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I hope that what I'm about to say does not get misinterpreted. I'm not calling all socialists thieves. I'm saying that the "system" is based on the philosophy of theft. Capitalism says: You give of your time, talents, & energy. The system gives back proportionate to the benefit you give society. Socialism says: I have a right to your stufff just because you have, and I don't. If you don't think that's what socialism says, let me remind you: From a "property rights" perspective, what is the difference between this philosophy vs. theft? If the system's fundamental principle is that theft is ok if people "really want it," (Think Rocket the racoon) then the society believes that theft is acceptable in a civilized society. You just need to lust after it enough.

Finished "matching" hats for me and the Mrs. I say matching in quotes because, A. The bands are different (though you can't see the one on my wife) and B. The shape isn't the same because I have no idea what I'm doing. But they're similarly shaped. I supposed "finished" should be in quotes too since I still need to make hat liners for both. Or not. I guess I don't have to. But... On another hat...my brother said he wanted his IJ hat weathered. So... I need to rework the shaping just a bit on this one. Not that he'd know or care...but it's not quite screen accurate! Finally... my daughter really wanted me to make her a hat. But she's growing and I didn't want to spend too much money on a hat that she'd grow out of...so I got a super cheap wool hat blank. (Like $10) And it wasn't stiffened at all, so I had to stiffen it with shellac....which discolored it. Argh. And then my shaping on it was TERRIBLE. So I need to reshape it. She wanted it all yellow: Here's another angle on the "matching" hats so you can see they are sort of the same-ish: Sorry this one's fuzzy:

I totally agree...but.... I think the potential consequences of it all are terrifying. In other words, it's the ridiculous, nonsensical, extreme, unhinged reactions to Trump that are scary. And it's not just far leftists. The number of good, faithful, honest, intelligent, righteous people I know that blindly DESPISE Trump is shocking to me. And they're the good people. It's very worrisome. I've never reserved my points of view in pretty much anything with friends, family, etc., until now. Now when I have family get togethers, if politics and Trump come up...I don't say a word. And I'm no Trump fanatic. But the fact that I think he's doing mostly well and don't hate him makes me one, apparently, in many eyes.

And I don't know that I've ever met a leftist who honestly believes that merit isn't important at all. That's the point I was trying to make. Because yes, the conservative views I mentioned are very extremist, and a dime a dozen on places like Gab, which is used by current elected members of our government. I misread your post as saying that compound interest was the reason for the entire attack, not the reason for the specific target. My mistake. FWIW, I am very aware of the Muslim beliefs about interest. It's come up in some of my organizing work, spearheaded by Somali residents and mostly in the context of housing. So yes, there's work being done around it. But I suspect that marginal, regional progress is probably the best we can hope for.

This isn't really about bass. Just about...stuff. And by "stuff" I mean stuff. Like...you know....things. But I digress... I've gotten into sound lately. It's really weird for me. But here's the basic story: When I saw Top Gun Maverick in the theater I was impressed by the theater shaking when the jets roared. So then, recently, my daughter and I have gotten into watching movies together at night. And I thought it would be fun to get a subwoofer. And so I told her we needed to make the room shake (she's 8, btw). And she loved the idea. So we got the cheapest soundbar/woofer we could find from Walmart. And...yeah... it made the room shake...sometimes...sort of. But...you couldn't hear dialogue and you had to constantly turn the sound up and down while watching a show. But still...fun. We made the room kind of shake and she giggled. That was my goal. But it got me into it. So..... I purchased a better soundbar for upstairs. And then....hoo hoo hooo....I ordered a 12" subwoofer. And HOLY COW! Like...seriously....if I let it ride as it was when we first turned it on (about half way on the volume knob)...I feel confident it would literally damage the structure of the home over time. EVERYTHING shook. And it was AWESOME! But...too much. But I got it dialed in I think. Now it only shakes the room on the really big sounds. Just right... maybe. And the dialogue is clear and I don't have to turn the sound up and down and up and down. Though... I kind of want more boom/thump when it does kick in. Maybe a 14" woofer? Maybe a 2nd 12"? No....that's silly. The whole thing is silly. But my little girl giggles and exclaims how it made her "butt shake" every time. And it's silly but awesome and fun and makes us both smile. I don't know how long it'll last as a fun thing. It might become fatiguing pretty quick. But for now...happy daddy. And I turned on the first part of Raiders of the Lost Ark and...the sound!! So engaging and exciting. I love the movie without...but...it's like a new experience watching it again. I don't think I saw it in theaters when it came out in the 80s. So, always on TVs with TV speakers. Happy daddy. Anyhow...feel free to share, as I said, not about bass, per se, but silly 'stuff' that makes/made you happy, and maybe you got sick of too...or whatever. What silly reasons have you acquired any given thing just to see your little one giggle or the like? I thought it might make an interesting topic. If anyone cares. I got the Klipsch Flexus 200 soundbar* (normally $500 but I got it for $300) and the Klipsch R-12SWi subwoofer for $219. So $500ish all in for the really shake the room and clear dialogue system. The Walmart one was $150ish (Hisense). * I went with this Klipsch soundbar because it had a subwoofer out port so you could get any subwoofer for it, whereas most systems connect wirelessly only to their own subwoofers. And I can expand the system with surrounds speakers later if I want to. The sub that connects wirelessly to this bar is $300 and only a 10" (though I'm sure it still rattles the windows), but because of the sub out connection I could do a cheaper but bigger sub.

But this is not the case at all. There exists in the UK private healthcare companies, which offer privately funded treatment, alongside the public service. Private employees aren't forced into the public service because government said so. People entering the field may choose whether or not they wish to work in the private or the public sectors. Many public employees also do work for private companies, often in the same hospitals. I'd hardly liken it to slavery.

Well, that's the trick, isn't it? How many organizations actually "did it right?" By my experience, it is a pretty low percentage. And we've had some very stark examples of where "the practice" fell far from the theory/intent. Further, unlike a free market system, when (not if) something goes wrong, it is difficult to remedy the situation because of the quotas and the policies in place. Free market doesn't always get it right. As you cited: interviews and resumes don't tell the whole story. But it gets it right more often because it works with human nature rather than against it. 1. I disagree that we're trying to "erase" people (the tenor of that accusation is to kill them). 2. How can I disagree with people "being" trans? Of course they exist. But that doesn't mean that I have to like that fact any more than I have to "like" the fact that homeless people are a part of society. Doesn't mean I want to kill them. It means I want to help them. 3. The trans movement would go a LOT further if they were willing to admit that there needs to be a specific, verifiable characteristic that makes someone "trans". "I just feel it" is certainly not enough. The fact that male prisoners are "claiming" they are women, for the sole purpose of having free access to female cell mates to rape them is abhorrent. Yet the movement, as it is, would endorse and encourage this behavior that is 100% preventable. It's a rare crime that is 100% preventable. But this is one of them. And the movement doesn't forbid it. It facilitates it. I have yet to see evidence that it actually does this. It's a wonderful thing to say what a goal/intent is when it gives us the warm fuzzies. But the success rate vs the unintended consequences must be considered. And so far, I've only seen negatives to it in my profession.

You should ask Minneapolis leftists what they think of Tim Walz. Some of the answers may surprise you. My impression of the Dem response to George Floyd was that they wanted solidarity and justice without violence. There were far more cities (like mine) with peaceful protests led/attended by local political figures than there were ones that saw violence, and I never saw any Dems condoning or encouraging the violent protests. I've seen elected Republicans push hateful WRT-fueled views. Yes, the photo above is cringe-worthy. I wouldn't call it hateful, personally. Pandering, absolutely. And maybe that's all the Gab folks were doing. Personally, I don't trust people who pander to racists and nazis. Can you be more specific? Cringe-worthy, to say the least. But I don't know that I'd compare it to people pandering to literal Nazis. This place isn't hateful or a cesspool, but it does stress me out sometimes. 😅

I have to apologize. I went back and read what you had previously posted and got some things mixed up. That's what I get for multi-tasking. The pheneomenon I was describing (I'd be curious to hear if you've seen the same thing) is that a hiring manager says: "We need 10 individuals with qualifications X, Y, & Z. Therefore find 30 people with these qualifications, then from that pool of qualified people, hire the diversity backgrounds necessary to fill the quota." 1. That was the theory behind affirmative action way back when it was introduced in the 80s. But in practice, it was never about qualifications. It was all about the diversity regardless of the qualifications. 2. Some places absolutely had to abide by qualifications. But they found it difficult to fill the quota*. So, to maintain the proper proportions, they simply hired fewer people. As a result, the overall office was overloaded and performance suffered because of overwork. (i.e. they had to reduce numbers to fill the quota of qualified people.) This is what happened to the FAA. I believe they were all qualified people. But due to staffing shortages, they were overworked. *Quota: The reason the quota system doesn't work is that it assumes that everyone in the world is a commodity. The problem here is culture and biology. Not everyone WANTS to do the same thing. Even if we wiped out all bigoted feelings from every heart, people would still have different desires and proclivities because of how they were raised and what they were taught. You have poor people (who are disproportionately black) who are in failing school systems. How many of them are going to become engineers? You have 1st generation immigrants (who are disproportionately Hispanic) who have a more limited vocabulary. How many of them are going to become lawyers? You have Asians (who are disproportionately shorter and smaller). How many of them are going into the NBA or NFL? You have Jews (who average 15 points higher on IQ scores). How many of them are going into scholastic endeavors? A LOT MORE. Women simply don't like the idea of becoming engineers and accountants at the rate that men do. But we need to have 50/50 split in the workforce? Because of this, you're going to mathematically create a situation where underqualified people will be hired in place of more qualified individuals. While I admit that we (all human beings, not just America) may never be completely free of racist individuals, we're actually at a good point in America today. We always need to work on it. But forcing people into jobs they don't really want is not the way to do it.

This isn't theft, it's slavery.

I believe you. Politicians grab votes where they can get 'em, by pandering as much as they can without alienating their other voters. Sending affirming messages to horrible people while maintaining plausible deniability about how they're not themselves horrible, is maybe not politics 101, but it's absolutely politics 212. Like after George Floyd, when the Dems saw all the angry people pouring into the street, and did their best to get out in front to be seen as leaders. While also enacting policy and law changes that directly aided the lawless violent destructive elements in the movement. Here's the left wing's version of elected republicans on Gab: Aww, so you do care! You posting here is explicit admission that thirdhour is not a muddy cesspool! Nicest thing anyone has said to me all week. You're ok in my book, BP.

I'll concede your point on this one. I'm not going back for screengrabs, and it's been over 3 years since I've been active there. I was there to stir the pot. The politicians I saw there were not. That much was clear to me. If you want more than that, feel free to swim in the cesspool yourself. As for me, I'm perfectly capable of observing when political figures are overly welcome in nazi spaces and when they are not. I don't expect you to take my word for it, but that's going to be all you get from me. I turned my back on that particular online activity for a reason. That place is vile, hateful, and not worth my time. But I know what I observed there. Sometimes you have to get in the mud to see the dirt. I'm done playing in mud.

I wouldn't say either of the sides of your equation here are accurate. Capitalism doesn't care about time, talent, or energy. Nor does it care about benefit. It's simply you sell what you can, and buy what you want. And that's it. If you can sell a lot, somehow, regardless of time, talent or energy, you make money. And if others don't want to buy what you have to offer, it doesn't matter if it's beneficial or not. Time, talent, energy, and benefit are useful tools. But they're not, on an individual basis, mathematical certainties in capitalism. That being said, in the long-term and the grand scheme of capitalism, that does tend to work out, as the market will equilibrate on the whole. But in the individual case it won't necessarily play out as an, if-you-work-hard-you-will-win situation. And that's one of the problems with the way some look at it. They see it, definitionally, as -- anyone who works hard WILL succeed -- and that is shown to be false pretty quickly. But the fact that it's false doesn't negate the reality that it's still the best system which allows for growth and potential to succeed based on hard work. But that's really missing the point in a way. It's less about the individual's potential (the so-called American Dream, if you will), but more about an overall system that best allows for overall growth of economy and benefit. Individually what capitalism gives back may not work out. But societally, what capitalism gives back with the broad input of time, talent, and energy IS beneficial to society at large, of which the individuals (even those without specific success from their time, talent and energy, or even input of those things at all), partake. That, of course COULD be true outside of capitalism as well...but it simply is not. Because the one missing component that all other systems (except one) seem to have is motivation. The reason capitalism works is because of the POTENTIAL that it will give back based on your time, talent, and energy. And, moreover (another false point in your equation above), the POTENTIAL that it will give back significantly beyond "proportionate" to the benefit offered. Simply put, the hope of getting rich, because it's actually a possibility, drives the value of capitalism. Yeah...most won't get rich. But the "dream" of it pushes the time, talent, and energy more than other systems. There's solid motivation for effort. There's a three-tiered hierarchy of motivation. At the bottom is fear of punishment. At the top is love and altruism. In the middle is hope for reward. Socialism and similar ideologies (communism, welfare states, etc.) claim love as their motivating factor, but they're delusional, and so must relegate to the lowest tier and motivate through fear. In an ideal world -- the generally fictional utopian only seen twice that we know of in all of history motivated by pure love and goodness -- all would be motivated without fear or hope for reward, by pure love. But in the real world, people are motivated by hope for reward -- a lower tier than the ideal, but one that works much better in this fallen world.

WoW! I'm agreeing with you all over the place... except that I would not call this "Reaganomics."

Giving thanks for food makes sense to me. Giving thanks for the people who made it possible for you to have food makes sense to me. Asking for those folks to be blessed makes sense to me. Remembering those who are less fortunate and asking for help to be generous toward them and for God to bless them makes sense to me. It does not make sense to me to ask for any particular food to be "nourishing and strengthening" - the nourishing and strengthening capacities of various foods seems to be a set thing, and your body's ability to take in nourishment or derive strength also seems to be a set thing. Asking God to override or amplify these things seems foolish to me. ("God, I know this soda is full of high fructose corn syrup, but please bless it anyway so it'll be nourishing and strengthening to my mind and body and won't give me a sugar crash later, or contribute to me developing type 2 diabetes." I mean, sure, you can try that, but I'm not sure it's going to work...) Anyone have a good argument for why or how we should "bless" food? Anyone have other thoughts on what should go into a prayer given at meal times / "over" food?

Humor first -- must watch. Then serious. The purpose of food is to nourish and give means to strengthen our bodies. Some who is starving isn't receiving the proper nourishment nor strength they need. The main problem I see with this is that it is done by tradition. Most of us, including myself, saying to "nourish and strengthen our bodies" because that is what was traditional taught in the home. This means, we are repeating a statement without much thought. I think this is where it is wrong. In that light, if we are sincere there is nothing wrong with the statement because food is to nourish and strengthen us. I'll take any bet against a guy who fasts for 48 hours or starves, and then he and I run a race and see who wins? I'll win that race 10 out of 10 times, unless he/she is an Olympic athlete. Why, because that body hasn't received the proper nourishment which provides strength to exert muscle exercise. As to certain foods, yes, I think it is silly to pray for nourishment from Soda or other treats. To thank is a good thing. I mean, if a person is sincere, I assume, they could say, "Thank you for Diabetes Father, because it reminds me of all the good tasting treats I had in life. Better to life and die, then to not have lived at all." I mean if the prayer is sincere, who am I to make a false judgement? My take away is this: * Is it sincere or genuine * Is it repetitive without thought * And like the comedian, I'm not praying that you pass a drug test if you just dazed and confused all week before that, or at all.

All of the liberals I know want their mom or son to be operated on by the best doctors, their plane to be flown by competent pilots, and their steak made by a chef who knows what she is doing.

So is life even better better with...2 subwoofers? Giggling. Otherwise....I don't know. I'm new to this. Never cared about this before. We got into Alexa devices (Echo) a bit back and making our home smart...but I wanted better sound for the music. Since then, we've moved to the Sonus Era 100s. I tried out the Echo Studio, but the Sonos Era 100 just sounded better. We don't listen to loud music. It's mostly background, but sometimes we turn it up a bit for cleaning time or something. The Era 100s are sufficient. We run 2 as a stereo pair and a solo in my office. I know it's not going to be as good as a good larger speaker (Klipsch The Sevens or Nines, for example...but ouch on cost), but it's sufficient for what we needed for now...and... I have to say, for the size the sound is shockingly good. Technology rocks... literally in this case. But going fully Sonos was beyond the pale on cost. The sub is $700! The Arc 2 is a grand! Too much for me. (Maybe someday on the grand for a soundbar... the upcoming Klipsch Flexus 300 soundbar has me thinking...hmm... but....NO. I won't do it! Except....you know... but no! Except....). Even adding the mini-sub to the Era 100s is $430. And that ain't gonna shake stuff like my 12" (though for music...I don't want that....but I digress again...). I might spring for the sub mini for the music someday. But for now the 2 Era 100s is working nicely. And they're Alexa devices so I can control my lights and etc still. So Klipsch won my money on the soundbar (I know that doing a full theater system with separated speaker is technically "better" but I'm not really that picky....yet... what have I gotten myself into!?) I developed some of my tastes in my teens. But Michael Jackson doesn't fulfill any longer. Though Phantom of the Opera and Les Mis still do. In my college days (I was older 20s at the time) I got into Metallica and Tori Amos* and a lot of the...I dunno "metal" of that time and the following decade. White Zombie (and later Rob Zombie), and so forth. But, as I said in another thread (about hats), I got into country a few months ago (having always hated it before). I listen to country music almost daily now while working. Shrug. I'm in my 50s now. (To be fair, I think medicine I started caused some hypomania in me, so I expect a new taste at this age is rare... except I think I might have some minor bi-polar going on so I'm getting into new stuff (like hat making) all the time in my 50s. Hmm.) My other favorite is folk music from the 60s, but I was raised on that so developed that taste in my pre-teen years. I really dislike bassy music at this point (meaning the kind that thump thump thumps to the beat in an obnoxious way). But maybe my music taste will develop (in a state of hypo-mania likely) from my new interest in bassy movies. Gangsta rap...here I come!

I've encountered conservative circles that think women and ethnic minorities have no place in civilized society. It's a good thing I don't limit myself to interacting with only one field of conservative thought.

Most people are trying to play checkers with Trump. A few are playing chess. Trump is playing 3D chess (ala Star Trek) and most people do not realize that is the real game. I do not think he is as scary as the boogey man the media is trying to paint.

Dude I was literally reading the chat of my progressive DEI group, where they spent an entire hour griping about the evils of the word 'merit', and expressing their anger and hatred of the term and everything it entails. Describing the ways they've been victims of the merit-based mentality. Talking about how they as a historically marginalized racial minority was only able to get a jump up because of some program that replaced merit in the name of fighting white privilege. Such notions are commonly expressed in that group across the 4 years I've been involved with 'em. So yeah, 'conservative lie' my flabby cuthroat capitalist hiney. Or, more charitably, you've got your work cut out for you to convince many of your fellow progressives of the virtues of merit-based principles. In your next community activist gettogether thing, maybe bring up how meritocracies are good things that help folks, and let us know how that goes.

Look at that lovely chart! Look at how absolutely everyone, even the poorest and most destitute among us, have consistently climbed upwards and to the right. It's interesting to think about how the number of millionaires America creates is always "more" as we move from year to year, decade to decade. From my perspective, that's what success looks like. I get that an ever-expanding gap beween ultra- and everyone else isn't sustainable. But I also get that hating on folks who build wealth for themselves and families is 85% of the personality of most lefties. Ok, but then in your next paragraph you move away from the definition and into the trap that has consumed the left for at least half a century: Again, letting a data center keep more of it's profit is NOT industry support. It is not the government writing a check to a corporation. It is not taxing me and giving my tax money to a corporation. It is not what the CATO article is talking about. So yeah. Common ground on that CATO article. Let's talk farm subsidies and cheese caves and government involvement in the insurance industry. But there is no common ground possible when we disagree on whether govt taking is the same or different than govt giving.

I thought about this for a bit to see if this is true for me. I realized, I'm not sure what that means. When I heard music as a kindergartener, I immediately sensed if I like it or not just as surely as if I liked the flavor of certain foods. I just liked it or not. It had nothing to do with music education or understanding music theory, obviously. It was just a personal taste. As I became more exposed to more types of music, I didn't exactly evolve. I simply increased my experience. A few years ago (in my old age) I'd come to like the Jolly Rogers. And I'd never heard anything like it before.

For me, Trump is a mix of things I've hoped for since the 1980's, and stuff that worries the crap out of me.

That is true. That is the label that was put forth to dump on Trump. This is not true. Both labels can be true at once. The trangenic procedures they were performing included changing their sex hormone levels. So, no. Not a big difference. And there was no mixup. But it appears that the leftist media are putting quite a spin on it for the sole purpose of denying Trump's narrative.

In Hebrew, "name" also means: Reputation Power Authority Glory ...specifically in regards to a person of renown or authority. e.g. "...make a name for ourselves..." This is why we pray and perform ordinances "in the name of Jesus Christ."

Good question. I don’t know. Only thing I can think of is: D&C 107: 3 Before his day it was called the Holy Priesthood, after the Order of the Son of God. 4 But out of respect or reverence to the name of the Supreme Being, to avoid the too frequent repetition of his name, they, the church, in ancient days, called that priesthood after Melchizedek, or the Melchizedek Priesthood. Also this, but probably not what you were looking for…

I’ve made statements to the effect that truth and chastity are inseparably connected. This was based on the metaphoric “Armor of God.” The Girdle of Truth is often associated with chastity (protects the privates). I had pointed to Hamlet asking if Ophelia was honest. This was a double meaning. He was first asking if she was being serious about giving his keepsakes back to him. But he realized something was up, and that they were probably being spied upon. So, he took it a different way. He turned it into a question about her chastity. A man who got a woman pregnant needed to marry her which would “make an honest man out of him." Pres Kimball wrote of the relationship between honesty and chastity very briefly in The Miracle of Forgiveness. Even with all that, I recognized that in our generation, we don’t quite seem to understand what honesty & chastity have to do with one another. Part of that is modern religion. Part of that is modern culture. Jordan Peterson said,”Sex has never been free. There were always consequences. Casual sex is a myth. There is always some sort of emotional exchange and bond formed.” He brought up the idea that children are always a possible consequence of casual sex. With today’s wide and affordable access to contraceptives, there does appear to be a crack in the wall. But because we’ve only had both cheap contraceptives and widespread casual sex in the culture for maybe one generation, we don’t have enough data to determine if that really changes anything. So, it is too early to tell if this technology changes thousands of years of history and evolution or not. Recently, I’ve done a lot of learning about male-female relationships in today’s society. One thing that had me worried was why my children and all my nieces and nephews were having such difficulty finding an eternal companion. I count 14 young adults of marriageable age. Only three are married. One solidly moving toward engagement. One more has a prospect, but the more I observe that one, the more misgivings that relationship is generating. We’ll see. Many of these young adults are finding it difficult to find someone who is even interested in getting married. One of them has no interest in finding a girl because of the maneaters out there. He doesn’t know if he can find a girl that won’t just destroy him like two of his uncles have experienced. He is a textbook hermit. He works from home with a fine paying job. And he’s looking to double his income by taking a few more classes. He’s making a lot of money, has few expenses. And he is a savvy investor. He’ll probably be a millionaire by 30. But what woman out there is going to be his proper match and value an eternal marriage? We see declarations of such “strong-independent-modern-women” (SIMW) who don’t need a man, but still expect her man to make more than she does to prove he’s worthy of her. Really? What logic generates that? These SIMW only look for rich SIMPs. But if a man is really all-that then why would he want a woman who will walk all over him? SIMW want to lead except for the times that she is tired of leading. Then she expects the SIMP to immediately take the reins and know exactly what to do and make all the right decisions that she must eventually approve of. Are they being honest with themselves? SIMW goes to gyms with barely anything on and sets up her exercise station directly in front of a man who has been working out for the last 10 minutes. Then she raises a stink about how he’s checking her out. Is this honest behavior? SIMW decides that she no longer needs a man and divorces him because she wants to lead her “authentic life” for real fulfillment. And BTW, she wants joint custody with 100% child support and a ton of alimony. Is she for real? SIMW refuses to get married until she can find a man with $300k income, over 6ft tall, and is a 10. She believes this is possible because that is what social media says she can do. Nevermind that she has never gone to the gym, herself, and she has a seriously high body-count, and she doesn’t even make $30k/yr. Is her head screwed on straight? She wouldn’t know truth if it hit her in the face. No, social media says she's a 10 and can bag any man. No problem. Now, what about men? When women behave like this, it is all too easy for men to forsake marriage. Why buy the cow when you get the milk for free? Where is commitment? What is commitment? Men just take what they can get whenever they can. But now we see a lot of men leaving the dating/marriage market entirely because they know that they always get the shaft. From me too fraud to divorce always favoring the woman (especially no-fault divorce) men know what a high risk merely dating can be, let alone marriage. Why? Because there is no trust. No one is honest anymore. Honesty is always linked to chastity. If your chosen partner has a high body count, then how can you trust them? They never made a commitment about the most intimate decision of their lives. They chose intimacy and made it like playing a video game. It’s just something you do when you have the time. You can take it and leave it. If you’re flippant about committing to intimacy, then you’re flippant about committing to anything. BIOLOGY: Oxytocin has been called the “cuddling hormone.” A great deal of it is released during intercourse. It is not merely a sexual high. It is an emotional bonding high. It is also released when mothers nurse their babies, so it is not just a sexual thing. When we engage in intercourse so often without even really considering a relationship, our very biology is getting screwed up. The oxytocin is trying to tell you that the person that you just shared this with needs to be with you. You need to stay. You need to commit to a relationship. When we ignore and treat casually such biological signals, it messes with our entire psychology related to commitment and keeping promises. This is why Balaam was able to destroy the children of Israel by sending in the loose women to tempt the men away. There is never any such thing as casual sex. There is always a consequence. And refusing to acknowledge that consequence/responsibility is dishonest. It doesn’t matter if we avoid tyrannical government. Hollywood already introduced casual sex into this society when I was a kid. Yes, there was always some of it in any society. But "society" at least knew it was wrong. It wasn’t until the 80s where it started being considered acceptable behavior. And it was during the Friends era that it became expected. When society stopped being honest, we were all ready to listen to any politician tell us anything. And we'd believe it. Not because we had confirmation by the Holy Ghost, but because it was pleasing to our ears. And pleasure without responsibility is all we wanted.

In other words, for us... It's super easy. Barely an inconvenience.

Now, a biological component. We're told that oxytocin is the "bonding hormone." When two people experience oxy-release together an emotional bond is formed. The more they experience that with the same person, the stronger the emotional bond. It is also formed between mother and child during nursing. So, it is not only a sexual bond. It is a familial/emotional/social bond. It is even between best buds. When a person/couple engages in non-committal oxy-release, they are saying they want the feelings and immediately eschew the bond that their bodies and psychology say should be there. In other words: Casual sex = denial of any and all... At some point, this numbing effect will be the root of all ability to do what you say you are going to do. And following through with your promises/commitments is the hallmark of "honesty."

You aren’t. By American standards either.

And slavery, as we all know, is approved of in the Bible.

And here I thought y’all were going to be talking about fishing . . .

So what you're saying is that couples should do laundry together?