aequalsa

Absolutely not. Any guy who doesn't have a virgin will become gay. Or visit a prostitute.

I'm not surprised either, what with their shortage of virgins and rampant homosexuality and all. I know that I've had to dodge more than a few recently converted, high strung gays in my time on I-25. If only they could have had a virgin to keep them straight, my life could be so much more peaceful. I always wonder with this sort of scientific experiment, if they considered other avenues of causation. Allowing multiple wives, for example could have a deleterious affect on the numbers of virgins per capita in a nation...you know...for example. And the amount of homosexuality for that matter. The 1:1 correlation between men and women necessarily gets thrown off which, clearly, would leave a guy no choice but to become gay.

As a general rule, it takes a minimum of 6 weeks for someone to change their mind. The process is roughly this...they must be presented with contradictory notions that explain causation in two different ways for whatever the chosen subject is. Then they need to see examples of it in the world when they are primed to notice it. Or at least have them pointed out to them Then it has to be rephrased in their own words and ultimately, become their own idea from the concrete level up. As far as the initial part, I've had most success with getting them to articulate why they want to control what other people choose to do with their time and money. To get them to explain why they think it would be best to ram their square peg into all those many billions of differently shaped holes. Trying to understand what psychological issue drives them helps to see the foundation of their belief structure since it is almost always an emotional intuition and not clear process of reasoning at its base.

I'm not an accountant or tax lawyer so take this with a grain of salt, but I'm pretty sure that even if you are trading stock certificates it would be taxable in the US. If you were just gifting it then it would also be taxable. I think paying in cash would be great as a general rule not just in an enclave. If everyone did so it would likely create an enforcement nightmare. Until they put microchips in the money, at least.

I've had a few times in my life that a girlfriend borrows my deodorant when out of her own. I find it extremely discordant, to the point that it saps my attraction. I imagine it to be worse if it was another masculine smell than my own. I'd totally be thinking sloppy seconds. It may be the case that the association of certain smells with gender is completely learned socially(or through marketing), but I would guess that it derives from the enjoyment of contrast, at least as far as heterosexual couples are concerned. Fruity flower smells contrast well with musky, pungent pine trees, not unlike sweet and salty tastes, or hard and soft bodies. Obviously there exists a wide spectrum of sexual identities, so there is likely to be the same spectrum in scents sold to meet that market demand. As far as why flowers are feminine and pine trees are masculine, I'm not entirely sure, but would speculate that it has something to do with social value. Cologne widens your space, and makes people more aware of your presence. Pine trees and dirt convey a different message from clover honey and lavender.

So you think that a pro-liberty individual with a significant posting history to that effect is an advocate of a system which hasn't existed for more than 20 years now, because he lives in South Africa? I suppose it's possible to assume he's a bigot, but then again, it's also possible that he's a true victim of racism who is far more likely to have had experiences which you could learn from if you could manage to tuck away your defensiveness for a moment. After all, since apartheid has ended the new black ruled socialist state has taken away the farms and given them to few politically connected blacks(nearly all of them now failing) which collectively has turned south africa from a food exporting nation to an importing one. They've released thousands of prisoners(murderers and terrorists larely) and unleashed them on the white population. Mandela called it a "gift to South Africa" I think. Crime against the remaining white farmers goes almost completely unresponded to, not least of which is the more than 50,000(the true number is much, much higher but the police force is immeasurably incompetent) rapes every year that make it the rape capital of the world, or the more than(at least) 20,000 child rapes that occur each year as these thugs use children in these horrible ways. The large number of infant rapes are especially sad since they often die in the act. Of course, that's probably a blessing since this child raping epidemic is largely an out growth of these savages mythical belief that sex with a virgin will cure their aids, which is rampant and spreading quickly through rape. Because the police do not arrest the rapists, it's not uncommon for the same rapist to rape the same woman on multiple occasions. A national past time is to gather together 12 of your closest friends, kidnap a young blonde girl, give everyone a turn and then leave her for dead. sensible people would leave and in fact many have but most can't due to immigration laws and many who have, have since had to return because the their jobs were lost changing their immigration status. So that's a small part of the world he lives in and what true racial hate looks like. You can read all about it if you would care to make a more informed opinion My guess, if I had to make an assumption about whynot's character based on his culture, is that he's quite courageous and has endured some difficult things personally, or with people close to him. Things which build character and provide him the wisdom to realize the futility of trying to defend himself morally from your utterly and completely unjustifiable assumptions about his character. of course, I've never been to South Africa and haven't met the fellow personally so I'd rather withhold judgement.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-auerbach/the-federal-reserves-33-t_b_794155.html If this wasn't all such a convoluted mess folks might realize how deeply they're getting raped. They are clever...

If I put the problem in a modern/realistic scenario the context helps answer it. Say instead that the US(empire) is at war with China(Thalmor) and as a condition of peace we have to agree to eliminate Islam in Iraq(Skyrim) and turn all Iraqi's into Budhists. First, it couldn't be done without Genocide. Second, why would the responsibility of conversion fall to the US. If they didn't feel up to winning the war against China they could give up that real estate and let them kill all the millions and go broke doing it. I suppose there could be some argument for keeping valuable minerals in the area or the dangerous nature of the religion, but based on the context, I gotta say that the Empire ought to be out of there.

There actually is, but unfortunately it makes the problem more difficult. Financial success correlates with IQ's between 110 and 130(So slightly above average) So to be totally "fair" on this count it would be necessary to redistribute wealth to the the really intelligent people as well as the slower among us. The same correlations can be found with prestige, career success, and happiness though these, the last especially, are difficult to measure in any meaningful way.

Please tell me that you realize the irony of judging the whole group of South Africans as one unit, in light of the title of this thread?

If you have a generally benevolent outlook, than your expectation is that life will bring happiness. Without life the experiences that cause happiness or even the firing of neurons that is the experience of happiness is impossible. So, life is a logical necessity. If someone chooses death than philosophy is no longer necessary to them since they need only sit and wait. No decisions must be made. If they want to die quickly or comfortably(both indicators of a partial desire to live) than a bit of philosophy might be necessary to make the appropriate plans and execute them, but not much really. I think Rand covered this somewhere, but I don't recall where. PWNI probably.

I agree completely. It's easy to ignore that on top of "learning to live independently," you're adding, how to manage and maintain a healthy live in relationship-which, incidentally is a much bigger task if you're doing it right. So, not only does it not make it any easier, it will almost certainly make it harder. /peeing on parade

A little over 13 years spread out over 20. Ju jutsu and jiujitsu mostly but also a bit of Muay Thai, Ki Aikido, Tenshin Katori Shinto Ryu, Arnise...less of a few others. (I moved around a bit) No preferences either. They all lead to the same place; turning "moves" into good movement, good body mechanics. Brazilian is closer to judo than ju jutsu. Emphasis is on locks and holds, choke outs...sports orientated...almost no, or no striking depending on where you train. Japanese ju jutsu is battlefield based combat...so breaks, suffocation, organ rupturing, disarming, quick incapacitation...that sort of thing. I wouldn't knock Tai Chi's usefulness in application. I got a lot of improvement in my ju ju from my short time in ki aikido. Mixing the soft with the hard stuff like Muay Thai is a great mix. Even if you're not into it now, keep it in mind for later when you want to broaden your game a bit. Needed it a few times. More earlier on than later. Eventually you'll find how much more effective body language is at solving things than actually fighting.

Sherlock Holmes, The Count of Monte Cristo, Macgyver, the recent television series "Lie to Me"

No, you haven't. You found an answer which satisfies you because its the one you assumed from the start. It's not the correct answer though. What is "Moral" is derived inductively from reality which means, in context. General principles can be derived, but they apply in the context of normal life and not in extreme cases we can make up that rule out all other possible explanations. Rand explains this in “The Ethics of Emergencies.” What you're proposing is essentially the kill or be killed scenario, writ large as a war which makes it's uselessness even larger since the ignored context is so much more complex. When Martin suggested bonds, for example, you counter with, "suppose bonds aren't enough." That's an arbitrary assertion which you could easily apply to every argument suggested. I could further counter that a nation with the liberty-based, capitalist minded industrialists that would be necessary to maintain their own freedom from within their country would necessarily have an excellent credit rating, but then you could say, "what if they didn't?" I could argue that those same capitalist minded industrialists, when faced with an oppressive hoard would share my own view that I would rather burn down everything I've spent my life working for then let those sorts get their foul hands on it, so spending every last cent to cause them harm would be a joy and not a sacrifice, but then you could counter, "what if they wouldn't?" I can only answer, "They would." A couple relevant points are that no principle can be derived from any life boat scenario, because each extreme case is so unique in its total context that we cannot take out examples from reality and form a rule that works in those situations(because there is no those, there is only it) and second, valid principles which can be derived from reality are always inductive. Like knowing that a nation of moochers and looters, not willing to help defend their freedom, financially, at the very least, wouldn't have much of it in the first place, for example. Or knowing that force is not proper to the life of man; that it is always harmful to his mind and his body to remove his ability to utilize his volition in all circumstances; That one capitalist, as free free man, voluntarily contributing his energy to what he sees as his own best interests is worth more than the confiscated wealth of a thousand slaves. These are examples of correctly derived principles using induction and deduction in tandem.

I don't think this is going to prove to be a useful exercise. You're assuming the answer in the question without leaving another way out...What if I need food to live, but to buy food I need money and don't have any and there is no way to get some...should I steal it then? Obviously yes. Of course, nothing is learned from answering that sort of question because it is highly, highly unusual that that would truly be the case. Reality, especially at the level of international diplomacy and war is far too complex to encapsulate in a thought experiment like that. If I were commander in chief of a small freedom based country being invaded by fascists, and lacked a large enough budget to fight a conventional war, then I'd nuke all of their population centers. If I had an even smaller budget, I'd use terrorist tactics repeatedly inside their own country. If, in a whole nation of freedom loving people who knew that they were on the brink of invasion, I could only scrape together $10,000 in donations, then I'd start send 10 guys with ten books of matches to light as many forest fires as possible all over their country. There's no "enough" point in war. More is always better, but but good commanders make do with what they have. This is essentially an inductive problem so approaching deductively is a mistake.

This has been discussed elsewhere, though I don't recall the name of the thread. My view, in short, is that a (proper) government is instituted to protect the rights of individuals in a particular, geographical location. If its citizen's rights are threatened or violated by a regime in another geographical location, they are morally justified in taking what offensive actions are considered tactically necessary to secure the rights of those who are its charge. That could, but does not necessarily include the targeting of civilians, especially in cases where, for example, their productivity in an arms factory or communications area are utilized militarily. All these sorts of circumstances need to be judged on a case by case basis of course, to determine their ethical propriety, so I offer those just as an example of what sort of thinking might color the decision.

I understand the quote, and I agree that the term is used too loosely, but you are mistaken to think that there is some large gap between Obama and Mussolini. I can only guess that you have lumped him and it into a category synonymous with Nazism due to his a WW2 alliance choice. He wasn't a racist at all, there were only like 40 death sentences during his 20 years in power, he did not execute Jews or even deport them as Hitler desired, he eradicated organized crime, was was anti-socialist(for the wrong reasons of course)...in general, just a mixed bag politician during a war. I don't mean to sound like a fan of the guy. I'm no less an enemy of him as an enemy of rights, than I am of Obama, but not much more either. Militarism and indoctrination are not what fascism was about. Those are only methodologies(both of which I'd note are alive and well in the US by pointing to the fact that we spend nearly half of all military dollars worldwide and keep 90% of our population forcibly held in state run propaganda camps until their 18th birthday and longer with their consent.) Again, nationalism is not a part of his creed, which is unfortunate since it at least has a history of having benefits for its own nation as opposed to his ideological replacement of altruism, which is consistently bad for everyone. Again, I understand the overuse of the term, but in this, the dissimilarities are not as great as, I get the impression, you think them.

That's a good way of putting it and represents how I feel. Calling it a welfare state or any other pleasant sounding thing is, in my opinion, a clever way of avoiding calling a spade a spade. The fiction that there is a difference is totally a political necessity since the term Fascist, like Nazi, has become totally(and rightfully demonized) but not a fiction I'm willing to help them carry on pretending about. If I develop a new economic system called Fidgetalism which consists of state ownership of all means of production, except the production and sale of paper clips, which will be privately run, then no one can call it Communism because communists don't advocate the private manufacture and sale of paper clips, right? The essentials need to be kept in sight when dealing with these context based ambiguities otherwise the field becomes a murky marsh that protects the evil through camouflage.

Think again, martin. As of a couple days ago the fdic now backs 75trillion in european debts.

I think that that's a fair definition, so I guess that our reading of it is different. Through the fed and literally millions of lines of regulation I would argue that we do have a state directed regulated economy that uses "regulated private property." In simpler terms, you can do whatever you want so long as it is something they do agree with and you give the majority of you profits to them to spend for the common good. That's what we have now and that is certainly what Obama wants more of and has created more of. I would agree that "welfare statist" applies, except few know what that means(spell check doesnt even recognize it) and their is really very little difference between the terms. The "Statist" in him wants to control my actions and the welfarist in him want to use me to make the nation(or maybe world if hes one of those types) better. the only significant difference i see is that a welfare statist borrows the emphasis of "helping the poor" from communist ideology, though I view that as primarily a ruse to stuff everything they want down our throats.

Other than the nationalism, which I previously awknowledged does not apply, could you be more specific about what policies and methods are not applicable?

Ok, if I were to say Mit Romney is basically a Democrat, pointing to his pro-choice stance and his crafting of the original obamacare in his home state of Mass., it would make sense even though he was never actually a Democrat. The implication is that he has a lot in common with the Democratic party. More really than the Republicans. Likewise, if I say Obama is a Fascist, I mean that he has more in common with that ideology than others. If you don't see the similarities between his government take over of the banking industry, auto industry, Health care industry, government employee unions, his involvement with Solyndra,(off the top of my head) and Mussolini's corprativism, I stand aghast. They're identical. Under both men, corporations are theoretically, arms of the state, for the good of the country, but end up being tools of the leader's ideology, whereby he implements his own agenda rewarding political supporters and punishing supporters of political opposition. I mean, common, Obama gave 1/2 billion dollars to that one environmentalist criminal meanwhile tying up almost all oil drilling with barely legal moratoriums and drilling rights removals, which are outright theft in all essentials. The man is a Fascist, capitol F or no. I don't mean that as a slur. It's just a fact that his policies are indistinguishable from Mussolini's. Fortunately for him, far too few learned enough in history to realize that what he's doing has all been done before so he should be able to carry on unscathed.

The most unfortunate thing about them is that they are correct in one of their premises regarding human nature. They are correct in their understanding of how much slavery most of the population will tolerate. H.L. Mencken said, "Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard." A small play on the the quote from De Tocqueville, but probably true, and not just applicable to democracies. It's unfortunate, of course, for the people at either end of the bell curve. The good, honest productive ones, who know better, get their rights trampled twice as often and the worst dregs, who by most just accounts should to be subjected to public castration and quartering, get elected to office. I sympathize but I have no good advice to give you, but this; They'll most likely take from you your whole life. Try to avoid it when you can and never volunteer to give them your pride and happiness with the rest of their ill-gotten gains. It's what they deserve the least and what they want the most and, ironically, it's something they can never really achieve.