20 thoughts on “What should we talk about this week?”

  1. Here is a comment on, ADHD. We are told that children are more likely to watch what we do, than listen to what we say. In my single digit years,1954-1956. I was born in 1947. Family life was much slower. Meals, very little television programming, newspapers and magazines, relied on. Programs were few and far between on T.V. We played board games. Children were conditioned, that there was time to be with the family, and time to be with their friends, or be by themselves. Remember how Fishing used to be? From the bank of a river ,or lake. Or a ROW boat. Someone, may create, “The NHRFA” National Hot Rod Fishing Association. I don’t think it is the food, and meds. It is the way children view adults that causes ADHD. Society is the common denominator among all children.

  2. In addition to what I mentioned on Twitter, how about an update on the Iran deal?

    I haven’t heard many libertarians discuss specifically the legal means that this deal was reached, which on the face of it appears to be VERY extra-constitutional (which, I guess, really means unconstitutional). Even Tom Woods and Scott Horton only discussed the ends reached and the deal itself while ignoring the means through which it was made (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IK8VdBfwpdc). Shouldn’t we be scared of how this deal was made and what it kind of precedent it sets for future presidents to negotiate international deals unilaterally? Or should ancaps not care about constitutional process* if they think the federal military should be abolished anyway? Looking for your lawyerly insight!

    *That was more or less the answer I’ve heard from the few ancaps I’ve encountered who address this legal issue.

    (Meant to bring up this topic at the AFF meeting, but we ran out of time.)

  3. I know you have discussed this (and avoided it) in recent months, but as a delegate to the Republican National Convention I would be interested in your ideas on what may happen to the Republican Party now that it appears that Trump will be the nominee. How will Constitutional conservatives running for office respond when they are asked about some of the views of the head of their party, such as protectionism, growth of government, limiting free speech or even punishing women for abortions or Cruz’s father being involved in the JFK assassination? Will the Republican Party grow, shrink, or evolve?

      • Monica,
        I just wanted to alert you to one aspect of David’s post that is silent, and in contradiction with, your prior multiple questions re the ‘eligibility’ issue for Cruz (and Rubio, Jindal). I hope you address on Saturday if you take up this topic!

    • David,
      I’m a Georgia GOP delegate and just attended and voted at my District Convention. We have not yet had our state convention here in Georgia (I am eligible as a delegate to attend) and I have applied to be a National Delegate for the GOP National Cleveland Convention, representing Georgia. In reading your post, it appears you fancy yourself as a ‘Constitutional Conservative’. If my hunch is correct, why, pray tell, would you not bring up the ‘Constitutional’ question over Cruz’s eligibility to hold the office of President of the U.S.? Of course I’m referring to the ‘Natural Born Citizen’ clause in our Constitution. My take (and I’ve read numerous serious non-compromised articles) is that neither Cruz, Rubio, nor Rubio are eligible. And of course we have the questions re Obama in this regard. Obama received many legal challenges in that regard, but all were dismissed on technicalities, with no discussion or evaluation of the actual merit. My comment to that is that ‘the fix is in?’. But, David, beyond this ‘constitutional question’, I believe Cruz is an establishment guy, just finding a way to separate himself from the rest of the establishment pack.

      Sorry David, but my senses alert me to a problem here with the sincerity of your post. Or you might not be aware.

      And David, Monica has previously posted that she has questions re the ‘eligibility’ issue! I will be interested in her response to my post if she so chooses to respond. And I think resolving this issue is extremely important. Our founders were not Globalists. They believed in the model of nation states, not a ‘New World Order’. David, which side are you on?!

      • I don’t think we need to address the Constitutional question of the definition of Natural Born Citizenship until we get a full documented history of the citizenship status of Senator Cruz and both his parents. My hunch is that none of the documentation (for example, the papers Senator Cruz produced to get his first US passport) has been provided because it would demonstrate that Cruz had to be naturalized. Furthermore, I suspect one or both of his parents were actually Canadian citizens when he was born (hence their names on the voter rolls there, at a time when dual citizenship was not permitted). It would be very hard to argue that a Canadian birth to a Canadian parent did not produce a Canadian–again, documentation would resolve the issue, no Supreme Court required. But surely this issue is a dead letter??

        • Monica,
          Thanks much for your response! Upon reading your comment, I separated it into three parts: intro, body, and closing. And please bear with me as I am not a lawyer and have no training in the law. I fully agree with the “body” of your response, but I do have questions with the other two parts. If I understand you correctly, re the ‘intro’, you are willing to ignore Cruz’s eligibility question at this time as sufficient documentation has not been produced to properly make a determination. Thus if the appropriate documentation is never produced, we do not proceed further, in your view. I differ. Is not there a sufficient amount of submitted knowledge or documentation on record to require the production of documents proving Cruz’s eligibility, otherwise he is not eligible? The “body” of your response partially supports that thought. And re your “closing”: I had never previously heard the term ‘dead letter’ and thus had to look it up. In the legal world, one definition I noted stated “A law, rule, or precident still formally in effect but no longer valid or enforced”. Certainly that term fits perfectly with the how the ‘eligibility’ question is dealt with these days, but I refuse to accept that handling. And I strongly recoil when Cruz is proposed as appropriate to be suggested for the Supreme Court. I thus strongly discount the points David brings forth as he opens his comment with the question “how will Constitutional conservatives…”. David totally lost my credibility with that position. My two cents.

  4. https://news.vice.com/article/unauthorized-immigrants-paid-100-billion-into-social-security-over-last-decade

    Enjoy your social security, especially the part that illegal immigrants pay. Once the facts are out, only anti-foreign bias is left to explain the anti-freedom-of-movement crowd. The facts do not support the so-called libertarian objection to immigration. Even with the government services that immigrants use factored in, their contribution is an obvious net positive. Immigrants tend to be young and healthy, and looking for work, which means they pay sales tax, social security, income tax. they purchase goods and services, and produce them in abundance. The bigots who oppose immigration don’t give a crap about farmers or small businesses, who would profit greatly from having them here.

  5. Leaving behind my immigration objection, I think now is a good time to welcome folks that are sickened by the choice between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. What a hideous, sadistic choice we have now! Welcome to New thoughts and new things welcome to all malcontents! This could turn things around for freedom lovers.

    • Bradrad,
      Guess we are not on the same page, again. But that is par for the course, isn’t it?! I normally suffer the same attacks as Monica as I haven’t voted for the mainstream establishment choice in years. I am thus accused of enabling the poorest, but winning, candidate. But this time I’m absolutely ecstatic. We have in Donald Trump, what appears to be a true patriot. His type only comes around rarely in history, but he might be able to unify this divided nation and reverse the suicidal course we are on. A retired minister I know is absolutely convinced God has his hand on Donald Trump. I do think the minister is right. Go Trump!

        • Bradrad,
          History means a lot to me, but apparently not to you. I started to read your article but stopped early on as it’s credibility immediately came into question. I say that as your article tied our Statue of Liberty to the inscription added to the base of the statue. That is false. The nation of France presented the statue to the US to celebrate the ‘liberty’ embodied in our form of government. Some 23 years later, a well connected Jew from New York, managed to get wording from her poem (I believe named “The Colossus”) added to the base of the statue. Sort of reminds me of statues of Confederate heroes, all over the south, being destroyed or moved back into an unseen corner, just the time difference of the change being different. So with that manipulation presented up front, I wasted no further time with the article. I would rather spend my time reading honest articles!

          • This conversation is starting to bum me out. I am holding firm on not censoring comments, but I personally object to identifying people by their ethnicity, race, religion, gender, sexual orientation etc in order to elicit broader implications. As a courtesy to me, could we please move on?

          • …and thereby missed the entire point. grats. Like I said, you won’t benefit from history if it disagrees with your made up mind. However, the resemblance of current anti-immigrant sentiment to the way the USA turned back jewish immigrants in 39 is remarkable. Supposed Christians turned their back on them, and many of them suffered and died in concentration camps afterwards. Quibbling about inscriptions and statues is what you do, Hugh, in order to avoid the actual conversation.

            You don’t think of them as humans, which in any context makes you a bigot, and you can’t put yourself and your family aboard the boat fleeing Hitler and the Holocaust. That makes you, well, I won’t say it. Let’s say that it’s a description of a person with no empathy for anyone outside of their nation. sound familiar? What kind of person has no sympathy for anyone outside a government defined area? What would you call someone like that? You may call it patriotism, but it is definitely something more rotten.

  6. I just saw something interesting concerning vaping. Anti-smoking activists and the tobacco companies are now working in unison to ban vaping, and vape-related businesses. Lobbying government to use aggression against their common enemy, freedom. Never thought I’d see those 2 in bed together, lol.

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