But no one ever agrees on a simpler tax code. A good portion of the Right are bastards who want that "fair tax" thing. I'm for a single tax rate for everyone, no deductions, but most people would scream bloody murder at no mortgage or charity deductions. (It's illegal (and immoral) for the govt. to financially incentivize certain life choices, and thereby penalize those who choose otherwise.)

But your idea of term limits for federal employees beyond just politicians is brilliant. In a way the unelected and unaccountable in govt. are more dangerous than our representatives (and oftentimes more powerful), so term limits is needed even moreso for them. We could start by getting rid of pensions, for anyone in govt. who's not a LEO on the streets, a firefighter, or active duty military. A fucking desk jockey's body isn't used up after 20 years of pencil pushing (or watching porn, or whatever govt. bureaucrats do nowadays when they're not thinking up ways for their agency to usurp more power, or build its own army). Removal of that jackpot would probably provide for some natural turnover.

Wasn't Linda's only song about a werewolf?

(I'm trying to say who could be expected to know that that was a Warren Zevon song. It's like how many people know the Eagle's "Take It Easy" was a Jackson Browne song, or that Manfred Mann's "Blinded by the Light" was a Bruce Springsteen song. I mean when all of these originals were pretty much examples of lifeless suckitude, in comparison at least.)

Oh I'm with you, and take it even further, to "lies of omission". Like RG's example of Sarah Palin having been accused of whatever whatever number of times. I call speech that leaves the wrong impression, even if what is spoken is incontrovertably true, to be a "lie".

But then how do we compete against those for whom truth is just a nice-to-have, or a luxury that is not affordable these days while there's various inequities and injustices that have been going on for ages and need to be remedied?

Wouldn't you lie if it greatly increased the chances of a power shift and the enabling of the outlawing of most abortions?

He probably defines a lie as voluntarily explicitly saying something that you know is 100% untrue. And he probably never did that.

It's like journalists. They never lie, but they constantly, daily, hourly, deceive. And if you can, via the black arts of trickery, make people believe you said something without actually having said it, hey, then it's not all on you, it's partly their fault. So it's not as bad to do it that way. (A poster here from way back when I first started journaling here said essentially that, and that the burden is on the other side then to counter it, or it's their bad.)

Just an FYI, even though it seems hypocritical to us, it's not really, because to collectivists, it doesn't do squat unless (almost) everyone is in it. For the same reason why Warren Buffet won't just send in a bunch more of his money to the government, but would gladly do it if officially demanded by the government of all rich pukes. I.e. it's not personal integrity that's important to Lefties, it's the gloriousness of large, far-reaching schemes forcing what they want for the system. It's about what they would feel good about and what wouldn't make them feel any better about the country or world. Merely living up, for oneself, to one's own standards is not enough for them to derive satisfaction and be content.

Warren Zevon was sure cute back in the day, before getting fat. And what a voice.

I can't imagine why you're being so blatantly dishonest here. Of course having one of two opposing positions is not the having of neither of two opposing positions, and of course I can force someone to carry a baby to term more than I can force donation of a kidney for the reason that a baby is a human being (and human beings are supposed to have rights) and a kidney is not. And I don't understand why you're the one who ceased relationship over this. I thought about it, because the transparency of the bullshit really makes it look like you're just fucking with me. But I just chalked it up to the inexplicable, or maybe you're going thru a tough time right now and not thinking the clearest, but you're not an enemy, nor dead to me. I won't expand the drastic measures I've come to vis-a-vis Lefties on one case of inexplicable offensiveness (to my intelligence). It took me a long time to feel justified in completely writing off that (malicious) class of people, and I don't apply that to just people whom I disagree with. I wish you peace.

When a businessman lowers costs, you can afford a microwave, a VCR, and an iphone. You disdain capitalism because you don't understand it. You only understand it thru the distorted lens of Leftism. A businessman doesn't want to charge the most he can for something, he wants to make the most money he can. I can't buy a new car by bringing before and after price tags from my business in and telling the dealership I'm good at raising prices. They don't give a fuck, they just want money. So that's all I want. And in capitalism that usually means lowering prices, to sell more units/bring it down into more people's price ranges and/or due to competitive pressures. Join the real world sometime. My income hasn't been rising like it was, but look at all I have. At $4/gallon I can afford the luxury of driving a big thirsty muscle car. We live like kings, afforded by a stable government, a strong military, and a free market.

I resent your weaseling with "agnostic" (as much as when atheists do it on the God issue), and I don't think I like the implication that the law has some special balancing of rights to do on this issue.

I'm against the government doing what it takes to enforce ideal childrearing circumstances as much as I am against it doing what it takes to enforce ideal security circumstances. The cost in individual liberty is way, way too high. I'm perfectly fine with an imperfect society, where at least I can live free.

My opinion is it's not the crux that ideally children are raised by both genders, but that ideally they're raised by both gender roles. And as far as I can tell, homosexual couples typically contain a more feminized member and a more masculinized one.

And ideally children are raised by people who actually want children. In this case, the experience I'm "denying myself" is not like going for bungee jumping; it involves bringing a new life into the world and a long-term commitment. That's not something I'd jump into just to check it off the list of pieces of the overall human experience experienced.

I don't know what God has in store for me, but I'm 48 this year, and I'm not exactly Abraham. It seems plausible to me that children aren't necessarily for everyone. I can accept that I'm defective in this regard, if that's what it means. My soft spot as far as nurturing desire and ability for great tolerance is for dogs.

From your referenced article:

I completely disagree. Social/societal engineering is not a moral, legitimate role of government. Government is to keep a modicum of order, and otherwise not interfere or try to influence people in doing what they want. I'm not here to generate any particular kind of citizen for the next generation of this country, any more than I'm here to sustain the earth. The planet, this country, and abstract concepts don't have souls. I does. Everything will pass away except us. We exist for a larger purpose.

Besides, I don't believe in the powerlessness or apathy of God in working His will in this world any more than I believe in a fragile earth. Nothing can happen that He doesn't allow, and He has an overall plan, which I trust in (except in my moments of doubt and weakness). No matter how raised, God's law, and ergo knowledge of His existence, is written on our hearts: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1034798/Children-born-know-right-wrong-new-research-shows.html et al.

I thought you were in favor of legislating (Catholic) morality, so I'm confused.

And I don't see how our systems encourage sin. "Encouraging" is not the same as "allowing", because it's fully one step further. God did not encourage Adam and Eve to sin by having the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden.

But I couldn't disagree with you any amount more on the following:

The chaos is the point, but the lesson is not in overcoming it (and hence becoming gods ourselves), but to figure out that we ultimately can't overcome it, and need God. That left to our own devices, only chaos will and can ensue. Satan does not exactly foster evil on this earth towards us learning from it to better ourselves.

Evidently this "replenishment" you speak of is having children? Gay couples can always adopt, if you're suggesting that when the initial passion has faded that a love relationship needs the pitter patter of little feet to keep it going. Or are you saying that a love relationship can only be replenished by the raising of blood offspring?

Maybe I'd believe differently if I was Married With Children[TM], but since I don't want kids, I cling to the idea that a relationship can be whatever the people involved decide to make of it. But I'm also unmarried, so I will concede there's a chance I could just be highly naive about this. I'd still like to find out, even though it looks like you're saying it's doomed to failure.

Here, let me Google that for you:

http://www.lp.org/platform:

Believing that abortion should be legal without restrictions is what is known as being "pro-choice" on the issue.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_perspectives_on_abortion:

That even half of the people you know who are registered members of the Libertarian Party are pro-choice, is a galling absurdity of epic proportions. We scientifically know that a fertilized human egg is a genetically distinct individual. And that's not based on predictions from "computer models" or other horseshit that Lefties try to make us swallow as "science". To deny rights to a whole class of human individuals is akin to being pro-slavery in the American South in the 1800's. It renders Libertarianism a farce, and widespread denial of something so fundamental indicates that the majority of the party's support is from people who have latched onto it for just one or a few particular pet issues, like isolationism or drug legalization.

Well, okay, by "legislate morality" I meant "legislate one's side's morality". And not necessarily "the", or God's, morality.

Does God not understand the chaos He's unleashed by giving us Free Will? He could've created us like the rest of the animals, as just more NPC's in this game of life, incapable of reasoning and independent decision making and only led by the set of basic instincts genetically programmed. Like a RPG in a self-play mode. While that would not necessarily be for the common good (animals, depending on species, can work together for the couple or pack, but not for the whole system; instead they compete, and there's inequities in abilities and outcomes), it would by definition mean a sinless reality. But He didn't.

And you do make an interesting point about the Left-wing view of homosexuality, and how if you haven't thought about it much, it really is about giving up a natural right. Marriage is a vow of monogamy, sexually and in other ways, for life. Because childbearing is impossible in a homosexual relationship, to apply the qualities of marriage to homosexual relationships is to seek a vow, for life, of not having children of one's own.

Not something I'd thought about before. That and the now obvious facet of social pressure on homosexuals you mentioned, that implict in even just "coming out" is that you have only homosexual relationships from then on.

p.s. A question pertaining to the liberty of humanness thing: Why have children then? They can disobey you, ignore your wisdom and guidance, turn on you, totally mess up their lives and greatly affect those around them. Your bringing other human beings into the world is potentially just unleashing even more chaos in the world. More people in the world means more sin in the world, because we are all fallible and weak. Why did you contribute to the problem you speak of, instead of just having some pets instead?