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James Adkins

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Everything posted by James Adkins

  1. I am done with you and this site. I need a fucking shower. You disgust me.
  2. My problem is with the wholesale condemnation of entire populations as immoral and worthy of death. Instead of simply saying that we will do whatever is necessary to defend ourselves, that it is regrettable but their goverment made it necessary, an attempt was made to say that the people deserved to die because of an uninformed notion about what is possible to a person in a police state. Of course, it is their resposibility and theirs alone to change their government. But it is not immoral or irrational to recognize the limits placed on people by the existence of a brutal police state and to take that into account when deciding whether or not to destroy entire cities. If it is necessecary, then do it. It doesn't matter at that point whether they are innocent or guilty. If it isn't necessary, or you know it probably won't work, and you do it anyway, or advocate it, in order to punish people without regard to innocence or guilt, that is immoral.
  3. There is no duress. There is no law enforcement draft, and you can quit anytime you want. No one will put you in jail if you don't join the Marshall's service or any other law enforcement agency, or if you resign once there. Not the same as taxes at all. You're going in with open eyes, you know the things you'll be asked to do. You'll have to make your peace with it. What you do is entirely your responsibility and no one else's. You can't look back on it one day and use the excuse that it wasn't your choice. It was. Good luck.
  4. No, but it does put a stop to the ridiculous direction in which you were taking it. As for 'difficult", look up the effects of the East German PPM-2 anti personnel land mine on the human body and let me know if the word difficult really applies here. Some reading on the workings of a police state might also help your understanding of the situation (movies and spy novels don't count). While I agree with the "thrust of the rest of this thread", and the morality of this type of use of force if necessary, when it comes to assessing other's options in these situations you have no idea what you're talking about. It's easy to say resist, but not so easy to actually do it when doing so will get your entire family executed. While this isn't our problem, so to speak, it should at least temper one's enthusiasm for carpet bombing and thermonuclear weapons.
  5. In some states it was mandated by law that the pledge be said every morning in school. I don't know how many of those laws still exist, though. There was no legal punsihment for refusing, but a few students were suspended for refusing. I agree though, we have much bigger problems.
  6. I'm not dodging anything, you are by asking us whether or not it is acceptable to go against your beliefs. Only you can answer that for yourself. I thought I answered your question when I said there were better ways to make money. But, if you really need to know: It is not OK to violate your principles. Did you really expect another answer?
  7. You will be. There is no "what if". There are better ways to make money.
  8. The entire border between east and west Germany was heavily defended. It was the most heavily defended border in the world for a while (even more so than the 38th parallel). Both the US and Russia expected a conventionally fought WWIII to begin along that border. The entire length was covered by walls, fences, land mines, and hundreds of thousands of East German and Soviet troops. There were 350,000+ Soviet troops alone in East Germany. This is not even counting the East German military. 350,000+ troops is roughly twice what America has in Iraq right now and East Germany was roughly 25% the size of Iraq. Again, this isn't including the East German military. Most of the troops were concentrated along the border to repel an invasion that the Soviets were sure was coming sooner or later. The situation with the Polish and Czech borders was much better, but who the hell would want to go there; they were worse off than the East Germans and they would have just been sent back to be executed anyway. There was no way out. People were still dying in escape attempts all along the border into the late 80s. Are you suggesting they were morons who could have simply found some farmers field and walked across like going from Canada to America? To suggest that they could merely leave is naive in the extreme.
  9. You don't have to blindly trust anything. I said paper money wouldn't be used more than it is now, which, for most people, is almost never. You can still use it, or the actual gold or silver; nothing will change. But, unless every dollar you own is in your closet or under the mattress, you're trusting electronic funds. Once you deposit it, it's electronic, and whether you go to the teller or the ATM to get it out you're trusting electronic funds to work in order to be able to get it. I understand what you're saying, though. Cash is king. It's accepted everywhere.
  10. Taking an oath to the government raises the government above the individual and implies that the individual's purpose is to serve and obey the government. This is a reversal of the proper relationship. The proper function of government is to serve the individual by protecting his rights, and if it doesn't it should be removed and replaced with one that will. Any proper oath would be to uphold and defend the principles of the Constitution and Bill of Rights, not the government as such. Of course, everybody elected to public office takes that oath and ignores it completely. Besides, have you seen the pictures of the original salute? It will send shivers down your spine.
  11. Yes, very nicely indeed, and yes. Seriously, though. A true bank note is nothing more than bearer paper - a check meant to be used more than once. Paper money originally started as warehouse receipts for gold that were eventually used as a currency in place of the actual gold coins, as a convenience. They were much easier to lug around on an everyday basis and could be printed in denominations much smaller than standard sized coins making them easier to spend. As long as the currency is backed 100% by gold, meaning there would be no fractional reserve banking allowed, there wouldn't be a problem with banks printing their own currency. Given the cost of doing it right, considering the ease of modern counterfeiting techniques, it would probably be standardized and provided by several big suppliers, just the same as gold and silver coins are handled by private mints. Universal acceptance need not be a problem. The market will find a way to facilitate trade. With modern methods of banking and their private counterparts like ebullion and egold, etc., it wouldn't be necessary to use actual paper or coin currency any more than is done today; it would mostly be done electronically. Global trade would hardly be affected at all. This is how it was done for thousands of years. Here is a great economics text (caution it's big ~15 mb) -Capitalism. The discussion of gold starts on pg 1007 of the pdf file or 951 of the text book, if you happen to have a copy. He gets into remonetizing gold and silver at the end of page 1015 of the pdf or 959 of the text (although the whole section is worth reading, in fact the whole book). Murray Rothbard gives a similar way of doing it here. There are many others, but it is definitely possible and worth doing. All it would take is a monetary crisis with the dollar, which might happen sooner rather than later, and will happen eventually in any case given the nature of fiat currency, and the political will could be found to make it happen. If not, it will happen privately on its own.
  12. The government shouldn't be printing anything on my money. It shouldn't be making money. But, if it's going to anyway, it should be imprinted with the weight and fineness of the gold coin, or, if it's paper, how much gold is backing it and where I can go to get it. And other than a pretty picture of an eagle or something that should be about it. Certainly nothing about make believe beings. The pledge of allegiance should be eliminated, especially the "under god" part. It was written by a christian socialist named Francis Bellamy (without the god reference, originally)in order to promote Nationalism (not patriotism) - as in National Socialism. He was a big believer in his cousin's book Looking Backward: 2000 - 1887 and he wrote the pledge to bring us closer to it. Truly evil stuff.
  13. Does this mean they don't exist? Things or objects cannot be good or evil in and of themselves - whether they are found in nature or produced. Good or Evil is a moral judgement and it depends on the context of their use. Using heroin to evade reality is immoral, using it to fight the pain of end stage cancer is not. Context.
  14. People keep saying that, but take his quote and change it to this: and it wouldn't have been met with an insult. Why? Why not just engage them and find out whether they are irrational or not and then treat them accordingly? People are individuals and will vary in knowledge and outlook. Why write them off because of an issue they may know absolutely nothing about, either because of a lack of knowledge, or an honest error and a lack of someone to point it out and explain it to them?
  15. Do you mean why is there a Federal Reserve? Or why do central banks have reserves of gold and silver? Sorry, I am a little unclear about what you mean.
  16. The portion of the money supply consisting of gold and silver would be outside of their control. The more of the money supply outside of their control the worse it is for them. There would be no way for them to manipulate it, aside from selling their own reserves of metal to suppress the price on the open market. That would lower the value and increase the amount needed to buy things - a way to inflate even good money. It would be a temporary measure, though. Their reserves are big, but not unlimited, and once their reserves are gone the problem will still be there, only now with even more sound money in circulation. All of their games with the printing press and the actions of the Federal Open Market Committee would be useless. It might actually have to be much greater than 10% to start things going. I don’t know. I think it is important to not only advocate sound money but to attempt to institute a separate money supply that uses it, making the benefit of sound money clearer to the majority of the population. People would see that the purchasing power and wealth of those with gold money stays the same or goes up while theirs is going steadily down. If the dollar collapses and inflation takes off, the benefits will be painfully obvious and the conversion to real money will accelerate. The existence of an alternative will ease some of the economic shock as well. At some point in the decline no one will want paper money if there is an alternative. Not that I think it is likely soon, but given the nature of fiat currency it will happen eventually. The government’s only option at that point will be to accept it or, like the 30s, make private ownership of gold illegal.
  17. If anyone really wants to start buying sliver for use as money or as a safety net in case of the fiat money's collapse start with generic silver rounds from a reputable mint. They are 1oz 999 fine silver. They can be bought for ~6% above spot. If you are willing to buy in bulk (>=100oz) you can get it for around 3% above spot. There's always the US silver Eagle as well, although the premium is higher. Again it's less if you buy it in bulk, though "bulk" for Silver Eagles generally means 500 coin mint boxes. Not inexpensive. Junk silver is a good way to buy silver as well. Junk silver is old US coins like dimes, quarters, and half-dollars that have a known percent of silver content but that are worthless as collector coins. For example, the old Franklin half dollars are 36.169% silver. The silver was mixed evenly in an alloy, so even though they are old and worn, they are still 36.169% silver. If you have one, or a bag of them, weigh it, multiply by .36169 and then by the spot price of silver. That's what it's worth. If you actually need to spend it some day, every one will know how to do this. You'll be able to spend it easier than a twenty dollar bill. It will probably even buy more. Silver is silver, gold is gold, and if the fiat money crashes prices will be in ounces of gold and silver anyway, the face value of the coin will be meaningless. Really, it already is for precious metal coins. There won't be any need to revalue the coin, as NORFED is going to try to do. Once the money is in circulation people will ignore them if they are out of touch with reality. The market will set the value of the currency. Any attempt by them to manipulate the price with guaranteed exchange rates will just bankrupt them. They don't have the resources to pull something like that off. Heck, neither do most central banks. As for gold, there is no need to buy 1oz coins. You can get 1/10 oz coins for around $51 right now, $49 if you shop around. I've seen them for ~$47.5 each if you can spring for a mint tube of 50. The premium is higher on the smaller coins, roughly $490 an oz with premium compared to roughly $465 an oz with premium for the 1 oz coins. But, if you ever need to actually spend it, 1/10 oz will probably be as big as you want to go. It's the equivalent of a 50 dollar bill right now, and there is no inflation to speak of. If the dollar really collapses that little coin will be the equivalent of a $100 bill, at least, and any premium you paid will be forgotten. Trying to spend a 1 oz coin will be like trying to spend a $1,000 bill. If you're buying as an insurance policy, never pay more than spot plus the standard premium. If there is ever hyperinflation and the dollar hits rock bottom, no one will care that your gold coin is one of only 1,000 of that type that came from the Denver mint that year. The only thing they'll care about is how much gold is in it. Same goes for silver. None of this is really investment advice, just some ideas for people who want to start using gold and silver as money or who want to put some away for a rainy economic day. Currently, you can even link an egold, or other emetal, account to a debit card and use real money the next time you go to a Wal-Mart, or pay a professional for his services. If a significant percent of the population did this, say 10% ?, the Fed would go into convulsions. The good money would be worth much more than the bad. Then again, they'd probably just make it illegal. Who knows?
  18. Exactly, what she is describing is a local/state (chieftains) and national/federal government (council of chieftains) governed by a body of commonly accepted practices (law). That is a government. But it is not a limited government. It could conceivably usurp any power a majority of the chieftains wanted. I fail to see how this is any better or any less prone to abuse than a constitutionally limited government. That is, the government we were supposed to have and should be working toward. I understand the need to fight against the current statist trend in society, even the statist trend that is common among some Objectivists who don't fully understand Objectivist principles applied to politics. But this isn't the answer.
  19. There are established procedures for the enforcement of judgments by the courts, attaching sources of income, putting liens on property, findings of contempt of court and its consequences, etc. If chieftain A says that no one can attach the income or property of people he was hired to protect where does the injured person turn?
  20. Who is the arbitrator, and who will enforce the results of that arbitration if one or both of the chieftains decides he doesn't like the result and tells the arbitrator to take a flying leap?
  21. If it was carrried out by Chechyns it was carried out by Islamic fundamentalists. The terrorist rigged various building supports with explosives, walked around with explosives strapped to their bodies and were heavily armed. They were demanding that Russia withdraw from Chechnya, which they knew wasn't going to happen. The same MO of the Russin theater situation. They probably chose a school because they thought the Russians wouldn't dare risk a rescue like the one at the theater (likely with the same results) if mostly children were involved. They went there with every intention of killing those children and themselves. Those children were dead as soon as the terrorists took control of the school. They were never going to be allowed to leave there alive. I don't see how the Russin military can be faulted for this. From Here
  22. I was mistaken about where I thought that quote occurred. I thought it came at the end of the money speech. A similar thought is expressed there but not that exact quote. I still disagree, however, that that was her view of weaponry. It was her view on why the collectivists use force to achieve their goals. It was not an indictment of weapons. I'd be interested to know why you think someone with a gun would use it to deal with other people instead of logic. I'm not talking about criminals here, or dictators, just ordinary people. What makes you think that a man with a gun would be inclined to resort to its use to settle a disagreement? Even though there are two ways to deal with people, force or persuasion, it doesn't mean that a person with a gun would be more inclined to pick force. I wouldn't. I don't know anyone who would. And I have lived in places where I didn't know anyone who didn't own at least one gun. I'm not even sure I knew anyone who owned just one gun. The preferred method of dealing with people with whom you strongly disagree -when persuasion is not possible - is for each person to go their own way and not deal with each other at all. Among rational, or even mostly rational, people force is not an option, gun or no gun. If I am mistaken about your views. please let me know. Although if I am, your use of that quote in that way is even more puzzling.
  23. This wasn't her view on weaponry. It was part of an explanation on the morality of initiating force in a political/economic context. Specifically, why giving up a proper concept of money meant embracing the use of force.
  24. You are correct it does. This means I understand post #51 even less, though.
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