase, called Takbir in Arabic, meaning “God is greater” or “God is [the] greatest”.
You argue that “He” with a capial H is the infallible creator of the universe. He is, as atheist philosopher George H. Smith notes:
“p47
If we wish to discover the nature of the Christian God, the National Catholic Almanac offers us a generous assortment of attributes from which to choose. According to this source, God is “almighty, eternal, holy, immortal, immense, immutable, incomprehensible, ineffable, infinite, invisible, just, loving, merciful, most high, most wise, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, patient, perfect, provident, supreme, true.”
Yet “He” is clearly not both omiscient and omnipotent according to your own account. He is a potter who is capable of f**king up and making “bad pots” that must be smashed in a fit of frustrated rage because “He” was neither omnipotent or omniscient.
Not to mention, anything but “just, loving, merciful” to “his chldren” whom he made that way in the first place.
This merely scratches the skin of what is wrong with theism. Not just Christianity, but Judaism and Islam as well.
Paul claimed 500 witnesses for the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Some of those people were still living at the time. If the resurrection of Christ was a blatant falsehood, and nobody had seen him, could Paul have really made a claim like that? Wouldn’t somebody have called him out on it?
Even if we asser that Matthew and Luke got their materials from Mark, we still have 2 independent sources, Mark and John, that Jesus lived, claimed divinity, did miracles, died, and rose again.
That is not to mention the numerous individuals that claimed to have seen him rise again, and died for that belief.
Is this absolute evidence? No. And I could present more, but could I present absolute evidence? Again, no. And ultimately I don’t need to, because the Bible says God already reveals himself to you through his creations. You already know that the Christian God exists, you are suppressing it (and again, this doesn’t anger me. It makes me sad, but it doesn’t anger me. I really don’t want you to go to Hell.)
At the same time, is it evidence that’s comparable to some crazy nut who has no other witnesses to collaberate his ridiculous story? No way.
David,
Do you believe the golden plates of the Mormons are real because “witnesses” claim to have seen them 150-something years ago?
Lots of people claim to have witnessed UFOs. Do you believe UFOs are real?
Thousands of people (tens of thousands of people) “saw” witches and devils and homunculi during the Middle Ages… and testified earnestly to this effect. Are witches and devils and homunculi real?
Jim Jones had hundreds of followers who would (who did) “witness” all sorts of nonsense. Do you believe in such nonsense? If not… why? It was “witnessed”!
We’re never going to get anywhere because your standard is – I believe! – yet you dismiss the beliefs of others.
We can debate facts. But “jesus is lord” (or Ra is the eternal sun god) is just an arbitrary assertion based on the asserters belief.
Nothing more.
If I understand correctly, the theonomist position (which I don’t share) would ONLY apply to idolatry in public, or trying to persuade other people to engage in it. I’ll have to ask one of my theonomist friends about it. But, from what I understand, they aren’t advocating penalties for simply not believing in God, or for worshipping idols in their own homes.
Do I agree with this? Absolutely not. I’m simply clarifying a position I don’t hold.
“Murder” is killing without some form of divine sanction, either direct (via a specific audible command) or indirect (based on scriptural principles of self-defense and so forth.) Now, I would argue that there is no divine sanction to execute homosexuals or public idolaters under the New Covenant, so I will freely agree with you that such actions are murder. The theonomist, of course, does see such divine sanction, and thus would say that it isn’t murder.
All that said, while I do not think God currently does, or ever will at the very least before Jesus himself returns, ordain human executioners to kill homosexuals or idolaters, I do think that God himself reserves the right to execute such people if he wishes. That would probably be an ethical issue we disagree on. As for the whole “is any support for murder justified”, no of course not. I wasn’t saying that at all. Everyone who isn’t an ancap is unjustified to some extent. The question is really how much. I would submit that the neocon is FAR worse than the theonomist, in my opinion. George W. Bush is FAR more evil than Gary North. They aren’t even in the same playing field as far as I’m concerned. Admittedly, part of it is that I’m much more frustrated by philosophically inconsistent positions than by philosophically consistent ones…
Far be it from me to put words in eric’s mouth, but if I understand his position correctly, and if I do I concur, he doesn’t trust anyone who advocates murder towards a certain group, but then says “Lighten up, it’s not your group”.
The masses of people who believe in “sanctioned murder” “moral murder” or “murder with divine sanction” will never be a true friend of the homosexual or the runaway slave. Well, you can be friends, but one would need to sleep with one eye open.
So, if I admit in public that I have a bust of Elvis in my office that I regard as “holy” – will these theonomists seek my blood? Why is anything I say (in terms of my personal beliefs) an actionable offense?
Your definition of murder and mine differ. Mine is – the intentional killing of an innocent person.
“Divine sanction”?
Notice the flawed premise?
It’s men claiming to know what this being they call god – who may or may not exist – sanctions. I understand you believe the Bible (and so on) is “divinely inspired” – that “god wrote it.” But that’s your mere belief. No more valid than, say, Riley Martin’s asserted belief in the existence of the Biavians.
http://www.rileymartin.com/
O quan tangin won?
Qua omsa legge won!
My issue with North is the contradiction inherent in his “theonomy.”
If you countenance violence against other people who’ve not committed aggressive violence toward others; who’ve caused no real person any provable harm – I don’t see how you can claim to be other than another species of control freak authoritarian.
I have read a lot of Gary North over the last 30 years. My understanding of his ‘theonomy’ is that there would be no theonomist country without VOLUNTARY participation. He does NOT advocate taking over the US or any other area by force.
David said:
““Murder” is killing without some form of divine sanction, either direct (via a specific audible command) or indirect (based on scriptural principles of self-defense and so forth.)”
Well, Sam Carr’s black labrador retriever supposedly had a connection to the divine… Seems David Berkowitz listened quite well, too.
Yet he’s still in prison. You know why?
Because today, we hold to the belief that those who “hear voices” are insane.
E.G., Moses, Joan of Arc, Mohammed, the old wino on the corner…
Are these people insane? Touched by the divine? Or consorting with Lucifer’s angels?
And how the F do you think YOU can tell the difference?
Besides, since you belive in pre-determination, you’re FREE to perform any barbarity, and sin, without concern: You’ve already been saved or damned, either enjoy the “5 finger discount” or revel in earning your damnation; what’s the difference?
And the innocents you kill as idolators, homosexuals, or witches, based purely on your Spectral Evidence….? Well, surely it was their pre-determined fate, so who cares? They had it coming. Or deserved it, or even if they didn’t, it was God’s plan.
So drive like a maniac, drunk, stoned, in a rented Lamborghini or such. If you get caught, it was going to happen anyway; if you DON’T get caught, that was God’s will anyway. So you did 125 mph through the shopping mall (the MALL, not the parking lot), if those people weren’t SUPPOSED to die there, by your hand, they would not have BEEN there.
Adn the Secular authorities only have authority because your Owner in Heaven has given them that power… But the time of the Son of Man is nigh….
___
Theatrical and heavy-handed? Maybe, but we’ve done this dance before. It’s like a child burning insects with a magnifying glass, or pouring salt on slugs to watch them melt – THAT is the essence of your God.
I’ll take my “heathen” ways, thank you very much – and the responsibility that goes with making my OWN decisions.
I won’t use God as an excuse for my evil. If that’s the be-all, end-all of God – an infantile child torturing insects and shelless moluscs – maybe we’re better off without the SOB.
Of course, since you WANT to be owned – IE, a slave of someone else – we probably don’t have a lot in common, philosophically. Catholics at least believe in answering to God for their conduct.
As far as I can see, so do Lutherans and Jews.
Islamists and Calvinists do not, apparrently – meaning, they are cut from the same cloth – and deserve the same remedy.
Radiation and “Radical Excisement.”
Because like any other cancer, they WILL metastasize.
Read: “The Handmaid’s Tale”
Also, “V for Vendetta”
More horrors have been propagated in the name of “good” and “God” than all the evil causes combined.
Bear in mind, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot are all in the “for their own good” camp.
You might find the discussion I have been having with a statist copsucker informative: http://blog.kentforliberty.com/2014/09/the-crimes-of-clovis-officer-brent.html
In another post I pointed out that those who support cops are dropping the ball, unless they wish to further erode the “legitimacy” of cops. (In others’ eyes, not mine, since I see absolutely zero legitimacy in the police.)
There is nothing they won’t turn inside out to justify.
Makes me wonder why copsuckers justify their actions and point of view. Either they’ve never been unlawfully beat up or they hope that their stance will be some sort of protection in future. If it’s the latter, then they’ve confirmed their own suspicions. In that case, the only thing that could describe their ideal is massive cowardice. In the former, it could only be described as massive ignorance.
“Look! You fools! You’re in danger! Can’t you see? They’re after you! They’re after all of us! Our wives…our children…they’re here already! You’re next!” —Dr. Miles Bennell
Just like in the book/movie, I’m the only one left now. Real life is always different. In the real world, you recognize everyone has changed, but there’s little you can do about it except make send digital missives to strangers, some of whom might be having the same experience. If only I hadn’t gotten paranoid when I was waiting to depart via the John Galt Travel Bureau. When I forfeited my one and only chance. Maybe there’s still a chance for the rest of you, if you can find the place.
John Galt Travel Bureau
You walk in as though it were an ordinary travel bureau, the stranger I’d met at a bar had told me. Ask a few
ordinary questions—about a trip you’re planning, a vacation, anything like that. Then hint about The Folder a
little, but whatever you do, don’t mention it directly; wait till he brings it up himself. And if he doesn’t, you
might as well forget it. If you can. Because you’ll never see it; you’re not the type, that’s all. And if you ask
about it, he’ll just look at you as though he doesn’t know what you’re talking about.
I rehearsed it all in my mind, over and over, but what seems possible at night over a beer isn’t easy to
believe on a raw, rainy day, and I felt like a fool, searching the store fronts for the street number I’d memorized.
It was noon hour, West 42nd Street, New York, rainy and windy; and like half the men around me, I walked
with a hand on my hood, wearing an old windbreaker, head bent into the slanting rain, and the world was real
and drab, and this was hopeless.
Anyway, I couldn’t help thinking, who am I to see The Folder, even if there is one? Name? I said to myself,
as though I were already being asked. It’s David Moleman, and I’m a young guy who works in a bank; a teller. I
don’t like the job; I don’t make much money, and I never will. I’ve lived in New York for over three years and
haven’t many friends. What the hell, there’s really nothing to say—I see more movies than I want to, read too
many books, and I’m sick of meals alone in restaurants. I have ordinary abilities, looks and thoughts. Does that
suit you; do I qualify?
Now I spotted it, the address in the two-hundred block, an old, pseudo-modernized office building, tired,
outdated, refusing to admit it but unable to hide it. New York has a lot of them west of Fifth.
I pushed through the brass-framed glass doors into the tiny lobby, paved with freshly mopped, permanently
dirty tile. The green-painted walls were lumpy from old plaster repairs; in a chrome frame hung a little wall
directory—white celluloid easily-changed letters on a black felt background. There were some twenty-odd
names, and I found “John Galt Travel Bureau” second on the list, between “A1 Websites” and “Ajax Financial
Advisors.” I pressed the button beside the old, outdated elevator door; it rang high up in the shaft. There
was a long pause, then a thump, and the heavy mechanized box began rattling slowly down toward me, and
I almost turned and left—this was insane.
But upstairs the John Galt office had divorced itself from the atmosphere of the building. I pushed open the
pebble-glass door, walked in, and the big square room was bright and clean, fluorescent-lighted. Beside the
wide double windows, behind a counter, stood a tall gray-haired, grave-looking man a telephone at his ear. He
glanced up, nodded to beckon me in, and I felt my heart pumping—he fitted the description exactly. ‘Yes,
United Air Lines,” he was saying into the phone. “Flight”—he glanced at a paper on the glass-topped
counter—”seven-o-three, from Keene, NH to Umm Lajj, Tabuk, Saudi Arabia, and I suggest you check
in ninety minutes early.”
Standing before him now, I waited, leaning on the counter, glancing around; this was the man, all right, and
yet this was just an ordinary travel agency: big bright posters on the walls, metal floor racks full of folders,
printed schedules under the glass on the counter. This is just what it looks like and nothing else, I thought, and
again I felt like a fool.
“Can I help you?” Behind the counter the tall gray-haired man was smiling at me, replacing the phone, and
suddenly I was terribly nervous.
“Yes.” I stalled for time, unzipped my windbreaker. Then I looked up at him again and said, “I’d like to—get
away.” You fool, that’s too fast! I told myself. Don’t rush it! I watched in a kind of panic to see what effect my
answer had had, but he didn’t flick an eyelash.
“Well, there are a lot of places to go,” he said politely. From under the counter he brought out a long, slim
folder and laid it on the glass, turning it right side up for me. “Fly to Buenos Aires—Another World!” it said in
a double row of pale green letters across the top.
I looked at it long enough to be polite. It showed a big silvery plane banking over a harbor at night, a moon
shining on the water, mountains in the background. Then I just shook my head; I was afraid to talk, afraid I’d
say the wrong thing.
“Something quieter, maybe?” He brought out another folder: thick old tree trunks, rising way up out of
sight, sunbeams slanting down through them-“The Virgin Rain Forests of Brazil, via Serra Verde Railroad.”
“Or”—he laid a third folder on the glass—”Bermuda is nice just now.” This one said, “Bermuda, Old World in
the New!”
I decided to risk it. “No,” I said, and shook my head, “What I’m really looking for is a permanent place. A
new place to live and settle down in.” I stared directly into his eyes. “For the rest of my life.” Then my nerve
failed me, and I tried to think of a way to backtrack.
But he only smiled pleasantly and said, “I don’t know why we can’t advise you on that.” He leaned forward
on the counter, resting on his forearms, hands clasped; lie had all the time in the world for me, his posture
conveyed. “What are you looking for; what do you want?”
I held my breath, then said it. “Escape.”
“From what?”
“Well—” Now I hesitated; I’d never put it into words before. “From New York, I’d say. And cities in
general. From worry. And fear. And the things I read in my newspapers. From loneliness.” And then I couldn’t
stop, though I knew I was talking too much, the words spilling out. “From never doing what I really want to do
or having much fun. From selling my days just to stay alive. From life itself—the way it is today, at least.” I
looked straight at him and said softly, “From the world.”
Now he was frankly staring, his eyes studying my face intently with no pretense of doing anything else, and
I knew that in a moment he’d shake his head and say, “Mister, you better get to a doctor.” But he didn’t. He
continued to stare, his eyes examining my forehead now. He was a big man, his gray hair crisp and curling, his
lined face very intelligent, very kind; he looked the way ministers should look; he looked the way all fathers
should look.
He lowered his gaze to look into my eyes and beyond them; he studied my mouth, my chin, the line of my
jaw, and I had the sudden conviction that without any difficulty he was learning a great deal about me, morethan I knew myself. Suddenly he smiled and placed both elbows on the counter, one hand grasping the other fist
and gently massaging it. “Do you like people? Tell the truth, because I’ll know if you aren’t being honest.”
“Yes. It isn’t easy for me to relax though, and be myself, and make friends.”
He nodded gravely, accepting that. “Would you say you’re a reasonably decent kind of man?
“I guess so; I think so.” I shrugged.
“Why?”
I smiled wryly; this was hard to answer. “Well—at least when I’m not, I’m usually sorry about it.”
He grinned at that, and considered it for a moment or so. Then he smiled—deprecatingly, as though he were
about to tell a little joke that wasn’t too good. “You know,” he said casually, “we occasionally get people in here
who seem to be looking for pretty much what you are. So just as a sort of little joke—”
I couldn’t breathe. This was what I’d been told he would say if he thought I might do.
“—we’ve worked up a little folder. We’ve even had it printed. Simply for our own amusement, you
understand. And for occasional clients like you. So I’ll have to ask you to look at it here if you’re interested. It’s
not the sort of thing we’d care to have generally known.”
I could barely whisper, “I’m interested.”
He fumbled under the counter, then brought out a long thin folder, the same size and shape as the others,
and slid it over the glass toward me.
I looked at it, pulling it closer with a finger tip, almost afraid to touch it. The cover was dark blue, the shade
of a night sky, and across the top in white letters it said, “Visit Enchanting Rigil Kentaurus!” The blue cover was
sprinkled with white dots—stars—and in the lower left corner was a globe, the world, half surrounded by
clouds. At the upper right, just under the word “Rigil Kentaurus,” was a star larger and brighter than the others; rays shot
out from it, like those from a star on a Christmas card. Across the bottom of the cover it said, “Romantic Rigil Kentaurus,
where life is the way it should be.” There was a little arrow beside the legend, meaning Turn the page.
I turned, and the folder was like most travel folders inside—there were pictures and text, only these were
about “Rigil Kentaurus” instead of Paris, or Rome, or the Bahamas. And it was beautifully printed; the pictures looked
real. What I mean is, you’ve seen color stereopticon pictures? Well, that’s what these were like, only better, far
better. In one picture you could see dew glistening on grass, and it looked wet. In another, a tree trunk seemed
to curve out of the page, in perfect detail, and it was a shock to touch it and feel smooth paper instead of the
rough actuality of bark. Miniature human faces, in a third picture, seemed about to speak, the lips moist and
alive, the eyeballs shining, the actual texture of skin right there on paper; and it seemed impossible, as you
stared, that the people wouldn’t move and speak.
I studied a large picture spreading across the upper half of two open pages. It seemed to have been taken
from the top of a hill; you saw the land dropping away at your feet far down into a valley, then rising up again,
way over on the other side. The slopes of both hills were covered with forest, and the color was beautiful,
perfect; there were miles of green, majestic trees, and you knew as you looked that this forest was virgin, almost
untouched. Curving through the floor of the valley, far below, ran a stream, blue from the sky in most places;
here and there, where the current broke around massive boulders, the water was foaming white; and again it
seemed that if you’d only look closely enough you’d he certain to see that stream move and shine in the sun.
In clearings beside the stream there were shake-roofed cabins, some of logs, some of brick or adobe. The caption
under the picture simply said, “The Colony.”
“Fun fooling around with a thing like that,” the man behind the counter murmured, nodding at the folder in
my hands. “Relieves the monotony. Attractive-looking place, isn’t it?”
I could only nod dumbly, lowering my eyes to the picture again because that picture told you even more
than just what you saw. I don’t know how you knew this, but you realized, staring at that forest-covered valley,
that this was very much the way America once looked when it was new. And you knew this was only a part of a
whole land of unspoiled, unharmed forests, where every stream ran pure; you were seeing what people, the last
of them dead over a century ago, had once looked at in Kentucky and Wisconsin and the old Northwest. And
you knew that if you could breathe in that air you’d feel it flow into your lungs sweeter than it’s been anywhere
on earth for a hundred and fifty years.
Under that picture was another, of six or eight people on a beach—the shore of a lake, maybe, or the river in
the picture above. Two children were squatting on their haunches, dabbling in the water’s edge, and in the
foreground a half circle of adults were sitting, kneeling, or squatting in comfortable balance on the yellow sand.
They were talking, several were smoking, and most of them held half-filled coffee cups; the sun was bright, you
knew the air was balmy and that it was morning, just after breakfast. They were smiling, one woman talking,
the others listening. One man had half risen from his squatting position to skip a stone out onto the surface of
the water.
You knew this: that they were spending twenty minutes or so down on that beach after breakfast before
going to work, and you knew they were friends and that they did this every day. You knew—I tell you, you
knew—that they liked their work, all of them, whatever it was; that there was no forced hurry or pressure about
it. And that—well, that’s all, I guess; you just knew that every day after breakfast these families spent a leisurely
half hour sitting and talking, there in the morning sun, down on that wonderful beach.
I’d never seen anything like their faces before. They were ordinary enough in looks, the people in that
picture-pleasant, more or less familiar types. Some were young, in their twenties; others were in their thirties;
one man and woman seemed around fifty. But the faces of the youngest couple were completely unlined, and it
occurred to me then that they had been born there, and that it was a place where no one worried or was ever
afraid.
The others, the older ones, there were lines in their foreheads, grooves around their mouths, but you felt
that the lines were no longer deepening, chat they were healed and untroubled scars. And in the faces of the
oldest couple was a look of—I’d say it was a look of permanent relief. Not one of those faces bore a trace of
malice; these people were happy. But even more than that, you knew they’d been happy, day after day after day
for a long, long time, and that they always would be, and they knew it.
I wanted to join them. The most desperate longing roared up in me from the bottom of my soul to be
there—on that beach, after breakfast, with those people in the sunny morning-and I could hardly stand it. I
looked up at the man behind the counter and managed to smile. “This is—very interesting.”
“Yes,” he smiled back, then shook his head in amusement. “We’ve had customers so interested, so carried
away, that they didn’t want to talk about anything else.” He laughed. “They actually wanted to know rates,
details, everything.”I nodded to show I understood and agreed with them. “And I suppose you’ve worked out a whole story to go
with this?” I glanced at the folder in my hands.
“Oh, yes. What would you like to know?”
“These people,” I said softly, and touched the picture of the group on the beach. “What do they do?”
“They work; everyone does.” He took a pipe from his pocket. “They simply live their lives doing what they
like. Some study. We have, according to our little story,” he added, and smiled, “a very fine library. Some of our
people farm, some write, some make things with their hands. Most of them raise children, and—well, they work
at whatever it is they really want to do.”
“And if there isn’t anything they really want to do?”
He shook his head. “There is always something, for everyone, that he really wants to do. It’s just that here
there is so rarely time to find out what it is.” He brought out a tobacco pouch and, leaning on the counter, began
filling his pipe, his eyes level with mine, looking at me gravely. “Life is simple there, and it’s serene. In some
ways, the good ways, it’s like the early pioneering communities here in your country, but without the drudgery
that killed people young. There is electricity. There are washing machines, vacuum cleaners, plumbing, modern
bathrooms, and modern medicine, very modern. But there are no radios, television, telephones, or automobiles.
Distances are small, and people live and work in small communities. They raise or make most of the things they
use.
Every man builds his own house, with all the help he needs from his neighbors. Their recreation is their
own, and there is a great deal of it, but there is no recreation for sale, nothing you buy a ticket to. They have
dances, card parties, weddings, christenings, birthday celebrations, harvest parties. There are swimming and
sports of all kinds. There is conversation, a lot of it, plenty of joking and laughter. There is a great deal of
visiting and sharing of meals, and each day is well filled and well spent. There are no pressures, economic or
social, and life holds few threats. Every man, woman and child is a happy person.” After a moment he smiled.
“I’m repeating the text, of course, in our little joke.” He nodded at the folder.
“Of course,” I murmured, and looked down at the folder again, turning a page. “Homes in The Colony,” said
a caption, and there, true and real, were a dozen or so pictures of the interiors of what must have been the cabins
I’d seen in the first photographs, or others like them. There were living rooms, kitchens, dens, patios. Many of
the homes seemed to be furnished in a kind of Early American style, except that it looked—authentic, as though
those rocking chairs, cupboards, tables and hooked rugs had been made by the people themselves, taking their
time and making them well and beautifully. Others of the interiors seemed modern in style; one showed a
definite Oriental influence.
All of them had, plainly and unmistakably, one quality in common: You knew as you looked at them that
these rooms were home, really home, to the people who lived in them. On the wall of one living room, over the
stone fireplace, hung a hand-stitched motto: “There Is No Place Like Home,” but the words didn’t seem quaint
or amusing, they didn’t seem old-fashioned, resurrected or copied from a past that was gone. They seemed real;
they belonged; those words were nothing more or less than a simple expression of true feeling and fact.
“Who are you?” I lifted my head from the folder to stare into the man’s eyes.
He lighted his pipe, taking his time, sucking the match flame down into the bowl, eyes glancing up at me.
“It’s in the text,” he said then, “on the back page. We—that is to say, the people of Rigil Kentaurus, the
original inhabitants—are people like yourself. Rigil Kentaurus is a planet of air, sun, land and sea, like this one.
And of the same approximate temperature. So life evolved there, of course, just about as it has here, though
rather earlier; and we are people like you. There are trivial anatomical differences, but nothing important.
We read and enjoy your James Thurber, John Clayton, Rabelais, Allen Marple, Hemingway, Grimm,
Mark Twain, Alan Nelson. We like your chocolate, which we didn’t have, and a great deal of your music.
And you’d like many of the things we have. Our thoughts, though, and the great aims and directions of our
history and development have been—drastically different from yours.” He smiled and blew out a pull of smoke.
“Amusing fantasy, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” I knew I sounded abrupt, and I hadn’t stopped to smile; the words were spilling out. “And where is
Rigil Kentaurus?”
“Four and a half light years away, by your measurements.”
I was suddenly irritated, I didn’t know why. “A little hard to get to, then, wouldn’t it be?”
For a moment he looked at me; then he turned to the window beside him. “Come here,” he said, and I
walked around the counter to stand beside him. “There, off to the left”—he put a hand on my shoulder and
pointed with his pipe stem— “are two apartment buildings, built back to back. The entrance to one is on Fifth
Avenue, the entrance to the other on Sixth. See them? In the middle of the block; you can just see their roofs.”
I nodded, and he said, “A man and his wife live on the fourteenth floor of one of those buildings. A wall of
their living room is the back wall of the building. They have friends on the fourteenth floor of the other
building, and a wall of their living room is the back wall of their building. These two couples live, in other
words, within two feet of one another, since the back building walls actually touch.”
The big man smiled. “But when the Robinsons want to visit the Bradens, they walk from their living room
to the front door. Then they walk down a long hall to the elevators. They ride fourteen floors down; then, in the
street, they must walk around to the next block. And the city blocks there are long; in bad weather they have
sometimes actually taken a cab. They walk into the other building, they go on through the lobby, ride up
fourteen floors, walk down a hall, ring a bell, and are finally admitted into their friends’ living room—only two
feet from their own.”
The big man turned back to the counter, and I walked around it to the other side again. “All I can tell you,”
he said then, “is that the way the Robinsons travel is like space travel, the actual physical crossing of those
enormous distances.” He shrugged. “But if they could step through those two feet of wall without harming
themselves or the wall—well, that is how we ‘travel.’ We don’t cross space, we avoid it.” He smiled. “Draw a
breath here—and exhale it on Rigil Kentaurus.”
I said softly, “And that’s how they arrived, isn’t it? The people in the picture. You took them there.” He
nodded, and I said, “Why?”
He Shrugged. “If you saw a neighbor’s house on fire, would you rescue his family if you could? As many as
you could, at least?”
“Yes.”
“Well—so would we.”
“You think it’s that bad, then? With us?”
“How does it look to you?”I thought about the headlines in my morning paper, that morning and every morning. “Not so good.”
He just nodded and said, “We can’t take you all, can’t even take very many. So we’ve been selecting a few.”
“For how long?”
“A long time.” He smiled. “One of us was a friend of a member of Lincoln’s cabinet. But it was not until just before
your First World War that we felt we could see what was coming; until then we’d been merely observers. We
opened our first agency in Mexico City in nineteen thirteen. Now we have branches in every major city:’
“Nineteen thirteen,” I murmured, as something caught at my memory. “Mexico. Listen! Did—”
“Yes.” He smiled, anticipating my question. “Ambrose Bierce joined us that year, or the next. He lived until
nineteen thirty-one, a very old man, and wrote four more books, which we have.” He turned back a page in the
folder and pointed to a cabin in the first large photograph. “That was his home.”
“And what about Judge Crater?”
“Crater?”
“Another famous disappearance; he was a New York judge who simply disappeared some years ago.”
“I don’t know. We had a judge, I remember, from New York City, some twenty-odd years ago, but I can’t
recall his name.”
What about Malaysia Flight MH370?
I leaned across the counter toward him, my face very close to his, and I nodded. “I like your little joke,” I
said. “I like it very much, more than I can possibly tell you.” Very softly I added, “When does it stop being a
joke?”
For a moment he studied me; then he spoke, “Now. If you want it to.”
You’ve got to decide on the spot, the middle-aged man at the Lexington Avenue bar had told me, because
you’ll never get another chance. I know; I’ve tried. Now I stood there thinking; there were people I’d hate never
to see again, and a girl I was just getting to know, and this was the world I’d been born in. Then I thought about
leaving this room, going back to my job, then back to my room at night. And finally I thought of the deep green
valley in the picture and the little yellow beach in the morning sun. “I’ll go,” I whispered. “If you’ll have me.”
He studied my face. “Be sure,” he said sharply. “Be certain. We want no one there who won’t be happy, and
if you have any least doubt, we’d prefer that—”
“I’m sure,” I said.
After a moment the gray-haired man slid open a drawer under the counter and brought out a little rectangle
of yellow cardboard. One side was printed, and through the printing ran a band of light green; it looked like a
railroad ticket to White Plains or somewhere. The printing said, “Good, when validated, for ONE TRIP TO
Rigil Kentaurus. Nontransferable. One way only.”
“Ah—how much?” I said, reaching for my wallet, wondering if he wanted me to pay.
He glanced at my hand on my hip pocket. “All you’ve got. Including your small change.” He smiled. “You
won’t need it any more, and we can use your currency for operating expenses. Light bills, rent, and so on.”
“I don’t have much.”
“That doesn’t matter.” From under the counter lie brought out a heavy stamping machine, the kind you see in
railroad ticket offices. “We once sold a ticket for thirty-seven thousand dollars. And we sold another just like it
for six cents.” He slid the ticket into the machine, struck the lever with his fist, then handed the ticket to inc.
On the back, now, was a freshly printed rectangle of purple ink, and within it the words, “Good this day only,”
followed by the date. I put two five-dollar bills, a one, and seventeen cents in change on the counter. “Take the
ticket to the John Galt Depot,” the gray-haired man said, and, leaning across the counter, began giving me
directions for getting there.
It’s a tiny hole in the wall, the John Galt Depot; you may have seen it—just a little store front on one of the
narrow streets west of Broadway. On the window is printed, not very well, “John Galt.” Inside, the walls and
ceiling, under layers of old paint, are covered with the kind of stamped tin you see in old buildings.
There’s a worn wooden counter and a few battered chrome and imitation red leather chairs. There are scores
of places like the John Galt Depot in that area—little theater-ticket agencies, obscure shuttle offices,
employment agencies. You could pass this one a thousand times and never really see it; and if you live
in New York, you probably have.
Behind the counter, when I arrived, stood a shirt-sleeved man, smoking a cigar stump and working on some
papers; four or five people silently waited in the chairs. The man at the counter glanced up as I stepped in,
looked down at my hand for my ticket, and when I showed it, nodded at the last vacant chair, and I sat down.
There was a girl beside me, hands folded on her purse. She was pleasant-looking, rather pretty; I thought she
might have been a stenographer. Across the narrow little office sat a young Negro in work clothes, his wife
beside him holding their little girl in her lap. And there was a man of around fifty, his face averted from the rest
of us, staring out into the rain at passing pedestrians. He was expensively dressed and wore a gray Homburg; he
could have been the vicepresident of a large bank, I thought, and I wondered what his ticket had cost.
Maybe twenty minutes passed, the man behind the counter working on his papers; then a small battered old
bus pulled up at the curb outside, and I heard the hand brake set. The bus was a shabby thing, bought third-or
fourthhand and painted red and white over the old paint, the fenders lumpy from countless pounded-out dents,
the tire treads worn almost smooth. On the side, in red letters, it said “John Galt,” and the driver wore a leather
jacket and the kind of worn cloth cap that some cab drivers wear. It was precisely the sort of obscure little bus
you see around there, ridden always by shabby, tired, silent people, going no one knows where.
It took over an hour for the little bus to work south through the traffic, toward the tip of Manhattan, and we
all sat, each wrapped in his own silence and thoughts, staring out the rain-spattered windows; the little girl was
asleep. Through the streaking glass beside me I watched drenched people huddled at city bus stops, and saw
them rap angrily on the closed doors of buses jammed to capacity, and saw the strained, harassed faces of the
drivers. At Fourteenth Street I saw a speeding cab splash a sheet of street-dirty water on a man at the curb, and
saw the man’s mouth writhe as he cursed. Often our bus stood motionless, the traffic light red, as throngs flowed
out into the street from the curb, threading their way around us and the other waiting ears. I saw hundreds of
faces, and not once did I see anyone smile.
I dozed; then we were on a glistening black highway somewhere on Long Island. I slept again, and
awakened in darkness as we jolted oft the highway onto a muddy double-rut road, and I caught a glimpse of a
farmhouse, the windows dark. Then the bus slowed, lurched once, and stopped. The hand brake set, the motor
died, and we were parked beside what looked like a barn. It was a barn.The driver walked up to it, pulled the
big sliding wood door open, its wheels creaking on the rusted old trolley overhead, and stood holding it open
as we filed in. Then he released it, stepping inside with us, and the big door slid closed of its own weight.
The barn was damp, old, the walls no longer plumb, and it smelled of cattle; there was nothing inside on the
packed-dirt floor but a bench of unpainted pine, and the driver indicated it with the beam of a flashlight.
“Sit here, please,” he said quietly. “Get your tickets ready.”
Then he moved down the line, punching each of our tickets, and on the floor I caught a momentary glimpse, in
the shifting beam of his light, of tiny mounds of countless more round bits of cardboard, like little drifts of
yellow confetti. Then he was at the door again, sliding it open just enough to pass through, arid for a moment
we saw him silhouetted against the night sky. “Good luck,” he said. “Just wait where you are.” He released the
door; it slid closed, snipping off the wavering beam of his flashlight; and a moment later we heard the motor
start and the bus lumber away in low gear.
The dark barn was silent now, except for our breathing. Time ticked away, and I felt an urge, presently, to
speak to whoever was next to me. But I didn’t quite know what to say, and I began to feel embarrassed, a little
foolish, and very aware that I was simply sitting in an old and deserted barn. The seconds passed, and I moved
my feet restlessly; presently I realized that I was getting cold and chilled. Then suddenly I knew—and my face
flushed in violent anger and a terrible shame. We’d been tricked! Bilked out of our money by our pathetic will
to believe an absurd and fantastic fable and left, now, to sit there as long as we pleased, until we came to our
senses finally, like countless others before us, and made our way home as best we could. It was suddenly
impossible to understand or even remember how I could have been so gullible, and I was on my feet, stumbling
through the dark across the uneven floor, with some notion of getting to a phone and the police. The big barn
door was heavier than I’d thought, but I slid it back, took a running step through it, then turned to shout back to
the others to come along.
You have seen how very much you can observe in the fractional instant of a lightning flash—an entire
landscape sometimes, every detail etched on your memory, to be seen and studied in your mind for long
moments afterward. As I turned back toward the opened door the inside of that barn came alight. Through every
wide crack of its walls and ceiling and through the big dust-coated windows in its side streamed the light of an
intensely brilliant blue and sunny sky, and the air pulling into my lungs as I opened my mouth to shout was
sweeter than any I had ever tasted in my life. Dimly, through a wide, dust-smeared window of that barn, I
looked—for less than the blink of an eye-down into a deep majestic V of forest-covered slope, and I saw,
tumbling through it, far below, a tiny stream, blue from the sky, and at that stream’s edge between two low roofs
a yellow patch of sun-drenched beach. And then, that picture engraved on my mind forever, the heavy door slid
shut, my fingernails rasping along the splintery wood in a desperate effort to stop it—and I was standing alone
in a cold and rain-swept night.
It took four or five seconds, no longer, fumbling at that door, to heave it open again. But it was four or five
seconds too long. The barn was empty, dark. There was nothing inside but a worn pine bench-and, in the flicker
of the lighted match in my hand, tiny drifts of what looked like damp confetti on the floor. As my mind had
known even as my hands scratched at the outside of that door, there was no one inside now; and I knew where
they were—knew they were walking, laughing aloud in a sudden wonderful and eager ecstasy, down into that
forest-green valley, toward home.
I work in a bank, in a job I don’t like; and I ride to and from it in the subway, reading the daily papers, the
news they contain. I live in a rented room, and in the battered dresser under a pile of my folded handkerchiefs is
a little rectangle of yellow cardboard. Printed on its face arc the words, “Good, when validated, for one trip to
Galt’s Gulch,” and stamped on the back is a date. But the date is gone, long since, the ticket void, punched
in a pattern of tiny holes.
I’ve been back to the John Galt Travel Bureau. The first time the tall gray-haired man walked up to me and laid
two five dollar bills, a one, and seventeen cents in change before me. “You left this on the counter last time you
were here,” he said gravely. Looking me squarely in the eyes, he added bleakly, “I don’t know why.” Then some
customers came in, he turned to greet them, and there was nothing for me to do but leave.
Walk in as though it were the ordinary agency it seems—you can find it, somewhere, in any city you try! Ask
a few ordinary questions—about a trip you’re planning, a vacation, anything you like. Then hint about The
Folder a little, but don’t mention it directly. Give him time to size you up and offer it himself. And if he does, if
you’re the type, if you can believe—then make up your mind and stick to it! Because you won’t ever get a second
chance. I know, because I’ve tried. And tried. And tried.
…. quite a screed, Tor
” It is my ambition to say in ten sentences what others say in a whole
book. ”
>> Friedrich Nietzsche
tl;dr version
Most of us here appear to spend a lot of timme looking for someplace better, imagining life somewhere better, or of becoming and associating with better people.
But then when John Galt finally comes calling, and says decide RIGHT NOW. This is your one chance.
Our indoctrination and programming will get in the way and we’ll miss out on the very freedom we’ve been searching for our whole lives.
If “John Galt” is reading this, I herewith announce that in the event he comes calling and offers me the opportunity to board his FTL craft and split this rock, I’m on board, baby!
I just want a TARDIS. Pile all my crap inside it and head for a better time or place or both. 🙂
BrentP,
That would be cool.
Here is a tardis for you*
*(please note: some assembly required. 😉 )
I can attest to the double whammy in financial costs to taxpayers when it comes to police misconduct.
Back in the 1980’s my dad was the victim (along with four other people) of police misconduct (two incidents, same rogue cops). Long story short, they were very fortunate, unlike most victims of police misconduct, to find some justice (two officers and their chief were forced to resign).
But the costs were high not only to my dad and those other four people. Taxpayers took a huge hit.
Since the village was found liable in the civil suit, not the rogue cops that committed the crimes, so taxpayers footed the bill. However this is years later after years of lawyers doing the things lawyers do. That is run up the billable hours.
By that time, the village had spent over two million dollars defending these rogue cops. And when they lost, they were ordered by the judge to pay all the legal expenses of the five victims. Since the five victims knew it was taxpayers, not the cops paying, decided to forgo damages outside of their legal expenses (six figures at that point). So they did give taxpayers a break, since they all could have gotten good sized settlements.
The village insurer refused to pay the over two million, since the insurance didn’t pay for that type of thing, and a bond was floated to pay the legal expenses. I think it was recently paid off. Remember this was the 1980’s, so a two million dollar loss was even bigger then today.
One rogue cop can easily bankrupt a town.
Good article Eric. It really boils down to equal justice under the law. I believe most people are simply far to indoctrinated now to ask the basic questions needed to reverse the trend so it will play out in time. If history is any guide, there will be violence. That is unfortunate. For my part, I treat all government agents (e.g. judges, politicians, cops, bureaucrats, etc.) with respect and kindness. Kind of like you treat a puppy that can bite but is poorly trained and ill tempered. The phrase “Bless your heart” comes frequently to mind.
Problem is, they’re not puppies.
As long as you aren’t the focus (at which point, duplicitous deference would be best), treat them like a rabid 200# pit-bull terrier: Put them down whenever possible….
Ill-tempered puppies can be trained.
Rabid animals are dying, and dangerous; you put them down for your own protection, not because they did something “wrong” or “evil.” No pleasure in it, it’s an ugly task, but more merciful than letting the disease run its course, and safer for society….
People are pods.
Almost everyone I know is a pod. They have no real feelings. They exist, breathe, sleep.
To be a pod means that you have no passion, no anger, the spark has left you…of course, there’s a very strong case for being a pod.
These pods avoid pain, ill-health and mental disturbance. In many aspects, being a pod is good for them. It leaves them in a very dull world but that, by the way, is the world that most of us live in.
You choose to be one of the pods for the same reason people welcome going into the army or prison. There’s regimentation, a lack of having to make up your mind, face decisions, taking risks.
People are becoming vegetables. I don’t know what the answer is except developing an awareness of it. That’s what makes reading Jack Finney’s Body Snatchers or watching the picture Invasion of the Body Snatchers helpful to me.
{Sigh}
All too true. Goombahs, PodPeople, same thing…
And most are HAPPIER living inside that system – as Thomas JEfferson ntoed, they cannot tolerate the real chaos of LIBERTY.
Problem is, they can’t even handle the chaos of OTHER PEOPLE’S liberty: Prisoners in the system, complaining to the warden that SOMEONE IS OUTSIDE THE BARS!!!!
Diagnosis is terminal mental illness…
Don’t hold your breath waiting for this to happen, the corrupt court system gave these parasites carte blanche by legitimizing “resisting” as a crime, they’re all in the same incestuous relation: them against us.
The “officer feared for his safety” bullshit is what drives me round the bend; if these “heroes” are really such chickenshit pussies they should seek another line of work, maybe they could be librarians (no offense to actual librarians intended). At least firemen know that their job will sometimes require running into a burning building, and they seem ok with that. My job before I retired involved working on high voltage power lines out of a bucket truck. Wouldn’t have held that job very long if I told people freezing in the dark after an ice storm that they’d just have to tough it out till springtime because I feared for my “safety”.
It’s probably too late for us to reverse this absent some violent retribution on these psychopaths; most cops joining up these days are ex-military who probably signed up so they could kill people and be “heroes” instead of going to jail for murder. Now they can still get away with murder and you haven’t a chance to defend yourself, my 12 gauge wouldn’t even make a dent in an MRAP if the PTB decide to send a SWAT team to my house. All that’s missing now are the brown shirts and swastikas.
If ‘Officer Safety’ is their primary concern, why should they deserve higher pay for dangerous duty?
Another example of the fallacy of “Checks and Balances” between different branches of gunvermin – it’s ‘you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.’
They’ll never put on their brown shirts and swastikas.
Even Clover would wake up then.
But as with the excerpt of C. 1 of Atlas Shrugged, thanks to Tor: The rot is there, even though the tree looks fine.
It’s not important that the tree turns into black sawdust; it’s important what we defien a TREE as.
THEY have stated that a pile of black sawdust is still THE TREE.
WE know better.
But it’s “The emperor’s New Clothes,” and no one WANTS to see….
And renaming something don’t make it true.
Rubber tires are vulnerable to petrol fueled fires.
When Dishonest Abe spoke of gunvermin ‘of the people, by the people, and for the people,’ he was positing a major change. John Adams spoke instead of ‘a government of laws, NOT of men.’ (emphasis added) This is one way of saying ‘Equal justice under the law.’ Costumes, badges and guns should not put one above the law. Nor should any other position, even that of ‘Decider.’
Some of those who post here are opposed to the concept of limited liability of corporations. I admit there can be problems, but I submit that those problems are caused by gunvermin interference, not by the corporations themselves. But at least there is SOME liability, even if limited. And it is the corporation (and its owners) that are held liable in those cases, not the tax cattle.
The Torah is very specific that one law is to apply to all, that neither the rich nor the poor should be favored or discriminated against. “You shall not discern faces.” I.e., your decision should have nothing to do with who is involved. Justice is to be the pursuit of all.
Of course a big part of the problem is that we have gotten away from the idea of laws as being derived from moral principles and shifted to ‘positive’ law, the idea that the law is WHATEVER the gunvermin says it is. ‘Malum prohibitum,’ as I saw it referred to on another thread this morning. The reason many (most?) people have accepted this is that we have become (have been for some time) a humanistic society. Man is the measure of all things. This goes back at least as far as the Constitution, which opens, “We the people.” That is to say, man is in charge.
I’ve rambled long enough for now.
Eric, I enjoyed reading this. For whatever reason, I often post something unrelated to your articles. This time it’s a summary of Rabbi Ayn Rand’s Gospel: Atlas Shrugged – Chapter 1. Keep up the good work.
Eddie Willers, special assistant to the vice president in charge of operations of Taggart Transcontinental Railroad, is accosted by a bum on the streets of New York City, who asks him, “Who is John Galt?” The question is an expression of futility — a slang phrase that indicates a hopeless situation. Eddie doesn’t like the question, just as he doesn’t like to see shops closing along Fifth Avenue and other previously prosperous streets. He is troubled by the steadily declining revenues of the railroad and the diminishing industrial output of the country in general.
Eddie speaks to James Taggart, president of the railroad, regarding the desperate condition of the track on their Rio Norte Line that serves Colorado, the last state whose industrial production is booming. He reminds Jim that Colorado — the home of Ellis Wyatt, whose discovery of a new method of extracting oil from shale rock led to the boom — is vital to the country’s survival and can’t be left without transportation. Taggart Transcontinental needs new rail now. Jim says that his friend Orren Boyle, the head of Associated Steel, has experienced unavoidable delays in the production of his rail and can’t be blamed. Eddie says that Hank Rearden of Rearden Steel, the last great steel producer in the country, can provide the rails. Taggart refuses to consider Eddie’s proposition.
Jim’s sister and Eddie’s boss, Dagny Taggart, returns from a trip to examine the Rio Norte Line. Dagny found the line in worse shape than she expected. She tells Jim that she has cancelled the order with Associated Steel and placed it with Rearden. Dagny has ordered rail made not of steel but of a new product, Rearden Metal. Jim objects on the grounds that the new metal has never been tried before and hasn’t been approved by public opinion. Dagny, who studied engineering in college, tells him that she has seen Rearden’s formula and tests, and she’s convinced that Rearden’s invention is superior to steel. Dagny also says that she’ll use Rearden Metal to rebuild the Rio Norte Line and win back shippers from Dan Conway’s superb Phoenix-Durango Railroad, which now carries most of Colorado’s freight traffic. She’s determined to save the railroad from the consequences of Jim’s policies, especially his construction of the worthless San Sebastian Line which, she asserts, the socialist Mexican government will imminently nationalize.
Other things besides her brother’s destructive policies disturb Dagny. For example, she wants to promote Owen Kellogg, an efficient employee of the Terminal Division, but he quits and leaves the railroad industry entirely. Furthermore, Dagny heard a young brakeman on her returning train whistling a theme that sounded like a composition of Richard Halley, the composer whose works she loves. But Halley retired suddenly eight years ago and disappeared. When she questioned the brakeman regarding the new piece, he replied that it was Halley’s Fifth Concerto. After she reminded him that Halley wrote only four, he became evasive. Dagny calls the company that publishes Halley’s music and finds that he hasn’t written a new piano concerto.
Analysis
The American economy is gradually collapsing. Industrial production is in steady decline, stores are closing, and workers are unemployed. A general gloominess pervades the culture, giving rise to the rhetorical question, “Who is John Galt?” The question expresses the widespread belief that no one can answer the difficult questions facing the American society. Dagny and Eddie contemptuously reject this pessimistic attitude and fight it.
Ayn Rand sets up a contrast immediately between Dagny, the story’s heroine, and her brother, Jim. Both are businesspeople, but each holds markedly different moral and political theories. Dagny is a model of the spirit and practice of capitalism. She believes in industrial production and profit — hard work and earning large amounts of money. She orders rails from Hank Rearden instead of Orren Boyle because Rearden delivers his product and Boyle does not. Likewise, Dagny will provide freight service to Ellis Wyatt and the Colorado industrialists but not to the destitute economy of socialist Mexico because Wyatt and his colleagues produce but the Mexican economy does not. Jim, on the other hand, is an example of the spirit and practice of socialism. He believes in sacrificing for the “public good” and in giving chances to the little guy, rather than dealing with those already successful. He orders rail from Associated Steel instead of the efficient Rearden Steel in order, he says, to give Orren Boyle a chance. Likewise, Jim builds the San Sebastian Line at a cost of millions to give the impoverished Mexicans an economic opportunity. Dagny seeks to earn profit; Jim seeks to serve the public welfare. Because of their underlying differences, Dagny and Jim clash regarding the San Sebastian Line, the choice of steel companies, and many other things.
Jim lacks a mind of his own. Public opinion is an important consideration for him. For example, he’s afraid to take a chance on Rearden Metal because the product is new and not yet accepted by society. Jim Taggart isn’t a man willing to trust his own judgment, and he’s not one to innovate or take a chance on inventions or new methods. Dagny, on the other hand, isn’t concerned with what people believe or say. She has a mind of her own and follows her own judgment. For example, she studies Rearden’s formula and examines the results of his testing in order to understand the metal’s superiority. Dagny is a rigorous engineer concerned only with the facts of the metal and its capabilities, not with the public’s beliefs or fears. Dagny says that she’ll take full responsibility for the metal’s performance, and Jim finally agrees to the purchase of Rearden metal rails. Dagny stakes her future on her own judgment.
This chapter also shows the ominous collapse of American industrial production. The closing plants and stores, the rising unemployment, and the lack of consumer goods aren’t the only elements adding to the growing gloom. The retirement and mysterious disappearance of brilliant, talented individuals in a wide range of fields adds to society’s pessimistic outlook. For example, Richard Halley, the brilliant composer whose music Dagny loves, has retired and gone into seclusion. Likewise, Owen Kellogg, a rising young star of Taggart Transcontinental, tells Dagny that he’s leaving not only the Taggart line, but railroading entirely. He loves his work, and he doesn’t plan a career in another field, but he leaves. Owen’s reasons are a mystery to Dagny; she finds his actions inexplicable.
The question of the new piece of music also troubles her. She knows with certainty that only Richard Halley could’ve written the melody that the young Taggart brakeman whistled. But the boy’s attitude became evasive when Dagny reminded him that Halley wrote only four piano concertos. And the publisher of his music assures her that Halley is retired and has stopped writing. There is no fifth Halley concerto. What, then, was the young brakeman whistling? Why did he tell her it was Halley’s Fifth and then retract his claim?
The steady decline of American prosperity reminds Eddie Willers of the oak tree that stood on the Taggart estate when he was a child. The tree was huge and powerful and stood for centuries. In fact, Eddie thought that it would always stand there. Its roots were deeply embedded in the soil, and Eddie thought that if a giant grabbed the tree, he would be unable to uproot it but would swing the hill and the entire earth with it “like a ball at the end of a string.” The youthful Eddie thought of the oak tree as a symbol of strength and solidity and felt safe in its presence. However, lightning struck the tree. When Eddie looked into its trunk, he discovered that the interior had rotted away long ago. The trunk was merely an empty shell, no longer containing living power. The adult Eddie experiences the same feeling when walking into the Taggart Building. He always felt safe there, in the midst of its great power and its capacity to provide train service to a continent. But now when he walks into the president’s office — the heart of the building and of the railroad — Eddie doesn’t find the energy of a great living power. Instead, he finds the deadly inner corruption that is James Taggart.
The oak tree, giving the appearance of strength and vitality, is a symbol to Eddie. It reminds him that things aren’t always what they seem — particularly that the outward appearance of power isn’t necessarily an accurate indication of inner reality. Taggart Transcontinental (and the U.S. economy in a more general sense), although powerful and seemingly safe through many years, has now rotted away. Eddie wonders what is causing the deterioration.
Glossary
Who is John Galt? This phrase is uttered as a sign of despair and hopelessness. The question lacks specific meaning and cannot be answered. Its use in everyday language is a sign that people believe answers don’t exist to the problems that plague American society. Dagny and (to a lesser extent) Eddie are dynamic thinkers and people of action who believe that answers are possible and that positive steps can be taken to save American society. Consequently, they reject the pessimism that this question embodies.
Rearden Metal This is the new substance created by steel industrialist Hank Rearden after ten years of demanding effort. The new metal is lighter, stronger, and cheaper than steel. Although its innovative nature frightens people and it hasn’t been accepted yet, Rearden and Dagny both know that this product will revolutionize industrial production.
Who is Clover?