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Messages - lucidhawk

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31
Afraid of REAL change.

However, I think Ron stands a much higher chance this time of winning the Republican nomination.

Aren't people generally wising up a little after the past 10 years?

I mean look at his closest competition.
Mitt Romney??!!
What an Asshat!

Obama in a standoff versus Ron Paul means A lot of people opened to the ideas of liberty.

Thoughts?



32
General / Re: review of Ron Paul's new book
« on: May 05, 2011, 10:48:26 PM »
I've read it. It was quite good. This time he doesn't talk on and on about the Constitution. (A good thing because the Constitution is not synonymous with liberty)

33
General / Thomas Woods is a great speaker
« on: May 04, 2011, 11:45:21 AM »
Really good speech by Woods on state nullification.

http://www.thomaswoodsboise.com/


34
All I can say is wow, you've been drinking too much kool-aid. That's not realistic. Show me a society that has survived and thrived without some kind of authority figure or governing body. Even in Somalia (stateless in much of the country), the populace adheres to Xeer, which is enforced across families by elders acting arbitrators. The process is very much voluntary, but still a societal governance. Families and clans are microstates and the elders are a system of courts. It's all voluntary, natural, very liberal.

You contradict yourself. "Its all voluntary.."  Voluntary government is a contradiction in terms.
A "government" that is voluntary, gives up what makes it a government and it becomes a form of business.

The only reason I even brought up "voluntary government" initiallly because it's an idea of people individually choosing, without coercion; going into contracts with a sort of governing business. It's in fact not real government.
Here are some examples of societies that were more anarchistic than Somalia IMO.

- In South East Asia, well over a million essentially stateless peoples ..which I don't even think there is a proper way to refer to them..
- There was a culture in India called "Harappa" that survived for 7 centuries.
- There are some good books on the Icelandic commonwealth from 900 to 1300 AD

There are a number of books on groups of people thriving without governance in America. Which admittedly I have not read. Except for "The Not So Wild, Wild West".

35
I sincerely don't believe that government is a natural growth from human interaction and business. And there are more than just theoretical reasons to believe this. There are some historical accounts that have convinced me of this as well.
Government is a bizarre aberration to people who have lived without it integrated into their culture.

Though admittedly governments do tend to take over cultures like a parasite once they get a foothold..

But when a large enough segment of the population gets together under a culture based around the nonaggression principle (which has never happened in history) statism will never be able to take hold again.
Because once two or more generations have passed and people really see that voluntary society can work, people will look back and say WTF was wrong with our grandparents?!

36
I use the term "Constitution" very loosely. To clarify perhaps a better term would be : market ethics standardization model.

I find it difficult to rationally accept the idea that everyone in a stateless society (no matter how sophisticated) would be able to agree entirely on what the nonaggression principle, and the rights of life, liberty and property in practice mean.

I don't expect the infighting to become particularly dangerous.. Just moderately counterproductive..
And in order to build cooperation and reduce this counter productivity ethic standard models would be developed.

Don't get me wrong, these are not government. And I don't believe governments are inevitable products of human nature or free market. They are a product of bad/ignorant ethics and culture.

In a similar way to which the market has come up with national and international standards that most technology companies follow; I expect the same thing to happen with ethics models in a modern stateless society.

This doesn't exactly mean "laws" that everyone must follow. It means groups would come up with competing ethical standard models (hopefully as simple and clear cut as possible) and these models would be accepted or rejected by certain groups.  This is somewhat different and less dangerous than the concept of so called "voluntary governments" (which aim at grouping together services into singular organizations) and certainly preferable to governments IMO.

Opinions?



37
General / Promoting liberty on the web.. (product reviews)
« on: April 27, 2011, 08:35:41 AM »
I have come to realize that I have overlooked a huge tool for promoting liberty ideas: product reviews.

Blogs, social sites, message boards and YouTube seem less useful to me now than merely reviewing products on a website like Amazon.
(Unless you are lucky/skilled enough to have a blog, site or YouTube channel that already gets thousands of views)

Some of these reviews get thousands of views and because people are generally interested if they should get the product or not; people actually seem to read what you have to say; as long as it's honest and well explained..

Of course reviewing products you haven't had personal experience with is disingenuous and makes you look stupid..
But there are likely hundreds of movies and books for us to review from a liberty perspective; which we have read/viewed at some point.

38
The Show / Re: Stop paying taxes?
« on: April 21, 2011, 09:12:18 PM »
Good points.

...There are plenty of arguments that the 16th was never actually ratified and the amendment never really meant a tax on income..

But I don't expect those to become mainstream views any day.

There are other ways for states to get around Federal taxation. It's within the states legal "right" to coin their own gold and silver.

Do I expect it to happen? Yes . When the federal government collapses most states will create their own money and block federal taxation of the new money.

39
General / The snake, the elephant and the Galactus?
« on: April 15, 2011, 09:36:34 AM »
The snake in the room = state and federal deficits.
http://www.usdebtclock.org/


The elephant in the room  = unfunded liabilities.
http://www.usdebtclock.org/


The Galactus all over = the derivatives bubble.


Huge , powerful, scary but FICTIONAL?

Discuss..



40
General / Re: FTL fan confronts Ron Paul over the word "we"
« on: April 14, 2011, 06:22:54 AM »
I have often thought about Ron Paul's constant use of the word "we" when he is speaking.. Considering his position I think it's actually important that he use the word often (though more discretion would be good).
Simply because he's generally talking to huge statist audiences.. And it's time "we" took responsibility for letting government do stupid shit constantly.

It seems like he would be viewed as more divisive if he suddenly started using the words "they" and "you" more often.
Though I admit I like the way Rand Paul does it..

41
General / Re: Sucker Punch (movie)
« on: April 02, 2011, 07:43:10 AM »
So is everything that happens to her in the movie all in her imagination because she is on drugs or just mental?

I tend to view movies within a very framed context. I don't put much weight into judging it strongly by it's character development, plot cohesiveness, acting or any of the usual crap.
This movie I see as a purposeful nerdfest mishmash with a plot designed to fold around a mix of music videos, random fantasy elements, and video game elements.

The creators probably figured that it was impossible to make a cohesive world with all of that.. They could have gone with some crazy person's delusions, drug trips, or a person in VR..
Instead they went with something a little unexpected.. An apparently sane person with a ridiculous imagination (on drugs maybe), that escapes into fantasy world not to escape reality but to somehow make events happen in the real world.

42
I tried watching his "video". It immediately reminded me of some other text only thing I came across that had to do with getting women I don't know what it was called..
It has the exact same sort of format and the same lengthy annoying "my stuff is the best" kind of droning on and on..

I couldn't finish watching/listening to either of them. I can listen to 3 hour podcasts and watch dull 4 hour documentaries but this crap I couldn't finish.

If it's a scam it's not a very good one.

43
General / Re: Sucker Punch (movie)
« on: April 01, 2011, 06:12:37 PM »
I was curious early in the movie to see the dance scenes, and then at some point I realized they couldn't show them, because they could never make them as epic as they were supposed to be.

Dance scenes?  Rly?  Is this supposed to be a euphemism for lesbian orgies?


That might warrant a 10.

44
General / Re: Jesus promoted Anarchism
« on: April 01, 2011, 06:07:25 PM »
Good discussion.  How would you address the counterarguments, lucidhawk, that bring up Jesus' mandate to "render to Caesar the things of Caesar's, and to God the things of God", as well as the whole "Romans chapter 13" argument?

One interpretation says: What is God's? Everything. What is Caesar's then? Nothing.

Another interpretation was dividing the secular from the non-secular. That in context the Pharisees were "hypocrites" because they used a Caesar issued coin. (That interpretation is complex)

Yet another interpretation says the coins were essentially Caesar's property they even had his face on it and they should be given back to him. This relies on the whole context of the quote :

"15 Then the Pharisees went out and laid plans to trap him in his words. 16 They sent their disciples to him along with the Herodians. “Teacher,” they said, “we know that you are a man of integrity and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. You aren’t swayed by others, because you pay no attention to who they are. 17 Tell us then, what is your opinion? Is it right to pay the imperial tax[a] to Caesar or not?”
 18 But Jesus, knowing their evil intent, said, “You hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me? 19 Show me the coin used for paying the tax.” They brought him a denarius, 20 and he asked them, “Whose image is this? And whose inscription?”
21 “Caesar’s,” they replied.
Then he said to them, “So give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”
 22 When they heard this, they were amazed. So they left him and went away."

Romans Chapter 13 is a bit more complicated and problematic.. There are a lot of liberty oriented people that do an analysis of Romans 13 online.
The Bible is made up of numerous books written by different people. Someone could just consider Romans 13 as one contradiction of one man (Paul) to the rest of the many anti-statist things in the Bible in of course most Christians won't do this..

45
The Show / Re: Scott The Bigot
« on: April 01, 2011, 04:27:10 AM »
Thanks DogCow for the info about the 04-March-2011 Alex Jones. I downloaded it and that was quite entertaining.
What I fail to understand most about Scott is how he can hate all Jews and think he's Christian when obviously everything in the Bible came from Jews.

I'm not quite curious enough to go read one of those two ridiculous books he keeps bringing up..

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