yjacket

I agree with you.

Well the logic breakdown on the other side is: if we didn't have laws against murder and rape, murder and rape would be everywhere! One only has to go into the ghetto neighborhoods of the US to see that bit of logical breakdown ;-).

Good point. I think of it on a sliding scale. One can curb human behavior depending on how much money, manpower, and resources one wants to put into it. For example rape/murder. If there is a cop on every street-corner, rape/murder would surely drop but it would not be eliminated, but it would be lower than it is now. But in order to have a cop on every street corner requires valuable time, money and manpower. Those resources could be better allocated in a different fashion. So yes, prohibition can achieve a drop in activity in the thing prohibited, but at what cost? Which is why when people point to Prohibition "working" they only understand half the problem. It "worked" but at what cost? Al-capone and a lot of other gangs profited greatly from Prohibition. That's why laws shouldn't be enacted to mold human behavior, laws should be enacted as punishments against behavior that infringe on life, liberty, and property. Because once individuals accept that the law should mold human behavior then it is a matter or degree, i.e. how many resources do I need to put into enforcing xyz law to achieve the desired outcome?

Hi Vort :-). If prohibition against rape and murder worked we wouldn't have rape and murder. But we do; and I can tell you if some bad guy comes up to me with and tries to kill me, I won't be thinking . . . golly I wish we had more laws against rape and murder!! If I'm not well protected, I'll be thinking "dang it" I knew I should have brought my concealed weapon with me this time! The real prohibition against rape and murder has nothing to do with laws, it has to do with the fact that if you try to rape someone you are very likely to get killed yourself. The notion that if we didn't have laws against xyz we would descend into chaos is pure rhetoric. There are a million things that people do every do that don't have any laws associated with them and things work out pretty well. Laws should be there to enact a punishment for violations against life, liberty, and property, not to reshape society. If you've ever visited a jail you'll see how much good some laws are really doing as a significant portion of jail population is for non-violent crimes.

Hammer meet nail. It is quite interesting to read through the thread; just because something is legal or is not legal does not make it a just law. The homosexual debate opens up an avenue to repeal unjust laws and create just laws . . . unfortunately the philosophical underpinning of what is a just law is lost and the outcome will be a continuation of more unjust laws. Instead of trying to determine if the law is just we come to disagreements about whether a particular action is legal and because men and women like power and to a large extent enjoy forcing action on others we will continue to have unjust laws that use the power of force to mold/shape/destroy society. The Savior can't get here fast enough . . . .

I agree it is a crock; but it is the logical outcome of the current structure of our laws and mindset of our culture and unfortunately there is a significant probability that they will lose. When we go away from property rights and negative rights to positive rights then this is the conclusion.

I'm curious what your definition of a gold standard is and how simple economics demonstrates that a gold standard does not work? A metal standard i.e. gold/silver certainly can work in the modern world. A standard where the government sets a certain ratio will not work as Gresham's Law will eventually take over. Agree, except that it isn't a problem. Disagree, gold is of value, it is of value in that it can be exchanged easily. Money in a natural state evolves from something that already has value. The easiest case is cigarettes used as money in WWII. Saying the accumulation of gold is counter-productive is like saying the accumulation of dollar bills is a waste. A major component of it's value is that is can be exchanged. I'm not sure I follow, if everything was priced in gold, then as the value of gold went up the price of everything would go down; just like today as the value of the dollar goes down the price of everything goes up. I don't quite follow, would you please elaborate? IMO, the biggest danger in the monetary system is who controls it? Currently the Federal Reserve along with the Treasury control the monetary system and therefore control who benefits from the creation of the money supply first. All the banks, their cronies, government contractors, government employees, etc get access to the money before anyone else does and they benefit unjustly. In a gold standard system there cannot be such a system as money is injected into the system naturally. A great video that explains things pretty well can be found here:

Hi Traveler. From my interpretation of current law, corporations are already barred from donating money directly to federal campaigns. And PACs are limited to a max of 5k. If you ever see the graphs of y company donates x amount to a candidate what that is really saying is that x amount of dollars were disclosed as coming from people employed by y company. When you donate to a candidate, they ask you to disclose your employer and that is where the information comes from. In addition current PAC laws limit the amount that PACs can give directly to candidates. As someone else said, all this does is allow corporations to skirt around the issue. As it is right now, in order to really trace what company is giving how much to a candidate one has to find out how much they have donated to PACs and then how those PACs have distributed the money. I would much rather have a system set up that one knows that Bank of America say donated 100,000 to some candidate. As it is right now, that information is very hard to get because again the information presented that Bank of America donated 100,000 isn't Bank of America it is 40 individual employees of BoA donating 2500 each. I agree that the candidates have lost their soul, but I'm not sure that it is donations that are doing it. 1st off, who in their right mind would actually want to be an elected official. Most of the actual positions do not pay a whole lot. It is raw power and because it is raw power it attracts those who don't have as many scruples because they can shift with the wind to maintain their power and prestige. Most good, decent, honest individuals would never want to actually be a candidate because it is a very dirty business to campaign (which IMO speaks more of the people electing them . . . ). 2nd, I believe that if you want to get money out of politics you have to get as much power as possible out of politics. Diffuse the power, make it more local not more central. The average Congressional District size is 700,000 people vs. 60,000 a hundred years ago vs. the 35,000 at the time of the Constitution. Think of that, representatives were truly representatives. 35,000 people, the size of a decent college campus, more people fit into football stadiums. We'd have over 5000 representatives at that point. It might be a lot more unwieldy but the diffusion of power would be immense. The population of many States are larger than the population of the colonies at the ratification of the Constitution. Instead of having States take on larger and larger roles and diffusing power we are centralizing power. With that centralization come power and with the power come the desire to ensure that x company either doesn't get harmed by laws or can take advantage of other companies with the laws. Too much power, that is the problem.

Glad you could join the conversation Vort. This might seem a little pedantic, but everyone who is alive lives, but not everyone who is alive marries. One doesn't need the state's permission to create a life or to live, but one needs the state's permission to marry? One of those things is not like the other. In one case the state is protecting something that is inherent in everyone and in the other the state is restricting something that is not inherent in everyone. I'm flattered and you certainly have the right to ask, but no thank you I already have one. One of the defining characteristics of liberty (that is lost to many), is the right to not engage in a transaction. In order for a social contract to be in effect, all parties must enter into the contract freely and voluntarily without coercion. You can't enter into a social contract with me simply because I refuse, but you can certainly ask. This ties back into my earlier conversation about businesses and their right to not enter into a transaction. As far as incest goes, morally speaking it is abhorrent and I highly doubt that anyone can make a claim that a 30 year-old mother marrying a 14 year-old boy is done freely, voluntarily, and without coercion. This is due to the fact that the 14 year old has lived with his mother all his life, who has feed, clothed, disciplined, etc. I think a claim that that relationship is free, voluntary and without coercion is invalid. Now a 30 year old having a relationship with a 50 year-old is more likely to be free and voluntary, but I still wonder how free and voluntary it could really be. Ultimately in this case, I think laws against incest are protecting the ultimate validity of social contracts and individuals liberty since they are attempting to ensure that the relationship is free from coercion. Wrong. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed," Government exists to protect life, liberty, and property, period. For a brief history of marriage please see Marriage - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia You will see that the earliest recorded marriage: Math of Marriage › Dr Karl's Great Moments In Science (ABC Science) Was a Jewish contract. You'll find this interesting in the history of marriage: "In Ancient Greece, no specific civil ceremony was required for the creation of a marriage – only mutual agreement and the fact that the couple must regard each other as husband and wife accordingly" And this is how it was in this country for many years. Boy & girl get together and commit to each other in a barn, done married no need for the State to provide a "license". I'll say it again, what state licensing of Marriage is really about is benefits. It's about taking from someone and giving to another.

A lot of different things and I'll do my best to respond, but considering I spent most of the afternoon working on a dead furnace who's water line froze . . . 1. I believe marriage is ordained by God not by man, therefore it is not in the purview of the state to do anything with marriage. Marriage resides within the realm of religion not within the realm of the state. I reject the notion that the state should regulate marriages; if the state has the power to regulate marriages it has the power to declare who can or cannot get married. The State should not be in the business of marriage, it should be in the business of ensuring free and voluntary associations and that social contracts are upheld. From a philosophical standpoint: what is the definition of marriage? Marriage developed out of religion. If one goes back 200-300 years and looks for a "marriage license" one will find that they are held in the records of Churches. When the state first started recording marriage licenses, it was explicitly for the purpose of denying certain individuals the ability to marry (inter-racial marriages). Marriage without religion is form without substance, without religion it is simply a social contract. A social contract that says 2 or more people commit to share things in common and provide in different ways for the other. As individuals have the right to voluntarily associate with whomever they please and make commitments to whomever they please this is fine by me. However, I believe marriage is more than a social contract between 2 people. Marriage is a religious function between God and those individuals being married. One does not need the State to declare one married, one only needs a religion and a willing participant(s). Therefore, there is no State "right to marry". Rights are granted by God or Nature and as such there is only a right to freely associate and make social contracts with whomever I please. In fact, for the State to regulate marriage means that the State is impugning on a religious freedom. This is very obvious when one looks at Utah and polygamy. The State was impugning on the religious freedom of the Church. What Gay Marriage is really about is benefits and legitimacy. They have an agenda that they want to force everyone else to legitimize and make it "moral" because in today's vapid intellectually bankrupt society, what is legal is "moral" and what isn't legal is "immoral". And they want benefits. The State has it's gruby little hands in so many areas taking from one and giving to another that they want a part of the pie too. The big one is adoption; I don't believe the State should be involved in adoption, but because it is homosexuals want the ability to play family and to do that they need the state to legitimize their behavior. As I said before, I have no problem is homosexuals want to form their own religion and get "married", but marriage has no business being a State regulated activity. And this gets back to an issue I brought up earlier: the more State involvement, the more problems it creates than fixes. By being involved in marriages it has to make decisions about marriages; if it were not involved in marriages this wouldn't be an issue. 2. No racial discrimination by a business does not infring on your rights. How can you have a right to buy products from any business? I'll break this down very simply with playground examples of 6-7 year olds. Johnny is playing on the playground and brought from his home a Spiderman toy. Billy brought his Dr. Octopus toy. Billy would like to trade with Johnny and play, but Johnny doesn't want to. Does Billy have the moral right to start pounding Johnny because he doesn't want to trade? Does Billy have the moral right to get 5 of his friends to coerce Johnny to trade? The answer is an obvious no. But what if Johnny trades with Mike's Dr. Octopus toy but he won't trade with Billy? Does Billy have the moral right to pound Johnny into the ground? No, he doesn't. If Johnny doesn't want to trade, he doesn't want to trade. Now someone can talk to Johnny and tell him it would be really nice if he shared so Billy will in the future share with him. Now what happens if someone comes in and takes Johnny's toy away from him for not sharing? You'll find right away that Johnny will throw a fit and start saying that isn't fair. And it's not, children instinctively know this. By taking away a toy for not sharing you are violating that individuals God-given right to not share. What you are really telling the child if you take away a toy for not sharing, is that the toy really isn't his and he doesn't own it. And that is the same thing you are telling a business owner if he refuses a transaction with some individual-for whatever reason. The State is telling the business owner, "you don't really own your business, The State does" and you are violating that businesses right to not do business.

Welcome to a fascist state. We'll see how you like it when someone gets in control that disagrees with your philosophical beliefs and starts banning them or forcing you to do something you don't like. Welcome to AMERIKA. Welcome to the Real World of the NSA and might makes right. Just because something is a law does not make it a moral or a just law or even a law that one should obey!

Escher, thank you for engaging. I am not in favor of racial discrimination or racism; I think it is absolutely dispicable to think that one is better than another simply based on their genetics. I also don't believe in anything like group rights. There are no group rights there are only individual rights. However, there are a lot of things that I find in this life despicable. I think one-night stands are despicable, I think getting drunk is deplorable, I think doing drugs is offensive. However, regardless of what I think, I do not have the moral right to force my beliefs on anyone else. My rights end where another's begins, ipso facto I have a duty, no I have a moral obligation to defend the rights of any other individual no matter how deployable I personally feel their actions are. If I do not stand up for other individual's right to be a jerk, to be a racist, then I give up my own ability to defend my freedom of thought. I give up my right to believe that their actions are deplorable. I can defend their right to be a jerk while still saying that their actions are stupid. Let's suppose that I have the moral right to force others to conform to my philosophical belief system, meaning say that I believe drinking hot chocolate to be wrong. All I need to do is convince enough people that drinking hot chocolate is wrong (hmm hot chocolate when it is below 0 .. .good stuff!), petition some legislatures, get a majority vote and bam, henceforth all who drink hot chocolate are fined. In fact, because I can do that I can now outlaw (i.e. fine and put in jail) anyone who sells hot chocolate. That is tyranny of the majority and might makes right. Now let's suppose the former chocolate drinkers and sellers get together and decide to convince everyone of the benefits of hot chocolate, they form a coalition, petition legislatures and pass a law that stipulates everyone must purchase 1 cup of hot chocolate a week in the wintertime and if you don't you are fined or put in jail. A system set up as such, or more to the point a society without any firm grasp of natural rights ends up becoming thug rule, i.e. as long as I have a majority I can do whatever I want. The Revolution, Declaration and Constitution where all different facets of a successful succession against a King who had a majority (Great Britain and Parliment) who were exercising tyranny of the majority over a minority (the colonies). The original founders were very much steeped in understanding what should be law and in natural law. The Constitution, while a very good, inspired document is in many ways flawed. If one reads the Anti-Federalist papers, one can see the worries and fears of the Anti-Federalists have come to fruition. The Bill of Rights specifically tried to allay their fears. Think where we would be without the BoR . . . I can hear it now . . .but, but, but the Supreme Court protects us. We'll ignore the fact that judicial review is not explicitly in the Constition. Okay, in the entire US history the Supreme Court has found 163 acts of Congress as Unconstitutional; an average of less than .72 laws per year for the entire time since the US has been around. In a typical year Congress passes around 300 laws, last year 65. So in a given year only .24%, that's 1/4 of one percent of laws passed are declared unconstitutional. Now that's amazing, I'm impressed at the Constitutional acumen of our Representatives that they are 99.75% acurate at passing Constitutional laws. This is in spite of the fact that several Congressmen have commented to me personally that it's not their job to determine what is Constitutional or not, that's the Supreme Courts job! You are also conveniently ignoring the several times that the Supreme Court has reversed itself. Going from racial discrimination to racist may be the case but it doesn't necessarily mean that is the case. Racist: a person who believes a particular race is superior to another. I guess that must mean there are a lot of racists in this country based upon where people live, because they practice some form of self racial discrimination. The 2010 census (from the NY times website) clearly shows that demographics in this country are not evenly distributed. There are white neighborhoods, black neighborhoods, hispanic, etc. I guess all those people who choose to live in a neighborhood with people who look a lot like them are racists. Who knew everyone is a racist!! What about religious communities? I guess people who live in catholic communities or mormon communities are religist. So long as they do not infring upon the rights of another individual, they have that right, no matter how deployable it is. Just like I have the right to not buy from those businesses and advocate that others don't buy from them. I have a right to boycott them and to put them out of business by not giving money to them. No one has a right to a job, or a right to buy something. To have a right to a job means you have to force someone to give you a job. To have a right to buy something means you can force someone to sell to you. Which goes back to my comments above, i.e. might makes right and tyranny of the majority. You have a right to yourself (i.e. no one can physically acost you as long as you don't physically acost them), a right to life, a right to property, a right to liberty. Basically meaning I own myself and by extention anything that I make. As long as I do not infringe upon someone else's body or property, I can pretty much do as I please. How is someone refusing service an infringment upon their life, their liberty or their property? Now governmental racial discrimination is and should be against the law. Why? Because everybody pays taxes, it is a common use. If taxes are extracted from me to build a town hall then that means I should have use of it regardless of my race and my status should be the same as everyone else's because we all pay the same taxes. However a private business has not extracted a tax from me and therefore I have no claim to use it.

Unfortunately yes, it did come from the Heritage Foundation, but not because of any tenant of belief in personal responsibility. It's because by and large both parties love government. Well it wouldn't be so darn expensive if it weren't for government mandates. There used to be charitable hospitals and hospitals (up until about 84) could refuse patients. After a law was passed to force hospitals to accept anyone and everyone things started going out of control. That is where you got all the free-loaders. Medical bills wouldn't be so high if hospitals could actually refuse service, there was price transparency and more free competition; but you can thank state governments for highly regulating the insurance business. Look at any medical business not involved in insurance to a large degree and not regulated. Vision and Dental. Vision is extremely cheap, a couple hundred for a pair of glasses, 50 for an eye exam, lasik 1k an eye. Dental, a couple hundred for cavity, 50-100 for a check-up, it's pretty cheap. . . . hmm I wonder why? And I hate this crap that "all of us pay for it" no all of us don't pay for it. Some people do, and some people don't. The all of us pay for it mantra is a way to get everyone to believe that by gosh we've got to force everyone to have insurance. Claiming that someone declaring bankrupcy hurts all of us . . . well what about all those people who bought homes who couldn't afford it and went bankrupt, we should force them all to pay us back right?

What?? dangerous thinking to have contract law and freedom of association? Are you serious? I don't believe a business should discriminate based on skin color, however I support their right to do just that. I support your right to be wrong!!! Something sadly lost in this country. I wouldn't give my business to a company who did that and in today's society any company who tried to would quickly be out of business because people wouldn't buy from them. I'm not sure what your definition of tyranny of the majority is, but in my book it is when the Majority enforces their will on a minority. A Majority of voters declaring through law that a business owner cannot discriminate is just that. Again ?? what the . . . you need to go and read a little bit on Hobes, Locke, Voltaire, Classical Liberal, Montesquieu, Bastiat, Smith, etc. Claiming that the government has the right to force people to do things when they themselves are not infringing on anyone's right is ridiculous. Claiming that I have a right to enter into any store is equally untenable. Who owns the store? Do I own it, does the public own it? No the store-owner owns it- it is his private property which he allows people to use. If I have the right to enter into his store regardless of what his thoughts are about me that means that he truly doesn't own his business, it means the "public" owns it. Once the "public" owns it then they can expropriate it however they darn well please. How do they expropriate it, through the ballot box and the power of passing laws. How are laws passed? By a majority vote! Hence tyranny of the majority over a minority. Without a proper understanding of property rights any type of democratic society will tend towards tyranny of the majority. As for the Constitution, you might want to look up some reversal cases. Here is a good snippet to get you started: HowStuffWorks "10 Overturned Supreme Court Cases" The first one is the money one: "The Court decided the Lochner case in 1905, ruling that a New York State law limiting the number of hours a baker could work to 60 per week was unconstitutional. In a 5-4 decision, they declared that the law removed a person's right to enter freely into contracts, violating the 14th Amendment. The specific clause being violated states, "any State [shall not] deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." The Court heard the Adkins case in 1923. It regarded a Washington, D.C., law that set a minimum wage for female workers. It was overturned on similar grounds as the Lochner case. Lochner set a major precedent that severely limited federal and state laws regulating working hours and wages. In fact, the period following the case is known as "The Lochner Era." However, the Adkins case was a key point in the women's rights movement in the U.S., which for decades debated absolute equality for women versus favoring only special protections and regulations for them. The Lochner Era ended in 1937 when the Court decided West Coast Hotel v. Parrish. The matter involved a law very similar to the Adkins minimum wage law, but in this case, the Court decided that the 14th Amendment did not explicitly guarantee freedom of contract, and that such freedom could be limited by reasonable laws designed to protect workers' health and safety." I'm sure you are aware of how the Supreme Court reversed itself many times during the Great Depression after FDR tried to pack the Supreme Court with His cronies b/c the Supreme Court wasn't declaring things his way . . . Nice of you to leave out the other definitions of discrimination: Such as: Discrimination The act of discriminating. 2. The ability or power to see or make fine distinctions; discernment. 3. Treatment or consideration based on class or category rather than individual merit; partiality or prejudice: racial discrimination; discrimination against foreigners Yes it is: one is a discrimination based on finding a better price, not liking Amazon, etc, the other is based on race. Please tell me where I said racial discrimination was right; people have a right to be wrong in this country. You have no idea what you are talking about. I support your right to be wrong, that does not mean I believe it to be morally correct; it just means I don't believe the government has the right to force you do to what I think you should at the point of a gun. There are some things that conflict with my personal moral compass, I do not agree having homosexuals in BSA, nor would I if I were a cake owner bake a cake for a homosexual "marriage". By the same token, I am fully supportive of homosexuals having homosexual bakeries cook only homosexual cakes or both. I'm in favor of homosexuals creating their own BSA, let them create their own religion and have their own pastors marry them. Just don't force me to do it!! It's actually the higher moral ground, it's called the non-agression principle. And if you don't think people discriminate racially you've got another thing coming, I invite you to look at the geographical demographics of any major city:Mapping the 2010 U.S. Census - NYTimes.com. There is a neat little thing called "racial and ethnic distribution". Pull up NYC. By and large it broken up racially. You have hispanic blocks, black blocks, white blocks, asian blocks. I dare you, go to any major city and see what you find. Sure you find border areas that are 50/50 and you'll find pockets that are very integrated, but by and large it is very racially segregated. And before you call me a racist homophobe, I've lived in communities where I'm like 8%; I really don't care. What I care about is safety; after my mission I looked for an apartment near college. I drove into a neighborhood where about 15 urban youths were playing basketball. One of them stopped me and said "whacha doin here" me: "I'm looking for a place to rent" him:"you don't want to be renting here, you best move on". Me: "Okay thank you". I'm actually really glad he talked to me, he did me a favor and saved me a lot of potential heartache in the future. Is it wrong to racially discriminate, sure, but I don't support the government shutting a business down and taking away someone's living simply because they refuse to serve someone. (Sigh), I know that, the point being that if any major company even tried to discriminate they get smacked down . . . You need to read more. I'm serious, start with the Federalist papers and the anti-Federalist papers. Take some free on-line classes from Harvard or Yale on the founding and the Constitution. The Constitution today does not mean what it did at it's founding just like it won't mean the same in another 50 years. I'm not arguing a slippery slope, it's a fact. And yes, the Heritage Foundation in '84 talked about an individual mandate, which is why IMO for the most part it's Red vs. Blue who are all part of the same club. You can keep throwing insults all day long . . . I'm telling you that you need to read a little more. So what does ObamaCare or SS have to do with contract law? Yes the government is there to enforce property rights and contract law. You believe the government can force a property owner to sell his services to everyone violating his property rights in the process and you believe in Obamacare-more violating my property right (i.e. taking my earned money from me) I'm sure you also believe in minimum wage, etc. violating employers and employees rights to enter into a free contract. I know without the government so many people who were living off of everyone else would actually have to find something to do . . . the horror of it all.

I am much more afraid of Big Government than Big Business. The collusion between the two is frightening, but Big Businesses by themselves never murdered millions and millions. And frankly put, without Big Government many big businesses would die due to competition. Monopolies are extremely difficult to maintain without government support. When/where does it stop? Governments are a reflection of the people, even dictators must have the support (even if it is soft support) of the people. I disagree with the notion of a higher voter turnout; what is needed is educated voters. Very few people who actually vote take the time to research, study the issues and make an educated decision; most go on voting for who they think will win (b/c psychologically we want to vote for the winner), on who looks the best, who talks the best, who has the best 15-30 sec soundbite, etc. or on whether it's R or D. People like the cotton-candy stuff, the stuff that makes them feel good. And then a significant segment of voters like things the way they are b/c they benefit from it; they either get government subsidies, have contracts with the government, work for the government, etc. They want the government cheese to continue, so they vote for whoever promises them the most. There is also a lack of truly understanding what freedom and liberty means. In the end, everything boils down to economics, as long as people feel like they are doing okay economically nothing changes, when the crap hits the fan then it gets interesting. I actually don't hold out too much hope in the short-term to intermediate future. I think it's got a long ways to go before people truly revolt against the system. If succession was an option (it has been done successfully in Europe-(the CzechRepublic anyone), then I would say there would be a chance. Having the threat of succession can be a wonderful balancing force. But it's not so who knows. When the economy truly blows up things will get interesting . . . for me I actually hope the Savior comes to rescue from what could happen.

Just think of everything that hasn't been reported. You can't handle the TRUTH!!! I do find it interesting in a cognitive dissonance way at how people can be so upset at the NSA but yet still believe that government is the answer to all our problems . . . health care, education, economy, etc. or that they believe that changing Presidents will do much good or that there is a huge difference between the teams. It is the system; an extremely bureaucratic, bloated, massive organization where individuals are not rewarded for performance but rewarded for growing their pie (i.e. making their office budgets bigger). No one person can manage all of it, it is the Leviathon.

If only it were still a republic, it's a republic in name only. In fact, I'm not sure what people mean today by a republic. Originally the United States was a federal republic, with the States being more akin to an actual Nation than a subset of the national government. Sadly, in many ways the EU today is closer to the original construct of the US than the US is today. When the Constitution was formed only male land-owners could vote, today it is closer to an actual Democracy vs. a true Federal Republic. Originally the Bill of Rights did not apply to the states, it was only for Congress. I firmly believe we have a tyranny of the Majority today. Several checks and balances were put in place to protect the Minorities, specifically as it applied to the federal level, the minority could gum up the government. This happens to some extent, but witness Obamacare . . . . if that isn't tyranny of the Majority, I'm not sure what is. I agree that the government shouldn't infringe on rights, but the question is what is a right. Is it a positive right (i.e. someone must to something for me) or a negative right (i.e. someone can not force me to do something). The government shouldn't infringe on negative rights, once it starts enforcing positive rights, it is over. Legally that is correct, but having the government force a business to not discriminate is enforcing a positive right (i.e. forcing them to do something) at the expense of a negative right (i.e. I don't want to serve xyz). This is the very definition of tyranny of the majority!! I as a business owner don't want to serve redheads, the Majority says I must, if I don't I go to jail. That is a screwed up world to put someone in jail or shut down their business by force if they choose not to serve someone. If I as an individual have a right to discriminate what company I give my business to, why does a company not have the same right to discriminate who they want to do business with? Nope, fine by me, everyone discriminates, it is a fact of life. If a retail outlet doesn't want to serve Catholics then I will discriminate by not giving my business to that retail outlet. If enough people discriminate the company will either go out of business or change. Look at the most recent prime examples, Chick-fil-A and BSA. There was such a massive public backlash that the BSA changed their policy (which I disagree with . . .) they changed their policy specifically because the individuals who voted on the change in policy were by and large district BSA leaders. The goal of the district leader is to fund-raise. Their fund-raising dried up drastically before the change, so they changed their policy so they wouldn't get hit by it. I know this b/c I got a letter from my local district just about stating as much. You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. For the time being you are correct. In the future? 25 years ago, homosexual marriage wasn't even on the radar, 30 years ago no one would have possibly thought that we truly would have national healthcare. To make a claim that it positively will not happen . . . . well I don't think you've studied much history (if the government can not admit Utah as a State due to polygamy, it sure as junk can do something about a religion not wanting to marry homosexuals). You don't need the government in marriage business for that . . . that is what contract law, wills, and social contracts are for. As for Social Security, yes unconstitutional program of more government. See the problem with programs like this and with just about most government programs in general is the unintended consequences. The government program creates more side-effect problems so we need more government to solve those side-effect problems and then more programs to solve those problems . . . . it never ends.

Not yet they haven't. Churches are tax-exempt organizations. A significant push for the Revolution was exerted by the local churches. That cannot happen today as there are limits on what a Church can do and say in order to be considered tax-exempt. If you don't think that at some point in time a lawsuit will come against a church for failing to perform a "marriage" for homosexuals when they perform marriages for straight then I think you've got another thing coming. Someone will make a claim that because they are tax-exempt they can't discriminate. And you are dead wrong, businesses do have the right to discriminate, they just don't have the legal ability to do so. The Civil Rights Act took care of that; racial discrimination is flat out wrong, but it is equally wrong to force a business to serve someone that it doesn't want to serve. This cake incident is just an extension of the mis-guided notion that because a business is open to the public it must serve without discrimination. The whole homosexual marriage problem wouldn't even be a problem is 1) the government got out of the marriage license business. 2) Allowed businesses to discriminate. 3)Didn't have an income tax system that plays favorites on deductions, exemptions, etc. What we have in this social issue is a failure of too much government getting too involved in too many places and it will cause lots of grief in the end.

I actually think that to a large degree we can control our emotions and consequently our feelings. Yoga, tai chi, meditation, acupuncture, etc. There are a litany of tactics, techniques, and methods that humans employ in order to master our emotions and ourselves. A significant part of the process of growing up is learning to master our emotions. A critic might say well that is mastering the reaction and yes the first step is mastering the response to the initial emotion, but eventually through mastering even the emotion itself can be mastered. For example, someone cuts you off driving. The first instinct might be to curse or shake a fist; master of the reaction and we don't do that. Mastery of the emotion and we don't even get upset about it. We can master our emotions by better understanding our own background, how we were raised, etc and we can then try to understand other people. Back to someone cutting you off, we can learn to understand that maybe that person was in a rush for whatever reason and then we can learn to simply not let it bother us as there is nothing we can do about the situation. Sometimes we might act, not because we are mad but because a consequence must be affixed. It is a hard thing to do, but mastery of our emotions is very possible in this life. To love, if we look closely enough and are introspective enough we can actually identify the reasons why we "fall in love" with someone. It is so mysterious because it is all in our subconsciousness but bring it to the conscience level, know thyself and the answers will come.

I'm in the camp of it depends. Depends on the cost/benefit, what is the expected pay level of the master's degree. In general, a Master's isn't going to get more than 70-80k (at the high end) starting out and that would be for in demand technical areas like some sort of engineering, prob. 60k for a regular Masters. There are a lot of masters degree that just aren't worth the 20-30k a year needed. Generally speaking a rule of thumb for an investment is 5 years, i.e. if you can't make your money back in five years it is not worth it. So for example if the difference in the expected level of pay between degree and a master's is 10k then spending 50k over three years for a masters may not be worth it. However, in this situation it sounds like the difference would probably be pretty great so the master's is worth it. As far as the loans, if it is a technical degree many universities offer Graduate Research/Teaching Assistance (GRA/GTA) positions. Basically you get a reduced tuition rate plus you commit to work 20 hours a week either teaching or doing research and you get a meager salary. This works very well at the Masters level for technical positions. If one goes that route the amount of loans needed would be significantly smaller, if needed at all. There are also plenty of on-line programs. Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) are starting to come into play, Georgia Tech has one for Computer Science (along side their distance learning program). Several other big-name colleges are starting to get into distance learning courses. The bottom-line is that with all the technology out there today, it may not be necessary to go the traditional route of going to a university and being "college" students again with a huge amount of student loans. Technical programs offer plenty of flexibility to cut down on costs. . . liberal arts programs, well that's another beast and I'd look long and hard at if it is really worth it. My guess is that you'll probably be able to find away around student loans, either completely or to where it's not that huge of a hit. While student loans cannot be directly discharged in bankruptcy, if one knows how to play the game they can be "discharged" albeit indirectly-but it takes a little bit of planning and some might not consider using oh say credit cards to pay off student loans 100% ethical . . . . but then again I'm not sure how ethical it is that student loans can't be discharged (pick your poison . . . )

No worries. I understand. This line of thought is basically called the "prosperity gospel" and IMO it has grown like wildfire into the thinking of individuals within the church. There is a whole wiki page to it, but withing the Church it is a take-off of the common phrase in the BoM that if we keep the commandments we will "prosper" in the land. I'm good therefore good things will happen to me. Unfortunately, we forget the whole Job aspect of the scriptures. The gospel brings us eternal happiness and peace that no matter what happens on this earth, the trials, the struggles, the heartache, etc. It allows us to know that our Heavenly Father knows us, cares about us and that in the end it will all be okay-we will be able to live with our Father in love and peace. The gospel helps us get through the trials- it doesn't necessarily make them go away. Sometimes we have experiences that can only be explained by the grace of God intervening and making things good; sometimes we have experiences where there is absolutely nothing and we fight and struggle and fight and struggle with very little obvious help from above. It is not for us to question why it appeared that God intervened in one instance and not in another- it is only for us to be eternally thankful to our Heavenly Father for the instances where we feel His tender mercy in helping us and to be eternally thankful in those instances where we are to learn how to struggle on our own. In the end, regardless of the outcome as we learn to rely upon the Atonement we will be able to draw closer to Him.

So a couple of points: BYUI LDS Tuition 1825, non-LDS Tuition 3650 BYU 2425 4850 So LDS Tuition is half. Now if LDS tuition was not subsidized by tithing it would probably be about 2750 for BYUI and 3250 for BYU. One figures that the true rate of tuition is lowered for LDS and raised for non-LDS so without the break it would be at least half the difference as much. So by going to BYUI your kid is receiving at least 1k, possibly 1825 in tuition assistance for being LDS. We don't know that all of that break comes from tithing money, but we could assume it is. So in one year your child is getting ~3k in benefits. Now how much do you pay in tithing . . . 5-6k a year? So while your kid is in school (if you pay the schooling for him) you are getting half your tithing back. But what about me? I don't live anywhere close to BYU, my kids won't go there, I didn't go there. I'm completely outraged that I don't get to benefit from the same subsidy!!! There are over 132 temples in operation. I will probably only get to visit a dozen of those in my lifetime; I'm completely outraged that I do not see the direct benefits of all my tithing money. I'm sure that some cent of my tithing money went to a temple in Africa. The last paragraph was tongue-in-cheek; but the point is that when we give our money voluntarily to the church we should give it freely without any reservation of how or where it is spent. Put blankly, tithing money is used to benefit members of the church as a whole. Not one item on the list of where tithing goes is used for the direct benefit of non-members. Tithing is not a user fee, but it only makes sense that it should go to benefit the membership of the church as a whole. All other major religions actually pay their clergy, we do not; the operating expenses of the church are paid by tithing. I would guess that the majority of funds to build chapels and temples in places like Africa come from US church members. Why doesn't it go to feeding the poor; well I've never read anything like this, but my guess is that to a large degree charitable works should be conducted by the local wards in their local areas. It's too easy for people to get an entitlement mentality when they do not see who is directly giving them a hand-up. Up until about 50 years ago the local ward buildings were built with either the direct tithing funds of the local members in the area or it was actually built by them. As for for-profit businesses. I imagine they probably got started by either church members donating companies to the church or donating their time to those companies. Eventually as they brought in revenue their revenue paid for their expenese. Currently for-profit business owned by the church are self-sustaining-i.e. they don't need outside sources of funding (like tithing) to help them out. Ultimately, tithing is an act of faith. Faith on our part that the stewards of the money will use those funds in an appropriate manner. If one does not feel that the money is being used in an appropriate manner, then don't pay tithing, that's fine . . . just don't expect to see the benefits of paying tithing.

Luke 9:23-26 23 And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me. 24 For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it. 25 For what is a man advantaged, if he gain the whole world, and lose himself, or be cast away? 26 For whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words, of him shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he shall come in his own glory, and in his Father’s, and of the holy angels. One should go on a mission for the right reasons as one will be more effective by going for the right reasons. However, unless a parent is forcing or manipulating one to go on a mission it is hard to go for a wrong reason. The reason may not be as good, but regardless the benefits of serving a mission will come. The older I get, the more I become convinced that much of this life is about perspective. It is about putting off the short-term perceived gain for the long-term benefits. I cannot tell you all the insights you will gain, experiences you will have that will enrich your life by going on a mission; I cannot tell you of the things you will not experience by deciding to go to college instead of a mission or visa versa. I do know that in our day and age, the Prophets have called for every worthy young man to serve a mission, and I know from personal experience a small part of the meaning of v24 and that sometimes we let our fear of the unknown stop us from fully losing our life for His sake. If we have faith (in many ways the opposite of fear) we can proceed to do those things in life that our Heavenly Father has promised will bring us the most long-term happiness in our lives. LDS.org - Aaronic Priesthood Chapter Detail - Every Young Man Should Serve a Mission

My thoughts exactly, so much evil ends up being purported when the government gets involved. Shoot some of the first laws restricting marriage where Jim Crow laws prohibiting whites from marrying blacks. Of course look at polygamy. SS marriage is 100+ years in the making. Once one accepts the premise that the government has the solemn right and duty to license marriages (i.e. tell you who can get married) it is only a matter of time before it has to allow SS marriage. I think the larger issue is how in a matter of less than 20-30 years the homosexual crowd has influenced an entire generation of thought. In today's society, nobody can "offend" another person, to "offend" is wrong. It's a twisted take on Christianity. There is this twisted notion that offending someone is akin to hating them; there are some things that are just wrong in life. However, everyone is free to choose their path and the government shouldn't intervene to stop someone from destroying their own life. When the woman in adultery was brought to Christ, he didn't say: I love you, go be happy. He said go and sin no more. Ugh . . .

Man, kids these days (I ain't that old and I find myself saying that more and more). IMO, unless there is one of the 3 As there is no justifiable reason for divorce. Even with the 3 As, it may not mean divorce depending on the situation. 1st off, if you want to solve your problems, then the first thing you must do is completely eliminate the thought of divorce from your mind--SUCK IT UP. Stop thinking about the could have, should have, would have. You made a commitment, now honor it. Some things are more important in life then our own personal happiness. In fact, many times "sacrificing" our own personal happiness for "higher" pursuits leads to much greater personal happiness. Something about he who shall lose his life for me shall find it . . . Until you eliminate all your "outs" you will never be able to 1) fix yourself- 'cuz a lot of this is about you too and 2) fix you marriage and 3) help your wife fix herself. <rant time . . . sorry :-( > One of the issues that I see cropping up a lot with the younger generation is well unicorns. A fantastic article that sums up a lot: Why Generation Y Yuppies Are Unhappy | Wait But Why For a lot of younger folks, life has been extremely easy and then when a bump in the road happens it's "the world is going to end", "I can't take it anymore" etc. etc. etc. I got news for you life isn't supposed to be easy, it is supposed to be hard, we are supposed to struggle, we are supposed to go through absolute hell and back a couple of times. Now if you want to actually honor your commitments and bring much greater personal happiness to yourself in the long-run then I suggest you start reading some good marriage counseling books. And there are a lot of them: Getting the Love you Want, The 5 love languages, marriagebuilders.com, etc. etc. etc. I promise you that as long as there are 2 people fighting to save a marriage and make it gold with God's help it will work and it will turn into an absolutely wonderful experience. And what is more, the Atonement is so much more powerful after you've been through hell a couple of times. The depth and breadth of my knowledge and experience in the Atonement has been enhanced by the trials I've gone through and that is something I wouldn't trade for anything. It sure be nice if there was another way to gain it . . . but there isn't. And by the way, Finrock, you rock. I know I can come off rough around the edges, but you have a good way with words . . . and I know that you get it. . . .