"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." ~ H.L. Mencken
Recent comments
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Kevin M. Patten 5 years 21 weeks agoAbout Anonymous Alcoholism: Notes on the CultocracyPage Kevin M. PattenCertainly hope everything is alright with Sam. I have appreciated his input on this forum, and have always looked foward to when he gives his perspective bluntly, without hesitance, and right from his heart.
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Kevin M. Patten 5 years 21 weeks agoAbout Anonymous Alcoholism: Notes on the CultocracyPage Kevin M. PattenCertainly hope everything is alright with Sam. I have appreciated his input on this forum, and have always looked foward to when he gives his perspective bluntly, without hesitance, and right from his heart.
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Glock27 5 years 21 weeks agoHillary Clinton, Donald Trump and Pussy ControlPage Lawrence M. LudlowLawrence: Delightful piece. Captain Charles Vane of the Ranger said much prior to his being hung "{They said} Give us your submission and we will give you the comfort you need. No, I can't think of no measure of comfort worth that price." I may be off base, but to me Captain Charles Vane of the Range is probably the most free character ever constructed. Then I am no authority on this topic. You can't say he subscribes to any -ism other than his own.
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Lawrence M. Ludlow 5 years 21 weeks agoHillary Clinton, Donald Trump and Pussy ControlPage Lawrence M. LudlowHi, Jim. Glad you like him. The issue of claims seems to revolve around what you have transformed into productive use. And Kinsella would add, that you must make unambiguous boundaries.
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mishochu 5 years 21 weeks agoGoogle Bans 200 "Fake News" Publishers From Its Ad NetworkWeb link KenKhttps://duckduckgo.com/ works well too
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Jim Davies 5 years 21 weeks agoRecapping STR in Defense of Vermont Gun FreedomsBlog entry Alex R. Knight IIIIt's a fine and concise communication, Alex, and I wish you luck. Good to see there may be at least one of your formerly Libertarian principles still intact. It presents utilitarian arguments. Although good, I suggest those are inferior to the one endorsed by the new President; that gun rights are natural rights which, in Amendment 2, the Feds have sworn not to abridge. Does the US Constitution bind the State of Vermont? - maybe not, by Amendment 10. But the Vermont one, in Chapter 1 Article 16, says much the same thing. All that is paper, which Pols routinely ignore. Until government is eliminated, natural rights will be relentlessly eroded. But then - I nearly forgot - you no longer believe in rights anyway.
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Jim Davies 5 years 21 weeks agoAbout Anonymous Alcoholism: Notes on the CultocracyPage Kevin M. PattenSamarami, are you okay? Under "recent comments" there is a teaser saying "Sam Spade ('Samarami') has met with a misfortune and will not..." but there it ends; the link does not work. Nor does it work for a follow-up comment expressing regret. What's going on? UPDATE: I posted the above, and at once the two comments reappeared. It does seem Sam has suffered some misfortune. Best wishes to you, Sam, for a fast recovery!
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Jim Davies 5 years 21 weeks agoGoogle Bans 200 "Fake News" Publishers From Its Ad NetworkWeb link KenKSo Google is the new Goebbels, deciding what news is fake and what is fit to be read. There are other search engines; I've been using Ixquick. Any others recommended?
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Glock27 5 years 21 weeks agoAbout Anonymous Alcoholism: Notes on the CultocracyPage Kevin M. PattenDeeply sorry to hear this. Have appreciated his support on this forum. Give my warmest hopes!
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Samarami 5 years 21 weeks agoAbout Anonymous Alcoholism: Notes on the CultocracyPage Kevin M. PattenSam Spade ("Samarami") has met with misfortune and will not be present for posting. Written by daughter on Smart Phone
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KenK 5 years 21 weeks agoSurvival Kit for Your HomeWeb link strikeNot a doomsday event, but for a generalized over-all decline in living standards. Meds hard or impossible to get. Same for guns and ammo. Food, spare parts, etc. hard to get and expensive. More bartering and trading less purchases. Alternative money. Decline in infastructure. Areas WROL (like Detroit is at night nowadays, but everywhere.
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Glock27 5 years 21 weeks agoAssumptions, AssumptionsPage Paul HeinGuess I will just say I enjoyed the perceptive article and to note that I had a representative who actually communicated with me twice about issues coming up for vote, but no more have ever come requesting my input. Ha. Really a shocker.
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Glock27 5 years 21 weeks agoAssumptions, AssumptionsPage Paul HeinGuess I will just say I enjoyed the perceptive article and to note that I had a representative who actually communicated with me twice about issues coming up for vote, but no more have ever come requesting my input. Ha. Really a shocker.
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Glock27 5 years 21 weeks agoAssumptions, AssumptionsPage Paul HeinGuess I will just say I enjoyed the perceptive article and to note that I had a representative who actually communicated with me twice about issues coming up for vote, but no more have ever come requesting my input. Ha. Really a shocker.
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Glock27 5 years 21 weeks agoAssumptions, AssumptionsPage Paul HeinGuess I will just say I enjoyed the perceptive article and to note that I had a representative who actually communicated with me twice about issues coming up for vote, but no more have ever come requesting my input. Ha. Really a shocker.
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Glock27 5 years 21 weeks agoAssumptions, AssumptionsPage Paul HeinGuess I will just say I enjoyed the perceptive article and to note that I had a representative who actually communicated with me twice about issues coming up for vote, but no more have ever come requesting my input. Ha. Really a schocker.
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Glock27 5 years 21 weeks agoAssumptions, AssumptionsPage Paul HeinGuess I will just say I enjoyed the perceptive article and to note that I had a representative who actually communicated with me twice about issues coming up for vote, but no more have ever come requesting my input. Ha. Really a schocker.
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Glock27 5 years 21 weeks agoAssumptions, AssumptionsPage Paul HeinGuess I will just say I enjoyed the perceptive article and to note that I had a representative who actually communicated with me twice about issues coming up for vote, but no more have ever come requesting my input. Ha. Really a schocker.
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Glock27 5 years 21 weeks agoAssumptions, AssumptionsPage Paul HeinGuess I will just say I enjoyed the perceptive article and to note that I had a representative who actually communicated with me twice about issues coming up for vote, but no more have ever come requesting my input. Ha. Really a schocker.
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Glock27 5 years 21 weeks agoSurvival Kit for Your HomeWeb link strikeKen: Interesting stuff. Do you prep for dooms day?
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KenK 5 years 21 weeks agoSurvival Kit for Your HomeWeb link strikeI have been watching her channel for a few months.
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Glock27 5 years 21 weeks agoDoes Michael Moore Matter Anymore? An Open Letter From One Filmmaker to AnotherPage Douglas HermanDouglas, I am probably way left field wrong about this, but wasn't Moore a GM lay off who had an ax to grind because he was laid off? Might have been one of the line workers caught on film drinking and smoking dope? Can't be sure, my memory is really fuzzy because it was such a long time ago. I think he knows he irritates people and he stays on the formula because it makes him a bunch of money. These are just thoughts because I really don't know much about Moore, and I guess I really don't want to know much.
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Glock27 5 years 21 weeks agoWhen Global Warming Cultists Can't Get Their Lies To Match ScienceWeb link A. MagnusMishochu! Wow! O.K. Well, someone knew the objective. Now that you mention it I vaguely recall such as "carbon tax", now it all makes sense, now I get to use my Charles Vane quote. I love this because I think this site is a most appropriate place for it. Here goes: "These men who brought me here today, do not fear me. They brought me here today because they fear you and because they know that my voice, the voice that refuses to be enslaved, once lived in you and may yet still. They brought me here today to show you death and use it to frighten you into ignoring that voice. But know this. We are many. They are few. To face death is a choice (Look's over at Elinor Guthrie) And they can't hang us all. Get on with it mother fucker." (Charles Vane hangs.) How's that! I love it. I feel that every time I have to pay those fucking income taxes. Yea! So my retirement is government paid, I still gave my blood, sweat and tears over it and I am not going to fucking give it up. Besides, I had to pay into it as well. That's it--I think. Thanks for the thought.
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Jim Davies 5 years 21 weeks agoAbout Anonymous Alcoholism: Notes on the CultocracyPage Kevin M. PattenCongratulations, Will, you won the prize! - for the most lurid expression of loathing in the recent torrent of detestation by the squalid bunch of pseudo libertarian whiners and wannabe psychoanalysts here. It seems to have abated following Keven Patten's sobering and hilarious comment yesterday, so I took the chance to look over the lot of them, and yours was head and shoulders above the rest. Your success was all the more remarkable for being unprovoked; I cannot recall having done you harm - unless you count the question I left with you recently on another thread: about how you can (a) deplore the effect of robots on society while (b) earning a living by designing more of them. Yes, perhaps that was a bit cheeky. You would have faced stiffer competition had not Alex Knight stood aloof above this contest, for he is a professional writer of horror fiction and is very good at it; but he did, so you didn't, and so you won fair and square. Two of the highlights were your shrinking of the difference between libertarians and others by a factor of a hundred billion, and your coining of that phrase about frying my transistors. That was a masterpiece, and deserves an entry in the Compendium of Contemporary Curses and Maledictions - perhaps in the form "May your brain be fried in canola oil and its transistors pop loudly one by one." It reminds me of the scene in Hannibal, where Doctor Lecter seats his sedated victim for dinner, surgically removes the top of his skull, slices off portions of his brain and sautées them for an appetizer in a skillet over a table-top fondue burner. Except that I think he used butter instead of canola oil, perhaps with a little garlic. Be that as it may, I have great pleasure in awarding you the Order of the Black Rosette. I hope you'll print out the image, trim the paper with scissors and wear the result on your lapel when you go to work at your robot factory.
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mishochu 5 years 22 weeks agoWhen Global Warming Cultists Can't Get Their Lies To Match ScienceWeb link A. MagnusThe incentive is to introduce the carbon tax as well as create an industry (or prop it up since I think carbon credit trading already exists) where big business can trade credits for polluting. Carbon taxes really wouldn't (in practice) reduce emissions (if you buy enough credits). However that would create "government jobs" to manage the whole process as well as increase revenue due to punishing the non-compliant. Customers always "pay" taxes, fees, levies, judgements (even against businesses). That's how it could affect you.
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Glock27 5 years 22 weeks agoWhen Global Warming Cultists Can't Get Their Lies To Match ScienceWeb link A. MagnusO.K. A. Magnus, I am lost. You obviously know something I don't. It would be impossible to disagree with the thought "...what is being achieved by lying..."--it's weird because I cannot conjure any benefit for distorting the truth about global warming, or freezing, or etc. The threat implied goes beyond the sales of air-conditioner, or a efficient heater. It has to be something great, huge, gigantic, like controlling the population but for the life of me I cannot see how it plays out that way, so, what is the objective, what are we going to "make do with less so ruling class can have more." More what? What am I going to have to make due with less of.
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A. Magnus 5 years 22 weeks agoWhen Global Warming Cultists Can't Get Their Lies To Match ScienceWeb link A. Magnus"And what is being achieved by lying about these things? There has to be a bigger objective here." The objective is simple - WE must make do with less so that the ruling aristocracy can have more. Anyone who tells you otherwise either considers themselves to be part of the ruling elite or would gladly lick the elite's boots if they thought they could glean a choice crumb from their table.
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Glock27 5 years 22 weeks agoWhen Global Warming Cultists Can't Get Their Lies To Match ScienceWeb link A. MagnusI don't know much about global warming, well, in fact I know absolutely nothing about it, but for me I haven't noted anything significant that would convince me it is. I recall back in the 1970's a Time magazine warned of a global freezing. Problem is is who do you believe. I am guessing most members here have little or no knowledge about Global Warming. Then of course there were the sky is falling idea that the sun is burning out--that was somewhere in the 1950's. Oh! Yes. There are the meteorite's that are going to take us out. What is the real purpose for publishing this kind of stuff? And what is being achieved by lying about these things? There has to be a bigger objective here. A conspiracy?
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Glock27 5 years 22 weeks agoAbout Anonymous Alcoholism: Notes on the CultocracyPage Kevin M. PattenWell Jim, I am making a wild guess that you may not remember me, or perchance you really do. Maybe two years back we had some sharp words and one of us made specific threats. My absence for reflection has matured as much as a 72 year old man can reflect. But micro-aggression or full blown aggressions are simply not worth it. Simply respect one mans position Yea or Nea and move on. A kind remark seems to be reasonable, or care in crafting ones words together so as not to stimulate the emotions overflow into the exact opposite of which would not be becoming the Liberty and freedom. My concepts of this idea will probably be way off from others perspective, but that is where I am at. A kind of "Live and let live". I try to focus on the Non-aggression principle with any remark I might make, making sure I don't offend anyone. I may be wrong but sites of this nature I believe should be amenable to everyone who participates. I am going to stop here before I make a mistake and undo what I have or am attempting to do. Enjoy the ideas to mold my brand of ideology.
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Jim Davies 5 years 22 weeks agoAbout Anonymous Alcoholism: Notes on the CultocracyPage Kevin M. PattenYou are an example to us all of tolerance and patience. Or of a thick skin - a valuable asset here. So you served government all your working life and only then discovered the libertarian alternative; that explains it. I hope the QuitGov site is useful when you encounter younger, former colleagues.
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Glock27 5 years 22 weeks agoAbout Anonymous Alcoholism: Notes on the CultocracyPage Kevin M. PattenWell Jim, thank you for the kind consideration of my condition and my latter ignorance. I too wish you could do something or suggest something to amelorate the condition. Yet, in government education at the time, regardless, I may have persisted in education and yes, gifting government my services because the pay was shit. Had I received a degree in engineering I would have made at least double if not more than what I would have received far greater respect for my profession--my specialization was teaching Special Education. My concept of freedom did not exist in STR terms until I arrived on this site. I think, if you attend to todays news, Freedom is not a well known concept, especially when people of grandeur, and excellent intellect, destroyed, and looted recently. Also, please feel free to fear all you wish. That is not of relevance to me as much as the fascinating ideas presented here.
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Glock27 5 years 22 weeks agoAbout Anonymous Alcoholism: Notes on the CultocracyPage Kevin M. PattenAh! cum on Will Groves. Jim can't be that bad is he. I think he is just tryin to do right. I think of him kinda like a hall monitor. You remember those. I think it is kinda nice theres someone willing to try an keep things straight.
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Glock27 5 years 22 weeks agoAbout Anonymous Alcoholism: Notes on the CultocracyPage Kevin M. PattenHey. Thanks Jim, but honestly I don't carry no offense, not after what I have gone though on this site.
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Glock27 5 years 22 weeks agoAbout Anonymous Alcoholism: Notes on the CultocracyPage Kevin M. PattenDamned Mishochu yous is xactly rit. I isn't Ohfended. An yep, dat guy is purfectly o.k.s wit me. an yep. I doez lub my Glocks.
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Jim Davies 5 years 22 weeks agoAbout Anonymous Alcoholism: Notes on the CultocracyPage Kevin M. PattenHa!
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Kevin M. Patten 5 years 22 weeks agoAbout Anonymous Alcoholism: Notes on the CultocracyPage Kevin M. Patten*Yawn. Stretch. Crack* WHAT.....you guys are still here?!?! Well, at least you're constructively discussing the merits of my arti.... HUH?? What in the name of an unholy fuck is going on here? BUH GAWD~!!!! The carnage! The madness! That's it....you're all hereby sentenced to 30 days of Libertarians Anonymous.
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Jim Davies 5 years 22 weeks agoAbout Anonymous Alcoholism: Notes on the CultocracyPage Kevin M. PattenSorry, the STR software duplicated my post.
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Jim Davies 5 years 22 weeks agoAbout Anonymous Alcoholism: Notes on the CultocracyPage Kevin M. PattenNope. There are plenty of examples of that on this very page. Yours was one: you disrespected a fellow commenter by ignoring his name and calling him "this guy." You then compounded it by refusing to apologize, and now by attempting to deflect attention from your rudeness. If I were to call you an ill-mannered lout, I might be accurate but that would be ad-hominem; it would disparage your character, which may be pretty hard to fix. So I don't; I merely point out that on this occasion, you are writing like an ill-mannered lout. You've shown no interest yet in fixing that, but you could.
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mishochu 5 years 22 weeks agoAbout Anonymous Alcoholism: Notes on the CultocracyPage Kevin M. PattenI guess next you'll need to go look up the definition of ad hominem : )
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Jim Davies 5 years 22 weeks agoAbout Anonymous Alcoholism: Notes on the CultocracyPage Kevin M. PattenA distinction with very little difference. A troll infiltrates a forum with a particular view, and sows discord. How? - by opposing that view. Regardless of Glock27's tolerance, you did behave like an ill-mannered lout. That you now refuse to apologize doubles the repugnance of your conduct.
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mishochu 5 years 22 weeks agoAbout Anonymous Alcoholism: Notes on the CultocracyPage Kevin M. PattenYou should go look up the definition of an online troll. It has no bearing on having "oppositional views" but is rather related to sowing discord. If Glock27 is male he is "this guy" (or that guy). I'd imagine he didn't take offense or he would've mentioned it. I also imagine he doesn't need you as his knight in shining armor (particularly if he's comfortable with glocks). You can ask for all the apologies you want. Boy you are amusing. With your charm wit and empathetic nature I can't imagine why you don't convert all commenters on the Guardian website.
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Jim Davies 5 years 22 weeks agoAbout Anonymous Alcoholism: Notes on the CultocracyPage Kevin M. PattenAbout that impressive term "AI trollbot", Will. I enjoy haunting sites like that of The Guardian, which boasts that it is open to all viewpoints but is widely regarded as a Leftist stronghold, and have been unjustly accused there of being a troll (though not yet of being an automated one.) So I had thought a "troll" was someone who invades a forum with a particular and advertised basis or viewpoint, to disrupt it by expressing the opposite. Would you agree with that? If so it follows that an open site (like The Guardian's) cannot have any trolls on board. A closed one, on the other hand, may. One example would be someone who argues that paying income tax is a noble and patriotic duty, on a site such as the Simply Schiff Club, whose purpose is to expose the illegal nature of that alleged tax and share ways to avoid it. Another example would be someone who invades Strike the Root, whose purpose is to advance liberty by striking at government as the root of evil, and argue that government is a necessary institution or that it cannot possibly be abolished. If we agree on that definition of a "troll", then alas there are several here on STR; Paul Bonneau for example, who openly denied the very core of libertarian philosophy by denying that anyone has any rights; Alex Knight, who subsequently did likewise; Samarami, who cannot or will not define what "freedom" means or why one ethical principle is better than another, etc etc ad nauseam. Now, several of these may just be confused, rather than deliberately disruptive; it's hard to judge. But one thing is certain; I am 100% in favor of the purpose of this web site, and therefore am the very opposite of a troll. Your apology would be welcome.
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Jim Davies 5 years 22 weeks agoAbout Anonymous Alcoholism: Notes on the CultocracyPage Kevin M. PattenJust in case there is anyone remaining on Strike the Root's Comment section still interested in striking the root of evil rather than those attempting to strike the root of evil, I'll remind them that the concern about "old-school chain letter gimmicks" was expressed and answered a long time ago. The STRticle is here.
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Jim Davies 5 years 22 weeks agoThe "Curse" of Labor-Saving Machinery Is Nothing NewWeb link WesternerdNeither you, Will, nor the mises.org author Brittany Hunter mentioned in relation to this interesting subject how the effect of continuing automation will probably change after government has ceased to exist. In my Blog today I try to repair that omission. It shows reason to expect that the least skilled in that society will, far from being idled, enjoy a large resurgence of opportunity for dignified and rewarding work.
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Jim Davies 5 years 22 weeks agoAbout Anonymous Alcoholism: Notes on the CultocracyPage Kevin M. PattenI was hoping, Mishochu, that someone else would point out your discourtesy to Glock27 when you referred to him just as "this guy" - but since nobody has, I will. By doing that, you behaved like an ill-mannered lout. The opinions he expressed were deplorable, and I responded by rebutting them; but I took care not to direspect him as a person. You took no such care. You should, therefore, offer him a public apology; ad-hominem attacks have no place in civilized discourse. His chosen name is "Glock27".
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Will Groves 5 years 22 weeks agoAbout Anonymous Alcoholism: Notes on the CultocracyPage Kevin M. PattenI stand by my assertion that "Jim Davies" is an AI-trollbot. A real person who wanted to promote freedom in the world would recognize that perfection is the enemy of the good, and that this focus on purity (by its definition and no-one else's) among freedom-loving people is totally counterproductive. Also, you gotta love the programmers who added the spambot code to "Jim Davies." Has ANYBODY here been to that site in the last 2 years?? The one time I visited, the premise of the site stunk like an old-school chain letter gimmick. In the real world, exponential growth of freedom isn't fostered when anyone who strays 0.000000001% from perfection is shot down. A bot might not "know" that, and more importantly, it wouldn't "care." I don't have enough data to figure out what triggers cause "Jim Davies" user-ban-request subprogram to go into action and start sending emails to Rob, but I congratulate Paul Bonneau and Alex Knight on their accomplishment. In any case, kudos to everyone keeping the transistors in "Jim Davies" hot. With a little luck, one of those puppies will fry soon.
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Jim Davies 5 years 22 weeks agoAbout Anonymous Alcoholism: Notes on the CultocracyPage Kevin M. PattenQuite right, Mishochu, in your first line. He certainly does not, and nor does anyone else. But he, like you and quite a few others who comment here, certainly needs to get his head together. The Academy will help, I hope; but it's built upon a huge resource of works by scholars far better qualified than I am. A short sampling appears here. Your second paragraph is nonsense. Your third is false, as a very simple bit of homework would have shown you. An internal sense of liberty is marvelous, but cannot be compared to the practical liberty of a society rid of government. The goal of achieving one is readily achievable once the brain is in gear, as above.
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mishochu 5 years 22 weeks agoAbout Anonymous Alcoholism: Notes on the CultocracyPage Kevin M. PattenThis guy certainly doesn't need Jim Davies' permission to define freedom for himself. It appears that Jim Davies is so concerned with everyone getting on his "freedom academy" and adhering to its syllabus that he defines freedom for himself as when enough other people (external to himself) accept its tenets then he will be free. This goal is tantamount to dying an enslaved (or not fully free) individual. He refuses to accept the premise that other people will to be free (mentally/internally, where it counts according to some) without waiting for the rest of society (a sadly unlikely goal). Perhaps these people really are free, particularly, free to ignore Jim Davies.
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Jim Davies 5 years 22 weeks agoAbout Anonymous Alcoholism: Notes on the CultocracyPage Kevin M. PattenSo you need Sam's permission before you can define what you mean by "freedom"? If so, the poison has penetrated deeper than I thought. From your bio, Glock27, I see that life has treated you roughly. You have a painful back condition, and you suffered the agony of trying to teach kids in a government school who wanted not to be taught. I'm sorry about the former and wish I could help, but about the latter, why did you continue? You were delivering good value, I'm sure; more value than you received in pay. Therefore, you were making government a net gift. Why? Does your concept of "freedom" extend to the freedom to assist the foremost enemy of freedom? Or does it define the word (as many do) to include government as a promoter or guardian of freedom? Is your definition, perhaps, infinitely elastic? Perhaps you belong, like Sam apparently does, to the Charles Lutwidge Dodgson school of language, in which words mean whatever the user says they mean. But he was an Oxford man, and through his Humpty Dumpty character he was, of course, kidding. I fear that you two are not.
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Jim Davies 5 years 22 weeks agoAbout Anonymous Alcoholism: Notes on the CultocracyPage Kevin M. PattenYou must be referring to Emory University in Georgia.
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