I'd like to believe one owns themselves.

The problem is people often ask who says that one owns their own body?

Though i have pointed out to people that if one doesn't believe in self ownership then its allowing others to lay claim to your body & that is the slippery slope towards slavery, people don't seem to buy that it.

They persist in the question of who says you own your own body?

Anybody have any thoughts?

http://www.independentpoliticalreport.com/2011/08/communist-party-usa-en...

I've always wondered if the US Communist Party is a put up job by the CIA to discredit Democrats they don't like

The following is discussion about the post titled:
As Expected, US House Passes a "Debt Ceiling Increase" Bill THAT HAS NO REAL CUTS
Feel free to add your own comments!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-14404852

NO CRAP!!

Greece has just been bailed out for the second time & if Greece gets into further trouble i doubt there will be a third bailout

If Greece truly goes bust, Ireland would be next & if Ireland goes bust the the British economy could be in a whole heap more trouble because guess who the British government has been lending billions to

Congress has failed to re-authorize the working budget of the FAA. This implies as of Monday, the FAA is operating only on a skeleton crew. The biggest thing most vacationers were looking towards was a tax vacation. When the power expired, however, airlines hiked their costs. This implies most air travelers will not see any price drop. Frequent fliers may still need installment loans to get anywhere.

No more FAA

"Ignorance is bliss," someone once said, and how right he was. The Contented Debt-Strapped Consumer (CD-SC) need not be concerned about possible potential problems of their debt. Why stress over bankruptcy, staggeringly overwhelming obligations and ruin? The future is not here yet, so why worry about it? This is especially true when there are so many well-known methods of increasing and extending debt. One of probably the most common types of debt is quick installment loans since they're so simple to get.

1. What does debt matter?

The following is discussion about the post titled:
TSA Readies "Behavior Detection" and "Chats" at Airports - Oh, boy.
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/02/louis-magazzu-nj-politici_n_916602.html?icid=maing-grid7%7Cmain5%7Cdl14%7Csec3_lnk2%7C83026

A disgraced local politician in New Jersey is considering legal action against a politcal opponent afterhe captured nude images of himself on his blackberry and sent to women that had requested the images.  The political opponent posted them on his blog, and apparently asked the women to solicit the NJ politician's nude images.

Now the NJ freeholder is considering using the guns of government to punish the publisher.

[quote=Beth DeFalco of the Huffington Post]

Yesterday at work, my colleague invited me to take a quiz on civics.  He reported his score as being 54%. 

The quiz is given by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute and even posts the scores of politicians, and average joes so you can compare.

I invite you all to take the quiz, but beware, I did get a question wrong, but I feel like my answer is pretty much the same answer as the one that was stated to be correct.

Here's a link to the quiz:

http://www.isi.org/quiz.aspx?q=FE5C3B47-9675-41E0-9CF3-072BB31E2692

They paid 40% of all federal income taxes last year. 

The top 25% paid 85%.

(The bottom 20% of earners paid no income taxes. They got subsidies through the EIT).

http://blogs.forbes.com/peterferrara/2011/07/28/president-obama-is-no-longer-tethered-to-reality/

and

http://www.ntu.org/tax-basics/who-pays-income-taxes.html

Meanwhile, corporate taxes are the highest in the industrialized world at 40%. (Not that I approve of the government-created things called corporations) Communist china has a rate of 25%.

I really liked Gard's retelling of his experience with that "law and order" man on the plane. It's been my experience that some of the worst immorality is excused by people saying they are upholding a "system of law and order". Look at the WWII internment camps in the US, the concentration and death camps in the Axis lands... I've run into people in the military who say that they are "just doing their duty", but I've never encountered a guy who acted like the one Gard encountered, as if he was on a moral high horse and Gard was the bad guy for opposing immoral laws.

AMazing!

Good show!

On my journey to libertarianism, many people have influenced me.   But I owe one person a special mention.  Howard Katz was an author and publisher of an investment newsletter.  He wrote a few books in the '70's.    One book of his I happened to pick up around 20 years ago was "The Warmongers".  The book was part history lesson and part economics lesson.  It was there where I first saw the name, Murray Rothbard.  From there, a whole new world was opened up to me.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-14344199

A blogger was jail today for threatening to murder (or encourage others to commit murder) MPs who voted in favour of the invasion of Iraq.

He was also convicted of other terrorist offensces but was convicted of solitoring murder due to what he said on some blog & that does raise questions about freedom of speech & how serious one should take the crap many people spout off as a means of venting etc.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-14340470

Saw this story about Apple having more cash then the US govt thought it might interest people

I had a phone call from my friend Ed Joyce this morning & one of the things he said to me is that he reckoned the internet gives a misrepresentation of libertarianism.

I said that it felt as if the anarcho-capitalism strain of libertarianism had become the far more dominant strain of libertarianism & he said that that might be the case online but not elsewhere.

He actually challenged me as to when had a last met up with a group of libertarians & I said I couldn’t remember & I can’t remember the last time I met up with a group of libertarians.

Obviously Ed being a georgist is going to favour there still being government & so might very well say that the small government strain is more dominant when it comes to the world offline.

Over at ThomHartmann.com (I got back on after being banned for asking tough questions), many Progressives prattle on about how prosperous we were under high marginal tax rates during Ike's regime.  So I issued them a challenge.  I'll take Ike's tax rates but we have to get the whole package.  No Medicare and Medicaid.  No EPA.  No Depts. of Ed, Homeland Security, etc.  No Civil Rights Acts, etc.

They erroneously think that the amount of taxes brought in is the measure of taxation in an economy.  Spending is the true measure of taxation.  That is why we were more prosperous under Ike's less than $100B budgets. 

The following is discussion about the post titled:
Fed Court Rules TSA Scanners Do Not run Afoul of Constitution
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http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/blogsmoviecricket/52271021-66/dogs-dechristopher-free-civil.html.csp

In response to a federal prison sentence for Tim DeChristopher, for disrupting a federal auction for rights to exploit oil and gas fields, 26 people zip tied themselves together in the street in front of the Federal Courthouse in Salt Lake City, UT.  A street vendor has offered free hot dogs to those arrested, and invites others to get free hotdogs by sending in pictures of themselves engaged in breaking the law for the sake of justice.

For those of you who don't know Joel Skousen, he is a political analyst, friend and support of Ron Paul and a designer of high security residences and retreats.  He is critical of his fellow Mormons Jon Huntsman and Mitt Romney.  I've heard him on at least one podcast.  So maybe Gard can try to get him on.

Here is his take on the current debt ceiling issue.  He makes a point overlooked by nearly all.

http://traffic.libsyn.com/ftl/FTL2011-06-19.mp3 I appear about an hour five minutes in

I've never liked speaking in public, I especually don't like doing so now & so this will be the last time I'll be doing so.

Unless Gard wants to do a podcast on the Russell Reid case.